Saturday, June 30, 2007

Name That Tune

It's the wee hours of the morning. I know because I've wee-d twice already. Thought I'd get up early and watch my computer screen emerge from the dark and play its little I'm awake jingle. I wonder if it could be programmed to play something else when it lights up. I'm kind of partial to, "Why don't we do it in the road" and Dave Barry's favorite, " There's not enough room in my Fruit Of the Looms to hold all my love for you."

We've all had the what song would you play if you only had one song to wake up to each morning conversation and although I've always stated my preference is Zippedy Doo Dah, I have recently - probably because of the great wisdom I've acquired with age...either that or something I learned from my mentor, Paris Hilton - been considering changing my selection to "And Thus Spake Zarathustra." That's the one from the movie "2001 A Space Odyssey." This tune would allow me to get up a little slower and besides that, Zarathustra is a really great name. In fact, if I had another kid I'd name him/her Zarathustra. Maybe my youngest daughter could accept a middle name of Thustra. That way she could be Dara Thustra, which is close. Other good reasons for selecting the song as a morning wake up call are the words "thus" and "spake". How often do you get to use those? I could initiate the what song conversation just to get them in. (I'm a little unsure of the conjugation though. Is it speak spoke spake?) (Conjugate is a good word too. Why don't we conjugate in the road?)

I don't think I've ever had the what song would you play when you go to bed conversation. ("Singing in the Rain" just popped into my head for showering...or maybe weeing.) Maybe I could play something backwards. "Zarathustra Spake Thus" makes sense to me. Of course if you are married you'd have to have harmonious and compatible tunes for no matter what you are doing. I can't imagine Little Richard screeching Good Golly Miss Molly" with John Lennon lamenting "Yesterday" as counterpoint. The marriage wouldn't last a week. The idea of background music for all our endeavors appeals to me, but then I pretty much have a tune going in my head at all times anyway. Right now "When Sunny gets blue, her eyes get gray and grouty" is nibbling at the edge of my consciousness. That and "Buckle Down Winsockie, Buckle Down." Does anyone remember that old favorite?

I'm going to go eat breakfast now so I'm dialing up "a cuppa cup a cuppa cup of...coffee." Later I'm going to take a walk to "I love to go a wandering along a mountain trail, and as I go I love to sing, my knapsack on my back" which makes little sense but the valderee valderaaah part is quite inspiring. After that, who knows? I'll let the music decide.

Thus Spake Zendoc.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Dallys

What ever happened to Winnebagos? Are they still around? I've always liked saying Winnebago.

And anomalies. I like saying anomaly too.

Yesterday we had a visit from our neighbor Dallys, pronounced Dallas. She brought us tomatoes. Sometimes she brings coffee. We give her loaves of Ramon's homemade bread. Dallys speaks about as much English as I speak Spanish so we are able to carry on a conversation. She hangs out for the length of a glass of wine and little by little we are getting to know her and she us. We had learned from her oldest son, Aurelio, who is also a frequent visitor, that Dallys had come to see me when I was in the hospital, but I had been sleeping so she didn't wake me. That's very sweet. Dallys has six children all living at home although Aurelio is often away at school in David where he is a third year criminology student. The youngest of her clan is Daisy who, I'm guessing, is about three. Daisy likes to say, "how are you how are you how are you?", the extent of her English vocabulary. No point in answering her though, she will just ask you again. One of the things that happens when you are trying to sustain a cross cultural, mixed language conversation is that odd topics crop up as a result of trying to find common ground and the words to express an idea, any idea. Any thing you can say in the other person's language is something to talk about. Dallys, for instance, told us yesterday that she weighs 150 lbs. No one had asked her, she just volunteered the information because, I think, it was something she knew how to say in English. This led to a revelation of all our weights except mine because when it was my turn I changed the subject. I also weigh 150 and I didn't want to make her feel bad. I chimed in, instead, with cuantos anos tiene usted? how old are you, something I knew how to say in Spanish. Dallys is 46. Ramon is 39, he says, and Woowoo Charly and yo are sesenta y seis or thereabouts. Dallys said we all have young spirits which is true, but we all have old necks.

Blimp is a fun word to say and it's only one syllable.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Gallbladders Get No Respect

The most common major surgery among American adults is the reclinectomy which is the process of removing fused recliners from American asses. The incidences of reclinectomies rise sharply during football season. The second most common major (major being defined as surgery that is happening to you) surgery is gallbladder removal. Who woulda guessed it?

