It’s April thirteenth, and it’s Saturday. So, there can only be one item on the agenda. It’s time to finally finish the taxes.
I hate doing my taxes. I suppose it should make me feel successful With all the money that came in Except most of it went right back out.
I suppose it should make me feel generous, What with paying for all our government, But I support charities that actually work, So why do I have to pay for crap that doesn’t?
Why are our taxes so complicated? Why does the IRS think I’m rich? Why am I still stalling? Is the coffee ready yet?
It’s interesting that each of us Must account for every penny each year, When Washington can’t tell us where Billions of our dollars went after it left us.
I think you should be able to fund the programs you want. NASA gets my money. And anyone in the military. I don’t really care if Alaska gets a bridge, or Our idiot President has a helicopter to go on vacations.
Considering the trillions of dollars of debt Congress has, I’m not really sure my payment or refund is any more Than a rounding error in the budget. It may not even be enough to be a rounding error.
Can’t we just look at my forced paycheck donations And call it “close enough”? What if we all just took a year off? Now, that would be a Paperwork Reduction Act That I could get behind.
I’m beginning to wonder if the ease with which people can share their cause du jour online doesn’t do more harm than good. In many cases, people are actually spamming your friends. Since “friends” is a relative term in the online universe (thank you, Facebook!), we all may just be annoying people we only tangentially know. We may also be inviting people to support causes they actually oppose. (If done on purpose, this is funny. If not, it’s really annoying.)
The main cause of angst in the Facebook world is Causes. Causes is a lovely application for non-profits to reach out to their donors and constituents to keep them updated on the activities of the organization. It’s also a way to fund-raise. As the president of two non-profits, I liked it. However, it’s a separate application, which can make it a pain to use. We’ve actually pretty much retired it, since we can do most of what it does from our own Facebook page, and then, we don’t have to update multiple sites.
As a casual user, I hate it. I am bombarded by requests to sign petitions and support causes, and most of the time, the requests come from people that won’t even send me a personal note. If I get a request from someone I know, someone that I interact with regularly, then I have some hope they actually sent me the request on purpose. Most of the time, Causes just helpfully sends a note to everyone in your address book if you don’t tell it not to do so. This is called a “spambot” when a program does it without the user knowing.
It gets even more dicey when you’re not really “friends” with someone – you’re a co-worker, or a distant relative (or worse, in-law), or friend of a friend, or met them at a conference. Causes doesn’t differentiate. It also assumes that if someone signs one petition, they will want to sign more.
Here’s my personal issue – I’m the President of Sparky’s Pals, which does humane education. It’s an outgrowth of the years my wife and I have spent in animal rescue. However, I am not a vegetarian. I think the “PETA – People Eating Tasty Animals” shirts are actually a bit funny. I’m still annoyed at HSUS for trying to make Michael Vick a poster child. Now, many people in rescue will think I’m a bad person. However, they’ll know why I’m not signing their petitions.
I’m also the President of a community radio station, KNON 89.3 – the Voice of the People. However, I am not a raging liberal Democrat. I didn’t vote Obama. Twice. The only useful thing Obama has done is create the petition system on the White House site, because it lets people annoy him. I do not believe he will ever take action on any of the petitions. However, I do sometimes think Texas should secede, and that petition made the limit for a White House response easily. Then, they raised the response quota. Well-played.
The difference between Causes and the White House petition swamp is that the White House owns their system. Somebody there actually reviews the ideas. For Causes, I’m not sure the targets ever find out there are people annoyed at them.
Here’s my request – the next time you sign an online petition, think “If I had to put a stamp on this, sign it, and mail it somewhere, would I still sign it?” Before you click to send it off to all your friends, think, “Does <whomever> think this way, too?” If you don’t know, uncheck the name. If you don’t know for the majority of your friends in the list, ask yourself if they should be your online friends at all.
If Facebook wanted to make life easy for people, it would force applications to use the groups people create. In my case, baseball players probably don’t care about animal rescue. Animal rescue people don’t care about gun rights, at least not the way I do. Very few people care about my thoughts on religion. I know this. I could just uncheck name after name when I’m signing a petition, or I can just not use the system. I’m thinking about just blocking the Causes application to end the madness.
For anyone still reading that wants to send me a petition, here are my rules:
If it’s something I don’t believe in, I don’t sign it. If you don’t know if I believe in it, why not ask me? If it seems really rude to ask me, are you really my friend? Maybe it’s best to just not send the petition.
If it’s not local to me (say Texas or closer), I don’t sign it. While I care deeply about the plight of the cockatoo in Namibia, I really don’t think anyone is going to help it. People are starving there – do you think they care about animals?
If it’s not written in clear, correct English, I don’t sign it. Take some time to edit, people! I don’t believe anyone in authority pays attention to something that is not well-written.
Feel free to use my guidelines.
I would start a petition about this, but the irony would be lost on most people.
Finally, could you like this post? My wife said if I can get one million people to like this post, I can buy a Mustang.
I hate Halloween. It’s a stupid holiday. Technically, it’s not a holiday, because I had to go to work today. It is also a holiday of strife in my household, because my wife likes Halloween.
