Day 19: If we were sharing a bottle of wine again

If we were sharing a bottle of wine, I'd remark that there are differences between the generations that only I notice. For example, one difference between Millenials and Boomers is that Millenials say "motherfucker" a lot. It's almost like they use "motherfucker" as a pronoun -- the antecedent being "all people." Boomers not so much. We broke the ice by saying "fuck," a word many of our parents hated. Well, I hate that other word myself, and I wish my Millenial son wouldn't say it, but if I say something to him you know what I'll get back, don't you? Yeah, I'm not saying that either.

If we were sharing a bottle of wine and sitting in a rocker on my porch, we might hear the wind chimes from one of my neighbors' porches across the street. I would grit my teeth and you would laugh because my hatred of wind chimes is legendary. I should add that to my list of things that scare me. 11. A new neighbor will move in and hang a bunch of fucking wind chimes on her porch. Or will sit outside and watch football games with the volume turned really loud. Because I hate the sound of a football game on TV almost as much as I hate wind chimes. Well, maybe 45% as much. I spent too many years listening to football games all weekend long every fall and winter. It's the sound of family time slipping through the hour glass, never to return again.

The other day I was at my computer working in my office and I kept hearing this man's voice droning on and on. It was loud enough to break my concentration, but not quite loud enough that I could make out the words. I couldn't see anybody out the window, and it didn't sound like anybody else was talking. I live in a double brick house so it's unusual for me to hear talking outside from the back of my house unless my neighbor is on his patio right under the window. Finally I couldn't stand it any longer and I went outside to let the dogs poop and seek the source.

My neighbor across the alley was sitting at a table on his patio, all the way across his back yard, listening to a football game with the volume so high I could understand every word from my back yard. I could just see him through a crack in his fence. What the actual fuck? It was 40 degrees out there!

Since then he's been out there for several hours every day listening to a damn football game with the volume turned way up. This morning it was 35 degrees out and that fucking football announcer was droning away.

I will admit to you I have misophonia. I've written about it before when my neighbor was running a bug zapper 24 hours a day. The football games make me want to drive my van through my neighbor's fence and crash into his TV. If we were drinking that bottle of wine, you'd offer to top me off and then you'd change the subject.

If we were sharing a bottle of wine, I would ask you if you've ever heard of injecting semen into yourself to get rid of back pain like this guy in Dublin did. Because honest to god, I've had back surgery and before I let a doctor cut into my back I did every fucking thing I could to cure it myself. Yet I never once considered injecting semen into my arm. It's not really one of those "why didn't I think of that?" solutions.

Apparently he'd been doing it every month for a year and a half! And then this .... ummmm .... bubble of collected semen under his skin got infected. That's not why he went to the ER though. He went to the ER because his back hurt. I can not define irony any better than that!

Apparently his back felt better after he got to the hospital, so he left before the doctors could drain his semen .... from his arm. Oh how I wish I were really saying this to you in person. Drain his semen from his arm!

Don't try this at home, Millenials. 


Oh, yes, I did, motherfuckers! OK that, kids!

Cheers!

Day 3: If we were sharing a bottle of wine ...

This is a thing I do when I have too many random thoughts going through my head that I want to write about. I pretend we're sitting on my porch sharing a bottle of whine wine, and I blog about what I would tell you as we rocked and drank and talked. Feel free to talk back in the comments. 

If we were sharing a bottle of wine, I'd tell you I'm worried about my standard poodle, Crow Cocker. Coraline* and I defeated Fear #2 from Day 1 today and took Crow and our other dog, Sassy, for a walk on this sunny, cool fall day. It was lovely, and Crow managed to hold his poop until we got to the soccer field/track at the school for the arts where I used to teach. It's fenced in so I took the dogs off their leashes and let them run. Crow ran down a hill toward the school, even though we were calling him to come back. Coraline ran after him and by the time she got to him he was limping on his front foot. She didn't see what happened, and I couldn't find a wound, but he couldn't put much weight on it.

We tried to walk home, but after a block it was apparent he shouldn't be walking on his sore foot. Several unacceptable options ran through my mind. The best one seemed to be tying him up at the back of an abandoned church, walking home as fast as we could, and coming back with the van to drive him home. Coraline tried to insist she should stay with him, but I told her she's too young to stay alone by an abandoned church, even with a 115-pound poodle who, even crippled would give his life to defend her.

We hurried as fast as we could, but it was hard to walk away as he watched us, knowing he didn't understand why we were leaving him. We were probably only gone 12 minutes, but by the time I pulled into the parking lot, a woman in a black SUV had parked there and was out of her car taking a photo of him. Great. I hoped she wasn't going to flip her shit about my abandoned dog. We got out of the van and Coraline ran to Crow while I went over to talk to the woman.

I explained what had happened. She lives next door and she was understanding. She hadn't wanted to approach him, so she was going to take a photo and post it to see if anybody knew who he belonged to. After we talked she told me if anything ever happened again to come to their door and they'd be glad to help. We got him in the van and brought him home.