Not me. I for one, never gave my gall bladder thought one until it died its painful death, waving farewell to my pancreas and other nearby mushy belly parts as it departed. Sitting on the corner of my desk as a reminder to take them from time to time are a dozen bottles containing pills reputed to keep my internal organs and other musical instruments in tune - calcium for bones, saw palmetto for prostate, E for skin, etc. - and it occurs to me now that even though I live with a woowoo and have had frequent contact with healers along with the established medical community no one, nada, zippo has ever said to me, "Doc you should be taking these for your gallbladder." Why does the gallbladder get no respect?

Personally, I think it's the name. Heart, lungs, liver, duodenum and the like are inoffensive words to say. Duodenum is even kind of fun. Gallbladder, on the other hand, is not. I mean bladder alone inspires pissy thoughts and gall, well, when someone says "he's got a lot of gawwllll", they are not being complimentary. When, additionally, you consider that most people don't understand the gallbladder's function - it has something to do with the digestion of bacon, arsenic and Frito Lay products - you can see why this is an under appreciated part of human anatomy.

Therefore...in an effort to correct this appalling neglect of our semi-vital bile producing and storing mechanism, I hereby declare June 15th as National Gallbladder Awareness Day. Why that day, you say? Because on June 15th of this year, man was I ever aware of mine!

Monday, June 25, 2007

Parts Iz Parts

"Rotted, fetid, necrotic, gangrenous, pustules of pus and other equally lovely words were the choices of my doctor to describe my post operative gall bladder. I wasn't awake at the time but I'm told it had to be shot with a silver bullet and a stake driven through its heart before it was safe to discard. Well no wonder I was able to spin my head around three sixty and toss up guacamole on command. Of course I wasn't exactly expecting a rosy description from the doc because gall does, after all, mean bile and bile doesn't conjure hearts and flowers to most people, but necrotic? Gangrenous? And this thing was inside of me? Now I know how Siguorney Weaver felt in Alien III. And, as if this weren't enough to give one pause, the doc adds that I had a "catastrophic infection." I don't know about you but that sounds bad to me.

But...not to worry. I'm better now. Well sure I can still set fire to things with my eyes and priests come by every day to throw holy water at me and mumble shit in Latin, but apart from that I'm fine. Who needs a gallbladder anyway and what other body parts can I get rid of before they go over to the dark side? The liver? Nooo, my liver is my friend and needed to share the glasses of red wine I am forced to drink for my health. Heart? I would miss all those warm and teary moments I have when the team I'm rooting for does something good. Oh yeah, and loving people too. Lungs? Breathing is good. I like breathing. What else is there? Intestines, upper and lower but apparently no middle. Too bad, I'd get rid of the middle for sure. And there is the brain, which I'm told we only use a small percentage of to begin with. I'd take that out in a second, but what do you fill the hole with? G.W. Bush might have the answer there, but with no brain at all he's only able to repeat rote memory phrases like "stay the course" and "I'm an excellent driver, an excellent driver" so he's unable to tell us. Oh well, I guess I'll just go with the parts I've got.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Pain?

In a book I read years ago, "Shibumi" by Trevanian, one of the central characters takes a fall from a cliff and is dying from the injuries. The book's hero rappels down to him, approaches and says, "pain?" The man responds, "no thanks, I have enough." Now THAT is a good line. I vowed to use it.

My first opportunity presented itself last week. I was adrift in a post surgical altered state wandering in and out of beautiful dreams when an efermera, a nurse, appeared at my bedside clad in what used to be traditional nurse apparel - and damn who let them get away from that? - to change out the sack that was dripping expensive and hopefully useful drugs into the back of my left hand. The last act in the process is to verify that the drip is functioning at maximum capacity, which is to say, just short of painful. This is done by going past the border and actually into painful and then backing off just a touch. Some of the nurses, or at least it seemed so to me, appeared to enjoy this part. "Take that you steenking rich gringo here to steal our country" was the barely visible message - I mean you had to look hard for it - hidden behind their otherwise soft and in most cases beautiful brown eyes. I was, of course, feverish. On this occasion, when my hand burst into flames and I was drawn back to real life by the pain and the sound of my own scratchy voiced - I had been intubated - stream of invective coalesced into the all encompassing word "yikes!", I was rewarded by my angel of mercy and sent from heaven straight man in the clever disguise of a nurse saying, "duele?"

Here was my chance. Thirty years I had waited. I would not blow it. I carefully summoned the Spanish words, sought meaningful eye contact and delivered the line that surely anyone, anywhere would find funny, "No gracias, tengo basta" I said. I knew it would take a second, there is a subtlety to the joke, and I relaxed, smiling inside, waiting for the laughter or at least the chuckle that would follow. I waited... and I waited.