The difference may be that she was allowed to go trick or treating when she was growing up. I was not. My parents were convinced I would be poisoned by the same people whose houses I was in every other afternoon. It’s also possible they didn’t want to reciprocate. To add insult to injury, my mother discovered she was hypoglycemic in the midst of my candy-eating years, so I got carob instead. Carob looks like chocolate. So does dog poop. I think I would rather have dog-poop-covered raisins, because then I would know why they tasted bad. If my parents had just given out carob raisins, nobody would have bothered us the next year. Our house may have been papered or burned, however.
By the time I escaped my parents’ house, I was too old to beg for candy door-to-door, and people don’t like others begging for alcohol, unless you’re on a date.
There have been some years where children are being bused in from other neighborhoods to beg for candy. My wife does not mind, because she is a Democrat. Share the wealth. I am a Libertarian. Get your own damn candy, and I won’t stand in your way.
So, I do not enjoy Halloween. At least tomorrow we can celebrate dead people.
There is a cliche – the cure is worse than the disease. I’m getting that a lot lately.
I went to see my doctor because my ankles looked swollen and my feet were getting sore. So, he told me to lose weight (again) and gave me a diuretic. I really didn’t have to pee that much, but I guessed it was doing something.
However, as the days passed, my feet started to hurt. A lot. All over. I thought it was just putting weight on them, but I don’t walk that much, and there should be less weight with the diuretics, anyway.
So, back to the doctor. Poke, poke, poke. Nothing. So, the old Columbo stare off into space and then … “Have you ever had gout?”
I had gout years ago, probably directly linked to the amount of beer I was drinking at the time. So, yes, I’ve had gout.
Down for bloodwork. Apparently, the diuretic can raise uric acid levels in some people (“very few”), and I’m in the lucky number. So, I was drying out and re-aggravating my gout at the same time.
Also, this was “all joints on deck” gout – everything in both feet hurt. The beer gout was just in my left big toe, and it hurt like hell, but nothing like this.
The great thing about today’s medicine is that there are pain killers for everything. So, I got a really good pain killer for my gout. I missed the “take with food” instruction the first two days, so I also got magical journeys in my mind. And naps. Naps with dreams of ants crawling on me – but just one ant. (It’s possible it was Rocky the Chihuahua, come to think of it.)
On the bright side, when I went in for the follow-up that found the gout, I had lost 14 pounds in six days. So, the diuretic worked before it crippled me.
My doctor had also looked at my bloodwork and decided my good cholesterol was too low, so he put me on Niacin. Just like in cereal and Pop Tarts, but a huge dose. It’s an easy pill to take, and there are very few side effects. However, there is one – the Niacin flush. This is not flush, like a toilet, where everything comes out at once (thank God), this is flush like Southern ladies blushing (“Oh, my!”)
In fact, it’s a lot like blushing. As your blood vessels dilate from the drug, you feel flush. Actually, you feel like your head and arms are on fire. I woke up at 3am this morning, and my upper torso was on fire. Plus, I had to use the bathroom.
So, now, I’m limping (gout) to the bathroom (no problems yet), with my upper body on fire (Niacin.) It wasn’t until after the episode that I discovered the Niacin flush or I would have blamed it on hallucinations (pain killer.)
Our kitchen is being remodeled. Remodel is from an ancient French word that means “probable insanity”. We are using Ikea. Ikea is from a Swedish word that means “probable insanity.”
A kitchen remodel is the perfect project to prove the adage that the first 90% of the project takes 90% of the time, and the last 10% of the project takes the other 90% of the time.
All the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Since there are no innocents in a remodeling project, none of the names were changed.
Why do women swoon so over their kitchens? They have spent most of the past few millenia finding other things to do, specifically so they would no longer be spending time in the kitchen.
Here’s an interesting side-effect of completely removing a room from the house even for a short time – all of the house is affected, and not in a good way. Crap that was in the kitchen pretty much filled the spare room, which used to be where my grandson took his naps when he was over. So, last visit, he was driven around the block for a while to sleep. You can’t get to the bathroom off the kitchen any more, and the toilet is gone, anyway, since the floor is being redone (another side effect). The dogs can’t be loose because the contractors tend to leave doors open, so they’re spending a lot of quality crate time (yes, they’re annoyed). You can’t use the garage because the driveway is blocked with a dumpster. I’m making coffee in the guest bathroom. The only advantage was that for a while, the refrigerator and a (new) microwave were in the family room, which made beer and snacks more accessible while watching TV.
On the bright side, I’m actually looking forward to the hour-long commute to the office every morning because it means I’m leaving the construction zone.
This project started because our kitchen floor was buckling. So, there was a leak somewhere. However, after the leak was fixed, there was still a ripple in the floor. Male solution: Fix the floor. Female solution: Fix the floor and while you’re at it, replace vinyl flooring with tiles, put in new cabinets, replace the counter-top, paint the walls a different color, and because it’s adjoining, maybe replace the carpet in the dining room. Oh, and maybe paint the hallway. The only thing that stopped the kitchen remodeling from progressing through the whole house (and an entire retirement account) was a hailstorm. Now, we need a new roof which is limiting the kitchen budget. Sometimes, an act of God is actually a good thing. Thank you for the hail, God.
