New Year - BFD

It is time to think about the year that is coming to an end and make resolutions for the year ahead. Big Fucking Deal! I can't change what has happened this year and really aside from that one second it took to go from on the ladder to on the floor with a dislocated shoulder why would I. The past couple of days I have been using the scanner Carol got me for Christmas to digitalize our photographs. I look at them and wonder why they have such power. Think about it. At their longest duration most represent how the world was for about 1/60th of a second. What powerful little snippets of time they can be. Who can forget JFK laying across Jackie's lap mortally wounded? The fingers pointing to the area where the shot came from that killed MLK. The day we got married. The first pictures of our child or now grandchild. Powerful images that try to pull us back into a world that only exists in our minds now. When somehow no matter how things are now we long for some magical moment captured back then on film. So I look at those pictures and wonder about what was and what could have been. Would I change things if I could? If you think you would then I suggest you read Stephen King's new book: 11/22/63.
So don't live in the past. Don't worry much about the future, it will happen and you won't be there for all of it. If you want to make a resolution make one for now. A resolution for today. Make something different. Make a difference. Change someone's life. If you want to see how little it takes go to Rantsfrommommyland.com and read about hookers. If you don't get a tear in your eye then you need to resolve to get in touch with your heart.

Visitors

It is a big day here. There is a fire going in the fireplace. Candy, the wonder dog, is laying on the floor enjoying the heat from the fire. The house is quiet. Very soon that will all change and chaos will descend upon us. John, Mandie, Vannessa, Audrey, johnnie and their dog Penny will be here later today. There will be running thru the house accompanied by singing and screaming and sometimes crying. We will have to sleep with lights on. Then tomorrow night Jeremy will arrive with his dogs, Max, Armani, and MiMi. Our cat will be looking for some secluded spot to hide and Candy will retreat to her room and her bed. Saturday my Mom, Aunt Dolly and brother David will come over to celebrate Christmas. More noise, people and chaos. By sometime on Sunday the house will be back to normal. Carol will look at me and say: " Did you hear that?" I will say no and isn't it nice to have our lives and house back. At the same time a little voice in my head will say how great it was to see our children and granddaughters. I cannot picture our lives without them. Who else, other than two year old Johnnie, is going to come up behind me and say. "Papa, move your fat ass." I did move as ordered and as I was laughing I realized you can't discipline a kid for a gem like that. So bring on the chaos and noise there will be plenty of time for quiet and peace later.

10 most fascinating

I watched the annual Barbara Walters special the other night about the 10 most fascinating people of 2011. I hate to admit I watched it especially when it included the Kardashian sluts. They are in no way fascinating. The show did make me wonder, if I could invite 10 people to a dinner party who would they be and why.

1. Carol- I would always want her there, it isn't a party without her. After 37 years I still want more time with her.

2. Mike Blythe- he would think of questions to ask other guests that would never occur to me.

3. Nate Hawk- he makes me laugh and drives me crazy.

4. Steve Jobs- I just couldn't function without my IPad and I want to know what he saw 15 years from now.

5. Danny Roberson- people look at Danny and assume he is a big goof. He is without question the smartest and strangest friend I have.

6. George Carlin- I love scarastic bastards and he was one of the best.

7. Abraham Lincoln- the only president living or dead that I admire. The Gettysburg Address is the best speech ever written. Short, to the point and done.

8. Jenna Jameson- I just want to see who is a horn dog and hits on her other than Nate. I just want to watch him as his brain explodes.

9. Captain Kangaroo- he was a big part of my childhood and he might have fun with Jenna. He can see what she will pull out of his pockets.

10. Forest Gump- it's my list and I never said they had to be real people. I just like the way Forest could make things simple so even I could understand them.

There would have to be lots of alcoholic beverages consumed because who wouldn't want to see Captain Kangaroo and Honest Abe blitzed?

If you had the chance who would make your list?

