I’m here today to announce the passing of a good friend, a buddy, a pal. Yes, my old buddy, BV has finally passed on after 18 happy years of being ornery, grumpy, demanding, king of all he surveyed and a general nuisance while I was trying to sleep (tap-tap–you awake?– tap-tap). I will miss him much.
The boss cat stares down the young'n
King of all he lays on
Hello? Tennessee State government? Ah, good, wasn’t quite sure I had the right number or not.
So, about that legislation you recently passed? The one about making it an offense and sending people to jail if they electronically communicate in any way, shape or form in a way that might offend anyone at anytime and for any reason in any way, shape or form no matter what? Yeah, that one. You can’t do that. No, really…you can’t do that. It’s against the Constitution. No, I’m not kidding, it’s called restriction of free speech. You know, that thing about “freedom of speech” being the right of every American? Yeah it makes that bit of legislation illegal according to federal law. I know you passed it but it doesn’t mean it’s legal. If it was just about something simple like robbing a midi-mart or punching your neighbor in the face ‘cuz he’s a democrat it’d be one thing, but this is like a statewide, restricting what people can or cannot say thing, you know? Kind of like the they did things in the old USSR, remember? You really need to look into that.
Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, the Internet? Yup, that thing you look at in your browser on your home computer? Right, that Google thing, that’s it. It doesn’t actually belong to Tennessee. Nope, sorry but it doesn’t. In fact it isn’t owned by anyone or anything at all, it’s like an anarchy you know? A-N-A-R-C-H-Y. As in no ruling body, no central core, belongs to the people and the people only, that kind of thing? And it’s global you know? Like world-wide? So you can’t just arbitrarily pass laws about it or what can be posted on it or using it to send email or anything like that. I mean, if someone who lives in Maine sends you one of those well known images of the evolution of man? You know, the one with the ape changing into a modern day kind of guy? Yeah, that one. You really can’t prosecute them if it offends you. Nope, ‘fraid not.
So yeah, unless you want a huge backlash coming down on you along with all sorts of class action lawsuits and the Feds poking about and asking you all sorts of embarrassing questions then you really need to consider back pedaling that recent legislation.
Okay then, nice talking with ya’. Have a happy Independence Day. What? No, that’s what the 4th of July is, the anniversary of the signing of Declaration of Independence? But…well, never mind then. Happy 4th of July to ya’. Bye.
I was woken up early this morning by a rather distraught wife holding an even more distraught cat. I could easily ascertain this with my yet sleep fogged brain by the expression on my lady’s face and especially by the way our old cat’s head was whirling around from one side to another. Apparently BV (the name of our oldest cat) had suddenly ended up taking a ride on some virtual carousel but had found he was the only one not moving. He wasn’t taking this too well. He was also clinging to my wife’s body for all he was worth.
To be honest about the whole thing, BV, who is heading into his 18th year if not there already, is on his way out. He knows it and we know it so we’ve all been very watchful of the situation. However, we hardly expected him to have an “all of a sudden” massive dizzy spell and start running around smashing into things and falling down a lot when he was fine the moment before. We’ve another much younger cat who’s spent half his life being massively dizzy due to something that happened to him when he was a stray on the street but at least he has enough sense to lay down when this sort of thing happens. Unfortunately, BV is one of those cats who needs his world “just so” and at that moment–it wasn’t.
So I rose from the bed and gently removed the cat, who was hanging on by his claws for dear life, from my poor honey’s body and held him down on the bed rubbing him in all the usual places that tends to relieve a funky inner ear just in case that was the problem (being an ex-submariner has come in handy in the oddest situations). Apparently it worked because suddenly the old cat’s head stopped whirling about and he looked up at me as if to say–”What!?”. He’s been fine since then.
I’m hoping his world stays on an even keel from now on especially for my wife’s sake. Not only because she doesn’t like those kind of surprises so early in the morning but I worry about the loss of blood. It’s not easy finding and plugging all those pinhole leaks you know.
I woke up this morning to the lovely sound of…well, I actually woke up this morning to the sound of dead silence–I’m deaf you know. But once I plugged the hearing aids into my head I finally heard the what I should have heard when I woke up had I not been deaf–the lovely sound of Saturday morning mowers.
Push mowers, riding mowers and lawn tractors all vying for first place in the classic Americana noise contest all with the symphony of whirling blades out of sync with each other (even on the same mower) sending throbbing sound waves bouncing off the walls of our little valley here. The end result was something akin to the sound of one of those alien flying saucers landing near the White House in an old 50′s sci-fi movie.
Of course, the question that remains is am I going to join in with the mower’s convention currently going on in my little community? The answer is a definite no. I mowed my lawn two days ago and it doesn’t need it yet. Besides, my ancient old ’68 Cub Cadet sounds more like a small farm tractor than a modern day lawn mower and I’m sure it wouldn’t blend in well. And as it’s a beautiful warm and sunny day, something that’s been rather rare so far this summer, I believe I’ll just take it easy for once. Do something relaxing, something that soothes the mind and spirit…
…like starting in on the 5 cords of firewood that’s stacked outside that needs to be moved into the woodshed. A perfectly fine thing to do on a 4th of July weekend, yes? Let others wear themselves out with all this mowing of grass while I sit on my deck, sipping iced tea planning exactly how I should stack that 5 cords of firewood–yessiree, should take all weekend if I work it right.
Sounds grand to me.
I had a lovely morning drive the other day through some of the most beautiful countryside that Vermont has offer. Which was a good thing because I was heading to the dentist (cue: dramatic musical flourish w/ woman screaming in background).
