Movies and Television

Beware of movies that have only a piano being played with the right hand as the background music. These movies usually feature bearded and bespectacled men wearing turtleneck sweaters under their sport jackets. The women players are either leotard clad or dressed to the nines depending upon the time of day. Any time beyond noon will frequently find them drinking too much. The movies will consist of mostly pseudo intellectual banter and have no clear purpose. There will be a beginning, there might be a middle, but a straightforward ending will always be lacking. I won't say these movies are boring, because six people living in a well kept old mansion with unused tennis courts and tended gardens outside of Boston will simply "adore" them and who am I to say they are wrong? Nevertheless, I feel it is my duty to caution others. Movies of this type have been known to cause painful brain cramps and spark deep feelings of inferiority. Take my advice. When the opening credits roll and the piano tinkles something vaguely jazz-like, reach for the remote without further ado. Your mental health is in danger.

Alrighty then.

Here's a stolen line from a good movie I used on Woowoo Charly last night: "We make the perfect couple," I said, pausing for timing's sake before adding, "Beauty and the Beast." She looked at me tenderly then so I delivered the punchline. "Of course if anyone else calls you a beast, I'll rip their lungs out." (Jack Nicholson as the Joker in "Batman.")

Have I mentioned that I watch movies in lieu of regular television and, in fact, pretty much any movie will do; even the dreadful kind like those Ive described above. (Aside: I like to use semi colons whenever I think they are called for on the off chance that every once in awhile it will be the correct punctuation.) I know there are good, well written, well played, meaningful television shows, and probably, with the plethora of channels, more now than ever before, but...and here I pause to contemplate my use of a very strong word...I HATE commercials. Lest you think I am missing out on a good thing, I should point out that I do watch some shows in reruns while I pedal my elliptical glider. I mean I want to keep abreast of the latest happenings and not get too far behind the times. That Friends show, for instance, is really good even if I do have to suffer through the ads. It's still on...right?

Memories, And I'm Not Talking Nostalgia

Not that I'm worried, mind you, but last week I forgot my ATM pin number. I've only used it a thousand times or so, so it wasn't really etched in my memory like, say, my wife whatsername's name, but really, I thought I had it down. I stood there bewitched, bothered and that other one that starts with b and wondered if I was losing it. I don't really remember what IT is, but whatever it is, I'm sure I want to keep it. There are things we seniors? elderly? fogies? are supposed to do to preserve our data banks; things like doing crossword puzzles, learning a new language and memorizing stuff. These are not only puted, they are reputed to keep the old gray matter sizzling. Well I do all those things and still I forgot my pin number. For now I'm going to blame it on the rain. I'm going to put one of those "slippery when wet" signs on my forehead to explain why this and that slip my mind. Later, I'll come up with a better excuse. Remind me.

Aside: One thing I've noticed about crossword puzzles is that very few of the words are actually cross words. Most of them are quite benign.

I've completely forgotten what I was going to write in this paragraph, so I'll skip it and go right to the next.

As for learning a new language, now that I have mastered Spanish, (Yeehah!) I'm considering tackling English. There are a lot of movies shown on television here that are made in England and I would really like to know what the people in them are saying. Woowoo Charly and I continually turn to each other during these movies and ask, "did you get any of that?" The answer is always, "not a word." I'm told that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn along with Chinese and Australian, but I figure if I want to keep the old synapses (I forget exactly what synapse are) firing, I should take on something challenging. So... English it is.

Dawn of the Damp

My dogs are sick of it. "Hey," one of them told me this morning, "we get you up everyday at dawn so we can enjoy the sunrise together, but what do you give us in return? Rain...and wind... and, and, general unpleasantness, that's what. It ain't fair, I tell you." I've tried to explain to them that I'm not in charge of the weather, but they don't understand. After all, I appear to be in charge of everything else, providing food, opening and closing doors, walks, rides, snacks, even making it light in the house when it's dark outside. I tell them to have patience the day will improve, the sun will rise, the wind and rain will abate, and even memories of the Denver Broncos latest defeat at the hands (in particular the right hand of Peyton Manning) of the undefeated Indianapolis Colts, will wane. They doubt it. Dogs aren't long on patience. I point out the rainbow that is arcing as it does every morning this time of the year in the vicinity of Volcan Baru as evidence of the day's improvement and all three dogs look skyward and say, "Yeah, so?" Dogs care as much for rainbows as they do patience. "Look," they tell me, "we did our job. We got you up, barked at nothing to be sure you were wide awake, hounded you (no pun) until you fed us and now, well, we're tired. We're going back to bed. Good luck with that computer thing. Oh, and, could you do something about the weather, before we get back up?"

The definition of eclectic reading: I'm reading Kinky Friedman in English, Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Spanish and Milan Kundera in English translated from the Czech. "Greenwich Killing Time", "El Amor En Los Tiempos Del Colera", and The Incredible Lightness of Being", respectively. Two of the three books are great; I've read them before. About the third, well, Kinky is a funny guy.

Alrighty then. The blogger sits at the keyboard dressed in old sweats he has pulled on over his PJ's, stare-ing disconsolately inward in search of a thought...any thought. He has none. Surely, he reasons, breaking the long stare, there must be something to blog about un-blogged about heretofore. But nothing comes. Ah well, he thinks before signing off, maybe tomorrow.

Latest Edition of This and That

Titiya Plucksataporn (I am not making this up) shot a smooth 68 and is now tied for second in the Dubai Ladies Masters Golf Tournament.

"Quantum of Solace", a poor title to begin with as it means a quantity of grief relief and that, as I see it, is not exactly strong motivation to see a movie unless you are looking for something to dampen the old hankie with, is the hands-down, no question, inarguable WORST James Bond movie ever made. The writing was abysmal, giving us as it did over-lapping story lines that were never remotely clear, the action sequences even worse, being chopped, spliced and special effected into incomprehensibility and the acting, apart from Dame Judy Dench as M, was leaden and cliche-ed. I do believe that a drama is only as good as its villains and in this movie the villains fell far short of believable. Should I mention what I thought of the background music? Probably not.

A department store named Conway, pronounced cone-why by Latinos, has opened in David. The store is a Target affiliate (Target in Panama, who-da thunk it?) and consists of three stories of STUFF. I have always made it a point to avoid places that have a lot of STUFF, because I might just inadvertently find STUFF I want there that, prior to the sighting, I didn't even KNOW I wanted. For this same reason I don't even thumb through magazines looking at the ads. I have enough STUFF to suit me and like to merely replace the STUFF I have as it wears out. Right now I could use a new pitching wedge. Not everyone feels this way, I know. Woowoo Charly, for instance, only shares my point-of-view to a degree. Although in no way is she a material girl, yesterday, as we meandered through the store looking for one of those things that fits in a kitchen drawer and keeps your silverware separated - the old one is cracked, stained and ugly - I noticed a certain gleam in her eyes that was not there before. There is STUFF here, I sensed her thinking, that I want. How do I feel about that? Great! I love it when SHE wants something. She asks for so little.

The Abominable Doctor Panagas was smiling and juggling scalpels as Woowoo and I entered his office. "Buenas tardes, good to see you again" he said as he caught the sharpened knives in one hand and offered up the other for a shake. He was eye-balling my third eye hungrily as he did so. "I see you have a new one for me" he said with a widening grin, "but how can I help the lady?" Woowoo pointed out the age spot on her cheek that had recently turned funky and the Abominable Doc's eyes suddenly shone even more eerily. "Come into my lair, I mean my examining room and we will take a closer look." First thing he does after that is measure, that's right measure, the spot on my forehead. "Hmmmm," he says. "this is borderline. I will try to freeze it, but if it is not better in a month you will have to come back so I can chop and hack, I mean, carefully remove, the damage with a small curugia." (surgery) He then whipped up a nice smoking batch of liquid nitrogen and, using a long handled q-tip-like device, proceeded to repeatedly press the nitrogen, what felt to me, deep into my scalp. Hurt like hell. He was much gentler with Woowoo Charly, saying her problem was not dangerous (don-zzger-oose his pronunciation) but nevertheless needed to be taken care of before it became so. He then froze up a few other spots on her upper chest that she hadn't previously noticed. Following her treatment, he put us both into a deep hypnotic trance and gave us a post hypnotic suggestion that said when we receive our bill we will take it immediately to his receptionist and pay it without a second thought. He then snapped his fingers and off we went. I'll see him again next month. Merry Christmas, Doctor.

Tiagra and the Third Eye

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Alrighty then.

We are going to mosey into lovely and talented Daveed again today. I've got an appointment with the Abominable Doctor Panagas to remove yet another chunk of facial feature; this one from the center of my forehead. It kind of looks like a third eye up there, but since I can't see through it, I'll let Panagas and his evil minions scalpel it away.

My actual third eye I keep in a drawer next to the bed. I take it out, screw it on and use it when I meditate. Third eyes, as you know, can only look inward. They are supposed to give you insight. That's in-sight. Why anyone, apart from an MD would want to do that, I have no idea. I mean it's all just slimy and bloody in there. Of course, maybe mine is defective. When I meditate I pass right through all that in-sight, in-novation, in-tuition and get right to the, you know, cosmic consciousness stuff. That's the good stuff. That's where the oneness of everything becomes clear and also where Tiger Woods jokes appear.

So here's another alrighty then, because I can SEE I have nothing further to say this morning. I'll just go put my third eye back in the drawer.

Monday Shows Up Again

A low flying, dim rainbow is struggling to survive against a graying sky outside my northern exposure window this a.m. There is wind in the willows, well there would be if we had willows, and rain is in the offing. Alas, too bad, tut tut, and like that.

Several days of sunshine and already we are spoiled. To paraphrase the words of the immortal, never to be forgotten What-sis-name from the movie "Treasure of the Sierra Madre", we don't need no stinking rain. Sierra madre, by the way, for you non Spanish speakers, means "Yo Mama" in English.

I awoke this morning to learn that the college bowl games have all been arranged and was thrilled almost to coma to read that Marshall will be playing Ohio in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl. Yup, there is a Pizza Bowl. I'm betting the broadcasting network of this baby just can't wait to air it's sure-to-be ratings bonanza.

In other news this morning, Tiger Woods has been implicated in the mysterious deaths of Michael Jackson, Princess Di and JFK. When asked to comment Tiger said, "Sierra Madre."