Physical Therapy

I, personally, will be delighted to see 2011 come to an end in a few days. I have seen more doctors and medical personnel in the last year than I have in the prior ten. It started in April with a visit to the optometrist. She determined that my cataracts were getting bad enough to call for a trip to the opthamologist. After a brief visit with Dr. Rigsby it was decided that I needed cataract surgery on both eyes. So first surgery on May 9th and the second on May 25th. Both required additional followup visits so the good doctor could check his work. June 17th I get my release from him and June 19th we are on the Harley for a much needed motorcycle ride. A great way to spend Father's day. June 20th I exercise poor judgement and fall off a ladder and dislocate my left shoulder. Emergency room doctor can't get it back so orthopedic surgeon has to be called in. Hospital bill ( not including doctor ) $14,000+ for part of one day. Doctor visits, physical therapy and MRI result in rotator cuff surgery on Augaust 30th. Hospital bill for outpatient surgery $42,000+ and I still have not stayed overnight. Now more doctor visits and more physical therapy and shoulder is still no where near full function. Today it was back to the opthmoLogist for a 6 month check on the cataract surgery. I cannot say enough nice things about Dr. Rigsby. I am able to see 20/20 and his work was amazing.

Physical therapy for those who have not been lucky enough to participate yet is simply legal medical torture. My therapist is Megan and she is affectionately referred to by her coworkers as "Megan the Mangler". She is allowed to fold, bend, twist and abuse me two or three times a week. It hurts like hell. I don't know about torture down at Guantanmo Bay but what Megan does to me would make me tell any secrets I knew and make stuff up if the truth wasn't enough for her. So if the military wants to eliminate the stigma of the United States government using and advocating the use of torture I have a suggestion. The government is always renaming things to make them sound better, we no longer have poor people they are economically disadvantaged. It is no longer torture, it is physical therapy. We are trying to restore the physical vitality of these detainees by giving them physical therapy. By the way they have a dandy device that electrically stimulates your muscles that can be quite effective in making you say things. Not as glamorous as hooking you testicles to a car battery but certainly as effective and it is a "medical procedure". So maybe they aren't even detainees any more, now they are long term guests at a Carribean health spa. It is all about how information is presented isn't it? If I went to therapy and Megan was wearing a leather dominatrix outfit and holding a cat of nine tails I am sure there were be a line of men wanting "therapy". Somehow I doubt if the health care law passed last year would cover that therapy.

Christmas

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. It isn't my favorite time of year. It was easier to tolerate in the past. You know when the Christmas season began after Thanksgiving. This year I started seeing Christmas displays up before Halloween. I mean really, can't we give Satan his holiday before we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior? Oh, I forgot, Chritmas isn't about Jesus any more. It is now about selling us shit we don't want so we can give it to people we don't like and somehow it makes us feel better about ourselves. It has become a shallow and meaningless holiday. We encourage our school children to celebrate the "winter holiday". We wouldn't want to offend any other religion so we basically celebrate the arrival of Santa Claus. It is the one time we openly and intentionally lie to our children. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. I never did that. We were poor when our children were little. I worked for the county and my wife worked at the hospital. I told our kids there was no Santa and that the gifts they received were bought with the money their parents worked to earn. Maybe it was a bit over the top but I regularly told them when the issue of Santa came up that when that fat bastard Santa started paying for their gifts he could have some credit on the gift tags. He never showed up with money and sinceCarol and I had worked and paid for the gifts them came from us. Fuck Santa I am the only fat bastard who bought their gifts. I will also throw in that if you rearrange the letters in Santa it spells Satan. Coincidence? I think not. I am not religious any more but if Christmas is about the birth of Christ it might be a good idea to get back to that place.
In closing, MERRY CHRISTMAS! Fuck you Santa you fat worthless bastard! Try working more than one day a year. Running an elf sweatshop is wrong! Stop breaking into houses at night and stealing milk and cookies!

Dogs

We share our house with a mixed breed dog we got from the animal shelter about 14 years ago. Her name is Candy. It fits her as she is the sweetest girl in the world. She does confuse people when they first meet her. She will stand on the front porch, hair on her back standing on end barking like Cujo and wagging her tail letting you know she is happy to see you. She is the queen of mixed messages. Beau, who we think of as our third son is her boyfriend. He shows up to deer hunt and Candy wags her tail and sings until he comes up and gives her some attention. She spends most of her time now in our bedroom on her bed. Unless, of course, she hears the refrigerator door open or the crinkling of a potato chip bag. Then she comes in to she what will come her way. Carol and I will be eating and she its in front of me waiting for a bite or two. She knows an easy mark when she sees one. When I finish eating she goes over and sits in front of Carol hoping for another shot of "people food". Candy has a pretty extensive vocabulary and understands things like "go to bed" or "do you need to go outside". She was house broken quickly and I could count on one hand the number of times she has had an accident in the house. She looks so ashamed when it happens. It is tougher for her to do now but she loves to ride in my truck. Old age is making it tougher to get input she still manages. Another sign of her intelligence is that she watches me get dressed and knows based on what I am wearing if she is getting a truck ride.

