Working It Out

Every now and then I get it into my mind that I should go back to work. Most of the time that happens when I’m asleep in the form of a dream (or nightmare if you will). Some of the time it happens when my every so often disability recertification comes in the mail. In the past few days both of those things happened. And then I thought, if I had to, what would I do?

I couldn’t do what I used to do or I’d be doing it. Whatever it would be it should be something that I don’t have to think much while I’m doing it. I had a lifetime of thinking. I’d want something mostly brainless.

It shouldn’t be anything that requires a lot of sitting. I spend so much time sitting during dialysis (so I can “live a normal life” while I’m not on dialysis) and after dialysis (so I can recover from dialysis) that standing is actually refreshing. But it couldn’t be anything where I had to stand for more than a half hour at a time. I’m good on my feet in one place for around 30 minutes and then I fall over. Sometimes it’s a little more, sometimes a little less, but 30 minutes is a good starting point. Or more appropriately, stopping point. Limited standing would be good.

The local dollar store had a sign up for a part time cashier. I love dollar stores and it would be a financial plus for them since my little salary would certainly turn into dollars spent there. But I’m certain they don’t have half hour shifts and I’m just as certain they wouldn’t take kindly to me teetering, tottering, then toppling a few times each day, ADA regs notwithstanding.

HelpWantedA great standing job would be TV weather person. They only stand in front of the big screen for 2 or 3 minutes then it’s back to checking the weather app on the phone to prepare for the next segment. I can do that. I even already have the app on my phone. Two actually. The one that I wanted and downloaded myself and the one that magically showed up the last time my phone automatically updated itself from wherever it automatically updates itself. If I would be willing to move I can probably do it without either of those apps. I’m certain that in San Diego I can go on air and say “tomorrow will be warm and sunny,” and be right 362 days of the year, 363 on leap years.

A short period standing job would be good but would more likely still have to invented. What else is out there to do? Driving. I like to drive and I know my way around town. I could drive something, but not for a cab company, or worse, an app based ride hailing service. I wouldn’t even pick up a hitchhiker back in the last century when thumbing on the open road was right between VW bus and Greyhound as the most popular means of interstate travel. Depending on the kindness of strangers is not my idea of gainful employment.

Limo driver might work. Oh the people who climb into the back of a limousine are just as strange as those crawling into the back of a taxi and then they aren’t nearly as strange as those crawling into the back of a taxi. You can tell that by the way even though some limos have glass partitions between driver and passages they are rarely bullet proof. Car lot courtesy van driver is another stranger driver job I can get along with. Again, they are still strangers but the people I would be working for are holding the strangers’ cars hostage. The problem is that sometimes those drivers double as lot attendants and that means clearing cars of ice and snow in the winter and washing them year round. That makes it all much too much like a job.

What else? I thought I’d find out and check some ads. I was still interested in possible jobs but not that interested that I wanted to open up a browser and check a real job site. I discovered that there are still want ads in the paper. A lot of them are for security guards. That wouldn’t work for all kinds of reasons. Security guards either sit a lot (see above), stand a lot (see above), or walk a lot (not even considered enough to be included above). No to guarding.

But I found a job in the paper that seemed ideal. It was titled “staffing assistant” and the responsibilities included “reviewing and recommending job applicants, and making staffing recommendations.” I figured I could review my background, recommend they hire me, then further recommend my job to be home based and with no additional responsibilities.”

Now we’re talking dream. No nightmares need apply.

 

Land of Plenty

I have seen the Land of Plenty and it doubles as my apartment. It’s closing in one three years that I downsized from a 2000+sq.ft. house to a 700sq.ft. apartment and it was time to take stock of that which I decided was worthy of making the change with me. So I did and I discovered that I should have put downsize in quotes.

Clothes are easy. If you haven’t worn it in a year you’re not going to wear in another. Tuxedos excluded. But how do you know when it’s time to let go of those bath towels. I don’t know how I decided which towels to bring with me on the move but however it was it was not well thought out. I ended up with 14 bath towels in my linen closet; there are also 12 hand towels and 14 wash cloths. (No, I don’t have an explanation for the discrepancy. Just go with it.) I can change full towel sets every day and not be concerned with having to do a load of bath linens for half a month.

Bed linen seems to have actually grown since my life reduction. Still I am the proud owner (ok, I am the owner) of seven complete sheets sets each with 4 pillow cases, two comforters, 4 blankets, and two dust ruffles. I know men who can’t even recognize a dust ruffle. Why do I have two? That might have been appropriate for a three bedroom house but for a single bedroom hovel, per sleeping space I probably outpace some major hotel chains.