The Denver Broncos, meanwhile, have captured the attention of the entire nation by winning their second game in a row after receiving a half time, locker room, pep-talk from the aforementioned Woods and a buxom cheerleader who Tiger described as just a friend. Nike, Tiger's principal sponsor has declared it's support for Tiger in these difficult times and in an effort to capitalize on Tiger's still massive following is now offering a complete line of skimpily clad cheerleader dolls marketed as "Tiger's Just Friends" and sporting the Nike swoosh in all the right places.

Aside: Saturday Night Live may have had the best Tiger line when it, in a news flash reported, "Tiger hit a tree with his car last night and a whole lot of women fell out of it." This is funny and accurate.

Spring cleaning begins in earnest today as Spring, December 7th and 8th, is now upon us here in Boquete, land of the wild gringo and home of the humming bird-brains. My plan is to do the windows last. I don't want to look at the rain.

Tiger's In The Woods

Tiger Tiger Tiger. Far be it from me to cast aspersions upon my fellow man for succumbing to temptation and not being delivered from evil, but this time the situation has gotten out of hand and something has to be said. When I learned of Tiger's marital digressions, I was appalled only to the extent of a quiet tsk tsk tsk, Tiger Tiger shame on you. But when it was later revealed that he was a partner in Michael Vick's dog fighting business, I was truly up-in-arms. Still, because I am a generous man, I was in a mood for forgiveness. When it was further revealed that Tiger fixed up Mike Tyson and Kobe Bryant with dates, I began to wonder about his serial improprieties. Late breaking stories that include Tiger's participation in the introduction of steroids to Bobby Bonds, Roger Clemons and others have seriously damaged my degree of fandom for the king of golf. When I also learned that Tiger is part owner of a bed and breakfast on the Appalachian Trail where Republican Congressman who weren't actually there could be signed in so as to appear present when, in reality, they were off cavorting elsewhere with dates that Tiger had arranged, well, I began to doubt my own loyalty to Tiger Nation. Although Tiger has been mostly lips sealed on his political convictions, new information, just now coming to light, has him linked to Katherine Harris in the 2000 Florida scam to get Dubya elected. Tiger will be quoted by a reliable source as saying, "Katherine and I were just friends, but I truly admire her skill with mascara application." In 2004 Tiger is credited with creating the "swift boat" fantasy and again aiding the Dubya campaign. As for 2008, what can be said? Of course Tiger and Sarah were an item, no secret there, but until the sordid facts are outed I will have no comment beyond saying the world will be shocked.

All this has added up, I am sad to say, in my jump from the Tiger Bandwagon onto that of Phil "Ficklehead" Mickleson's. The rumor that he and Tiger are much...closer, shall we say, than they appear, just can't be true, can it?

A Big Fun Day

We bought a Christmas Tree yesterday, or maybe, given our hazy religious predilections, it should be called a Buddha Bush, a Taoist Decoration or an Agnostic Arbol, but anyway we bought one of the save-the-planet artificial varieties along with several silver wreaths and a box of silver and blue...ornaments. (I was going to say blue balls, but then I would have to go off on a tangent that isn't Christmassy at all.) Woowoo Charly (Maybe our tree should be called Woowoo Wood) likes blue and silver...everything.

We found the tree in our small, local department store, La Reina, (The Queen) which dedicates about a quarter of its floor space to exclusively Christmas stuff. The tree was in a row of other artificial pines all decked out to show potential customers how nice they could look. When I pointed out the one we wanted to a salesgirl, she said it was "unico", the only one, and then went off to find some sort of container. While she was gone, Woowoo Charly and I, not ones to stand idly by, set about removing all the ornaments and other decorations from the tree. We had just neatly polished off the job when the salesgirl returned with a brand new tree in a box. The one we had undecorated, it turned out, was not "unico" after all. Ah well, "No te preocupe", don't worry, we were told, "No hay una problema." Alrighty then.

Earlier in the day, Woowoo Charly had gotten her hair cut and colored. Following that, she and I had a nice lunch at El Oasis Restaurant where she told me this story: She had a bug bite on the back of her head that she had scratched repeatedly. While in Roxanna's, the hair stylist chair, the bite began to bleed a little. Roxanna asked what it was and did it hurt. Woowoo Charly showing off her Spanish said "no porque estoy fuente." Roxanna laughed at that and Woo Charly didn't know why until I explained to her at lunch that she had said, "no, because I am a fountain." She had meant to say "fuerte" which means strong. Ha! Charly also told me that before she went to get her hair cut, she had looked up the Spanish word for layered so that she could explain to Roxanna exactly what she wanted done. When she got there and proudly served up the word, (I don't know what it is) Roxanna said, "Oh, you want it layered" in English. Big fun.

After the haircut, the lunch and the tree buying, Woowoo Chuck and I were having too nice a day to head directly home, so we drove over to the Panamonte Hotel/Bar/Restaurant to have a Cappuccino and Gran Marnier. While we were there, we ran into a friend of ours, who upon hearing of my recent health woes suggested (having had the same problems herself) the course of treatment that worked for her. It involves a steroid called Prednisone that you take seven of the first day, six, the second, five the third, etc. I started the plan at six this morning. It is now nearly ten. At noon I am going to go out, pick up my car and carry it to town. These pills are awesome.

The Affair of the Bees And Taking the Cure

The affair of the bees was... anticlimactic. I climbed up to the top step of my Three Step Stool, aimed my Black Flag Killer Can and fired. The wet spray soaked the hive in half-a-second and the bee/wasp/hornet bugs dropped like, well flies. Special K suggested, too late, that I smudge stick the little buzzers and ask them nicely to relocate. I don't know why I didn't think of that myself. The only real drama occurred shortly after I had knocked the hive down. It shredded into paper thin pieces and even though I swept up most of them, our dog Matti managed to grab a hunk to chew on. I got her to give it up quickly and it was not a particle that was spray soaked. I, nevertheless, kept an eye on her the rest of the day. She's fine.

Saturday, I awoke to, and here is a redundant theme, the feeling of being sick. Late in the afternoon while watching parts of college football games I didn't care about, I pondered this question: If you are feeling sick, is there some other way to feel? The answer I deduced is yes. Drunk. I grabbed a Heineken from the fridge and poured myself a couple of fingers of Jim Beam into a small glass. Jim Beam is the best selling bourbon in the world, which beats me, as I think it tastes like rot-gut. It was, however, the only whiskey we had in the house. After I had achieved the desired state of inebriation, I grabbed by iPod player and retired to the patio to enjoy some music and the feeling of drunk instead of sick. A good time was had by...me.

Sunday, of course, I got to feel another feeling that was not the feeling of sick but seriously akin to it, the hangover. The great thing about hangovers that isn't true of sick, is that you know for certain it will be gone on the morrow. All that needs to be done to enact the cure is to pass twenty-four hours with as little movement as possible. A sofa or recliner in front of all day Pro Football is a great aid in this regard.

It is now a diamond bright Monday morning and I am devoid of hangover and measurably less sick than I was on Saturday. I'm thinking of writing a treatise on how to feel not sick when you are...sick. The medical community is apparently not on to my method and there may be a Nobel in it for me once my cure gets around.

While I'm waiting, what with the sun out and all that, I think I'll mow the lawn. Or, I suppose, I could wave a smudge stick over it and ask it to relocate. If that works, there could be a second Nobel headed my way. I'll share that one with Special K.

T-day and Movie Stuff

"Someone's in the kitchen with Rah-Moan, someone's in the kitchen I know oh oh oh, someone's in the kitchen with Rahh-Moannnn, strummin' on the ole banjo."

Actually he's in there by himself, baking bread for today's festivity, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the day when all we expats give thanks for being expats. Not that there's anything wrong with the old USA apart from its well documented troubles; I mean it was, afterall, an okay place to trip the light fantastic for most of a lifetime, but, truthfully, now, I'd rather be here, so expats, let's drink to that. (A bit later in the day, of course.)

I never did get to that wasp thing yesterday. It rained at dusk and that in combination with the enervation of my dog walk, put the project on the back burner for now. (Hmmmm, back burner. Are they less hot or less urgent than the front burners?)

In lieu of hive busting I watched a creepy movie about creepy boys in a creepy private school in England. I know that describing a private school in England as creepy might seem a little redundant, but this one was especially so. The movie was shot in color, but it came off feeling like black and white and at least somewhat noirish. There was the usual undertone of homosexuality that is almost a cliche when it comes to private school boy movies, (private girl school movies seem charged with heterosexual overtones...or is that just me?) but it served only to add to the film's overall creepiness. One of the boy leads is dead of a shotgun wound at movie's start, while another is a suspect being interviewed in depth by a woman psychologist. The movie flashes back from this interview until all is revealed. The boys are attractive, upper class and both quite brilliant, although in different ways. There is a kind of Leopold and Loeb arrogance about them that adds to their creepiness, but the actors are competent and I was drawn to them in the same way a small child will watch a bug caught in a spider's web; it's horrible but you can't take your eyes away. I would like to tell you the name of this movie so that you can be deliciously creeped out as well, but I don't remember it. This is not an important detail in that even if I did remember, it would probably not be the movie's actual name. Most film titles here in Central America are changed from the original to refelct, I suppose, something more understandable to Spanish speakers. "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" for instance, might be "Adventure Man In India." Maybe you can go to your neighborhood video store and ask for creepy English private school movies. The clerks may look at you differently after that, but hey, it's a small price to pay for a good movie.

If you are now wondering why I brought this up in the first place, I will let you in on my closely guarded secret. Are you ready?

I have no idea why. Just something to write about, I guess.

Have a great T-day.

"They're singing, fee fi fiddly I oh, fee fi fiddly I oh oh oh oh. Fee fi fiddly I ohhhh, strummin' on the ole banjo.

Sunshine Came Softly through My Window Today

The sun is shining (for me and my gal). Okay, you have to be a hundred to understand that parenthetical comment, so for those of you coming in at less than that, let me enlighten and tell you it is a line from a song...an old song. I don't really know any lyrics from new songs unless you count "who let the dogs out" as new. There is also "sirvame la copa rota" which I learned six years ago, but I seldom get to use as it means, (bartender) "give me the broken glass.)

But I digress. The point is, the sun IS shining which is supposed to be a daily occurrence here in Paradise the Panama Edition, but has been a thing, instead, mostly absent of late. Well for sure it has popped out here and there, from time to time, now and again, and I'm not complaining, but I need sunshine like a junkie needs a fix. Don't give me a "taste" when what I need is a blast. Shine Baby shine and hook me up.

