Monday, August 30, 2010

TONIGHT, WE WEAR US SOME SMILES

It's been a long summer.

My wife has been struggling with joint and muscle pain since April -- by mid-July, she could hardly walk from the bedroom to the bathroom.  It started innocently enough: a sore shoulder one day, next day a squeezing, throbbing  pain in the wrist.  A day later, the other symptoms gone, a leg might be swollen and hot -- and I mean HOT -- to the touch.  The pain was moving.  But it was taking its toll.  It was like a forest fire, hot spots kicking up everywhere.  Our doctor suspected Rheumatoid Arthritis.  He was correct.  But to make the call (and receive relief) requires more than a GP's best guess... despite the extensive blood work and X-rays.

Today, she finally got to see a specialist. (Sometimes, despite -- or because of --  our decent health care system, you need to drive a few hundred miles.)

We can see the lay of the land now.  The predizone took effect within three hours. It's the first smile I've seen on her face in weeks.  More later.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

DAD, HERACLITUS, UNCLE LEO, AND ME

My father would be 98 years old today.

Just thinking:
If the diabetes and heart failure hadn't taken him a few years ago, England's recent performance in the World Cup would certainly have finished him off.  (And that is no lie.)

Ninety-eight.  1912.  The year the Titanic sank.  Fucking history, eh?

Me, I've managed to step into Heraclitus' river and splash about during eight numbered decades.  And yeah... it ain't never the same river twice.  (Maybe that's why I can't get any latter-day traction.)

I have no idea what the hell I intended to say tonight.  As Uncle Leo famously said: "I'm an old man.  I'm confused."      

I'm probably going to stop posting this crap. (If I haven't nailed any of my remaining 38 theses to the Lunch Counter doors by the autumnal equinox, you must -- I implore you -- consider me dead.)

"Will somebody answer that damn phone!"

Sunday, August 1, 2010

APROPOS OF NOTHING


I've always been a bit of a sucker for puns.  Wrote loads of them in bygone days (before the age of powered flight) but gave up the practice years ago.  Mine were usually short -- shorter than the traditional 'Feghoot'.

This morning over coffee, I wrote the following:

A man is stopped by airport security.  He is pulling a dead kangaroo.  Stuffed inside the unfortunate beast's pouch are a shaving kit, a laptop computer and a change of seedy looking undergarments.
"What the hell is all this?" demands the chief of security.
The man replies: "Just my carrion luggage, sir."


Thank you.  You're a wonderful audience.  Please drive safely.