Spousal Unit: “Don’t you love this tile? It reminds me of my Mom’s kitchen in her home long ago.” Me: “That looks like the tile in my grade school cafeteria.” So, who wins? I will now be having supper in my grade school cafeteria. This reminds me, I have to get the Spousal Unit a hairnet. Actually, considering it will be food I didn’t order prepared by a cranky Italian lady, it will be supper in my grade school cafeteria. All I need now are some spitwads. And detention.
Any time a woman finds something that reminds her of “long ago”, it will be in a section of the store called “retro”. Retro is from an Indonesian word meaning “grossly over-priced.”
Spousal Unit: “Should the walls be red or black?” This is an unwinnable situation, unless one really prefers red or black (Me? Notsomuch.) So, I don’t care. However, you cannot say you don’t care in a project of this magnitude – not because you know your opinion is going to be ignored anyway, but because then it looks like you don’t care. (Think about that for a moment.) However, I really don’t care – I just want Bubba, Joe-Bob and their tools out of my house and their monster truck and mini-dumpster out of my driveway. I don’t really care what color the walls are. The only time I’m in the kitchen is to make coffee, and that means I’m asleep, so my eyes are closed. Just put the coffee pot back in the same place it was before the remodel and nobody gets hurt.
We first priced a couple of professional remodeling services. Spousal Unit’s estimate: $15,000. My estimate: $30,000. Actual estimate: $37,000. I can’t give that much blood in a year, so it was off to Ikea. (Spousal Unit’s estimate: $10,000. My estimate: $25,000. Still open. Let’s just say hers was low.)
Ikea is a Scandinavian firm that produces functional furniture. Saying furniture is “functional” is like saying a girl has a good personality.
Ikea is inexpensive, mainly because they don’t produce products, they produce kits. You get a flat box of parts and an instruction sheet, whether you’re buying a kitchen cabinet or a child’s set of toy blocks. Actually, I’m not sure the kitchen cabinets aren’t made from the child’s set of toy blocks. Many of their products are just assemblies of smaller products, so the instructions are “get two of these boxes, and one of those boxes. Assemble as shown on diagram.”
I am not a handyman. I cannot use tools. So, the mechanically inept hire someone to do the job for them. Ikea has suggestions for companies to assist you. Well, a company. If you pay them a slight extra charge, they will act as a general contractor.
In the USA, a general contractor manages a project and assigns specific tasks to other contractors. I know this, because I spent a week on jury duty when a general contractor was the defendant in a lawsuit. In Scandinavia or Ethiopia or wherever Ikea is located, a general contractor apparently only does the odd jobs that nobody else does. They also listen patiently to the woman of the house railing about the ineptitude of the other contractors. You get to actually do project management yourself, therefore saving money. This is why their general contractor service is relatively cheap – he doesn’t actually do anything to manage the project. I suppose I should be grateful we didn’t get a general contractor kit in a flat box with an odd Scandinavian name on the side. I would still be assembling him.
Our cabinet installer is a company named Traemand. They specialize in cabinet installations – their website says so. Unfortunately, they are installing European style cabinets in a US kitchen, which apparently is hard (their website says so). I assume this means they use metric measurements, since their first floor plan had one cabinet blocking half a doorway. This measurement (ironically) was done by a subcontractor who was actually working for the same company that is our general contractor. So, why not just have the general contractor do everything? Ikea split the jobs up, so it is not allowed. What happens if you just buy all the boxes of parts and hire someone else to assemble them? It’s not warranted. This makes no sense to me, but I’m not Swedish.
After the cabinet into the doorway design was corrected (strangely, we didn’t want a doorway blocked), the second set of measurements didn’t seem to match the actual kitchen measurements. So, we finally had the general contractor re-measure. He must have used an American tape measure, because this time, the plan actually made some sense and fit the kitchen.
It occurred to me that there is an old adage “Measure twice, cut once.” I guess nobody told Traemand that “measure twice” implied getting the same number both times.
Of course, the actual installation didn’t allow the existing refrigerator to fit under an installed cabinet. After the installers “made” it fit by lowering the feet on the refrigerator, the cabinet doors above the refrigerator won’t open. Apparently, this is a strange model of refrigerator that has hinges on the doors and they are on the top. Who knew? So, we’re waiting for a new cabinet to be delivered. Yes, Traemand, the cabinet technically fits. However, it’s useless if it doesn’t open, so it needs to be fixed. Finally, they installed the existing double oven at Munchkin-level, so the lower oven will be at the proper height when the Spousal Unit has her scoliosis kick in. In the meantime, if the lower oven is used where it is, the dogs are going to learn the hard way not to sniff things, and grandchildren will learn “don’t touch” on their own. Other than that, it’s perfect. Oh, except we need a new kitchen table because the new cabinet takes up more space than the one it replaced, so the table won’t fit. Well, the table will fit, but people can’t actually sit around it.