I have plans for the day if old sol continues to hang right there polishing the greenery; a dog walk in the afternoon, an assault on a hornet/wasp/bee nest at night. Okay, these are not exactly storm the Bastille kind of plans, but if you have been moping around sick for a couple months like I have, these plans will sound downright ambitious to you. The dog walk - I'm taking just one as all three requires a feat of strength beyond me at the moment - is one of my favorite pastimes as I find it meditative and exhilarating all at once. Lots of being present and lots of deep introspection alternate along the way.

The wasp/hornet/bee - we don't know what-the-hell they are - adventure will commence shortly after dark, (the recommended procedure) if it is not raining. The hive/nest has been growing and is now of softball size. It dangles from our patio overhang and looks quite menacing, but until last Friday, when our cleaning lady and friend Maria was stung on the cheek, has not been a problem. We have been unable to find a specific spray for hornets/bees/wasps to try on our little buzzers (they look like a cross between a fly and a wasp) so the matter has gone unattended. Yesterday I scored a Black Flag six megaton shoulder fired spray missle reputed to do in anything from bees to invading mongol hordes. I am ready for action. Aside: Our telephone ring tone is "Flight of the Bumblebee", so if you call me right after dark, I'll have the proper background music for my assault.

Let the fun and games begin.

Night Rains

Night Reigns would be a good title for a vampire movie.

Night rains, on the other hand, like the kind we've been having here in beautiful but soggy Boquete would deter even the hungriest of the neck biters.

Renfield lifting the lid of Dracula's coffin, "Yo Boss, what say we step out for a pint or two of plasma tonight?"

Drac, "Renfield you idiot, do I look like a blood sucking duck to you? Bring me back some take-out."

It rained hard enough to wake me last night. Our roof absorbs most of the sound but last night the rain slapped so insistently against our windows that it sounded like someone trying to get my attention. "Psssst. Pssssssssssst! Dude, wake up." I did, of course, wake up that is. I laid there listening to the sound of the rain for, oh I don't know, maybe half a minute and then, being a man of the age I am, my bladder spoke up. "Listen," it said, "as long as you're awake, you might as well relieve me of this wine residual I'm carrying around." Good idea, I thought as stumbled to my feet and headed across the dark to the bathroom, good idea.

That's when I tripped over the dog.

Finnegan, our Golden, has no special place he prefers over any other to hunker down at night. Or in the daytime for that matter. As I write this, his head is under our bed while his body lies splayed on the floor at bedside. He looks like a palomino throw rug. Last night he chose to recline broadside directly in my bath to the john. Although I was not moving very fast - it was pitch black in the room - I had some forward momentum and I caught him square enough that my balance was compromised enough to begin a fall. What anyone would do in a situation like that is to bring the other foot forward rapidly to gain purchase with the floor and remain upright. That is exactly what I, being the fast thinking, superbly coordinated athlete that I am, did. Finnegan, however, is a very thick dog. My second step was not even close to clearing him, especially as my first thud into his body had awakened him and he was now in the process of rising to his own feet.

I was now at a forty-five degree angle to the floor and falling rapidly. I knew though, from countless other trips (no pun intended there) to the "can", that the handle to the bathroom door was just ahead and to the left of me. If I could reach it, I could slow my fall and lessen the impact. I was not wrong. What I didn't count on was my inability to latch on to that handle. My desperate grab served only to open the door so that my swan dive took me into the bathroom itself where I landed surprisingly soft. I suppose it is not really surprising in retrospect, because I landed on the dog.

Finnegan, I must say, was quite gracious about the whole thing. He merely shrugged out from under me, licked my face once, then drifted back into the dark bedroom to find a new place to circle round three times and lie down.

As for me, I just got up, peed and went back to bed.

Outside, it was still raining.

It's True, They Sucked Rocks

I hate to see a Monday pass without having posted a new blog. Writing something first thing Monday morn sets the tone for the rest of the week; gets it off to a good start, so to speak.

The Denver Broncos SUCKED ROCKS yesterday and I just wanted to throw things at the TV screen.

How's that for tone?

I've read that there are more instances of spousal abuse after football games than at any other time during the week. Hold on a minute while I go beat up Woowoo Charly.

@@#%&^*$#%$^%^^%%^#&%*^%$#%#$#@$@!%$$%$%#%#$!@%$#^&^%#$^&$%#@%!%#^&*#%@$@!@#%^

Okay, she bloodied my lip, kicked me in the knee and put me in a step over toe hold that made me scream she's my daddy. I've got to stop reading stuff like that.

I was happy to see Michelle (The Big Wheezy) Wie, birdie the eighteenth and win her first LPGA tournament before she died of old age. I mean the girl is twenty already. That brightened my Sunday a little bit after watching the Broncos ineptitude. (Ineptitude is a fancy way of saying SUCKED ROCKS that I'm using to keep from repeating myself.)

Yesterday the Denver Broncos SUCKED ROCKS. (Oops, I can't seem to stop.)

There were other sporting events yesterday I'm sure. For instance, somewhere in Spain some guys put numbers on their chests, donned silly helmets and raced on bicycles. Or maybe it was Italy. My new pal Joe can tell you all about it. This, however, does not take away from the seemingly ever present new knowledge that the Broncos SUCKED ROCKS yesterday!

(That's it, take deep breaths, count from ten to one backwards and calm yourself. Better? Now tell us more.)

In other news, Jesus returned yesterday, riding a glorious long maned white stallion just as predicted in Revelation and other well read texts like USA Today and The Bayonne Inquirer. Behind him were heaven's minions and they were making short work of sinners throughout the Asian, African, and European continents. Included among the slain were bicyclists whose only sin was wearing goofy shorts. Although it was clear that Jesus and pals were working their way towards the western hemisphere and should arrive sometime early Tuesday, nobody cared... because... the Broncos SUCKED ROCKS yesterday.

The Dragon of Avelox

"...a more congenial spot, for happy ever-aftering than here in Avelox."

Acute bacterial infection with chronic bronchitis, to put a name on it, is the rogue dragon tormenting my kingdom.

Avelox is one of five brave knights sent forth to slay the beast. It comes in pill form in a push-out package that reads "Made in Germany by Bayer AG for Bayer of Mexico SA de CV, packaged in El Salvador. Alrighty then, this is one well traveled Knight.

(Aside: I popped one of these dragons slayers about two hours ago and I got so wired I had to lay down while my stomach tripped the light fantastic. Whoa Nelly.)

Bold Knight Sir Spirivia also marches forth from Germany and is an anticholinergic secret agent. It's good to have one of those on your side. This knight's job is to prevent "bronchospasms", a thing I am prone to every time a Bronco misses a tackle or drops a pass. In order to utilize this knight, I put a capsule into a HandiHaler where, by pushing a button a few times, the capsule is crushed and turned into powder. I then, you guessed it, inhale the powder.

With that knight positioned for action I then call upon Sir Cam, which is what we call him for short as his real name is Betamethasone. Cam is a glucocorticord steroid antiinflamatory we bring to the fray because we don't want any of those wily inflamatories gumming up the works at the last minute.

The brave Lady Miflonide from the Netherlands via Switzerland arrives in the nick of time to slay any asthma-like assaults by the dragon. She flies into battle with the use of an Aerolizer, another pill to powder gizmo that I will introduce to the fight twice a day.

Last but not least from Mexico comes Sir Mucosolvan The Latino knight. His task is one of the most difficult of all. He has to, and here I quote exactly from the military manual, "dissolve the sticky phlegm." It takes a knight of great courage to bring down the dragon's mighty phlegm.

The battle is enjoined. Wish me luck.

The Elusive Angry Zola

Here's a line I've thought of, but have never had the opportunity to use: "Aw gee, you don't mean that. You're just saying that because you're sober. That's just the lack of whiskey talking."

We drove into Lovely and Talented Daveed again yesterday to take another shot at seeing Doctora Xiomara Anguizola. (Try pronouncing that one you Spanish beginners!) This time she was not out of the country as she was during our last attempt, but she was out of the city. I asked if there was another pulmonary especialista I could see and was told no. Alrighty then, I said inquiring, when can I see Angry Zola?

See, the problem here starts with the telephone. When I first called for an appointment early last week, I talked to a woman whose Spanish was far too fast and far too sophisticated for me to understand. I hung up the phone thinking what she had said was the fandango is the dance of religious fanatics in heat and I should come in tomorrow, in the morning. When I did show up the next day, Angry Zola was fuera de pais, out of the country. "She would be back Monday...probably." That ellipsis there, those three dots, represents what was a very long pause before the word probably. When I called on several occasions Monday, there was no answer. Tuesday was a holiday, so we waited until yesterday to try again. I thought unwisely, my usual mode of thought, that if Angry Zola wasn't in, I would see someone else. Well fat chance Lizard Lungs! There is, apparently, only one of each kind of doctor in the greater Daveed area. Despite the fact my ears were plugged from the combination of my ailment (whatever it is) and driving from altitude to sea level, I persisted through the "repeta por favors" until I was able to obtain an actual cita (appointment)from the two young nurses person-ing the desk in a hallway outside the doctor's office. One of them, I should mention, was making swabs from a bundle of cotton and a bunch of sticks. A penny saved is...not much, but idle hands are the devil's tools or workshop or something like that, so let's keep busy. The problem with this appointment, if there is one, is that it is for noon Friday. I'm thinking Angry Zola will be out to lunch.

The delays, in truth, don't bother me. I keep thinking I'll wake up one morning and the evil crud demon that has taken hold of my air in-take apparatus will be gone, saving me large quantities of balboas (dollars) that I would otherwise give to the Panamanian medical industry. Sure, the demon is still there today, but hey! and c'mon! and like that...I've still got tomorrow!

Do I really mean that or is it just the coffee talking?

Down Memory Lane...To The Bar

I sometimes miss going to bars; the soft lighting, the music, the conversations (often inspired, or at least they seemed so) with strangers, the hale and hearty, (and I mean hearty not hardy although that can work too) well met, good show, camaraderie of it all. "Let me buy these fellas a round." There was always smoke in the air and one in my hand and I miss that too. Bartenders and cocktail waitresses are for the most part friendly people whose job is to help you have a good time no matter what mood you might have brought to the room. And over the years I brought every mood in my repertoire from feeling low to feeling good - okay, those are my only two - at one time or another, and I seldom left without having them altered to the high side, no pun intended.