Now he can barely walk on his poor leg, which looks like it might be swollen, so off to the vet he goes tomorrow. Yay. Another vet bill.**

If we were sharing a bottle of wine I would show you this video and say I have so much admiration for people like Cecily King. People who come up with a crazy idea and then they follow through and do it. It's a scary time in this country and it's going to get worse, I have no doubt of that. But we can't give up. That's not an option. So if encouraging messages spray painted on sheets hung on overpasses can help people get through the day, get help, do good deeds for others, then I'm glad people like King are out there doing things like hanging sheets on overpasses. It reminds me to ask myself what I can do to make someone's day better, even in some small way.




If we were sharing a bottle of wine you might ask, like another reader did, why I said "And Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself" at the end of my fear of running out of toilet paper on Day 1. First, it seemed like the fear of being too poor to buy toilet paper was the appropriate place to put it. And second, if you're not on Facebook a lot, you might not know that it's a ... what would you call it? A verbal meme? Rather than explain it, I'm just going to post some examples below and then call it a night. The clock says it's not quite midnight, but my body thinks it's close to 1:00, the bottle of wine has been consumed, and tomorrow is a work day. Gotta pay that vet bill, you know.

The next two are plays on common meme tropes (I think I made up another phrase, Pat). 

And finally, this video, which, now that you know the joke, is the funniest thing you'll see all week. It's worth it just to hear someone scream-laugh off camera.






*Coraline is my 8-year-old granddaughter who lives with me.
** If we were really drinking wine together you'd know that my daughter left four cats and a dog at my house mid August. Three cats have been rehomed, but they needed shots and flea meds; same with the dog. We still have one cat and the dog and they will stay with us. Anyway, the vet bills were unexpected and high for 6 animals. I don't know how people who have multitudes of animals do it.

Day 13: If we were sharing a bottle of wine

I haven't done one of these in a while. The original idea was for bloggers to write a blog post about what we -- you and I -- might talk about over a cup of coffee, but I write at night, and I don't drink caffeine. Also I do what I want. I can think of a few things I might talk about. Maybe you could write what you'd talk about in the comments.

I'm sitting on my couch in the middle of my living room as I write this. I pulled it out earlier and cleaned behind and underneath it. Yuck. Where does all that dust come from? I understand the socks, colored pencils, markers, and almonds, but the dust? It's disgusting.

After I finished vacuuming and mopping back there, I couldn't bear to put the couch back, because it looks so good. I will before I go to bed. I don't know what possessed me to do that at 11:00 at night, but I am glad it's done.

When I was a young Air Force officer's wife, I struggled with a dirty little secret called depression and anxiety. At the time I was awfully hard on myself about it, but looking back I can understand why that young woman struggled. It's not an easy life, being a military wife, and I was very young. I'm not going to talk about that though. Cleaning behind the couch reminded me of one of the things I did that kept me sane during my husband's weeks- or months-long  TDY's (temporary duty).

I'd give myself one job every day that was not a daily chore. Like cleaning behind the couch or sorting out the sock drawers, going to the commissary or alphabetizing the pantry. OK, I never alphabetized the pantry. But I might clean and organize it. Having that one job to do every day got me through some lonely days when college classes didn't take enough time and kids were in the future. It's a shame I wasn't better at building a life back then.

These days, I could make a list with 15 of those kind of chores on it every day here in my big old Victorian and never run out of days. How I wish I could split the work up more evenly over my life. Maybe that's why I rarely get depressed or anxious these days.

If we were sharing a bottle of wine, I'd ask you what you've done to keep yourself sane and above water. If you don't have any tricks, I have a list of chores you could help me whittle down.
******
If we were sharing a bottle of wine, I'd tell you I miss some of the courtesies people used to offer each other. Coraline and I were driving home yesterday and we came to a traffic light that was green, but the cars who had the green light weren't going through. And the cars that had the red light were driving on through it. It was a funeral procession, of course, but since they didn't have a police escort, it took me a second to notice the little flags on some of the cars and figure out what was going on.

It was a long procession. We sat through 3 or 4 green lights before the last car passed by. A couple of people honked and tried to get the line of cars to go through the green light, but most either knew what was happening or didn't want to go against the majority.

When I was a kid growing up in a small town, people would pull over and stop their cars as a funeral passed by, but I don't see that very often these days. I'm not sure it's a thing any more. Letting the procession go through a light, yes. Stopping along the other side of the road, not so  much.

I miss it. And I think it's not a bad blessing: May your funeral procession be long enough to cause the  drivers in the cars going the other way to honk their frustration.
*******
If we were sharing a bottle of wine, I'd say my granddaughter Coraline and I are going to Iowa for my mom's 80th birthday soon. I wrote already that we're flying. It's her first time, and it's been so long since I've flown it might as well be mine too. I always drive, but my little brother talked me into flying so I wouldn't have to spend 24+ hours driving through Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. The I states.