An aside on the double oven – many women lust after a double oven. Women love their double ovens. They use them one day a year on Thanksgiving and the rest of the time, they just lovingly gaze at them while re-heating leftovers in the microwave or toaster oven, because using the oven heats the entire kitchen. You know, a guy gets a lot of grief for wanting a 70″ TV to watch the Super Bowl, but at least you can watch other shows on it during the year. How often do you really need two ovens? Sheesh.
So, Traemand may be installers, but they are certainly not designers or measurers. Actually, I will be happy to say that they are installers if the cabinets are all still on the walls in a week or so.
Dear Ikea, it is staggering to me that any company could certify another company to do product installations when their employees can’t use a tape measure successfully. I would have thought that would have been question one on the installation certification test, or at least in the first five, after “What’s a cabinet?” or “Which end of the screwdriver do you hold?” I may be mechanically inept, but I know how to measure how tall something is.
So, we have a general contractor that’s not managing the project, an installer that can’t measure, and a different company for each piece of the rest of the puzzle, all assembling items purchased from random companies throughout the Metroplex. How can this not go smoothly?
Needless to say, the Spousal Unit is approaching a level of cranky not seen since I managed to miss her birthday, our anniversary and Valentine’s Day all with the same business trip. (They’re all within two weeks, so it really wasn’t that difficult. Come to think of it, I was gone less time on that trip than this kitchen project has taken.)
Also, it is taking so freaking long to get the project done, that we’re pretty much used to eating out every night. So, I’m not sure the new kitchen will get that much use, although I’ve been promised it will. (The male version of this is a riding mower sitting in the garage while the neighbor’s kid is doing the lawn.)
A lesson to anyone wanting to outsource a room remodel – get a general contractor and a designer. Write a much larger check than Ikea requests. Pick cabinets out of their catalog. Don’t special-order anything. Go to France for a month.
I heard a loud crash as I was writing this. Luckily, it was one of my grandson’s toys falling off the table in the family room. So, all cabinets are still attached to the walls. So far. I hope it doesn’t turn out that they only hold European-style dishes, pots and pans.
Yesterday, I thought I was going to die, all alone, while slowly approaching a French Citadel. Isn’t that what a vacation day on a business trip is all about?
Years ago, the Spousal Unit and I went to Southern France for a couple of weeks – I was on business, she was on vacation. Part of the time, we were both on vacation. On one of those days, we took the train to from Nice to Entrevaux, a Medieval city about two hours north of Nice. (Nice is a seaside town that is at the edge of the Mediterranean on one side and the edge of the Alps on the other.) So, Entrevaux is in the mountains.
Apparently, many years ago, somebody thought it would be a good idea to fortify the town by building a citadel (which means a fort way the hell up in the sky.)
“Monsieur, some evil people are attacking the town!”
“We need a citadel. How about putting it way up there out of sight?”
So, Entrevaux has a Citadel. The Spousal Unit and I shot some photos of it last time. From the ground. However, this time, I was not with my wife, I was with two of my co-workers. Co-workers desperately afraid they will miss something interesting while on a business trip with an open weekend in France. So, we climbed up to the Citadel. On foot.
So, the rest of this is a remembrance and tirade about taking a walk. Those of you in good shape who exercise regularly can roll your eyes and stop reading now. Those who know me and are already giggling or enjoy seeing me in pain (hello, family!) can continue on.
There was a helpful French guide at the foot of the climb who sold us our tokens to enter the passageway up. Three euros. Each. She said there were seven switchbacks along the way. She lied. The brochure says there are nine, as in the number of circles of Hell.
So, David from Austin, Sakamoto-san from Tokyo and I started the ascent. In retrospect, it is very clever to charge people for the opportunity to walk straight up into the sky. If you didn’t charge them, many would get to the foot of the walkway and decide against such a foolish escapade. With a charge, the thought is – “Hey, I don’t want to waste three euros!”
This is the same theory as joining a gym. At least you can skip going to the gym more easily than skipping the walk.
Quote: “How to get to the Citadel: Go through toll-gate [Editor: with the 3 euro token] and walk straight up for about 20 minutes. Easy walk on recently restored cobbled path (difference in height: 156 meters.)” Some key points, for those who don’t easily read between the lines:
Straight up. This is not an exaggeration, even though the path has seven to nine switchbacks.
Recently restored. France is in Europe. “Recently restored” could be sometime in the 1800s.
156 meters. For Americans, that’s actually 511 feet which sounds a lot higher than 156 meters. However, you don’t actually walk straight up, you walk fifty-seven miles through the “seven” switchbacks. Rappelling would be 156 meters.
This is not information. It is a warning.
David and Sakamoto-san are a lot like me, except for age, weight and general disposition. As they sprinted up the recently restored pathway, chatting happily, I got through the first switchback just barely before my heart began to pound.
Maybe I’ll just stop here and take a couple of photos. I’m not out of breath or anything, this is just a good vantage point, since it’s so close to the ground and all.
My colleagues are now out of sight. As well as out of earshot. So, at least now I can whimper in peace.