She didn't get it. I mean, SHE DIDN'T GET IT! How could this be? I was momentarily nonplussed, which, for those of you unfamiliar with the word, means I was completely at a loss for plusses, but I recovered quickly. Hey, that's just the night shift,I thought. You know, the zombies that slip around in the hospital after dark with syringes and plastic shot glasses with one pill in them.(And isn't that disappointing?) They gotta be brain dead to do their job. I still have the pain, the joke and a whole new audience arriving in the morning. There's no way I won't get a laugh tomorrow.

I fell quickly back into Dreamland. Sunrise was only a few hours away.

Friday, June 22, 2007

The Magazine Rack Reveals...

If you've stood in a checkout line lately, you might have noticed these entries on the magazine rack.

Cosmopolitan: Ladies, has your guy got a lot of gall? New research out of Panama says he's a lighter, brighter guy without it.

The National Inquirer: Photos reveal J-Lo crushed by news of secret flame's gallbladder split. Marc says, "hey, he can have mine."

Weekly News and World Report: Alien life form disguised as gallbladder removed from man's stomach in small Latin American country. Doctors say it was necrotic but we at WNWR don't know what planet that is.

National Geographic: Tiny Bacterial tribesmen are shown here seeking refuge in a new zone as their traditional homeland on the Plains of Gallbladder falls victim to unknown causes. Global warming and the policies of George Bush are suspected in the death of the area. Additional research is being conducted by a team of scientists and a team of synchronized cheerleaders to determine the cause of the area's demise.

Good Housekeeping: Today's tip from Martha: Throw out that old gallbladder. You don't need it, it doesn't work all that well and it's just junking up your abdominal closet. Here's how....

Popular Mechanics: Both Black and Decker and Stanley have brought out new products aimed at helping the do-it-yourself gall bladder remover. Each of the odd looking devices can drill four abdominal holes simultaneously and both are fitted with the new Hoover turbo vacuum pack. Look for them soon on your hardware shelves.

Sports Illustrated: Boston's slick fielding, strong armed, slap hitter, Doke Waltone, was placed on the disabled list for the 47th consecutive year when an MRI revealed his gallbladder had gone yard. Sox field general Terry Franconahead was quoted as saying, "management felt it was the best thing to do, but personally I think he'd still hit better than Lugo even without his gb."

New York Times Book Review: THE STONES OF GALL BLADDER hit the shelves to moderate reviews last Friday, debuting at 19 on the Hardcovered Organ Best Seller list. Author Doughnald Whaltone hopes that this his latest contribution to literature and the trash bin outside the medical lab will enjoy the same success as his previous submission, the children's work, THE LUMPY THING ON THE NECK THAT WOULD NOT DIE SO WE KILLED IT.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Dream House

"Today we are going to Daveed to look at sinks and toilets and showers and stuff," said Woowoo Charly eyes all atwinkle. "Aren't you excited?"

Excited was not exactly the word that best described my feeling for the endeavor, but I did muster up and make the trip. We went to places named Elmec, ARC Mandarin, Cochez y CIA, (good to see the agency is going retail)and EM, Everything for the Home. We also had pizza at Tamburelli's, clearly the highlight of the day apart from finding that $4,899 shower stall unit that had everything from what looked like masturbatory devices to a small television, but alas, was $4,897 dollars more than we want to spend. How clean do we have to be anyway? Besides, we are not building our dream house here - those are for people with bottomless pockets - we are building a comfortable place to live with a nice view where either the buffalo or Gussers can roam and the skies are not cloudy all day.

In order to build a dream home, besides the money thing, I would actually have to have one, a dream that is. A dream about a perfect house. Readers of this blog know my night dreams run more to the surreal and my day dreams don't last long enough to get a handle on. There goes one now. Wait! Here's another and I've got it. My dream house would be a Fun House. It would have a half court basketball court, a movie theatre, a two lane bowling alley, an indoor putting and chipping green, an outdoor driving range, maybe even a couple of golf holes, an exercise room, a wet bar, a swimming pool with heated water, a steam room and ... okay, I'm still fifteen years old, so what? It would also have a nice library with a couple of dark oak desks and several comfortable leather arm chairs encircling a fireplace and nearby there would be scotch and cognac in crystal decanters available to drink from snifters while reading a book and puffing a good cigar whose smoke would rise into an overhead air purifier. I may be fifteen, but I'm a darn sophisticated fifteen. And there you have it. Add in anything I may have forgotten that's available in the Playboy Mansion, say, bedrooms, kitchen, underground grottoes, and toss in a few things from Disneyland like bumper cars and voila, my dream house complete.