KitchenToolsThe kitchen hasn’t been spared its own review. There I’ve had the benefit of slowly transferring pieces to my daughter whenever she says things like “I really need a new blender,” and I can come back with “Before you go to Target you can have one of mine.” Even shifting a blender off to her I still have two (one standard, one immersion). I also still have two food processors and two slow cookers even though she has taken possession of one of each of those, and for some reason I have two coffee makers.

Somehow the number and sizes of my pots and pans are appropriate but the kitchen tools are out of control. Do I really need three potato mashers? I rarely even eat potatoes. How many slotted spoons should grace one small kitchen? If the answer is four I have just enough. Spatulas, turners, and spoons fill two utensil crocks on the small counter. One drawer holds three zesters, two peelers, and a garlic press.

Even the glassware hasn’t escaped consideration for further reduction. A man who doesn’t drink does not need a complete set of 4 each red and white wine glasses, champagne flutes, and martini, rocks, and pilsner glasses. And an ice bucket.

Yes I think it’s time for another elimination round. There’s always the tried and true garage sale. I certainly have enough to make for an interesting afternoon of browsing for some people. I could donate them all to the local St. Vincent dePaul Society. If I did I’d not ask for a receipt for taxes or I’d certainly be setting myself up for an audit down the road. I could post them for sale on line but then I’d have to worry about taking pictures and shipping or meeting a complete stranger in a parking lot to hand over a stir fry pan. No I think the easiest thing to do is just leave them all where they are and let my heirs fight over them when I’m gone.

By then they should be museum quality antiques.

———-

WTC

Photo: Jeff Mock via WikiMedia Commons

TRRSB Extra: Say World Trade Center terrorist attack and your first thought probably goes to Sept 11, 2001. But that wasn’t the first terrorist attack on the New York skyscraper. That came 25 years ago today on 26 February 1993 when 15 people conspired and parked a rental van packed with 1200 pounds of explosives in the parking garage beneath the towers. Six people including a pregnant woman were killed and over 1,000 injured in the blast that also caused over $590 million in damage.

The FBI called the van bomb the “largest by weight and by damage of any improvised explosive device that we’ve seen since the inception of forensic explosive identification.” The World Trade Center’s sprinklers, generators, elevators, public address system, emergency command center, and more than half of the incoming electricity lines to the buildings were destroyed in the attack.

Sometime today please take a moment to remember the victims of the forgotten attack on the World Trade Center.

 

Is it just me . . .

I was going to end the title here with “…or is it chili in here?” in honor of National Chili Day (get it, is it chili in here? I crack myself up), but then I thought better of it and opted not to start a new Internet controversy. There are arguments enough on line that I don’t have to add fuel to the fire and start shouting matches between the bean camp and the no beaners, fights between the beef chunkers versus the ground beef crowd, or debates over whether vegetarian chili is or is not mutually exclusive. No, I’m not going to be the cause of any more strife along the world’s interwebs.

Instead I thought I’d pose a more calm inducing topic to the world today. Does anybody else think that snowboarding should be banned from the Olympics? Like forever. Plus an extra 20 years for good measure!

It has nothing to do with whether snowboarding is a “sport” and are snowboarders “athletes.” That would be no and no. But neither is the biathlon and I have nothing against that being in the Olympics. And before anybody gets too excited, curling is a sport and curlers are athletes and it without a doubt belongs in the Olympics. (Contrary to popular belief curling is not just shuffleboard on ice. If anything it more closely resembles bocce on ice and it is a travesty that lawn bowling is not an Olympic sport in the summer games yet beach volleyball is. But I digress. If you’re interested in finding out why bocce belongs in the Olympics you can read what I said about that here.)

SnowboardingIOC18So what do I have against snowboarding and snowboarders? Nothing personally. It can be entertaining and they are talented but it’s not a sport. It cannot be quantified. There is no time or distance measured to objectively determine the winner. If there was a downhill snowboard race and the winner determined by who gets there first, that would be a sport worthy of inclusion in the winter games.

Ah ha! you say. What then about skating? Sorry, that has to go too. It’s been around since the first winter Olympics but it should have never been allowed and it has to go. If the figure skaters and ice dancers (does anybody really know the difference?) want to compete for a medal on ice, let them try speed skating or hockey. Or curling even. Otherwise I’ll be happy to enjoy their contributions to a genteel society when they show up in town with Disney on Ice. While we’re at it, freestyle skiing is out also as is ski jumping unless they agree to ditch the style points and award medals only for distance. Not giving yourself a concussion on landing would be nice but not essential if the length is there.