So, I’ll guess I’ll just stop here in the middle of the second switchback to {huff, puff} take some more photos. Wow. It’s already a long way down. I’m making progress! Wow. It’s an even further way up. I’m going to die.
Continue climbing.
Horrible realization – I don’t have a pen with me. I can’t leave a note for David and Sakamoto-san to find on the way down, asking them to deliver the camera back to the Spousal Unit. I also don’t have a safety pin to attach the note to my clothes before I breathe my last. Should I be concerned I’m already planning my last minutes on earth?
I’m only concerned about the camera because the Spousal Unit lent it to me before I left and asked me to re-shoot the town of Entrevaux, especially the Citadel. Hey! That means this is all her fault! Feel slightly better. Still out of breath.
Realize if I die on this walk, the Spousal Unit will just buy a truly expensive camera with her inheritance money. If I die, I’m throwing this camera off the mountain.
Continue climbing.
Horrible realization deux – I now know why I don’t remember the climb being this difficult the last time I was in Entrevaux. It’s not just because that was eight years and probably fifty pounds ago – it’s because we didn’t actually make the climb. So much for age and experience. I would yell at David for dragging me up this mountain, but he’s already at the top, and I’m here on the third switchback, out of breath. I mean, taking photos.
Well, {choke, wheeze}, at least I’m almost half-way there.
Continue climbing.
If Lance freakin’ Armstrong goes by on his bike, I’m putting a stick through his spokes.
Well, {sneeze, cough, whimper}, at least I’m almost half-way there.
Hey, that fort over there looks a lot lower.
Continue climbing.
Why am I not making any progress? I wonder what David and Sakamoto-san are doing at the top? I wonder if they will pass me on their way down? I wonder if they will recover my body?
Continue climbing.
Stop to catch my breath, uh, I mean, take some photos.
Meet a couple on the way down. Try to be polite without heaving too much. “Bonjour!”
Why do they look so damn happy? Oh, maybe it’s because they’re going down. Bastards. Wonder what “bastards” is in French? If I could get a WiFi signal, I could use Google Translate. Who am I kidding? If I had a WiFi signal, I would call for help.
Continue climbing.
Well, at least I’m almost half-way there.
I wonder if David and Sakamoto-san remember me?
Hey, I made it all the way through that switchback without stopping. I wonder why my heart is beating so far out of my chest?
I think that was switchback 27. If I ever make it down to safety, I’m kicking that cute tour guide in the butt, as soon as I catch my breath. And can move my legs.
Damn. More people coming down. Look pleased to be here. “Bonjour!” Well, at least a little old couple hasn’t passed me on their way up.
At least I’m almost half-way there.
Hmm. What kind of message does dying on Father’s Day send? I’d better get moving. I’ll just take a couple of photos, since this is a nice vantage point.
Dear Lord, if You could just give me one more chance and let me survive this easy climb on a restored cobbled path, I’ll build You a freakin’ chapel at the top, next to the Citadel.
At least I’m almost half-way there.
If I puke, will I hit the houses?
Holy Crap! (Sorry, Lord.) Another couple is heading down. How many old people think climbing a mountain to see an old fort is a rational idea? Were these guys stationed here at one time?
If this freakin’ Citadel is closed for lunch when I get up there, someone’s going to die. Unless I die first.
Bonjour. That man looked pleased to be descending. I’m pretty sure the woman said “Almost” in a slight whisper as she passed me. Almost to the top? Almost dead? Almost is some French word for “look at the fat guy dying on his easy walk”? I’m pretty sure that was a pity smile she gave me.
I wonder if it’s time to start saying “Bon soir”? I’ve been climbing for about fourteen hours (twenty minutes my ass) and it was late morning when we started.
Hey, at least my pants are getting looser. It’s either the altitude or the 37 1/2 pounds of sweat I’ve produced so far. It’s a bit warm in Southern France today.
If one of these couples calls the authorities, and I get med-evac’ed off this stupid easy climb, the first thing the Spousal Unit will say when the US Embassy calls is “Was he wearing sunblock?” What is wrong with her?
At least I’m almost half-way there.
Hey! That’s David up ahead! Hmm. I don’t remember him wearing a white robe. Why is there so much light behind him? Why is he telling me to come into it? Why are my grandparents behind him?
I think I have enough time to shoot some more photos.
At least I’m almost half-way there.
As I turned another corner in the 42 switchbacks, I wondered how the French architects and builders managed to make the switchbacks at the top longer than the ones at the bottom. I wonder if the French army lost any wars just because their soldiers couldn’t make it up to the fort in time. I wonder if the enemy soldiers could just dodge any arrows shot from the Citadel since it would take a half-hour for them to reach the ground?
Man, I thought that can of olive oil the Spousal Unit requested I purchase in Nice was going to be overweight luggage. Wait until IBM has to ship my corpse home. That is going to be one big-ass internal mail envelope.
Wait! This time, it really is David. I’m at the top. That was easy.
Where’s the welcoming party? The snack bar? The oxygen tents? The snack bar?