The most important thing she has taught us is that we don't have a dog, Candy has people and we were lucky enough to get to be hers. We hope for a lot longer.

We live out in the middle of nowhere. Our driveway is over a mile from the nearest intersection on a road that dead ends another half mile past us. There are two houses down there but both are empty. Most days the traffic past our house is our neighbor on the corner giving his dog and his granddaughter a truck ride and the nice ladies who deliver our mail and newspaper. No ones comes out here trying to sell stuff. We are so isolated from civilization that the Jehovah Witnesses and the Morman missionaries don't stop by. I miss those guys. When we lived in town they used to stop by once in a while. I always enjoyed the shocked look on their faces when I said: "Come on in fellas and have a seat. Let's talk for a spell". I imagine the more naive ones thought they had hooked a fish. The more experienced ones knew they had just discovered how a fly feels when it gets entangled in a spider web. Being a gentleman I always let them start first and give their rote presentation. It was a bitter disappointment when I found that a few had nothing more. When they finished their first salvo I got out my Bible and Strong's Concordance. Yes Watson, the game was afoot. I understand your point Mr. Jehovah Witness but what about this scripture? Seems to me it contradicts your position. How about this passage? Have you considered this? At that point the meek are looking for the door, the stupid are trying to argue with me, and the intelligent are hoping someone else stops by so they can leave. It was fun with the Mormans until one of them got frustrated and told me I was a DEVIL. After they left I got no more Mormans stopping at our house. I could sit on the front porch and watch them working their way down the block. When they got to our house they would look at their papers, look at our address and move on to the next house. It was sad, I had been shunned.

Yesterday was a very special day. I was doing my usual nothing. Being retired, having an injured shoulder and winter can lead to some significant down time. Then there was a knock at the door. It wasn't those pesky religious folks or a salesman. It was the best surprise I had gotten in months. It was my dear friend from Florida, Mike Blythe and the most loyal Chicago Cub fan in the world Pat Johnson. I had the privilege of being able to help Mike work on his rental property in Henderson over the summer. Mike and I started working together at the Mary Davis Home in 1977 and stay there working for the next 11 years. Mike helped make it the best work experience of my life. We had a similar approach to detention and programming and did our best to be the voices of sanity in what is often an insane system. Mike thinks I am the nicest guy in the world and I know he is the guy who saved my sanity. When you work in locked facilities it is not the inmates who drive you nuts it is the people you work with every day. He made sure I was never the only one arguing for a fair and balanced approach to incarceration. Pat was the best clerical person I ever worked with. Her only flaw is being a Cub fan. I ascribed to the disease model. It is not Pat's fault. She was bitten by a bug or something and it infected her with the hope that someday the Cubs will win the World Series. I have confidence I will not live that long. Mike and Pat thank you so much for stopping by. I hope to see you both again soon.