The Olympics have hung around almost 2000 years to celebrate the fastest, the strongest, the highest. Not who can spin around in the air with a surfboard strapped to his feet the prettiest.

Thank you for your unwavering support and agreement.

And Happy Chili Day.

Ground. With beans.

And yes, it is.

 

Never Too Much of This Good Thing

Happy Groundhog Day Eve! I don’t have to remind anybody that of all the 382 special observances of the days, weeks, and month during February, Groundhog Day is my personal favorite not to mention the most useful.

Phil

Photo: Pittsburgh Patch

But I have to question the blatant commercialism that is detracting from this great day. It’s quite alright that Punxsutawney Phil has his own Instagram page or his own souvenir shop. That’s reasonable for a celebrity of his stature. But it’s all this other stuff that everybody else is doing to horn in on his popularity that has to stop.

 

BSBMoon

Photo: NASA

First there was that movie from 25 years ago about the day that kept going and going and going. Now there’s Mother Nature throwing her triple threat Super Blue Blood Moon into the mix a mere two days before Phil’s annual excursion into the public eye. And then there’s that silly football game on Sunday that’s already hogging up all the television time. Honestly, what does it take to get the world’s greatest weather icon his more than deserved respect?

His lack of respect doesn’t stop Phil from his appointed tasks as well as making personal appearances (take that you big extraterrestrial object) and even inspiring love songs (take that you hardly universal sporting event).

GiL

Now just in case you’re too busy tomorrow morning to be in Punxsutawney personally, you can catch Phil streaming his shadow, or lack of, here.

And remember, even if Phil should see his shadow, no matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.

 

Now I’m Just Milking It

I think it’s happened. I have finally gotten so old that I don’t understand what’s happening. Not that I don’t think I understand or I misunderstand. I don’t understand what’s happening.

With milk.

BananaMilkdI was going over this week’s grocery store ads (you know, those things that come in the mail) (yes, that mail) (yes, in email too if you want) (or on line) and saw that this week’s sales include banana milk. What do people have against cows?

I know many people have dairy allergies and need a cow’s milk alternative. That’s why we have soy milk although I don’t understand how they fit the little stool and bucket under a soy bean. But that’s a different kind of not understanding, not the big not understanding what’s happening of understandings.

Then somebody decided soy milk wasn’t any better for people than cow’s milk so they had to invent new milks. (Just to mention another thing in the long list of things that I don’t understand is how the soy in soy milk isn’t good for us but the soy in tofu is still ok.) So now we have almond milk, cashew milk, flax milk, quinoa milk, hemp milk, oat milk, rice milk, coconut milk, and pea protein milk. And now banana milk. All with nothing in common with dairy milk (and soy milk) except they are sort of white but without all the pesky allergens. And most of the nutrients. Then we add to each one its proponents. Check that. Each one’s fanatics.

Why is it that food attracts so much controversy? There always seems to be as much debate with food extremists as with partisan politics zealots. And sometimes not even as much fun. We have vegans, gluten freers (who are not celiacs), paleo dieters, juicers and cleansers, and now milkers. But not the kind with stools and buckets. Each trying to convince anybody not in said camp why theirs is the one way, the right way, the only way. Next you’ll be seeing them soliciting in airports handing out banana peels in exchange for your loose change.

Well, while all those others are trying to fit their stools and buckets under their nuts and peas and bananas I’m going to have a nice big glass of old fashioned milk milk. With a cookie. Baked. If that’s not too old fashioned.

Cow

Moo.

Happy Hot Sauce Day

Happy Hot Sauce Day! 😲 I’m not sure if that really should be capitalized but it sounds official enough so why not. I’ve looked into it but have not been able to determine the origin of Hot Sauce Day but I’m going to take a wild guess and say it’s relatively new and was dreamed up by a marketing company. I’m guessing it’s fairly new because when I was growing up there weren’t many hot sauces out there so there wouldn’t have been a need for a “day” and it probably would have been called chili pepper sauce day not hot sauce day. And I’m guessing it was the brain child of a marketing group because I’m not stupid.