We’re at the damn top at last, let’s take some photos. Hey! A bench! Let’s rest, then take photos.
Well, that was fun. Let’s go down. Does France have a Care-Flite service?
Going down wasn’t nearly as bad as going up, and I did take a few more photos.
French soldiers were stationed here, waiting for attack. I’m waiting for a heart attack.
I even kept David and Sakamoto-san in sight most of the time. Most of the time.
I only stumbled once, but I didn’t even fall, since I’m an experienced climber now. I did, however, have a flash of rolling down a recently renovated cobblestone path, wiping out co-workers and tourists as I fell. Bowling for Tourists.
At the bottom, we saw a young couple with two bouncing sons in tow, approaching the entrance. I thought “That hike should calm those kids down.” Then, I thought, “This is going to be the vacation those kids discuss with their therapist.”
Once safely at the bottom, I realized that I had forgotten to build the Lord His chapel. Considering what He’s overlooked in my life so far, he may let that one slide. Come to think of it, it may not be the first chapel I’ve shorted Him.
Lord, I would go back and build Your chapel as promised, but I think that climb was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Mainly, because the next time would kill me, and I know how You feel about suicide.
I’m still alive. Next time, I’m buying posst cards at the gift shop and just telling people I made the climb.
David said he signed the guest book as “IBMers from Texas and Japan”. So, the next time you’re at the top of the Citadel, you can see my name in the book. Implied.
I don’t like going to the doctor and I’m very allergic to surgery, but I may be tolerating both very soon. It may be time to finally fix my knee.
My right knee went out yesterday while I was bending down to look at furniture at IKEA. If I tried to build it, it would probably be fatal. So, I’m back to limping around and no male my age likes to hear the word “limp”.
A bit of back-story – I hyper-extended my right knee in soccer practice in high school, either 1977 or 1978. I’m pretty sure it was junior year, so 1977. It hurt like hell when it happened, but the pain diminished rather quickly over time.
It was a stupid injury. I remember it like it was 35 years ago. I was playing fullback, chasing down a ball, cut back around one of my classmates, slipped and landed full-force on my right knee. I landed so hard, I kicked myself in the butt. This is known as “hyper-extension” and it is very bad. In exotic dancers, it’s called “flexibility” and is much more popular to watch.
I spent a couple of days at home with ice or heat (who remembers?) on my knee and spent the rest of the season on the sidelines. I was on the JV anyway, so it wasn’t that much of a demotion.
My mom took me to see an orthopedic surgeon and he said it wasn’t hurt badly enough to fix. Apparently, in the 70’s, there were knee injuries and then there were real knee injuries. He invited me to come back if I ever really hurt it. So, I finally had a knee injury after six or seven years of playing soccer, which would be cool, and it wasn’t worth fixing.
So, I can still say, “Yeah, tore up a knee playing soccer”, but there’s no cool scar to show off, and if you played soccer in Texas, it meant you couldn’t make the football team.
Over the years, it would go out every now and then. I would limp for a couple of days, and then it would straighten itself out and I’d be back to normal. So, I never really saw a reason to have it checked since a) it didn’t cause pain very often and b) it wasn’t bad enough to fix anyway. The most annoying part of the recurring pain was that it was completely unpredictable and it didn’t help determine the weather, like some injuries. Maybe only bad hips can tell when it will rain.
Fast-forward to December, 2009. My knee went out again. My wife convinced me to go see her knee specialist – she has a guy for almost every part of her body, which is not as slutty as it sounds, it just means she gets injured a lot.
First question – “When did this injury occur?” “Uh. That’s a good question – either 1977 or 1978, I’m not really sure.” Dramatic pause. “Why are you coming to see me now?” A clever answer would have been “Because now I have insurance and can afford you”, but I told the truth – it only went out sporadically and I had an existing (approximately 32-year old) medical opinion that it wasn’t worth fixing, anyway.
Dramatic pause. “Somebody told you it wasn’t worth fixing??”
“Yes, I had it checked right after the injury happened.”
“Ah. 1977. Well, back then, it might not have been worth it. Now, we can fix it.”
I assumed this meant prices have risen enough to cost-justify the doctor, hospital and related costs associated with out-patient surgery. (I also wondered if it was the same doctor, since he was not exactly young.)
So, then the questions went on – had I considered rebuilding it? Would I use my own tendon or a cadaver’s? (“Wow. Literally a dead man walking.” Even the doctor smiled.) It sounded painful, but doable – just a matter of scheduling. Then he mentioned the one major problem – no travel for up to six weeks after surgery.
Remember, this was in December. I was still in Lotus. January is Lotusphere. I was presenting. So, no surgery in December or January. February I had customer visits scheduled. March was end of quarter and completely unpredictable as to travel. By April, I had forgotten my knee had gone out.
A few months later, I received a lovely card from the doctor, as did my wife. He was retiring. “Oh, shit. I was going to have him fix my knee.” So, I forgot about it.
A couple of weeks ago, my knee went out. Ouch. I hobbled a bit, and it went back. Then, my left knee popped.
An unsettling thought occurred – “Hmm. Which knee did I actually injure in high school?”