We didn't find very many of these things in Daveed yesterday, but we did locate some darn nice bathroom faucets. I look at that as a good start.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Dog Stuff

Gustavo, Gus, Dog Breath, Boy-o, Poop a Loops, Mancers, Gussers, Loops, and Fur Face are all names Woowoo Charly and I call our dog. Cookie Dude, Walk Man, Key Master, Door Man, Bone Buyer, Washer Man and Play Station are all names he calls me. Charly is Soft Touch, Sweet Voice and Medicine Woman. At first RTGFKAR was simply New Guy In Pack, but now I think he's Additional Petting Person.

A good day for Gus is one in which he gets to join us when we go anywhere in the car. He places his back legs on the back seat and his front legs on the console between the front seats and in this way is able to see out the front windshield. We two legged pack members lower a back window about half way so Gus can snarl at passing dogs, a thing that makes him almost as happy as chasing chickens. If, on the same day, he gets a walk to our new house site, he displays evidence of what I suspect is dog bliss. There's a lot of wide eyed panting and nose to the ground running amok. He smells out so many spots to pee on that inside of five minutes he's air peeing which seems to be okay with him. Most of the time I can't even see him as he streaks through the underbrush so periodically I call him back to check in. That's when I call him Good Boy. It's the name that makes him happiest of all.

And that is all I have time for. Lizbeth, our builder, is coming over to discuss house stuff. Gus just can't wait. Jumping on guests is also one of his favorite things to do. Bad Dog is a name that also makes him happy.

He's an easy dog to please.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Zapadora

Okay, so yesterday's photo ended up where it was supposed to be. The result of hard work and insightful thought? Nah, blind luck. My favorite kind.

Today's photo, should it choose to appear, looks like a model of a house under construction. It's not. It's an actual house. The person in the foreground, however, is a model of RTGFKAR. We have stationed it there to keep the workers busy and also to keep crows off the property.

Yesterday, after touring the house site, we drove to Potrerillos, a neighboring wannabe town with pals L and B. There we found a warehouse in which we found, you guessed it, wares housed, under the business name of Zapadora. This, I thought,was a terrible thing to do to Dora and I wondered why they disliked her enough to suggest this to us. The wares there were furniture, lamps, doors, decorative bricabrac and, of course sundry because sundry is in great demand these days. Woowwoo Charly, RTGFKAR, and B wandered through the building oohing and ahing at this and that while L and Yers Truly feigned interest and wondered if we were missing any good sports on TV. In my own defense I would like to say that I'm sure everything there was very nice and possibly even buyable but how would I know for certain, I have no taste. Also, speaking for both L and I, we like sports. Another thing I learned was that all the items in Zapadora were from Egypt, India, some Middle Eastern countries and Mexico. Apparently the people there didn't want them.

On the way back we stopped at Art's Bambu where more furniture was on display. I actually liked some of the things there, but as I've noted, I have no taste so my opinion is uncalled for and should be left in the good hands of people who have pictures of stuff in glossy paged magazines. Either that or my wife, even though I find her opinion suspect since I've learned she thinks recliners are tacky.

Following that short stop - shortstop? okay,now we're talking - we drove home only to find there were no sports on the tube worth viewing unless you like mesomorphs throwing beer kegs and lifting cars. Ah well, maybe tomorrow...which is today.

I better go look.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Picture This

"A picture is worth a thousand words." Who said that? Bit of an exaggeration if you ask me. Forty or fifty words maybe, but a thousand? If you think a picture is that valuable ask a mute. See if he draws you a picture of his answer or just smacks you a good one upside the head.

The reason I bring this up is because I've added a picture to yesterday's blog. I wasn't trying to add a picture to yesterday's blog but there it is anyway. What I was trying to do was add a picture to this blog, but you know, gang agley strikes when you least expect it. Now I'm stuck with cranking out a thousand words. If the quote creator had said a reasonable "blah blah blah a hundred words", I'd be done by now. Oh well, might as well get to it.

One excellent afternoon this week was spent playing a game of Scrabble with RTGFKAR and Woowoo Charly while simultaneously watching the Red Sox and Rockies games. I won the Scrabble match with a clever usage of the word "spinets", the Sox got an almost no hitter from Curt Schilling and a 1 to 0 win over Oakland as the Rockies triumphed over Houston on a Tulowitzki walk off single in the bottom of the ninth. ("Bottom of the ninth" being a redundant phrase after saying "walk off", but a little redundancy is a good thing when you are in search of a thousand words.)