Now even though it’s not one of life’s most pleasant experiences, going to the dentist to have my teeth repaired is not something that particularly bothers me. The administering of the Novocaine is about the most painful part of the entire process when it comes right down to it and that only lasts a wee bit of time. The drilling, smoke, watered down shrapnel in the face, the constant feeling you need to swallow (despite the industrial grade Hoovering going on inside your mouth) and holding your jaw open forever are just necessary annoyances as far as I’m concerned.
Fixing cavities or broken teeth are really no big deal to me except maybe for the price of the work when all is said and done. Nope, the thing that turns off the enjoyment of a beautiful drive in the country is the cleaning!!
Here they have you in the chair and beside you is an array of the sharpest, pointiest classic torture devices ever invented by the Spanish Inquisition in miniature laying in a tray purposely placed well within range of your peripheral vision. And now these pastel clad experts in oral agony even have a pneumatic dental drill of the very own to add to the set–like they actually needed it.
They don’t even call it “cleaning” any longer. Now they call it…
As if they didn’t think the term, “cleaning” wasn’t doing a proper job of filling a prospective victim‘s patient’s heart with terror so they had to go and invent some name that did. Quad scaling for heavens sake.
That’s what I had to endure after I had 4 teeth fixed. It wasn’t a bad idea after all. I figured I’d still be numbed up enough with all that Novocaine the dentist had pumped into me that I wouldn’t feel a thing as the torturer dental hygienist wielded her tools of pain and agony. It actually worked quite well…until the Novocaine started wearing off. I mean really, it took all of 40 minutes to fix 4 teeth and here this quad scalist took over an hour and a quarter just to do the bottom half–and I take care of my teeth. I can’t help it if they’ve been around for over a half century.
I thought I was finally free and clear when she laid back in her chair, putting her last razor sharp pointy back on the tray, when she hauled out this formal looking pad of forms and ripping one off the top she grabbed another pointy with a cruel looking hook to it and jammed it into my poor aching jaws once again. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what she was after when I felt her jabbing the thing into my gum line surrounding the teeth she just cleaned. It was like some sort of dental waltz in three-three time.
poke, jab, poke…
…write (on the form)
jab, poke, jab…
write
jab, jab, poke…
…write
poke, poke, jab…
…write
After about 4 sets of this I took a chance while she was writing (a chance that she wouldn’t lose her rhythm and end up poking me in the nose) to ask her what exactly the hell was she doing and she answered promptly, “I’m checking the depth”. I asked her if I had actually had any, depth that is, and when she responded that I actually had some some measurable depth I then asked her if the rest of my gums she hadn’t poked holes yet in looked about the same shape as the holey ones did. She happily said they did, obviously looking forward to poking holes in them as well, so I got up from the chair, took off the bib, removed the safety glasses and stated that since she thought that all my gums looked about the same then I guess she didn’t have to poke any more holes in them.
So I walked out the door, paid my bill and went home. I have to go back on Tuesday so she can do the upper set but I’m drawing a line when it comes to poking holes and checking the depth.
140 characters
(Don’t ask)
It’s time for my biannual opportunity to annoy the heck out of my doctor so I’m headed down country today for an appointment at the VA. And since my VA medical facility lies near the type of civilization in where resides such entities as Walmart, Lowes, Best Buy and other such stores of the big box variety, I was just wondering…
Can I get you anything while I’m down there?
I’ve had a serious case of the stupids this week and what really scares me about the whole thing is the week ain’t over yet. I mean really, you’d think after 52+ years of some rather intense, highly varied experiences I’d at least learn to recognize that I have, in fact, a case of the stupids going on. No, let me rephrase that. At the least I’d have learned to not only recognize that I have, in fact, a case of the stupids going on but not to attempt to do anything more complicated than breathing and eating during this stupid period.
I consider myself a reasonably intelligent sort of guy backed up with some rather interesting past experiences. Experiences that I hope I would have learned some sort of good from–like common sense? It seems not. It certainly didn’t keep me from hauling out my beloved old 1968 Cub Cadet lawn tractor yesterday and attempting to mow my swamp lawn after it’s been subjected to several days of tropical style downpours. And it certainly didn’t keep me from moronically attempting to mow the narrow strip of grass between the flag poles and the 60 foot red cedar hedge and getting that half ton of lawn tractor stuck up to the axles in mud. Nor did it keep me from breaking my already busted back trying to lever the thing out with an old 4×4 post I had kicking around–which didn’t work by the way.
And no, I didn’t take a picture of it. I was afraid I’d drop the camera in the mud.
It’s out though thanks to a sudden attack of lucidity, my old ’95 Jeep Cherokee and a set of old tire chains that I used to drag my poor lawn tractor out of the mud. Unfortunately the attack of lucidity didn’t last.
Today, with the case of stupids still in full swing I attempted to write out checks, the bills having to be paid and all that. This included our water and sewer bill that I was going to deliver at “city” hall later this afternoon after I dropped the payments at the post office.
I’ll state now for the record that all the bills including the water and sewer did actually get paid as planned but not before 1 voided check, several corrections to the checkbook register, 1 torn up envelope on which I wrote my name on as the addressee instead of the actual party I was sending to, close to a dozen trips up and down the stairs (I’d go up for one thing I’d forgotten and end up leaving something I shouldn’t have been carrying up there that I’d have to go back up for immediately after I’d gone down again) and a whole lot of yelling at myself for being stupid!
And thank heavens I didn’t run into anything (or anyone for that matter) while driving downtown.
Once I finally arrived back home I firmly planted my rear end in my chair in front of my computer display and strenuously avoided logging into any of my accounts. Just plain not-logged-in browsing I figured was a fairly safe haven for me and any innocent bystanders that happened to be virtually standing in my general vicinity. So far I have managed not to blow the computer to smithereens–yet.
But it didn’t stop me from logging into my own site and writing up this here post though, did it?