Stroke of Genius or Just a Stroke?

Did I have a stroke of genius or was it just a regular stroke?

Either way, here’s the deal. As a life-long dog dad, I’ve watched with much pride over the years as my dogs circle, arch their backs, and “do their business” in just the right spot. They serve up a pile of hot steamers and kick backward to see if they can fling a little piece onto my socks. I try to remember to stand to one side. 

All my dogs have had very healthy and reliable peristalsis though, and the resulting extrusions are magnificent but artistically boring. The dogs are like loaded pastry bags. My concern is that Mother Nature has locked them into one boring shape.

I’m thinking we can mix it up a bit. How about pastry tips that are made to fit onto dog sphincters? The possibilities are endless. Then, the upsell would be dye packages to dump into dog water or food bowl. Now we’re talking about deposits of yellow roses or maybe bright red Hibiscus flowers. 

I know, cool, right?

Am I on the cusp of making millions, or do I need be taken to the ER as quickly as possible?

Friends...(At Least For Now)

It was good to see an old friend at the gym this morning, a guy I hadn’t run into for over a year, probably two. We used to talk a lot, comparing life notes. Anything and everything was fair game, including politics. But the Trump phenomenon caused us to butt heads. As things ramped up, I didn’t see him at Planet Fitness anymore; I only saw him on Facebook. He cares more about his image in this town than I do, more politically correct online. I regularly attack Trump and double down with his supporters. They flabbergast me even more than he does as I publically wonder how any thinking person could support this sideshow? I call them complicit, vow to hold them accountable.

Ted unfriended me on Facebook and I thought it was for the best. Why aggravate ourselves?

When we ran into each other this morning, all of that was water over the damn that didn’t need to be resurrected in person. I know how he feels and I’m not going to change his mind, nor will he change mine. We both know that and spoke warmly of other things as if there is no political divide. That was cathartic for me. I don’t like conflict and generally handle it by avoiding it all together. Facebook friends are overwhelmingly like-minded. Trump zealots have been culled out. We post our strong opposition to the current president and his policies while we slap ourselves on the back in agreement about how right we are. Self-riotously correct and justified in our outrage.

It is what it is.

I’m not letting it drop, but I won’t let it eat my lunch either. I know how I plan to vote and have become more active in that regard, but walking around in my day-to-day? I expect to let it go and follow the sage advice we’ve all heard before:  Don’t’ talk about politics or religion with friends and family… especially if you want to keep them as friends and family.

It was good to see you this morning, Ted.

We Are What We Eat

We are what we eat…right?

As a guy who has done a gym thing more often than not, all my adult life, I don’t like to admit the truth of that. Shouldn’t I be exempt from being fat if I work out regularly? Sadly, the answer is no. The fact is that when it comes to our weight, it’s only about 30% exercise and 70% diet. Maybe even 20%, 80%. For a foodie like myself, that’s a bitter pill to swallow, even though I seem to have little problem swallowing almost everything else in sight. I love to cook, and constantly obsess over where we’re going out to dinner or what I’m going to fix at home. I mentally schedule at least for the next three nights in a row.

Then there is the fact that I’m no longer protected by youth. These days I look more like a pregnant woman, a very unpleasant balding one with disturbing facial hair. Fresh out of the shower I peek down to see that my pregnancy belly is blocking any real proof of my gender. I’ve turned into that guy with a horizontal belt buckle holding up pants that are fastened beneath my belly. I make a size 36 waist work when my true waist size is probably closer to my age.

My need to figure out how to best restrict calories dovetails with the fact that most of the other fun stuff in life is now on the “Do Not Touch” list as well. It may be for the best that drugs and alcohol have their own built in memory erasing ingredients. I don’t miss them all that much…because I can’t remember what happened after I used them. And sex? Why embarrass myself? If I try to initiate something with Carla, she tells me “maybe later, Honey, I have to get ready for work”, but she doesn’t have to go back to work for three more days. How long does it take to slip into her scrubs and a bunch of ID tags anyway?

I like to say: “Moderation in all things, including moderation”. So when my doctor told me that I can have two drinks a day, I save them up to have 14 on Saturday. That’s moderation, right? Hey, sadly, it’s not even true, I was just going for a laugh. But if I can’t throw a string of firecrackers into the bonfires of life every now and then, what fun is left out here?

Not much. So now more than ever, food has become my drug of choice, and the exercise that I’m weakest with, is pushing myself away from the feeding troth.  