Nowadays we go to the bar, Woowoo Charly, RTGFKAR and I, to meet friends for a civilized cocktail or two and we sit at a table while making our small conversations. Don't misunderstand me, it is quite nice and I look forward to those occasions. Sometimes though, if I can see the bar from where I sit and there are people there drinking, laughing, interacting, I feel the urge to join them, hear what they are talking about, have a laugh or two myself. It is, I suppose, "remembrance of things past" that inspires the urge, because I know it is not a rational desire. I know the bar "scene" is for younger men and unless I'm in the company of centenarians, I can't be counted as among that group. (Among is a funny word to say repeatedly.) My group is the one that has a hangover after four drinks not fourteen.

I can't remember the last time I went into a bar with no agenda and, here's the important part, no timetable. I could stay as long as I wanted to or as long as I was able to. Most of the time the nebulous concept of "tomorrow" was enough to keep me from "staying too long at the bar" but for sure there were times when it didn't. It is not the latter of those two that I miss. It's the former. It's leaving with a head full of new jokes, tidbits of conversations to be passed along, and a lighter heart that are causing me this morning to "wax nostalgic."

Hmmmm.......but now I'm done. The nostalgia is polished to a high shine and I'm ready to move on. So here's to the good old days I say as I raise my coffee cup. And here's to tomorrow. Best of all though, I say raising my Cafe Ruiz "Volcan Baru" mug even higher, here's to now.

The Past was fun, but the Present is always the best of all. I know because the Woowoos tell me so.

Some valuable Info and Some Not Quite So

My favorite new piece of information garnered while lying about or waiting my turn at the Scrabble board is this: Darkness consists of nothing but you can't see through it.

Other tidbits of equally memorable import are these: Nero didn't fiddle while Rome burned. The fiddle wasn't invented until the 15th Century. There are an estimated 3000 to 4700 tigers living in India. There are over 4000 tigers living in captivity in Texas alone. There are an estimated 12000 being kept in private residences throughout the U.S. Mike Tyson has 4. A barnacle has the longest penis of any animal relative to its size. It is seven time longer than its own body. Half the human beings who have ever died, perhaps as many as 45 billion people, were killed by female mosquitoes. The males only bite plants. The second greatest killer of humans is the marmot. It carries bubonic plague and spreads it around by coughing on fleas, rats and ultimately, humans. The largest living thing on earth is a mushroom. There is one in Malheur National Forest that covers 2200 acres.

I could go on, but I have examples of notes I made to myself during "An Evening With Margarita and Friends" that I now have to decipher. The first says, "so lacking in talent to describe the fog, the gentle rain, the grass, dogs, feeling of it all. The conversation, the Joy!" I deduce from this that I was having a good time.

The second says, "I hate that I have to get semi-drunk to appreciate the world around me. (To get out of my head.)" Hmmm. I do seem to see things in a more mult-dimensional way when I am, ah, less than straight. I think that is what this note is telling me.

Then there is this one, "Sick is like feeling hungry. How do you explain it?" I have no comment on that.

The next is a bit more cryptic. "Love the way my wife gives toys to the dogs. Penguin, heads, arms, legs, evisceration." She bought them a half dozen stuffed toys yesterday. Not dog toys, regular stuffed toys for children. I don't think they will make it through the weekend.

The next note is very scribbled and I'm not sure exactly what it says but it looks like, "My alter ego never - two indecipherable words - my actual ego says?" That could have been a fun thought. Dueling egos, both mine. I wonder what it really means.

The last, and I am surely in my cups at this point, says, "Show me a culture that does not revere animals, especially dogs, and I will show you a culture without love." Oh my. I do get sentimental.

In 1945 a chicken in Fruita, Colorado had its head chopped off. It lived almost two more years and was featured in Time and Life magazines. It was fed and watered using an eye dropper and gained six pounds after it lost its head. Just though you might like to know.

Heelboy and Questions Posed

"Hellboy II" Now we're talking. This flick is a nifty marriage of drama and wild imagination made visual by special effects unheard of even a decade ago. The creatures shown here make Hellboy himself appear normal, although some of that may be attributed to Ron Pearlman's very human interpretation of the character. The whole movie is played not quite tongue-in-cheek, but less than serious for the most part. (There is a bit of pathos at the end.) My rating on the Fun Scale (No Fun, Fun, Big Fun, Freakin Fabulous Fun) is Big Fun. Check it out.

I recently read that it takes the average person seven minutes to go to sleep; this, of course, after turning out the lights and hunkering down for that very purpose. Seven minutes seems about right to me. My dilemma occurs during that short interval because I start the slip down to sleep process by thinking of some bit of writing I want to do. Quite often I get an idea that strikes me as worthwhile. I know from past experience that even if I tell myself to remember this bit of worthwhile in the morning, it won't happen. The idea will be lost. My choice then is to let it go or turn on the lights, get up and write it down. If I do the latter, the seven minute process will have to begin again, but this time from a more awakened state than the first time. Seven minutes will likely grow to double that or more as I now have an idea fully formed and ready to chew on. Since I doused the lights, plumped the pillow and pulled the blanket to my chin ready for sleep in the first place, and further, knowing that many of the ideas I have written down on other occasions turn out to be not-so-hot anyway, I most often choose to let the idea slip away. In the morning, though, I can't remember the idea, but I always remember that I had one and this makes me frustrated and guilty about my laziness even though I know that lying in bed not being able to sleep is a frustration of a much higher order. What to do, what to do.

Another bit of frustration (I prefer the English pronunciation, frus-TRY-shun) just occurred. A little square of something popped up in the lower right hand portion of my screen. This happens quite frequently and I don't know what it is as I never see it appear. I only notice it as it blinks off. What in the world is it and what am I missing? Anybody know?

My last chunk of unresolved problems - that's right, problems not issues - concerns my health or lack thereof that I promised myself I would no longer write about, although I appreciate the material it has given me. (If I'm going to break a promise, best it's one to myself.) Maybe this has happened to you. Have you ever felt that you were sick, but not nearly sick enough to go to a doctor and found that the small sick persists...and persists.

I wonder what Hellboy would do.

Halloween

Terry Hatcher and Alyssa Milano look a lot alike. Anyone else notice this? I didn't think so.

Halloween! Alrighty then!

I'll be killing time until the bloodletting and mayhem come on the tube. That's right, it's Saturday. Time for college football. There will be "Blood and Chocolate" (2007) and "Ginger Snaps" (2000) scattered about if anyone tries to pry the remote from my hand as I surf back and forth between the games and the Halloween fare on the movie channels. "The Innocent" (1961) will be part of "The Descent" (2007) I take into a self imposed "Quarantine" (Year unknown) so that I can see long passes and the best of "Exorcist III" (199?), an underrated sequel. There will be "Paranormal Activity" (2006) on "Mulholland Drive" (2001) if I have any say, and "The Eye" (Hong Kong version 2002) will witness goal line stands as we approach "Near Dark" (1987), followed by "30 Days of Night" (2007) if I "Let the Right One In" (2008). I am not actually part of "The Dog Soldiers" (2002) or "The Brotherhood of the Wolf" (2001), but if I lived in "Cloverfield" (2008), I would be. The best I can hope for is to see some of these horror/terror pics between touchdown replays as they are all on my list of must sees or must see again.

Tomorrow though, the Denver Broncos play the Baltimore Ravens and I fear the true horror will then begin. "Ray Lewis Unchained"(2009) has yet to be filmed.

Doughnuts and the Demented

I just ate a doughnut. RTGFKAR picked up a box of six at PriceSmart yesterday per my request. It wasn't very good. It was a little stale and much of the icing had stuck to the top of the box they came in. I had to scrape it off and put it back on the doughnut. It was, though, nevertheless, exactly what I needed. It contained enough sugar to sweeten a curmudgeon's disposition, which, now that I think of it, is a good secondary reason for eating it in the first place. My primary reason for ingesting the sugary grease bomb being that I wanted something I could actually taste.

I've noticed of late that if a food item isn't spicy, salty or sweet, it is as savory as a lot of mushy or chewy nothing; like munching a hunk of cheap white bread lacking a spread. In other words, borrrrring. I realize this is part of my less than healthy condition, but I want you to know I am not complaining. Really. I can now eat doughnuts, chips, french fries as a salt delivery system, green chile by the bucket and not worry for a moment about what they might be doing to my heart, arteries or waistline. I can eat like RTGFKAR who never worries about those things anyway. (And, I should point out, seems healthy as a horse if we're talking about, you know, a horse that is, uh, healthy.) Eating, when you are feeling less than chipper is all about taste because, what-the-hell, eating to maintain good health, vigor and a slender profile have already gone bye-the-bye.

Pass me that one with the gooey chocolate on top.

I was eating cocktail peanuts not nearly salty enough and drinking the prescribed red wine while watching "Boogeyman 2" last night. It was a typical gore fest, but I liked the premise. A group of young people are housed in an institution where they are being helped to overcome their phobias. We had an afraid of the dark, an afraid of germs, an afraid of the outdoors, an afraid of being fat, a girl who was afraid of her inner thoughts so she cut herself repeatedly to distract her from them, and our heroine who was simply afraid of the Boogeyman. Each of them, excluding the heroine, dies hideously as a result of their fears because that is what the Boogeyman does, he preys on your fears. Nice. A better director, a better budget, more sex and less gore could have made this a good horror flick. As it was...just missed. I give it two stars.

Ah well, maybe tonight I'll find a better scary to eat by. I'm thinking a fried doughnut, salted and dripping sugared grease will be just the thing. Pass the Tabasco.

Out Demon! Out!

After completing five weeks of my doctor's long term cure for my illness and her need for a new wardrobe, with her goal being achieved and mine still lacking, I decided an alternative approach to ending my distress was called for.

"Come in my son, come in. Now how can I help you?"

"Father, I'm here for an exorcism."

"Have you been throwing up guacamole.?"

"No, but I'll give it a try if you've got some."

"Head spinning all the way around?"

"No. It stays stationary while my body does the full three sixty.

"And you suspect a demon?"

"I'm sure of it. I speak in a strange voice and often in a strange language with a lot of vowels. I can feel it inside of me and it's going, 'Heh heh heh, gotcha ya bastard.' Worse than that, I haven't felt like playing golf and when I cough, my dogs flee the room.

"That golf thing is really bad. Tell me my Son, are you Catholic?"

"Uh, No."

"What are you then?"

"Well, I'm a kind of Buddhist/Taoist/Christain/Jew/Agnostic...more or less. I believe in something. I just can't define it, but like the Supreme Court, I'll know it when I see it."

"Oh that's bad."

"Why so?"

"Because the demons of that religion are the toughest kind to get rid of. Holy water, crosses, and tossing a lot of Latin at them just doesn't work. Your situation may be hopeless."