But enough about sports, let's talk politics. Who is Obama's team, why is he keeping it a secret, and can a true Liberal vote for Hilary knowing she's a Yankee fan? These are the questions that need to be answered so we can we go to the polls and cast an enlightened and educated vote. And while we are inquiring, wouldn't it be nice to know if soccer moms know anything about soccer and who are they aligned with politically, the polls fail us here, and what about deck shuffleboard moms and full contact karate moms. Don't they count? I remember when there used to be serious investigative reporting. Now it's all sound bites which leads me to ask the obvious, how, actually, does a sound bite?

I have an eyebrow hair growing near the right side of my right eye that must be close to two inches long. Is this normal? Should I cut it? Is there a category in Guiness for this? It's not really all that noticeable because it kind of curls up and is real light in color. I like to grab it though, and twirl it on my finger. I'm sure this is not normal, but I can't seem to stop doing it. Should I seek professional help or just ask a mute?

Alrighty then, there's an even thou. Tomorrow I'm going with the picture.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

...maybe too quiet.

It is so quiet here this morning my thoughts seem loud. Hope they don't bother anyone. I can here the clock on the wall ticking off the seconds until the next hour and then the hour after that and so on for all eternity or until the battery dies, whichever comes first. You gotta watch out for a ticked off second, it might have a mean streak. (And now you know why I like to keep my thoughts quiet.)

I read a long interview this morning with Christopher Hitchens the author of "God Is Not Great" and wondered why it took a whole book to make his point which is, essentially, God is not...period. He could have just noted that if there was a God would we have AIDS, George W and the Yankees? I mean, c'mon Chris, cut to the chase.
Actually, I found the interview quite interesting and will surely one day read the book. The inherant trouble with a book like this though, much like a books on politics, is that no one reads them but the people who already agree with the author's position. A thing, in this case, which I do. (Religion bad, Reason good.) Few, if any, minds get changed by the publication. Ah well, I suppose if you feel strongly enough, you have to try to move the mountains.

When I feel strongly, I pump irony.

And, on a related topic, we played golf yesterday at the, ha ha, country club where we now have to pay a couple of extra bucks for a kid called a bandelero to run up to the ha ha, green and put a big stick in the hole to serve as a flag. If you are wondering how this is related, I should point out that we do this religiously. If, however, there had been a God present yesterday, I'm sure I would have been hell bound because my game was an abomination. (Now there's a word that some Republican pundit will surely turn into "Obamaination." Remember, you heard it here first.)

That's all I have for today because in trying to quiet my thoughts I've chased them away completely. And now there's that damn clock ticking again.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Monday A Fun Day

I feel an attack of serious writing coming on and that worries me. In order to write seriously one has to know serious things and truthfully I can't think of a one. Wait, I take that back. Humor is a serious thing. I take humor seriously. What, after all, has seen us through dire times more often than a good laugh. Well sure Johnny Walker comes to mind, but I'm talking besides that. And you don't even have to laugh aloud to get the full benefits of a humorous moment. As long as you are chuckling inside when G.W. Bush says anything at all, your day will have been better spent.

Yesterday was a funny day. It was a "Monday" which comes from the word "mundane" which I believe is the opposite of "greatdane" and the reason why people wishing a balance of the two are always insisting that we "have a nice dane." RTGFKAR and I ran errands about town while Woowwoo Charly read an entire publication about a Vanity Fair that should probably have been called Vanity Fare because vanity is expensive. One of our stops was at Global Bank which isn't really global, but the bank is expanding to a location across the street and although that isn't exactly like having a new branch in Hong Kong or Tokyo, they are moving up. Look out Wells Fargo. We were there to open a new account for RTGFKAR. In order to do this money is required, so RTGFKAR went over to the bank's ATM and took some out. He then gave the money back to the bank which, I suppose, puts it back in the ATM. It was then I realized what economists mean when they talk about money circulation. After that, or maybe before that, these busy days are so confusing, we went to Romero's Super Mercado to buy milk and wine, one of which is a renowned heath food so we got lots of it. After that we went home and played a game of Scrabble with Woowoo Charly who came up with lots of funny words like "unto" but ultimately lost to RTGFKAR because he takes Scrabble seriously. I know this because he doesn't read magazines and watch sports while he plays which, if you ask me, isn't fair. Later we watched the rain and drank a few glasses of health food.