Then last week I read an article by a highly respected doctor who claims to have found a key to weight loss for men over fifty, and how to get healthier in the process. He asserts that it all gets down to the growth hormones we use in our factory farm beef, pork, and chicken. Young people need their own to grow, but for us old guys who get it in the meat we eat, it’s poison. That’s the main reason that we develop the excess belly fat that hugs us like a border baby and doesn’t want to let go. The solution? Either stop eating red meat, or better yet, stop eating all meat, or go all organic.

I’ve been trying to do that more and more anyway, but guilt over buying factory farm meat and that article, pushed me and my fat belly over the edge. PETA tells me that I need to go vegetarian, but that’s not going to happen. The occasional steak or maybe some burgers are now my fireworks in the fire, my raison d'être when all other vices have flown the coop. PETA is never going to convince the world to stop eating meat, but it would be nice if we didn’t torture it first. The key is humane and healthy treatment of animals. Factory farms suck. For them, it’s all about money. Growth hormones cause the animals to increase their size at alarmingly unnatural and unhealthy rates, all while being locked up like prisoners in overcrowded cells. More meat per animal at faster turn over times equals increased profits. The only winners in that scenario are the corporations and their stockholders. Both animals and consumers loose.

With that in mind, I’ve been buying organic, believing that it’s better for me and it carries an increased assurance of humane treatment for the animals. If I have to pay almost twice the price, I’ll eat less meat as well. Even with organic and grass fed meats, less is more.

For several weeks now, it seems like my Facebook has been awash with a tidal wave of advertisements for food and meal delivery services. I took the plunge and signed up with one that promises to deliver meat that is free of growth hormones and additives, humanly raised, harvested, and in the case of beef, grass fed.

I’ll let you know how it goes and post an “after” picture of myself so you will recognize me if we see each other in person. I expect the pounds to melt away like ice cubes on a hot sidewalk with just that one change in my diet.

Soon, I will no longer look like an old, scary pregnant woman.

If none of that works, it’s back to drugs, alcohol, Krystal Burgers, and firecrackers. Carla will probably still be getting ready for work, but hey, four out of five ain’t bad.

Sleep Abduction

6:30PM

“OK, I’ve got to get going. Bye Honey, see you in the morning. Hope you sleep well.”

"Thanks Honey, maybe you'll get lucky and have another slow night at the hospital. See you in the morning. I'll get the dogs out first thing so they won't bother you tomorrow while you try to sleep."

9:00PM

Abducted in the quiet blackness of night, drugged and catapulted violently into another dimension by a force as jarring as a rock tumbler.

3:00 AM

I awoke this morning, bruised in mind and body, totally displaced, feeling like shit, trying to normalize my world in a house that only looks like mine on the surface. Everything and nothing had changed. Remnants of a dream haunted me, a colorless netherworld where I had no choice but to battle for everything I cared about. Fight or submit. My knives were sharp, laid out at the ready. Only moments before I’d be forced to face the chaos though, I discovered that somehow my weapons had had all disappeared, leaving me defenseless to face the fangs of a thousand ravenous nightmares, waiting for me below.

My body jerked involuntarily, senses on full alert now, wary and only partially awake. I tried to focus, shuffling toward an alien kitchen, cleverly recreated to look just like mine did last night before I went to sleep.

Leery of another abduction tonight, only 14 hours away, I resolved that this time I wouldn’t be fooled into complacency.

I need a plan.

Right now though, maybe a cup of charcoal jet fuel will help.

7:30AM

"Hi Honey, I'm glad you're home. How was last night?' 

“It was fine, busy at first but then it slacked off. I’m tired. Fitbit says 14,000 steps. Did you sleep well?”

"Yes, like a newborn. Go lie down and get some sleep yourself. I'll see you tonight when I get home. Maybe we'll go to Ned's for dinner." 

Shintoism, Baptists, The Green Bay Packers, Branch Davidians, Trumpism, and Ruh! Rah! Rega! for Alpha Tau Omega!

“The term cult usually refers to a social group defined by its religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or its common interest in a particular personality, object or goal.”

Every day we’re amazed anew, “How can his followers support this behavior? How can otherwise rational people believe these lies?”

Cult behavior is not uncommon; we’ve seen it throughout human history. Sometimes it’s more rabid in its manifestation than others, but the reliance on group think over individual is a common thread. Most religions display cult behavior...believing in something in spite of facts that indicate that the belief has little basis in logic. For many, it's easier to align with a group of like-minded people, often following a leader who appears to be strong and self-assured, unquestioning and unquestioned. It’s harder to stand alone and base our lives on our own personal decisions, case by case. Falling in with a group takes followers off the hook of personal responsibility. They no longer have to think for themselves or wrestle with tough questions. Just refer to the “answer book”. Simply going with the party line of “the bible says” or “Trump says” or even “my friends and family say” is much easier than having to decide for myself. Of course the real issue for each of us gets back to that, what do I say?