"Really Father, isn't there anything you can do?"

"I have heard of a case where another substance sacred to The Church was called upon to aid a similarly stricken individual. I am not, however, permitted to recommend this treatment."

"Please Father, I'm suffering here."

"Okay then, it's only a small sin for me to tell you, but I cannot do so aloud. The Church has ears everywhere."

With that he scribbled one word on the palm of his hand, showed it to me, and then fled the room.

"Thanks Father," I hollered after him. "I'll get right on it."

The word?

"Wine."

No wonder everyone in this country is Catholic.

Rainy Dog Monsters

We get rain showers here in Panama that make regular downpours seem like a sunny day. This is why if you feel the top of any Panamanian's head you will feel small indentations like hail bumps on a car hood. Really. If you don't believe me, go feel a Panamanian.

In the why us category, I have finally figured out why our dog Raffi, after months of being "house broken" has regressed and now finds going indoors worth the anger and screaming he gets from his adopted parents. He doesn't like to walk on wet grass. This morning I decided to start retraining the mutt. I put him on a leash and walked him outdoors every hour on the hour. Each of the three times so far that I've done this, I've had to drag him off the sidewalk and onto the grass. Once there he acts like we would if we two legged breeds had to walk barefooted across broken glass. He treads very lightly. As this is the "rainy" season, the grass in our fenced-in area is seldom dry. I'm hoping by next week my strength will have returned from where ever strength goes when one is sick (or even two) and I will be able to take the critters walking in the morning. A good hike always induces dog poop piles along the way.

But enough of the mundane recounting of less than earth shattering news. Although yesterday's rains did shatter a bit of earth, the earth didn't seem to mind so I'll not waste time with that and tell you instead about the return of horror movies to the big screens near you and the little screens - by comparison - in my house leading up to Halloween my favorite, as a kid, holiday.

The ads for new flicks are all in the horror genre with lots of remakes of old classics like "Prom Night" which has as its theme what to do with teenagers who get a little sexually naughty. Dismemberment is the answer to that as teens will tell you themselves, which accounts for why they line up impatiently outside theaters to watch assorted hackers and choppers do their thing. As far as I can tell, though, none of these movies has served as a deterrent to teenage, ah, shenanigans. I tune in and watch for the thrill of being safely frightened and to admire the cleverness of modern directors who continually find novel ways to do in adolescent boys and girls. I also admit to a touch of envy because I never got the chance to rile up a monster back in the Fifties when I was a kid. Petting and "dry humping", I suppose, were just not enough to inspire murderous rage. Movie monsters in those days mostly did in grown-ups and truthfully, at the time, I didn't know what they (the grown-ups) were up to. Probably dancing too closely. I know at my Prom Night close dancing could get you in real trouble with the Monitors.

Anyway, I'm in Hog Heaven if that means a good place and not where hogs go after death, with a choice of a good Scary almost every time I turn on the tube. I still prefer horror flicks with a plausible premise, a good director, and a decent budget but any old monster mayhem will do in a pinch.

(Now that I think of it, plausible is the the key isn't it? Maybe that's why I enjoyed "Alien Versus Predator, Requiem" last night. I mean that's plausible, right?)

Blooooooggggg !

Did you know that the U.S. Adult Video (read porn industry) out grosses (good choice of words there) mainstream American cinema by over a billion and a half dollars in a typical year? I didn't either until I read David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster." I also learned that Kafka is funny, Dostoevsky is better than I thought, dictionaries are politically biased, Mailer, Updike and Roth are the "great male Narcissists", Garner's "A Dictionary of Modern American Usage" is not about sex toys, but rather, a book worth having if you are a word junkie like Yers Truly, how 9/11 was viewed from a Midwestern point-of-view as it happened, all about Tracy Austin's short but amazing tennis career and why sports autobiographies always suck, the inside scoop on John McCain's 2000 run for president, the truth about the lobster festival in Maine and you bet it hurts to be boiled alive and everything you ever wanted to know about right wing talk radio,...among other things. I'm looking forward to reading more from this brilliant writer not only because I was so impressed with "Lobster", but because who could pass up books with the following titles?: "A Supposedly Fun Thing To Do I'll Never Do Again" and "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men."

The sun was up and about as I lowered myself onto my desk chair this morning, but has now, about an hour later, left to brighten, lighten and warm some other part of the world. Our garden, most of which I can see from where I sit, is pleading with old Sol to come on back and polish their petals. I'm not truly fluent in Plant but I can make out one bush saying something that translates roughly as, "Hey! Enough with the rain!"

I did watch and nap to the Real Madrid vs. Milan soccer match yesterday and it was as good as advertised. The Italian squad pulled out a 3 to 2 victory and what with the announcer screaming "Gooooaaalllll" at the top of his voice five times and our Cockers leaping from my lap whenever small birds had the audacity to land on our lawn, my nap was a bit of a jumpy, twitchy, nerve jangling experience. I do, though, like the joy and enthusiasm expressed by the soccer announcers when a goal is scored, so I am going to incorporate it into my daily life whenever I reach a goal of my own. To wit:

BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGGGGGGGGGG!

Not Today

Nevermind. I was going to write a blog, but after staring off into the fog outside my window and mentally sifting through potential subjects that I know enough to expound upon, ie: my dogs, the Denver Broncos, how to operate a television remote control device and phlegm, I've decided to spare you and skip the whole thing because, really...well, just really.

Tomorrow though, when I'm feeling better, I'll tell you all about the wasp nest that has been hanging above us on the patio for some time now and our plans to do something about that real soon which we have also had for some time now. I will probably also talk a bit about the weather and how I can tell when it is going to rain by the heads up I get from assorted body parts I damaged in 1958 and also by the sky which I've noticed usually gets darker in our neighborhood. I might even discuss a book of essays I'm reading called "Consider the Lobster" which is a title I think is so awesome, I'm going to copy the theme and write a book called "Consider Crabs." If you are lucky, there's a chance I will discuss today's UEFA League Futbol match between Spain's Real Madrid and Italy's Milan which promises to be a good one to nap to. If I am truly inspired I will go on at length about how exciting it is for me to move from one room to another and just how educational it is to make these journeys through what I now call my wider world. Travel truly is broadening. And finally, if my muse slaps me around for awhile, I will likely discuss how weird I find it that Vanity Fairs's latest "Collectors' Edition" has a picture of a child molester on the cover.

All these and more tomorrow...probably. For today though, there is nothing of note, so I'll just skip it.

What is it, really?

When you scratch these things out first thing in the morning as I do, the results are not often immediately clear. Was that a blog, a journal entry, a dear diary, an essay or something culled from a psychiatrist's couch? My original intent 500 and whatever blogs ago was to entertain whoever happened to stumble upon this site. If you were to scroll back to the beginning, you would find that most of the entries were written with a humorous bent and a goal of obtaining a chuckle here and there. Since then I have gone far afield, sometimes to my satisfaction and sometimes not. Excluding the stories, poems, reviews, essays and what-have-yous that I have written and posted on the blog, my humorous entries are still my favorites. That said, I now ask you to scroll back to "Clandestine Clinic", read that and the two subsequent blogs and then return to this dreary dissertation.

See? Don't you feel better now? I know I do.

Thing is, I don't always feel funny. Most of the time I do, for sure. I mean while the poet waxes grandiloquent over a flower, I note that it seems to be laughing its head off. I find humor at the most inappropriate of times and in the most mundane of places. Can't help it, really, I'm blessed/cursed that way. But...not always.

So what I'm trying to say is a kind of apology. I've looked back at my last few blogs and they seem to me drier than my throat five minutes before happy hour. They are just not, to my way of thinking, (a way, apparently, that excludes anything having to do with the brain) entertaining. It may be because I've been hosting lung lizards for a couple of weeks or it may be, as I suspect, Bush's fault, but whatever the cause, I promise...absolutely nothing at all.

Ah zoe. Veddy gud. In our next zession ve vill discuss your childhood. For now, your hour is zup.

A Small Rant

Still ailing and bored by it, but lacking the focus to watch anything more challenging than a cartoon kid show, I first dialed up an Adam Sandler flick, then followed it with a Rob Schneider - I hesitate to use the word - comedy and then moved along to a scene or two from Whatsisname, the guy from Saturday Night Live who is in everything these days...Will Farrel. To further prove that my brain cells were leaking at an alarming rate, I then watched a few minutes of a Mike Myers' had to have gone straight to video, movie. There were maybe a half dozen small laughs in the five hours or so I allowed my brain to be inundated with - I was going to say mental junk food, but this stuff makes junk food seem nutritious - garbage. I have apparently lost touch with what is now considered funny. For instance, when did sex become funny? Okay, don't answer that. Sex is funny from time to time, but big dick jokes, humping animals, naked sweaty fat people and hairy crotch references just don't tickle any of my bones, funny or otherwise. A guy repeatedly air fucking does not a funny scene make. Maybe I'm wrong though, because if you compare them to the bathroom humor that is apparently mandatory in modern comedies, sex jokes are a welcome relief. When did diarrhea, farts, load pants, piss pants and the like become staples of humor? To me gross outs are not funny. Gross outs are just gross outs and should be reserved for bad horror flicks. Even in that genre, gross outs should avoid excrement. Shit, to my way of thinking, is never funny.

All this brought to you by a guy who once said "no subject is too sacred to poke fun at." Oh no! Have I, perish the thought, slipped over into Fuddy Duddy Land? Please, say it isn't so. If you are under forty and agree with me, write and tell me at Old Guys Retreat, Fuddyville, Panama.

I did, sometime in the last few days, watch a small movie that I really liked. It was a John Cusack movie that had his sister Joan in it and was about a kid he adopts who says he is from Mars. There were good laughs in this flick and tears as well. Can't remember the name.

Here's my Twitter for the day: I like the Cusacks. If I were to get to pick of Hollywood celebs I'd like to know, they would be high on my list.

News Roundup

I was just thinking about writing one of my legendary (in my own mind) off the wall blogs when it occurred to me that I don't know why "off the wall" means out-of-the-ordinary. Does on the wall mean normal, regular, ordinary? If so, why does no one use the phrase? These are the questions that try my mind because why would I worry about war, the economy and man's inhumanity to man when I've got "off the wall" to chew on.

Got an email from a fellow ex-pat today, that, if I understand it correctly, encourages me to contact my congressperson and complain about a bill that will require expats to pay a portion of their income for health care. Health care that most ex-pats can't or won't use. I won't do it though. If the U.S. is going to see to it that everyone has some kind of care, then the means to pay for that have to be found. If the amount is reasonable, (of course) I'm willing to pay my share.