Things you don't want to hear

All too often you hear people say: " When I was younger I wish I knew what I know now". I take the opposite position. I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then. You watch TV talk shows now and couples are being interviewed about their sex lives by folks like Dr. Phil. They admit to having teenage children and complain the thrill is gone, there is no fire of passion, or he/she doesn't want to perform oral sex any more. Someday maybe their kids will end up watching the show. How much therapy will it take to get that picture out of their heads? I mean, I realize my parents had to have had sex, after all I am here. Does that mean I ever want to hear about it? That I want to know any of the specifics? That it should be discussed with a "therapist" on TV? Hell no! What brought this rant on? We took my mother in law to WalMart today and she is worried about her health especially how her liver is functioning. She determined that a good way to decide how your liver is working is to examine your poop. Needless to say I have no interest in my mother in laws turd prospecting. It was information I did not want or need. She does have some trouble determining what is an appropriate topic of conversation when we are out in public. We went out for a meal with her, John, Mandie, their three children ( Vannessa, Audrey and Johnnie) to a local BBQ spot. The conversation turned, by her, to what was currently big news on CNN. It is apparently the only station that works on her TV. Unfortunately the big news was the sex abuse scandal at Penn State. Please note where I capitalize the words this is where she spoke the loudest. "I can't believe that coach was having ANAL SEX with those boys and nobody did anything about it. Why would a grown man, he's old you know, want to have AAANNAALL SSEEXX with boys?" Our granddaughters sitting with us at the time are 8, 5 and 2 years of age. I will leave the explanations to the parents if questions come up later. Sometimes you want to forcefully yet respectfully tell someone to shut the fuck up.
So while the United States government has repealed don't ask don't tell, it is alive and well in my head. There are things I don't want to hear and are not appropriate topics for public outings.

Pujols

I admit I was hopeful that Alberto Pujols would be a Cardinal for the remainder of his career. Am I disappointed? Sure! Do I understand? Of course! If someone offered me more money when I was working I would have left for greener pastures. There are St. Louis fans who are making remarks about Mr. Pujols being disloyal. Some spelling his name Pujol$. Grow up folks, the name of the game is money.

If you are going to be realistic the Cardinals were privileged to have him play for them during the best years of his career. Yes folks, his best years are behind him. He has at best 5 years of good production ahead of him and a rumored 250 million dollar contract that makes him an Angel for the next 10 years. He will be a weight around the neck of the Angels organization for the last 5 years of this contract. The Cardinals made a strong effort to keep him but the right decision in the end was to let him go. The Cardinals have one of the best organizations in baseball and more world series championships than any team except the New York Yankees. The Cardinals will survive without Alberto Pujols.

On a final note when Alberto Pujols is inducted into the baseball hall of fame, and he will be, I would be proud to see him wearing Cardinal red.

WTF is DILLIGAF

There are plenty of things in life that I don't care about and this blog may let me rant about a few of them. For those who are not familiar with GILLIGAF it is the following:
Do
I
Look
Like
I
Give
A
Fuck

I have plenty of tattoos and that is on my right outer forearm in bold letters. Is it true? I will let you decide if you choose to follow along.

I was showering this morning (cleanliness being next to godliness and all) and thinking about celebrity. Really, who gives a shit about whether William and Kate are going to have a baby. We all assume they are doing it royally and sooner or later a child will pop out of her princess mommy parts. So why waste news time speculating. Isn't there more important things going on in the world? I mean really, Albert Pojols appears close to signing with the Florida Marlins yet no one mentions it on Good Morning America. The WORLD CHAMPION St. Louis Cardinals are in danger of losing their all star first baseman and no headline news this morning. Where is network TV's priorities? For several weeks I have had to endure daily news stories about the marriage and impending divorce of Chloe, Kimmie, or Kunty Kardashian like I give a flying fuck about any of that. I mean after all didn't she marry a (gasp) basketball player? Let me know when she is dating someone who plays a real sport. You know the ones where you wear a helmet because a guy is throwing a baseball at 90+ mph and you are trying to hit it with a stick. Or where a 250 lbs or bigger guy is trying to rip your head off because you are running with a ball he wants. JTFC next thing you will want to call golf a sport. Come on people we have all done that drunk and professionals get paid big money to play it SOBER.

I have only met one celebrity that impressed me enough to mention his name. We were on a cruise last winter and while on shore on one of the islands, St. Kitts I think we met Mike Holmes. If you aren't familiar with Mike he is the guy who fixes houses that other contractors have fucked up. His show is Holmes on Homes. He gets mentioned because he was the same genuine guy in person that you see on TV. Spoke with him for a couple of minutes and told him how much we enjoyed his show. He could not have been more cordial. Just an all around good person in my book.

So, celebrity, really not impressed by it even when you wear a helmet and hit fastballs with a stick. Just want to see the Cardinals contend for another few seasons and Albert will help. If he goes somewhere else to play ball I will still be a Cardinal fan but won't care what Pujols is doing unless his new team is playing the Cardinals.