It's been 3 1/2 years since I've been home. I always worry about the same things. I just know everybody is going to notice how much fatter I am than last time I was there. And I got a shitty haircut last Thursday that I need to try to get fixed at another salon before I go. It's hard to take the risk again with another new place, first because I could just get more shitty haircutting. And second because I hardly have any hair left to cut. Bitch really chopped a lot off. Also, haircuts are fucking expensive. At least on my budget. So I need to lose 40 pounds and get a decent haircut out of what's left of my hair before I go.

I also need to move my couch back against the wall, and I can predict with reliability which is most likely to happen.
******
 It's not a joke, those 40 pounds. My 3-year-old standard poodle Crow Cocker is too fat, according to his vet. And I'm too fat. Hmmmm. Seems like we could work on that together, but one of us is too lazy and too busy, both at the same fucking time. Pour me some more wine, will ya?
*******
If we were sharing a bottle of wine, I'd ask if you've noticed things are so fucking serious these days. Remember when we could go days and not think about politics? I do. I tell myself almost daily I'm going to pull the fucking Facebook IV out of my arm and get my life back. But what I really want to do is take a break from politics. I want to keep the personal stuff that connects me to my friends and get rid of every political article on my feed. No offense to anybody who shares political articles. I do it too sometimes, although I've backed way off on that. It's preaching to the choir.

I've never had one of those vacations where you just lie around on beaches and stroll through quaint cities and other people take care of you. I need one of those.

I also need to move my couch back against the wall, and I can predict with reliability which is most likely to happen.
*******
Neither is a fuck buddy going to happen, although somebody commented the other day that I needed to write about that. Ugh. I will, but not tonight. I tried it once, mostly because my daughter Elvira insisted I needed to, and it wasn't as easy as you'd think.

By the time somebody makes a decent fuck buddy robot, I'll be too old to give a fuck. I can almost see the appeal though. Almost. OK, not really.
*******
I'm going to bed now. The wine is gone, and I'm craving potato chips. Sorry this has been kind of a boring ramble. I'm boring these days. I need somebody to entertain me .... and yes, I DO mean like that. Next thing you know I'll be trolling Craigslist again.

NaBloPoMo #27: Not tonight, honey, I've got an aneurysm

I experimented last week with a thing other bloggers do called "If you and I were having a glass of wine...." One reader said he didn't like it, because it seemed too clunky or contrived. But I decided I do like it, because it makes me feel like I'm actually writing to someone and not sending my words out into the black void of space. So I'm going to use it sometimes. Like tonight.

If you and I were having a glass splitting a bottle of wine, I would tell you that I was going to go out tonight, but I had to stay home instead. I rarely get headaches, but tonight my head felt like it had an ax stuck in it. And as the night progressed, because I so rarely get headaches, I became convinced that I was just seconds away from dying of a brain aneurysm. And don't try to tell me the thought wouldn't have crossed your mind, because ..... well, we're all a little bit crazy. Right? Right?

I put 911 on speed dial just in case the aneurysm burst slowly.

I stayed home, and I took a long hot lavender- scented bubble bath, because what better place to die than in a big old claw-foot bathtub? I mean, yes, it would be embarrassing to be found naked in a tub of cold water tomorrow, but I'd be dead! I would not give one fuck about how fat my corpse looked or whether my house was clean enough or even whether my bed was made. (It was. Of course.)

As you've probably guessed, I didn't die in the tub. But I did get hungry, so after my bath I poured a glass of wine and opened the bag of lime tortilla chips, because if I was going to die, I could at least die with something delicious in my mouth. As I pulled the top of the bag apart with a pop, I saw something hit the countertop. I leaned over and looked. A drop of blood? Could that really be a drop of blood?

I looked up at the ceiling, because that seemed to be the most logical place it could have come from. Nope. The ceiling was pristine white. And then I remembered I might be dying of an aneurysm, so I felt under my nostrils. Nope. No blood there. Hmmm. If this were a movie, I would probably already be dead, and not of an aneurysm.

I couldn't think of any place else a drop of blood could have some from, so after I stared at it for a while, I decided to just leave the room. Always a good way to deal with a mysterious drop of blood. I grabbed a white paper napkin, picked up my bowl of chips, started to pick up my glass of wine and noticed more blood on the napkin. I looked left to right. Still all alone in the kitchen.

Finally I looked down at my hands and noticed more blood right where you'd expect to see blood. On the back of the index finger I'd cut open the day before while I was cutting up sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner. The liquid bandage I'd brushed on earlier in the day had peeled off in the bath water, and it was bleeding. Not the ceiling. Not the aneurysm. Not even a ghost. A cut on my finger.

Didn't I feel foolish?

If we were sharing a bottle of wine, I'd tell you I can't drink another glass tonight, because I'm going to bed now. But I would be glad to finish this bottle and even open a second fresh one tomorrow night, because I do have several things I wanted to tell you, but later, when I don't have an ax in my head. (Which is how this would end if it were a movie.)