And you thought I never address the tough issues. Why only yesterday I thought long and hard about whether the NFL should expand their schedule to 18 games. (I was about to add other serious thoughts I've had recently, like should Obama be in the running for the Heisman trophy, but now that I've used the phrase "long and hard", well, my mind, such as it is, has gone elsewhere.) (Yeah, I know, that's too much information.) (Hey, c'mon, I've been sick.)

We did go to lovely and talented Daveed yesterday where at Pricesmart we purchased an amount that may not have been a record, but got us a standing ovation from the store's employees. They took a look at our two loaded and rounded carts and visions of sugar plums and raises danced in thier heads. When we placed the goodies in the back of the car, the front tires rose off the pavement. Very nearly anyway. We then drove to King Supers (El Rey) and filled in the unscratched off our list extras not available at Pricesmart. We hadn't shopped for weeks, so now, having accomplished this odious task (for me anyway)the situation called for a celebration. We selected Mrs. Mendozas, a new Mexican restaurant for the toasting and the here heres. Mrs. M's has a very nice light green, frozen margarita that is served in a pretty glass. It tastes exactly like a Seven Eleven lime Slurpy and is worth the $5.25 it costs if you like your margaritas without tequila. Woowoo Charly and RTGFKAR disagree with me on this point saying the margs were "Just fine as they are" but, of course, and I can say this in all certainty, they are wrong. Normally in a case like this I would just order a shot of cactus juice and pour it in the drink. Yesterday, however, still being "under-the-weather" (Whatever that means. Really. If the weather is bad are you safer under it, over it, or in it?) I eschewed the shot and drank my slurpy disgruntedly. I should also point out in the interest of full disclosure that I ordered a second. It also had no tequila, so I shared.

And speaking of sharing I thought I'd share this next with you so my mind wouldn't dwell on off-the-wall and under-the-weather a moment longer. One of the purchases we made yesterday was a bedspread/blanket washable bed cover thing. What we had been using previously was two quilts; one ratty old nasty thing that we used during the day because we allow the Cockers on it and they are frequently, okay always, a mess, and the other at night when the dogs are kenneled and we want to be under something clean. The first thing we did after putting away our other purchases was to put on the new bed cover. Some twenty minutes or so later, as we reclined in front of the tube exhausted from the day, the sound of the dogs low and fussedly growling caught my attention. I got up to see what the fuss was all about. There, in the middle of the great room, all three dogs were having a nice game of tug-of-war with the new cover.

Alrighty then.

Idiots in Uniform

Baseball is on my mind this morning. It's my favorite sport if you don't count football, basketball, golf, soccer, and full contact sex. I watched one inning of a game last night in which the home team had a two run lead and needed only to register three outs to win. After getting two of those outs while allowing one man to reach base, the pitcher was faced with this dilemma: the man at the plate was a pretty good hitter. The man in the on-deck circle however, was a gentle giant who brought groceries to the poor, helped old women cross busy streets, made daily visits to hospitals to give sick children hope, collected and found good homes for stray cats and dogs, gave 30% of his salary to charity, read to blind people on off days and had a birthmark on his shoulder that spelled out the word "hero." As a baseball player he was always among the league leaders in home runs, runs-batted-in and "clutch" hits. It was, therefore, imperative that the pitcher deal with the batter in front of him. Make him hit the ball, somewhere, anywhere. There is a better than two in three chance it will be caught. But absolutely, positively, by NO, let me say it again, by NO means should the pitcher walk this batter. I mean throw underhand if you have to, but get the ball over the plate. As I and 80 million people around the world screamed, "Don't walk him, don't walk him," the pitcher walked the batter.

What happened next was inevitable. In the poem, Mighty Casey strikes out. In real life, it doesn't happen that way. In real life, the hero strides to the plate and is heroic. The opposition had the chance to dodge this fate and blew it. There is no sympathy for them, only lessons learned. Especially this one: Never walk the guy batting in front of a guy with an S on his chest. It just doesn't pay.

Typing Practice

A glorious Monday morning. (They are ever thus following a Bronco win.) The sky is a lush shade of a worn too many times white t-shirt and the smell of immanent rain mingles with the dog poop on the lawn to stir the senses and inspire deeply significant trivial thoughts.

Our house as you may or may not know is made of concrete. It has concrete floors, concrete walls and a concrete roof. Even some of our furniture is built-in with concrete. I have constructed a bar from concrete and RTGFKAR is building concrete bookshelves as we speak. I mention this only to suggest an explanation for the house's acoustics. Sound here is not dulled by soft surfaces. Like most people, I don't like sudden, unexpected, loud noises. They inspire instantaneous adrenaline rushes and exclamations like "What the F---!" and "Jesus Christ!" because I am not nearly composed enough to go British and calmly utter, "I say Old Chum, bit of a startle there, eh what?" You may also know or not know that we have three dogs, two of which (whom? same?) are attuned to noises in the Cosmos that no other man or beast can hear. When the Cosmos calls, our dogs answer...suddenly...loudly. It is a triumph of the human spirit that RTGFKAR, Woowoo Charly and I, still have a viable nerve or two left in our bodies, although, admittedly, none have gone unjangled.

(Okay I could have said it freaks me out when the dogs bark suddenly, but I need the typing practice.)

It is Monday and the active volcanoes that are my lungs are still spewing lava on a semi regular basis. My voice has gone from sounding roundly basso to a raspy baritone. I'm thinking about abandoning my search for the perfect "Hello Darling" of the country/western scene and shooting, instead, for the scratchy, throaty, soul sound of a James Brown or Janis Joplin. I am still limited by having only a three note range, but there must be a way around that.

I was drifting off to a movie the other night, dropping slowly into sleep like a hypnosis subject being put under, when I was suddenly aware there was a naked woman on my television screen. A thing like that requires some wakeful attention, so I yanked myself from the clutches of Napland to see what this was all about. Some sort of frat party was in progress in the movie and a very attractive nude young lady walks through the crowd and exits to an equally crowded patio. The camera pans to another part of the room where another naked young twenty-something turns to a companion and says, " I can't BELIEVE she's wearing the same thing I am! The companion, trying to appease her distraught friend, replies, "Yeah, but it looks a lot better on you." I stayed awake for the rest of the movie hoping for more good lines or, at least, more naked ladies, but that was the last of both. I never did get the title. Does anybody know what movie this is?

I am hoping to be well enough to hitch up the buckboard and go to Daveed for supplies tomorrow. We are perilously low in essentials like cereal, wine, dog food, wine, soup, wine, vegetables, wine, and paper products. Did I mention wine? There are some things essential to promoting good health.

Blogging To Pass Time

The President's Cup is not, as you might suspect, a device Obama uses to protect his groin during basketball games. It is a golf tournament which pits players from The USA against players from around the world.

The Philadelphia Phillies have a pitcher whose last name is Bastardo.

These are the kind of facts one acquires while sitting around sick. Unless, of course, like my bro RTGFKAR, you watch reality shows like Loggers In Love, Big Trucks Trucking Their Brains Out, Fishing In Cold Stupid Places and Eat Bugs For Big Bucks, in which case the facts you acquire may be different, but no less forgettable.

You also get to watch a lot of movies on HBO and Cinemax that played in regular theaters if by regular theaters you mean some studio exec's basement. These are not high quality films. I saw one the other day about a guy who had no short term memory. Everything that happens to him he forgets a few minutes later. I would tell you how it ends but I've completely spaced it out. (Does anybody say that anymore, I spaced it out?) There are also a lot of Stephen Segall movies. In each one he gets bigger and bigger. He was so big in the last flick the only thing they could dress him in was a giant overcoat. He wore it indoors and out. Kung Fu by London Fog. He doesn't really fight anymore, people just run up and bounce off his coat. One enjoyable afternoon, though, I got to see a young Jackie Chan in "Drunken Master" followed my a modern martial arts fairy tale in which an older Jackie teams up with Jet Li to do in the bad guys. These films are right up there with "Big Trouble In Little China" for entertainment value. Especially if you are easy to please and also sick.

Tonight we are going out to celebrate Woowoo Charly's and friend L's birthdays. This means I will have to meet real people who live outside my house. I'm not sure I'll know how to act. The last time I went out looking and sounding as I do now, I had to put up with a lot of genuflecting strangers hollering "Back Back" and "Away Demon." Ah well, we'll see how it goes.

Sicko Redux

One of the side benefits of a "viral infection with complications" along with night sweats and painful breathing is a voice lowering of several octaves. While staring into the mirror at my watery looking eyes, sagging sallow skin and uttering my latest greet the morning oath, "yeck", I noticed that the resultant sound was much deeper and fuller than my usual nasal squeak. Aha!, I thought. Here is my chance to finally say the word "Darling" like a Conway Twitty or Sam Elliot. I might even be able to sing like Barry White. I practiced for awhile. "Hello, DARlin. Hell-Ohh Darlin. HUHlo Dahlin." When I thought I had it down JUST right, I ambled onto the patio where Woowoo Charly was having her morning coffee. "Hello Darlin" I said in my most rounded and dulcet tone. "My God, you sound terrible" she said in reply. "You should go back to bed."

Okay, the whole darling thing may be out of reach I decided, but how about the singing? I returned to the bathroom where the acoustics were better and let loose with my most soulful rendition of "I'm Henery the Eighth I Am." I was somewhat hampered by having only a three note range, but the song doesn't really require much more. On my third time through the tune, I noticed a kind of "his voice is changing teenage hiccup" sound that I also thought was pretty cool so I incorporated it into the song. "I'm Henery the YIP I am." The result was amazing. All over Boquete female heads lifted and their voices rang out in answer. It's unfortunate, I guess, that they were all female frogs, but, you know, we can't have everything.

Of course, not all the news is happy like that. I learned first thing this morning that I had once again been defeated in my quest for the Nobel Peace Prize. "Really" I said in my letter of disappointment to the committee, "who is more peaceful than I am, you jerks?" I also threatened them with bodily harm if I don't win next year. That should do it I figure, because most of those wimpy peace-niks are easy to buffalo. My only hope this year is the Literature Prize which is given to someone for their "body of work." With 500 blogs now in the can, I'm thinking I have a pretty good chance. I have noticed, though, that this award is often given posthumously. The committee likes to give the award to dead people, because they are far less likely to cash the award check. To aid my chances of winning, I'm thinking of faking my own death. This shouldn't be hard as I've been stuck in the house for so long that people are already asking what ever happened to old Doc? Suicides are also given heavy consideration so if you hear that I impaled myself on a nine iron, don't believe it. It's a trick club.