At a young age, my father taught me the most valuable lesson I’ve ever learned. While looking at something other than the comics in our home town newspaper, I was surprised by an article that featured a report that didn’t sound right to me. Dad was in the room and I asked him about it. He told me: “Just because it is printed in the newspaper, doesn’t mean it’s true.” That floored me. My father went on to suggest that it was important for me to “question everything, including me”. That was a double whammy. Question my Dad? The authority figure in my life? The man who had all the answers? Yes. Question what he says, the preacher (I already had that one covered), the doctor, teacher, lawyer (like Dad!), even the president of the United States! Unbelievable! Yup, question everything you are told or taught to see if it makes sense to you. Accept none of it blindly. Run it through your own personal Truth-O-Meter. Then put on your big boy pants and decide for yourself.

Certainly it’s easier to relinquish personal responsibility, to simply refer to the rule book of whatever you choose to align yourself with, be it Branch Davidian, Baptist, Shinto, Moose, or Trump. There is a common theme of cultism that runs through any group in which we embrace the core tenants of that group a bit more than we may trust in our own case by case judgement. Things are so much easier when we can box them up and tie them with a little bow and think: “there, I’m done with that” No second guessing, one size fits all.

“He may be a little rough around the edges, but at least he tells it like it is, and I support him. He’s doing a great job!”

For us to be incredulous every day, amazed that anyone would support this bullshit, is its own form of cultism.

Nothing is all black or all white. Life presents itself is a full spectrum of colors that reach in opposite directions beyond our ability to see them. The tough part is for us to think it through for ourselves rather than automatically grab a torch and pitchfork and join the crowd in the street. I’m not saying that isn’t what it takes sometimes, but I am suggesting that we do the hard work first and foremost: question everything, including ourselves.

And perhaps we should all be less surprised every day that when it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…well, you know the rest of the story.

  

Peace & Love

As a young man, I sought out the excitement of taking a Trailways bus out of the white-bread suburb where we lived and cruising into New York City. Back then it was in the midst of its most extreme highs and lows. The Port Authority Bus Station was ground zero, filled with acrid diesel fumes and too many bodies, packed tight and rushing all over. On my first visit, a man approached me and asked if I would like to see his horn skills…. on a skin flute.

 Mine.

My friends and I went to Washington Square to score cheap Mexican pot in balsa matchboxes at $5/pop. It was so dry, almost dust really, that a mummified fly went unquestioned. We were happy to get it.

I thought that pot was God’s key to the next step. We had developed the technology to wipe our planet clean of all larger lifeforms, but what of us, I wondered. Have we evolved socially in any semblance of a parallel line?  Back then, I thought weed was the answer.

In what can only be described as a personal crusade I became something of a Johnny Appleseed for spreading the word. Passing joints out the window of my VW Bus on a highway doing 60 with another car of young people pulled too close. I turned on countless “first timers” with a pride equal to that of any Seahorse Mama when it releases a thousand spawn. “I’ve given you life! Go fly, I thought.

Now, as senility grabs an ankle and starts to climb a leg, states fall like dominoes to legal recreational, and I foolishly dare to hope that to some small degree it could help, even if I was only off by about 50 years.

Fountain of Life...

For a guy who believes in the reliability of the Laws of Nature, science and verifiable facts, it’s odd that I equate this fountain with my lifeline.

Dad was 89, Mom 93. So I plan to live to see 90. That’s reasonable, right? It gives me 20 more years.

But I have to monitor that, keep my finger on the pulse.

When I get up in the night and roam around the house, 3, 4am, I make it a point to look out into the front yard. Is the fountain running? Bright and virile, with a strong flow? That’s about me, not the fountain. Do I feel the same way? Ready to run another 20, blocking and circling whatever takes issue with that?

It helps me to simplify my priorities: clean and maintain the fountain…enjoy it, let it serve me, and be ready for whatever comes out of left field…

Let Me Help You With That...Not!

Turning 62 next month, Carla doesn’t look her age. She does look good in jeans though. Partially that’s due to the fact that she has both good jeans, and good genes. She’s fit, strong, and fast. Unlike her spouse, she never drank, smoked, used illegal substances nor ate an entire turkey and two whole hams at one sitting after smoking appetite enhancers. (He’s a disgusting man.)

These days, if she hasn’t worked at the hospital the night before, she goes to the gym with me in the mornings and runs on the stair machine like the energizer bunny. Her Fitbit reports that on work nights, she logs some 14,000 steps per shift. That’s equivalent to 3.3 miles.