Hot Sauce Day is a particularly significant day for me this year. I am finally getting some appetite back having been set back by pneumonia now going into its third week. But just because I want to eat doesn’t mean I can taste much of what I eat. Thus the addition of strong flavors to my foods. It’s amazing what a splash or two of Tabasco will do to scrambled eggs.

HotSauceTabasco is one of two hot sauces I keep in my pantry. The other is Frank’s. I don’t get any remuneration from either but if one, the other, or both would like to make an offer, I’m all taste buds.

Frank’s is the hot sauce most often associated with Buffalo wings although it serves a more subtle use in my kitchen. Anything made with ground beef, chicken, or turkey, such as meatloaf gets a few splashes of Frank’s. So too do most sauces and braising liquids. Tabasco, being lighter and more acidic is added to most dressings and marinades.

So today being Hot Sauce Day in one way isn’t such a big thing for me. Almost every day is Hot Sauce Day to me. On the other hand it’s a really big deal because instead of the controlled restraint I usually use on my hot sauce, today and for a few more I’ll be pouring it on like the typical macho bar fly uses his hot sauce. As a weapon against his taste buds.

Fortunately my taste buds are just as incapacitated as the rest of me and can stand a little extra jolt. Hmm. Jolt? No, that would be November 19, Carbonated Beverage with Caffeine Day. I wouldn’t make that up.

 

All Washed Up

Since the beginning of last week I’ve been fairly much home bound with my pneumania. I say daily much because I’ve still had to go to dialysis and the occasional outing for a lab draw or x-ray. That means I’ve had to make myself presentable to the general public. You know how us old people are. Um, how we old people are. I still dress up to fly.

I was beginning to think that I had better do something around the house and since I had a hamper full of germ laden clothes from the week I thought that might be a good place to start. Dust on the furniture and dirt in carpet could hang out for another few days. Used linen could wait since I have enough sheets and towels to outfit a good size bed and breakfast. But socks and underwear exist only in a finite supply.

So I tossed a small load of said mangerie in the machine, selected the load size and water temperature, and measured out the appropriate amount of liquid detergent. Just like on the television commercials. At the appropriate time, when I heard the machine shift from wash to rinse mode, I poured in the required amount of liquid fabric softener. You see, unlike the machines on those commercials, mine is not of the fancy variety with dispensers where you can pour everything into at the beginning and forget it. I have the cheap model that requires me to be my own dispenser of detergent, bleach, and fabric softener at the appropriate times in the cycle. (Darn apartment living!) As I was returning the fabric softener bottle to the shelf I realized something was in its space. What was it? Why, it was liquid fabric softener! Hmm. Then what was in my hand awaiting its return to this space? Why, it was the liquid detergent! But I knew I had my hands on fabric softener and indeed I had. At the beginning of the wash cycle! And that’s how I ended up washing that load twice. Well, they were germ laden and probably benefited from the extra spin around the tub.

At least I had to dry them only once.

 

Pneumania

“Yeah, they sound pretty junky.”  Not the thing you want to hear from your doctor while he’s pressing a stethoscope against your back but what I expected to hear from the time I woke up seven hours earlier. It would be “official” when the x-ray results showed what looked like the course diagram of a nine hole golf course where my right lower lung should be but I was pretty sure I had pneumonia when I coughed myself awake around 4 Monday morning.

I’d been moving slower than usual and had a little cough for a couple days before but I hadn’t considered that I was actually any sicker than usual. If it wasn’t for the fever, chills, dizziness, shortness of breath, and inability to get out of bed without falling over I might have thought I was overreacting when I said to myself, “Self, this ain’t no man flu. You got pneumania. You should call someone,” in between gasps.

ChestXrayYes, pneumania is a real thing. It’s just like the pneumonia that non-men get only it’s real. It’s not the “cough, cough, oh I feel so bad I think I have pneumonia but I’ll still make breakfast and pack everybody’s lunch then go to work and come home and still clean the house before I make a gourmet dinner then I’ll work on my hand crafted head bands for my Etsy shop and write 3 or 4 thousand words for my novel” type of pneumonia. No. What I have is a real pneumonia. A man’s pneumonia. Pneumania!

Ok, it’s true. You can get a little loopy from too much cough syrup. But hey, I got photograph proof that my life is in jeopardy. And not just from your lack of compassion. So there! 😛

Hmm. That might mean more if I didn’t live alone.

Cough, cough.

Sorry.

Cough.