I have to go now as I feel the urge to cough up something hideous. Is there a Nobel Phlegm Prize?

Clandestine Clinic

Fine, thanks. Still coughing up amphibians, but other than that, feeling better.

Doctora Ana Lopez is a sweet young thing, albeit formal and matter-of-fact. After stethoscoping me here and there while telling me to breathe deeply so I could show off the roiling and rumbling ruckus in my lower lungs, she sentenced me to a three day affair with her nurse starting that very day.

Off we scampered to our own private room where, after I had rolled up my sleeves in the classic let's get to work gesture, Nurse I-Don't-Know-Her-Name smiled and indicated that bare arms won't do. What she wanted she told me in Spanish, was that I should drop trou and climb up on the examining table so that she could do her thing. Alrighty then I thought, but being both shy and coy, I suggested in English that she go first. To clarify, I said "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours." She stood there grinning but not moving, so I took the initiative and climbed up on the white paper covered hard as rock cot-like table and scooched my jeans down about half moon. The needle she then stuck in my left cheek bore some chemical that could accurately be called liquid fire. Yikes, I thought, what lousy foreplay! These medical types are a bunch of freaks. But before I could voice my complaints, Nurse Now-Smiling-Hugely said "Listo" and I could tell that even though it had been a little painful for me, it had been good for her. A satisfied woman is a joy to behold. We made plans to get together and do it all over the next day.

By the third day though, (today) the magic was gone. The shine, the glow, the very luster of our naughty affair had dulled to a matter of ordinary routine. When I pulled up my jeans at the end of the session, I turned to my smiling, needle wielding intimate and told her we just couldn't go on. It was hasta la vista and ciao baby for me and her. I had to get down the road.

I'll say this for her. She took it well. Her smile never wavered. It still lit up the room like a power surge even though behind the shine I could see the hurt settling in. She'll be all right, I thought. She's a tough one. She'll survive. Someday another pale pink rounded rump will find its way to her table and she'll happily plunge her needle to the hilt in the cheek of her choice. When she does, I thought, I hope for just moment, she'll think of me.

Fighting the Good Fight

Alrighty then, here it is, number 500 on the way to...well, 501 seems a realistic goal. I wouldn't want to commit beyond that though. I mean 502 sounds like a lot of work.

I'm bringing to today's blog a heavy chest cold that is hanging on as stubborn as dryer lint. Every morning since Wednesday I've swung my feet on to the floor while shoving dogs off the bed who have jumped up there to tell me how happy they are to see me, paused a moment to take stock, and then declared myself still sick. To use a word born of drug lore but co-opted by the mainstream to mean the opposite of gooder...BUMMER! Not to worry though, I have used this down time to Zendoc the illness by removing myself from it so as to hold it up and examine it closely. We Buddhist/Taoist wannabes do this sort of thing on a regular basis because we have been told that by doing so we separate ourselves from the object and are then able to "let it go." Right. There I was looking at this chest cold from just short of arm's length. It's a sticky thing about the size of a ping pong ball, black and gooey. I tried reasoning with it for awhile, but getting nowhere, I lost my cool and my inner righteous bully fighter came to the fore. My third eye watched as it slapped the chest cold silly, but to no avail. It wouldn't cry "Uncle. The cold wanted back in my lungs and my psychic jabs could no longer hold it off. Looking for any face saving out, I then offered a deal and the cold accepted. It would leave when it felt like it, but it would leave. I have no choice but to trust it.

And speaking of fights, more needs to be said about the Klitschko brothers who hold three of the four heavyweight title belts, because I know that all the readers of this blog are huge fight fans, especially my daughters. (Hahahahahaha.) These two Ukrainians, raised in Germany, are a disgrace to the sport. They both hold doctorate degrees and they speak four languages. What kind of an example are they setting for our children? Where are the ear biting, "I will eat your babies", Mike Tysons of the world when we need them. Who are we going to point to while talking to our children and saying, "don't be like that?" Ah well, there's always the Yankees.

Tearing Up and Losing Time

We had dinner at B and L's last night - a spectacularly clear, it doesn't get any better than this kind of night - and were joined by new friends of ours, a veterinarian and his wife. Near the end of the evening our conversation drifted to our love of dogs and why they are so special. I suggested to Dan, the vet, that he Google the poem "Rags" as it expresses this "special" sentiment quite perfectly. I also told him I had never been able to read the poem without "tearing up." Tearing up is how we manly men say crying. We also use "getting emotional" to convey that we are not really crying because, you know, we manly men don't do that. This morning, to verify that the poem has the power I ascribed to it, I Googled it myself. Its actual name is "They Called Him Rags." Half way through the poem I began tearing up...literally. By poem's end, I was bawling like a baby. Now I realize that I had some stored up tears accumulated by wrenching away from my NY loved ones, but the sobbing waterfall that occurred this morning was freaking ridiculous. Somebody has to do something about this poem. Change the ending or something, anything. If they don't, I may never get the hang of this manly man thing.

Sometime in the next few days I will write my 500th blog. I don't know the significance of that, there's probably none, but it does seem some sort of achievement to me. I mean that's 500 hundred times I've been "present." (No small feat for an Enneagram Seven.) One of the definitions of "present", I think, is, a period in your life when time is absent. You are so engaged in the moment that time doesn't exist. What makes writing special to me is that even though while scribbling, I am not aware of time, I now have a record of its passing, to wit, here is the blog or the story or or the poem that was created while time was irrelevant. In the words of one quotable person or another, cool beans!

Raffi Doodles has just come into the room, gone under my desk and is now lying across my feet. Dogs.

The Walking Live

I realize that every single one of you among the (ha ha) thousands reading this knows that the Heavyweight Champion of the world is Vitali Klitschko. Unless, of course, you are talking about the OTHER Heavyweight Champion of the world who is Vitali's brother, Wladimir Klitschko. This is knowledge shared by all and common as knowing that Vitamin C and other dietary supplements when taken on a regular basis, do, well, something. You know this because they make your pee turn yellow and that's a good sign, right? What you don't know, and what I am about to share, is the name of the Super Bantamweight Champion of the World. His name - and I am not making this up - is Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym. You get this on a need to know basis because I know you need to know.

Alrighty then. Let's get ready to rumble.

When we weren't "on our feet moving towards the door" in New York, I spent time (If you have it you should spend it) reading a graphic novel called "The Walking Dead." (It's called that I learned, principally because that is its title.) The book is about a post plague world in which zombies shuffle about trying to dine on plague immune survivors.

"The Walking Live", on the other hand, is a blog I am writing as we speak. Why it is on the other hand I don't know but I'll look into it and get back to you when I do. "Live" is about a band of humans roaming throughout New York drinking and dining incredibly well while frequently passing posters for a new movie entitled "Zombieland", which, of course, I can't wait to see. I also can't wait to see the sequels which will surely include "Thelma and Louise Meet the Klitschko Brothers For the Zombie Championship of the World." That should be a good one too.

To get a feel for the Walking Live, picture some or all of the following people gathered around a restaurant table, talking, laughing and making "yummy" sounds: DC Dave, DZ Dara, Special K, Jackson My Man, Homie #2 Todd, Woowoo Charly and Yers Truly. We were also joined and entertained on one occasion by Newwoo Joe. If you don't know any of these people...sorry, that's your loss.

Some of the tables we gathered around were at these places: Mezcals - good Mexican food, margaritas by the pitcher. The Stone Park Grill - Upscale and pricey but worth it because the staff was friendly and the food terrific. The Miracle Grill - best french fries EVER, which is saying something because how good can french fries get? El Lobo. Mura. Mizu. Grimaldi's - waited in line for an hour to get in, then waited awhile longer to get pizza! Can you believe that? Trust me, it was worth the wait. Two Boots, The River Cafe, Pershing Square, Sete, a few more I've forgotten and best of all, Dave and Dara's apartment where the fun seemingly never stops.

Woowoo Chuck and I also trained to Connecticut for an afternoon with my ninety something (and going strong) Aunt Ruth and Uncle Horace. A very nice day indeed.

A secondary...or maybe terciary...or maybe forthciary theme to our NYC visit, you know, other than zombies, food and fun, was the Wii (pronounced wee, in case like me, you are still living in a twentieth century cave) interactive (with your television) game. I am proud to say I defeated Woowwoo Charly in a three hole golf match. I am proud to say that, because it is the only contest I won in countless tries and I have to be proud of something. I was defeated in several pick up basketball games, (a cruel blow) sword fighting, (by every opponent) and, well, the list goes on. To heap even greater crow on my humble pie, I couldn't keep a beat on the drums, couldn't find the right notes on the guitar, and was booed off the stage singing while being a member of a Wii rock band. As soon as the Wii interactive napping game is introduced, I am going to kick some butt and take my revenge. Until then, to salve my nightly Wii wounds, I turned to Enttemenn's Chocolate Do-nuts. Taken with red wine, these diet blasters made my food foraging complete. I am fortunate they are only available once a year.

Bars and Broncos

At twenty to twelve yesterday I walk up to the local sports bar which has a sign that says, "Irish Pub: Drinking, Dancing, Carry'n On, Closed During Mass" hung on the back bar. Maria, the Italian cutie who tends there, shouts "Hey Panama, how you doin?" as I grab a stool in front of one of the many TVs hung behind the bar and around the room. "Which of these," I ask, pointing at the the nifty flat screen directly to my fore, "is the one dedicated to the Denver game?" "That's it, right there," Maria answers, "the one you're lookin' at." I plop down on the bar stool and order a Killians Irish Red. It's going to be a good day. I can feel it.

I've brought a pullover hoodie with me even though the day is warm and sunny. I'm grateful for my foresight as the temperature in the bar brings back memories of Lambeau Field and its "frozen tundra" Lombardi era Packers. I slip on the hoodie and sip on the beer as every game being televised around the country begins and the bar fills to standing room only in the oft noted "New York minute." I meet and greet three other Denver fans. The fans of Cincinnati, Denver's opponent, rarely show their faces outside of Ohio for fear of public humiliation. Their team colors are black and orange which are nice in combination during Halloween and shyness therapy sessions, but could get you laughed out of town if donned anywhere else that sighted people populate. There are no Bengal fans about as Denver rolls to an impressive one, count them, one first down in the opening quarter and arrives at the end of the half trailing its garish and pitiful foe in every statistic but one, the score. Denver leads 3 to 0.