Carla is all go, go, go, until she crashes and sleeps for 12 hours straight. She eats the same way, not hungry, no thanks, not now, maybe later…then it’s 24 hours of Blue Bell Vanilla Chocolate Chip Ice Cream in gallon containers, and seafood.

Some years ago, Carla was queen of her body pump class. Skinny and stronger than the average human. I had been doing my thing in the weight room upstairs, acting all manly and making pig sounds as I threw dumbbells around with disgust. I decided to humor Carla’s invitation to come to one of her “lady’s classes”. No big deal, I thought. Give the little ladies a break.

But it was a big deal, a very big deal. They broke me. Not only was I humiliated in the class itself, whimpering and crying softly in the back, I was pretty much paralyzed for a week. Too sore to move a pinkie.

She just laughed at me, no damn sympathy at all.

At 112 pounds, Carla was getting obnoxious, boasting of her physical prowess, and claiming that she could lift almost anything. I wanted to call her bluff and allowed, insisted really, that she carry anything heavy that needed carrying whenever we were together. Six grocery bags at once while I only carry the car keys. That couch needs to be moved over there? I’ll bet you can do it by yourself. I’ll watch.

It became something of a joke between us.

I had a perfect opportunity to dare her to show her stuff when we went to Home Depot for garden supplies. Heavy bags of top soil and fertilizer, huge bales of peat moss, 40-pound landscape stones. She piled everything up on a flat steel dolly. I ambled along beside, as she muscled it out to our truck.  Passing people on their way in, most gave me dirty looks while Carla pushed the dolly along, red faced and breathing deeply. We laughed, knowing that they probably assumed that either I had just undergone a hernia operation, or more likely, that I was a huge pile of excrement in human form.

When we got to the truck, everything had to be loaded up, manhandled (woman handled) onto the tailgate and pushed back on the flatbed. All big, awkward, heavy stuff. I sat on one side of the tailgate just whistling and looking at the birds, as she wrestled to get each huge thing up and onto the flatbed. Almost every man that was coming or going in that lot, rushed over quickly to help Carla, their wives glaring daggers at me. I’d tell them: “Oh, she’s fine. She can do it. We don’t need help, thanks.” Carla huffing and puffing, both of us hiding our laughter.

It almost came to blows with one guy, he insisted on helping until I told him that I was the husband. I guess he figured it was our business. “Poor woman” he must have thought “why would she stay with a jerk like that?”

He may have a point, Carla could do better, but it has nothing to do with her insistence on loading the truck by herself or my true pleasure in seeing her do it.

California Girls...

Looking forward to a little family time in San Diego this September. Aside from seeing the kids though, I plan to visit with a few girlfriends that live out there. In the spirit of transparency and full disclosure, I even wrote their names on my T-shirt. Carla doesn’t mind but I think Ruth and Hannah get a little disgusted with me. Just because they turned their backs on the very same girls some years ago and see them as something of a bad influence, they think I should do the same.

Don’t hold your breath, ladies. That’s my job.

There Are No Others...

People who have unfulfilling lives embrace a scapegoat, someone to feel superior to and threatened by, someone to point at and think "they are the reason I'm unsuccessful". Such people are unable to look meaningfully into a mirror and truly see themselves. In Germany right now, it's Jews again. Here in the USA, Trump knows how this kind of hate works and plays it well, demonizing entire groups of people and saying they are causing "us" great harm. Mexicans, immigrants, people from "shithole" countries...of course we're all immigrants and the greatest harm to society comes from the very people who point fingers at others and scream the loudest.

Unless the human race can evolve past this suicidal thinking, we will never survive to see a better day.

Pooppourri...

You know how some people really care about food? They worry about the ingredients, how fresh they are, organic or not…locally sourced or shipped cross-country in a refrigerated truck? Many foodies obsess over recipes, considering the balance of the herbs and spices and the preparation techniques.

OK, I’m speaking of myself but you know what I mean.

Lots of folks could care less. They just want the McDonalds drive-through line to move quickly, allowing them to inhale fast food in the parking lot before they even get to the exit. To them, food is like gas. They have an empty tank and just want to fill up and go.

Dogs are the same way with shit.

Chicca, the little bitch, will stop and sniff politely, and then quickly move on. Not Rufus. He has to really spend some time, changing angles and approach. He needs to take it all in. Who was this dog, he wonders? What breed? What sex? And what did he or she have to eat recently? Inquiring canines want to know.

He inhales deeply, as if sampling perfume. His jowls quiver as he tastes the air.