If you can’t remember which knee you hurt in high school, perhaps your time there were not your “Glory Days”, in spite of what the Boss may say.
Both knees straightened themselves out in a couple of days.
Yesterday, I knelt down to look at the back of an entertainment unit my wife wanted to purchase and when I straightened up, BOOM! My right knee (“Dammit! That’s the one I hurt!”) popped out. It hurt. A lot. It was excruciating. It was much worse than usual. At first, I could barely wobble, and even though we were in a furniture store, there weren’t any chairs around to get off of it. So, I staggered around drunkenly until I found the proper limping motion to keep the weight off my leg, and then I was able to walk. Barely.
Bravely, my wife continued shopping. It’s why I love her so.
Eventually, we loaded the five boxes of the entertainment center parts into the car. Ouch. We drove home. We unloaded the five boxes of the entertainment center parts. Ouch. Ouch. (I dropped the end of one of the boxes on my foot. Try hopping in pain on a bad knee. It’s redundant.)
We went out to dinner. We parked uphill across the street from the restaurant. Ouch.
We went home. We walked the dogs. Ouch.
Finally, I tried to just lie down and put my leg up, but I couldn’t find a comfortable position. Luckily, I had dogs pushing me in various directions, trying to help me find the right way. Ouch.
I thought, “The last time this happened, I slept it off. So, I should be better in the morning.” That was last time. This time, notsomuch. So, for the first time in years, I called in sick – although I can actually just work from home, so I’m not really out sick, I’m just not in the office. Technically, it was more calling in “can’t drive“.
I had to tell some of my team why I wasn’t in. I’m sure the word has spread on the floor, so now everyone at the office knows why hiring the elderly is a risk. Also, I weigh slightly more than I did in high school, so nobody believes the “tore up my knee playing soccer” line, anyway.
Tomorrow, I go to see the orthopedic surgeon. Not my orthopedic surgeon, of course, since he retired. His replacement. I have a feeling my knee may have a replacement, as well.
If they fix one knee and not the other, I hope I don’t walk in circles.
Bubba Elvis Gilhooly crossed the bridge due to heart failure on December 15, 2011, with his parents at his side. We thank the staff of the eClinic for their caring support at the end. He will be sorely missed.
Bubba, a black and white parti Cocker mix, was born April 25, 2000 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, the son of Romeo and Juliet Pesce. He was well-traveled as a puppy, as he was born in Virginia, drove to New Jersey to meet his new parents and then flew home to Texas before he was six months old.
Bubba was a wedding gift to Kevin and Virginia Gilhooly. Virginia had grown up with dogs in her house, so Kevin agreeing to have a dog was actually written into their wedding vows. As Kevin had agreed to have a dog, Virginia allowed him to choose a name. Kevin chose “Bubba” as a name – which was horrifying to someone from the Northeast. Nevertheless, Virginia soon learned to stand by the back door and yell “Bubba!” without (much) embarrassment. (After Virginia began to groom him at home, the hair on the top of his head became more and more like Elvis’, which gave him his middle name.)
Bubba quickly took over the house after he moved in. He never managed to teach Basil, the English Budgie to bark, although he tried. Virginia learned that having a puppy is not the same as having a dog. Kevin learned patience, although it took time.
Bubba did learn very quickly. He was the only dog in the household that would ring a string of bells on the door when he needed to go out. As more dogs entered the household, he would ring the bells if any of them needed to go out, as well, which prevented any of the other dogs from ever learning this trick. [Years later, Katie would ring the bells when she was bored.]
Patrolling the yard
During his first winter, he had company in the form of Flower Pesce, who lived with Virginia’s Mom in New Jersey. Flower and her Mom came down to escape the cold, so Bubba had a playmate for a few months. When Flower went home that Spring, Bubba seemed very depressed. Virginia and Kevin then decided to adopt another dog, so he would have company. So, Ripley entered the household. Kevin chose Ripley for adoption at a Richardson Humane Society event, although Ripley later decided he preferred Virginia. However, everyone knew he was really Bubba’s dog. (Flower and her Mom eventually moved in permanently.)
Bubba had cherry eye when he was a puppy, and it took five surgeries to repair it. This began his long history of veterinary visits – by the time of his passing, he had an allergist, an opthomologist, a cardiac specialist and multiple “everyday” vets. He had more (and better) specialists than his parents, who are still trying to figure out how to get his doctors to treat them. Amazingly, with all the doctors who would prod and poke him over the years, he loved going to the vet.
Actually, he just loved going for car rides. If Virginia asked him if he wanted to go “bye-bye in the car”, he would run to the back door and whimper until she appeared with a leash and took him to the car. A bonus on the car ride would be anyone standing on a street corner while the car stopped for a red light, since that was someone that could be barked at until the light turned green.
Bubba was the first dog to sleep on the bed in the Gilhooly household, and the first to abandon it. After other dogs joined the house, he decided there was much more room to spread out on the floor, so he gave up his bed privileges for the wide open spaces. (It was probably cooler down there, as well.)