I am joined by Woowoo Charly and DC Dave giving Denver a six pack of people to cheer lustily, loudly and enthusiastically should the team ever do something remotely worth cheering about. Doesn't happen. There is a contingent of Philadelphia Eagle fans screaming their heads off to our left seemingly every two minutes and we dogged Denver faithful would like to match their intensity. Instead we chat of John Elway and days gone by as Denver punts, then Cincy punts and Denver punts again. The game ranks with being stuck in traffic for pure excitement. With a minute something to go, Cincinnati moves smartly down the field and scores the game's only touchdown to that point, putting them ahead 7 to 6. With only twenty seconds remaining in the game, the juggernaut Denver Bronco's offense finds itself on their own seven yard line. Everyone know a useless pass or two will be thrown and the game will end.

Miracles, of course, do happen. Rarely, however do they happen to Denver sports teams. On this particular occasion, though, Denver was playing a team in the Cincinnati Bengals that is hated by the miracle makers almost as much as they hate Detroit. So it was not so much that the miracle makers want to bring we six Denver fans happily and noisily to our feet as it is to stick it once again to the tastelessly clad tiger striped Cincy faithful filling their stadium, that a harmless sideline pass is tipped into the air and caught by Denver's Brandon Stokely who has the presence of mind and fleetness of feet to carry it 87 yards for the winning score.

Nice.

DC Dave has left before the finish, so Woowoo and I walk gleefully home. We are not the type of people to gloat and we do feel a degree of compassion for the fans who live in Cincinnati. To them we offer this one word of advice:

Move.

Seeing Brooklyn on Foot

Woowoo Charly is always saying, "I could live in New York", to which I usually respond, "I could too", but then, give me satellite TV, a computer and fast internet service, along with shelter, a clement climate, dogs, a comfortable bed, a couple of good, reasonably priced restaurants near-by, clean air, cheap booze, a few close friends, books, jeans that fit, inexpensive golf courses, Tylenol PM, indoor plumbing, and,(of course this goes without saying)an attractive, intelligent, funny wife attuned to my every need, music, good health, occasional solitude, peace of mind, paper products, Advil, telephone service, a recliner, hot showers, a shaving mirror, a well stocked grocery market, spending money, potent coffee, strong tea, rye and Italian breads, red wine, cigars, some travel and well... you know, I could live anywhere. But then, I'm easy.

We went to the NY Aquarium yesterday so Jackson could see the sharks and Woowoo Charly could scope out the walrus. (The plural of walrus may or may not be walruses but if it isn't, it should be.) We walked the boardwalk in Coney Island which is part of Brooklyn and then we walked around Little Odessa which is part of Russia which is part of Brooklyn, and then we got on the wrong (Dara just made me go back and say it wasn't the "wrong" train, it was just a train that was doing something funky that day because of fixing tracks or something like that.) subway train which should be called the sometimes sub and other times above way train that took us several hundred miles out of our way but never out of Brooklyn. Brooklyn is a very big place. We walked from there through the Kalahari, Gobi, and Sahara deserts which are recognizable for their absence of bars until we arrived at a place where we could board the correct train which is known as the "F" for reasons I don't want to get into. When we finally got back home, Dave, Woowoo and I walked to a hot dog emporium at my request because we still had some unwarranted skin left on the bottom of our feet that needed to be rubbed off and because, well, I wanted a dog. After that we read some books, played some Wii, watched some football and waited for Amazon dot com to deliver our new feet which, like anything you can possibly imagine are brought right to your door by Fed Ex. If, of course, your door is in Brooklyn.

Off and Runn...Walking

"I'm not sick, I just don't FEEL good" may be the quintessential denial phrase, but, alas, it describes me this morning. On top of that I took three shots at spelling quintessential before giving up, cheating, and using the spell checker. I have been feeling out-of-sorts for a week or so, (and sorts are not that easy to come by) but chalked it up to either travel anxiety, dengue fever, an allergy or swine flu, none of which would stop me from traveling, although allergies can certainly be annoying. I seem to feel poorly on an every other day basis. If that trend continues, I will touch down in NYC Wednesday chipper as a chipmunk, wary of Thursday and looking forward to Friday. Hey, "It could be worse," Igor said to Gene Wilder. "How?" replied Wilder as Doc Frankenstein. "It could be raining." We all know what happened next. (Don't tell me rain is in the forecast.)

But let us not dwell on whatever is the opposite of the bright side and consider only the shiny. I am completely packed except for, you know, clothes and stuff. My mind is clear if that means empty and I am ready to travel more or less. Being ready to travel is not the same as liking to travel which no one really cares for. Arriving is what we all like to do and I am looking forward to that, after which I will be looking backwards to make sure it all went okay.

Our dogs and RTGFKAR are aware that something is up even though we have tried to keep the trip a secret from them. All four have been acting strangely. Yesterday RTGFKAR went to the beach by himself - a thing he has never done before - and the mutts have actually fought to see which one can jump on our laps and show us how much they love us. We have had to endure frequent lick face fests. It could be worse though. The dogs could have done the former and RTGFKAR the latter.

Twitter: I'm moving from the office now, going to the shower.

A Couple of Jests

We have this book "Infinite Jest" that is so heavy, both intellectually and actually, that I get a double workout when I read it. My mind is stimulated and my upper body gets rigorously challenged. Nice. There is one small problem that arises from this, though, that I feel I should warn the unsuspecting of. (Never end a preposition with a sentence.) If you read "Jest" in bed, be aware that when your eyes grow sleepy and your mind drifts off to I Dream of Jeannie or J-LO or whomever broadens your horizons and lifts your, um, spirits Land, the book may crash down upon your chest causing your reverie to cosmically shift from sensual Arabian Nights to someone placing paddles on your chest and yelling "Clear." I know this for a fact.

We watched a movie on Hobo last night that had a title in English, "War Inc.", that I would never have guessed from the Spanish title it was listed under. (Never sentence a preposition to an end.) Luckily, I clicked on "info" and saw that one of the film's stars was Hilary Duff. I am a big fan of Hillary Duff's, so I watched the entire flick waiting for her to appear. It wasn't until movie's end that I realized I am actually a big fan of Hilary Swank. She wasn't in the picture. No matter, the movie was terrific; a skewering of Bush, Cheney, Haliburton and all things stupid in USA foreign policy at the time. I did miss Hilary S, though.

She was lost for a second time that night when the book came crashing down.

"CLEAR"!

In Lieu of Dancing

I'm feeling really good this morning, bursting with energy. I could easily be dancing. So why then, you ask, am I sitting around blogging when doing something productive, like, you know,...something, is available.

Truthfully? Beats me. Of course it is almost quarter to eight and all others here are still abed. Even the dogs, who woke me before six, have gone back to dog dreaming. I would dance, but being the sensitive, considerate soul that I am, I don't wish to wake Woowoo and RTGFKAR with the sound of music. (The Sound of Music? A truly spooky movie. The hills are alive! Run for your life, the hills are alive!) Dancing without the sound of music, I learned on one occasion, can have peculiar consequences. The last time I tried it, I was wrestled to the floor, shot up with tranquilizers and then tested for epilepsy. So that's out. Besides, the song in my head right now is, "Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl..." and I can't dance to that. I mean I think it's a waltz. Waltzing by yourself looks a trifle too...limp wristed for me. ("Not that's there's anything wrong with that.") I think I'll just keep blogging. For a little while longer, anyway.

Finnegan, the giant, furry, love machine of a dog has just curled himself up under the desk in front me. Whoops, no, changed his mind. Could have something to do with my socks.

We had an earthquake last night right at Midnight. Jigggled stuff around for about half a minute. I said, "Whoa, Charly, that was a good one." She said, "Zzzzzzzzz."
Wish I could sleep like that.

Okay, I've been staring off into space for several minutes scanning the universe for something else to say and nothing has impressed. This is, I've learned, the universe's way of telling me...I'm done.

Blogging To Put Macbeth In The Rear View Mirror

Just a few final things to wrap up before heading to NYC. Wish I could remember what they are. Packing! That's it, packing is one of them! I better go write that down before I forget.

I mowed the lawn yesterday. This may not seem of particular interest to a lot of people, but as a twitter - at least the ones I read about - this statement is of the seriously intellectual variety and will garner many responses.

A large white pig came to visit us a couple of days ago. It was so undeterred by our barking dogs that it walked right up to the gate for a closer look at them. Woowoo Charly was the first to spot it. She came into the office to alert me to the situation. She said, " Doc, there is pig in our yard." I said, "That's no way to talk about..." but she interrupted and said, "no, I'm talking about a REAL pig." I ran for the camera, but was too late. I barely got a quick glimpse of the prowling porker before it disappeared into the bush where I could hear it snuffling, snorting, coughing and making other sounds, none of which were oinks.

In other news of dramatic effect worthy of a twitter, it hasn't rained much lately.

I watched some of a French documentary last night called "The Earth From Above." There was an English voice over for much of the film, but the people being interviewed most often spoke french. When this occurred, Spanish subtitles ran below the screen. Because the French speak rapidly, the subtitles flew by. I was, however, able to get the gist of what was going on. In short, the interviewees were mostly saying, the planet is fucked. Of course, in French this doesn't sound quite so bad. (Even in English with a French accent it's easier to take. Zee plan-ate she ees foo-ked, hunh hunh hunnnhhh. (The laugh sounds a lot like our visiting pig pal.)
The French, who we all know are such optimistic types, put forth the statistics for the earth's demise, but softened the blow by introducing people here and there about the globe attempting to alleviate or slow the inevitable. The documentary didn't come right out and say it, but if it had, it would have been this: Zeez peep-ole, say are pees-ing in sa fiend. So there you have it, you are all doomed, especially if you are french.

After the film I turned on the Jet game for a little while. You know, the Broncos, aware that Cutler was history, could have traded up and got Sanchez in the draft. But Noooooo. I repeat, Noooooo. Talk about doomed!

RTGFKAR and I went to Amigos's Restaurant last Saturday afternoon to hear friend Randy Pigott sing and play his guitar. (That's pronounced Pee-goat and not pig-out as you might suspect from one of the themes in this blog.) Randy is a talented C/W artist who has recorded and played with many of the biggies in the field. (Older biggies. Leon Russell is a name I remember him mentioning.) We joined a table of other friends and downed a few beers. Good music, lots of laughs, good time. Woowoo Charly was home with a good book and a ladies golf tournament on the tube and couldn't be budged.

Wish us a bien viaje and I will see you in NYC. If, of course, that's where you are.