All in all it was a pretty funny day.

Monday, June 04, 2007

You Are A Winner !

Congratulations you are the first reader of the 200th Monkeymind blog and winner of a brand new absolutely nothing! Which is a shame. Anyone who has read them all deserves something for their forbearance, tolerance , patience, and high pain threshold. Go ahead, give yourself a treat. Eat an ice cream cone or buy some snow tires. It's your choice and you have my blessing.

I've won a few things in my life. I've twice won turkeys. The first one was in a raffle and the second I won by bowling the highest score in a league during Thanksgiving week. I have won basketball tickets in a free throw shooting contest and a case of beer and a t-shirt in a closest to the pin hole in a golf tournament. I was also on a team that won a golf "Scramble" which is a type of tournament and we teammates each pocketed about fifty bucks for that achievement. The big luckies like cars and houses and Reader's Digest millions have thus far eluded me. Maybe next week.

I do believe in luck, joss, buena fortuna or whatever you choose to call unexpected happy happenings even if they are only the avoidance of downer deeds. Chance seems to play a part in our lives even if most of what occurs is a result of our own doings. The short list of my winnings noted in the previous paragraph shows all but one were actually earned awards. That one, though, the raffle turkey, was pure chance and maybe luck exists in roughly that ratio of earned to random good fortune. I also believe that some people are just, flat luckier than others. Multiple lottery winners come to mind and lone survivors of this disaster or that accident seem to bear me out on that point. Years ago I wrote a bit about a guy who had achieved everything in life, fame, wealth and happiness but as he walks up the aisle to accept his award as the Man of the Century he trips over a blind man's cane, tumbles into the orchestra pit and is impaled on a drumstick. The podium then topples onto him from the stage and the man ends his days in a rocker sucking his thumb and humming show tunes. I have no idea where that story is now, but it goes to show how lucky you are. If I could find it, you'd have to read it because I'd make it a blog.

And that, I suspect, would be pushing my luck.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Bugs Must Die

"Hit it right out of the air!" The big green fly with the Vincent Price head, I'm talking about. Damn thing's been bugging me, pun intended, for two days. It wouldn't land and give me a clean shot so I knew I'd have to get him in flight and I just did that. I'm not feeling an ounce of remorse either. Usually I say something like sorry old sock when I snuff out a bug, because I'm a big hearted "we are all one" kind of a Zenmeister dude, but not this time. This time I had the revenge factor working.

A short while after hosing down Nikita late Thursday afternoon, I shucked my wet blue jeans for a pair of dry old sweats. Unbeknownst to me these cotton comfys were temporary shelter for a bug of some sort. I'm guessing spider, but that's not beknownst to me either as it somehow made its escape without being detected. Before departing for, I'm guessing again, some other article of my clothing, said insecto took a nasty chunk from the back of my knee right atop one of the tendons that runs along back there. I did not sleep well Thursday night. There was a burning, itching it's got to be scratched sensation that conspired to keep me awake for much of my scheduled dream time that was to include slam dunks and a hole in one. Still, I got through Friday morning with nought but a sore leg and more of the annoyingly hard to ignore itching. It was late Friday afternoon when a pain moved up my thigh from the knee and a fever arrived. I mentioned this to Ramon and he told me he had watched a show about spiders on Animal Planet only the night before and, considering my symptoms, he gave me two hours. Luckily, England was playing a friendly with Brazil on the telly so I knew my last hours would be well spent. The two national teams tied and I survived all the way until the third inning of the Red Sox Yankee game before the fever and assorted other symptoms drove me from the couch to my bed where I thought to make progress in the book I was reading before my demise.

And that, of course, is when the fly made its first appearance. 'jever try to read with a fat noisy fly doing a passable impression of a Japanese Zero kamikazy-ing about your head? It requires more will than I had at the moment. Add in Gus snapping his jaws when the bug blew by and to my fevered brain I had already passed and was paying the price for all my sins. Okay, maybe just that one back in '67. I was finally forced to turn out the lights which calmed the fly and, blissfully, induced my own sleep. I awoke a few hours later in a puddle of persperation, fever gone. It was then I vowed revenge.

The fly is just the beginning, ha ha ha ha ha. Be warned you entomological pains in the asses, I am on the hunt. No more Mr. Nice guy, ha ha ha ha ha. I have my swatter, I have my Raid and I have thick soles. Bugs must die, ha ha ha ha! Bugs must die!

I may have a few lingering symptoms.