 

Getting Your Money’s Worth

I went to a hockey game yesterday. My daughter is my usual hockey partner for these games. Hockey is a good bonding experience because we get to experience first-hand that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree especially after a particularly well placed goal, hard fought penalty kill, or extraordinary save, not to mention a rousing Dance for a Dilly Bar competition (so I won’t mention it). It’s also a good bonding experience because we get a good hour or so to ourselves with discussion topics that don’t usually come up in general daily conversation while driving to then sitting in our seats waiting for the puck drop.

For example, last night as we were closing in on our parking lot we noticed several cars in front of us slowing down at each parking entrance, perhaps checking out the remaining offerings or the event rates for that lot, then swerve back into traffic. We get to see this traffic ballet at almost every game but don’t think much of it. Yesterday, though, Daughter mentioned that she and Boyfriend were visiting friends between the holidays and they got caught behind a vehicle doing a similar wagon waltz as they proceeded through a neighborhood behind a driver who would slow down at each intersection, turn enough so his or her headlights illuminated the street sign, then veer back in front of them for another block. We dubbed it the “holiday home party shuffle.”

Another thing we both noted while we were coughing and hacking our mutual germs into the car’s enclosed atmosphere is that if you show up anywhere on the 2nd through 5th of January feeling under the weather you are greeted with “still working out New Year’s Eve are you?” Apparently germs take a holiday during the holidays.

Throughout the game you can track the progress of the team’s charitable foundation’s fifty-fifty raffle. Anybody who has been a parent of a high school sports participant, band member, cheerleader, or theater group is familiar with fifty-fifty raffles. For $5 you get three chances (or maybe 20 chances for $20) on half of whatever the erstwhile organization brings in that night. Having a daughter who was band-centric during her middle and high school years I got to sell lots of tickets and count lots of dollar bills. On a good day at an all-day regional band competition we’d bring in close to $400 and the winner walked away with half of that. I noticed last night’s fifty-fifty take on the same 3 for $5 chance was over $38,000 and the winner got to walk through the parking lot after the game with a check for $19,340. I didn’t hit that one either.

But here is perhaps the most blogworthy thing from last night’s hockey game. I have a half-season season ticket package. That gives me a pair of seats to every other home game. That’s about 20 or 21 regular season games per year. Twenty games is a lot of hockey especially for someone who doesn’t move particularly well without a cane and who still insists on leaping up from his seat whenever anything marginally leapworthy happens. So I go to about half of my alloted games doling out the others to Daughter, Hockey Loving Sister, or the resell market. Here’s what was blogworthy about last night’s game. Over 2+ seasons of just regular season games (since I started tracking this) I’ve been to about 26 hockey games. On two occasions did those games end in regulation time. Last night marked the 24th game I’ve seen that went into overtime.

I might not be hitting the fifty-fifty but I am getting my money’s worth!

greatdayforhockey

Lots of Hockey!

On a Clear Day

I was out driving in yesterday’s clear, cold, January afternoon when I decided that I don’t like driving in clear, cold, January afternoons. Well, it’s not that I don’t like driving in clear, cold, January afternoons. It’s that clear, cold, January afternoons come with a tremendous amount of glare. (Probably like clear, cold, July afternoons in Uruguay but I’m just supposing that.)

I don’t recall having glare issues until a few years ago. I’m not sure if I had better sunglasses before then, if sunglasses in general were better before then, if Polarizing (the trade mark kind, not what happens when you put Democrats and Republicans on the same Facebook page) actually worked before then, or if my eyes are just getting old and tired. Nah, can’t be that.

SunglassesI don’t think I would have even considered the tremendous amount of glare associated with clear, cold, January afternoons had I not yesterday morning saw a commercial for new “tactical” glasses that supposedly dramatically reduce tremendous amount of glare. Again, among the things that I’m not sure of, I’m not sure if I’m a sucker for things that dramatically reduce glare, if I’m a sucker about things called “tactical,” if I’m a sucker for glasses in general, or if I’m just a sucker. Nah. If I was just a sucker I’d be a sucker for things in the Sky Mall catalog, not the As Seen On TV bounty.

I’m sorry. How did I get from Polarized sunglasses to being a sucker? Clearly it was the $5 scratch off lottery ticket winnings burning a hole in my pocket. So as soon as I got home I got online and looked up “tactical glasses as seen on TV.” You know, just in case I might be out on another clear, cold, January afternoon. Do you have any idea how many tactical glasses have been on TV?!?! Fourteen! From $14.88 to $69.

That’s when I realized that I really need a hobby. Or more winning scratch off tickets. Or I have to stay indoors on clear, cold, January afternoons.