Like all dogs, Rufus has an extra sensory organ in the roof of his mouth: a Jacobson’s organ. Most animals have one. It helps a dog "read" the different scents that he is smelling.

When Rufus quivers his lips, it’s because he is using that organ. Animal waste contains pheromones and other hormones so that a dog can tell many different things about that little, or not so little, calling card left there by some other dog before Rufus came along. He can tell if it’s a male or female, where the female is at in her cycle, and if the dog may be more dominant or submissive than himself. He may also be sniffing wastes from prey animals as well. The Jacobson's organ helps a dog “taste” what he smells and eats.

As with people, all dogs are different. Rufus cares about shit. He wants to savor it and ponder the many questions about its origin, composition, and freshness.

Chicca, not so much.

Chicca is a McDonalds gal. She doesn’t seem to care much, often gobbling down a big piece of turd before I can shame her and pull her away. She doesn't care about savoring or smelling so much but she will gulp down a piece of shit quickly in passing, before she even hits the exit. It’s just gas to her.

Back home from our morning walk, it’s time for me to think about my own breakfast. It will be something nice. I’ll serve myself at the big oak table while I sit with my computer.

Chicca will want to jump up into my lap, but I remember what she had for her own breakfast just ten minutes earlier and know that if I invite her up, she’ll try to lick my mouth, or maybe even get lucky and slip me some tongue.

I’ll pass. She can stay on the floor.

Just a Little Dance with Death...

In and out of consciousness; blood clots were doing their best to kill me. The pain resulting from no longer having blood flow freely through my body, was excruciating. Everything was shutting down. Clots were backed up at an IVC filter in my chest like traffic at the Mexican border. They stretched down into my legs which were swollen to twice their normal size and looked like they were going to split open. My kidneys, and other organs were blinking out, as clots populated downward.

Blocked traffic became a parking lot, no movement.

It was as if my life was on a dimmer switch and someone was turning it down, way down, until the light was almost out, and I had no control at all.

Although I had always assumed that I would live into my late 80’s or 90’s as my parents had, I was OK with the very real possibility of imminent death, but then every three hours a nurse came in and injected a dose of morphine into my drip line. The pain immediately drifted away as I floated above it all, untouchable.

No wonder some people become addicted to that stuff.

Even more comforting than the morphine though? Knowing that Carla was close by, working in the hospital and that either Ruth or Hannah were right there in the ICU room with me the whole time. They slept on the couch. That meant everything to me, even though I had told them not to come. “I’m in good hands and there is nothing more that you can do.” I said.

I was wrong.

All my life I’ve prided myself on being independent. A rock. I didn’t want to lean on anyone. I’ll take care of myself. It was fine for me to be the dad or husband, in charge, caring for my family, but not the other way around.

The whole experience changed me, opened me up. It’s been different since then. I’ve accepted the fact that it’s a two-way street, we give and take. I took care of them when they were young and now they can begin to return the favor. I’m fine with that. Ruth, Hannah or Carla can share driving duties, literally and figuratively. I’m happy to sit in the back seat. I don’t always have to be in charge.

The girls are beginning to understand that they’ve created a monster though. As it is with the dogs, it can be hard to get me out of the car.

I’ve learned that sometimes, the back seat is the most comfortable seat in the house when someone you trust is doing the driving.

A Nickel Box...

As a teenager, I embraced the excitement of taking a Trailways bus out of my little white-bread community, cruising into the big city of New York while it was still in the midst of its most extreme highs and lows.

The Port Authority Bus Station was ground zero, all acrid diesel fumes, a place where men approached and asked if I would like to see their horn skills…. on a skin flute. Mine.

In Washington Square we scored cheap Mexican pot in balsa matchbook drawers at $5/pop. It was so dry, almost dust really, that a mummified fly went unquestioned. We were happy to get it.

I thought that it was God’s key to the next step. We had achieved, well not achieved so much but we had the technology to wipe the planet clean of all larger lifeforms. What of us, I wondered. Have we evolved socially in any semblance of a parallel line?

Back then, I thought pot was the answer.

In what can only be described as a personal crusade I became something of a Johnny Appleseed for spreading the word, passing joints out the window of my VW Bus on a highway doing 60 with another car of young people pulled too close. I turned on 100s of “first timers” with a pride equal to that of any Seahorse Mama when it releases 1.000 spawn. “I’ve given you life! Go fly, I thought.

Now, as senility grabs an ankle and starts to climb a leg, states fall like dominoes to legal recreational, and I foolishly dare to hope that to some small degree, I was right...even if I was off by about 70 years.