Bubba’s medical history actually helped lead to Murphy joining the family – Murphy had been considered “non-adoptable” because he had dry eye. As Virginia was already applying eye medicine to Bubba’s eyes every day, adopting a dog with dry eye was not an issue.
Bubba had cataract surgery as an adult, but was still mostly blind for the last years of his life. It never seemed to slow him down, although when walking, he did appear to be in a pinball machine at times. He could not find his way around as quickly, unless there was food at his destination.
As he got older, he was taking more and more medications, which eventually required that he be fed more often than the rest of the dogs, just to give him his morning pills. Luckily, he had learned the command “let’s go get coffee” earlier, and knew that meant to go to the kitchen. None of the other dogs ever learned this trick. It started because while Kevin worked at home, he would make coffee every morning before beginning work, and Bubba would go along, because he had also figured out that the cookie jar was near the coffee pot. After a few days, “Let’s go get coffee!” meant “Go to the kitchen and stand by the cookie jar.”
Bubba’s other unusual commands:
“Go in your crate and get a cookie” – the fastest way to get him (and most siblings) in the house and into their crates when his parents needed to go out. Bubba could learn to do anything if cookies were involved.
“Let me see your belly!” – before his allergies were under control, he would have ointment or spray applied to any areas that were broken out. “Roll over” seemed too simplistic, I suppose, so when he was told “Let me see your belly!”, he would roll over and wait for medication.
“I need your eyes” – also medically-minded. Bubba had two or three ointments applied to his eyes each day. He would avoid them at all costs – except if treats were involved. Since his parents couldn’t offer treats without all the dogs volunteering to get eye ointment, Bubba learned that “I need your eyes” meant ointment followed quickly by treats.
Almost napping
In his final days, he was assistant baby-sitter for Caleb Gilhooly, Virginia and Kevin’s grandson. Bubba would guard the baby’s crib whenever Caleb visited, mainly because food would often be tossed out of it. Caleb preferred Bubba over the other dogs because he was the quietest.
He is survived by his siblings, Ripley, Murphy, Katie and Flower, his parents, Kevin and Virginia, and his playmate Caleb.
I really don’t like the holidays. Actually, I dread the holidays. I spend the time from Thanksgiving to New Year’s in a deep depression. I’m constantly on the edge of tears. I don’t know why. (I have my suspicions, but publishing them would probably offend a lot of people.) So, I thought what is really needed is an organization to help those of us who dread the holidays. We need Christmas Anonymous.
Now, Christmas Anonymous would be built on the basic principles of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is the foundation for many successful recovery programs. Even people who have never had a drink have probably heard of the Twelve Steps. (In fact, somebody may have already done this work, in which case, I apologize. Doing it has been rather cathartic for me.)
I’ve only been to one AA meeting in my life (on a date – which can tell you how well the relationship worked), and it was an amazing experience. It was a religious experience, as well – only people who share the same dark secret can relate to your true issues and from that relation can come salvation.
So, I’ve taken the original Twelve-Step program (quoted from Alcoholics Anonymous – thank you, Bill W.), and translated it for those of us who can’t seem to cope with the holidays. You’re out there. You’re hurting. You’re not alone.
I read the Twelve Steps just before I went to the AA meeting. Until then, I had no idea what the steps were (although since then I’ve received apologies from alcoholic friends over the years, so I recognized that was one of them.) Some people think AA’s Twelve Steps are very close to a religion – God is mentioned everywhere throughout them. While this may offend some non-alcoholics who think “it’s only a drinking problem”, in the case of Christmas Anonymous, I believe it is absolutely a core part of the solution. (As the sarcastic would say: What? God in Christmas? Surely not.)
Here are the Twelve Steps, for members of Christmas Anonymous.
We admitted we were powerless over Christmas. No matter how hard we wished or bitched, it would still arrive every year on December 25th. Ads begin just after the Fourth of July.
We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. In this case, perhaps trying to restore the true meaning of Christmas as a religious holiday rather than a reason to spend ourselves into debt will help us through the season.
We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Wouldn’t Christmas be an excellent time to rededicate yourself to your beliefs? You don’t have to be Christian, but if you’re pummeled by Christmas music and commercials anyway, take a moment to connect with your God.
We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Why do we hate Christmas? Is it religious? Financial? Fear? Relationships?
We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our hatred of Christmas. Tell your significant other, friend or family member why you’re so cranky during the holidays. Find someone who will actually listen. If nothing else, blog about it.
We’re entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. This should always be true whether you hate Christmas or love drugs.
We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Perhaps this would be a good private prayer during Christmas services. If you avoid services, take a moment on Christmas to ask your God for this.
We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Who avoids you during the holidays? They’re on this list.
We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. In most cases, this is probably a sincere apology to friends and family for being such an asshole during the holidays.
We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. You’re not going to get through every Christmas unscathed. Remember this. Keep trying.
We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. If you can find God, you can celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. It was one at one time.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others in pain during the holidays, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Find others who hate Christmas, and give them this message. Think what else you hate as much as the holidays, and apply the steps.
Unfiltered Thoughts 