August 22, 2013

The Three Beer Man

Day 21 of being off chemotherapy and I'm still feeling kind of rocky.  I clumsily put a gash in my shin the other day, and who knows when that will heal.  I'm up to walking a mile a day before tiring out, but my head is a little clearer.  I think I will take the extra month off to see if I can get stronger.  The worst feeling in the world is being in a crouching position and not being able to stand up without sitting on my ass and whirling around like a dog to stand up.  I should have my legs in good shape again pretty soon though.

Anyway, enough about me.  I was at the local market the other day to pick up some stuff, and when I went to the cashier, there was a guy ahead of me with a six pack of beer with 3 bottles in it.  He was explaining the the cashier that he didn't like the beer and wanted to return it for a full refund.  The beer was one of those berry tasting craft shit things, so I didn't really blame him, but he had on sandals with black socks, so I figured he'd made his own bed in buying it.

But ... wouldn't you know after drinking one bottle that you didn't like it?  And who the hell returns beer?  The cashier was kind of having a hard time taking it all in, so being the ass that I am, I interrupted the conversation by saying I wanted to check out and they could continue their conversation/argument after I was finished.

I didn't wait around to see if the asshole got his refund, but if he did, I'd like to do the same thing.  I'll buy a bottle of wine, drink 3 glasses and return the one inch left at the bottom of the bottle and ask for a refund because I didn't like it.

I wonder if I could get away with it?  I'm sure people have.

August 08, 2013

Out Of The Shadows

That's not much of a joke.  Looks like the last time I posted anything was in May.   Something about ducks.   Well, we don't have any ducks anymore.  Nothing much in the way of funny happening around here.   Everyone on the block seems to have the summer doldrums.   Oh ... my next door neighbor, Hillbilly Ron, still brings home the occasional junk, grinds on it for a few days with his little tool that makes a screeching noise, then gets rid of it.  I finally found a way to keep him from stealing the things that I throw out for the trash man.  I have a little hand sledge and I beat everything to unrecognizable  shit before I set it at the curb.

The little bald headed shrimp on the other side of the street has five cars now.   He's single by the way and I have no idea how he keeps insurance on five cars.  He drives a different one every day and invariably pulls it into the garage every night and pulls out his hammer and pneumatic wrench and starts flailing away at some part of it.  To me, it looks like each one of them is a stock car or a piece of shit.

Most of the reason I haven't written much is that I've been going through chemotherapy for 26 weeks.  My last treatment was a week ago and I don't have to go back for two months.  Started out with 5 spots and ended up with three.  So, maybe with more treatments, I'll beat this thing.

The funniest thing about chemotherapy is ... well, nothing.  The only thing is, I seem to be the youngest person there, and I'm 61.  So it's pretty depressing looking at all of these older people taking their treatments.   Most of them are worse off than I am, so I feel pretty lucky.  All I have is fatigue, and the feeling that I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground most of the time.  I've been working all week to get my mojo back and I figure I'll start feeling half way normal in a couple of weeks, when the poison starts to wear off.

Oh, and I made a big decision to get completely off social media.  I cancelled my Facebook page, my Twitter account and my Linked In site.   I decided I didn't like social media.   But of course, I'll always keep this blog, so I guess I'm a bit hypocritical.

And that's about it for me.  If anything even remotely funny happens around here, or I see something weird, I'll be right back on this thing.

Until then ...

May 09, 2013

Duck Tale

In the 27 years we've lived in this house, we've had our share of wild animals hanging around, even though we live in a pretty well populated neighborhood.  There's been the wily fox, the cunning coyote, the fucking deer, the putrid raccoon ... plus loads of squirrels and noisy songbirds.  But, until last Sunday, there had never been the friendly, but freaked out duck.

She nested in our flower garden on the east side of our house, and I didn't know she was there until I walked by on Sunday afternoon.  A burst of feathers and and duck heading straight for your head flying for her life is something you don't forget too soon.  Strange, I thought.  Aren't  ducks supposed to stay still and guard their eggs?

Well, she had four of them, and she didn't come back until evening, when I mistakenly walked by again and almost had my shoulder taken off.  Then she was gone until the next day, when she bushwhacked me again.

I figured the eggs had no chance, and if she was this freaky, they were as good as dead.

Which they were.

I went out this afternoon and found this ...

Duck Egg Mash Up

Either lady duck got super pissed off that her eggs wouldn't hatch and tore them to shreds, or a fox, coyote or raccoon/T-Rex found them .... AND ATE THEIR INSIDES!!

Mother Nature's a bitch sometime.  But at least there will be no more duck trying to take my head off when I walk around the side yard.  I hope she finds a better nest next time.

AND .... by the way, did you know you can by 100 little wire flags ... just like the utilities use ... at Home Depot for for 7 dollars?

Hours of fun!

I'm easily amused.

April 15, 2013

Moving Day ... And Other Shit

Last Friday, Jan and I bought a new couch and chair for our family/back room.  They will be delivered today, so we'll spend a couple of hours clearing out stuff so the movers can get in.  Jan is skeptical about the chair, but I like it.

Also, one year ago today, I had a stage 3 tumor the size of a woman's fist removed from my stomach.  Seems like it was much longer ago, but time stretches and shrinks according to how you think about things.  Glad to still be here today, even if it is chemo week (my favorite).

Also, looking forward to another week of rain.  You have to love the upper midwest to live here.

April 14, 2013

Random Thoughts Part ??

I was doing some deep thinking the other day and it occurred to me that I still had a web log.  So, I checked in and saw that the last time I had written anything was before Christmas.  Not much has happened in my little world since then, but thought I might add a new post, for those readers who may have written me off as vanished from the face of the earth.

I'm still semi-retired.  Not working during the winter is a mixed bag.  On one hand, you don't have to stress about what the weather is like and how the hell you're going to get to work on those mornings when it's snowing, and there have been a lot of those days this year.  On the other hand, you get bored easily, because you can't get out and do things.  So ... I've tried to keep myself occupied doing things like ...

Discount Double-Check
Jan and I visited our insurance agent last week.  Seeing as we are both retired, driving less, and my truck is 15 years old and the tires are worth more than the whole vehicle itself ... well, we thought we could save some money.  After a 15 minute rambling lecture on the sad state of the insurance industry, punctuated by my trying to get the asshole back on track to save us some money, two things were accomplished.  We saved about 20 dollars a year and came to the realization that we needed a new insurance agent.

Critiquing Daytime Television
As someone of some note said in the 1950's, television is the vast wasteland.  Especially daytime TV.  After flipping back and forth between ABC and NBC morning offerings for several months, I determined the following ...  Although Al Roker thinks Al Roker is funny, Al Roker is horribly mistaken.  There is an hour long abortion on at noon time named "The Chew", which features an insufferable 5 person cast who spend the hour doing their best to make you wince at their lame cooking and chatter.  After several viewings I crowned "Chef" Michael Symon as the winciest because of his constant high pitched giggle and total lack of charisma.

Now I just cruise Netflix and Amazon Prime ... and pray for warm weather.

Silently Yell At Cancer Commercials
I swear to all that is holy, that more money is spent on cancer treatment commercials on daytime television than is spent on cancer research itself.  I miss the days when laundry detergent and spray on starch ruled the commercial airwaves.  Cancer has certainly turned into a big time business.

Well, I've had my Sunday morning rant.  After 7 straight days of rain, I noticed that the sun has come out, and the weather dude says it might reach 60 this afternoon.  Time to do a little yard work and throw some chicken on the grill.

Until next time ...