Ronnie Ray used folks' seat-backs to propel himself down the aisle of the aircraft toward its tail as his intestines were screaming threats to loose the effects of amoebic dysentery into his pants, caused by lettuce on street tacos he'd eaten in Tijuana, Mexico.
As if that wuddn't enough, there was flame-licked, steel-spiked lava coursing down the core of his penis in his urethra, a sure sign of gonorrhea he'd bought from a real cutie two days earlier, but whose symptoms had only hit Ronnie Ray 30 minutes ago in the mens' room while waiting to board the San Diego-Atlanta flight.
Thank ya JEEZZZUSSS the lavatory was unoccupied as Ronnie Ray thumbed-off his suspenders and his britches hit the floor in nothin' flat to the painfully, teeth-clenched and muted cries of his burning urethra discordant with echoed growls of his diarhhea into the stainless bowl of the cramped and now putridly odorific lavatory Hell-bent to redefine word 'pungent.'
His autonomic nervous system seeped tears into his eyes from the flame-throwing penis as his rectum continued to expel what felt like his internal organs being propelled by downstream logs 'n washed away homes in a flood.
In an unthinking moment of pain and self pity, worrying about what to do and when back home, Ronnie Ray pulled and lit a cigarette, eliciting a LOUD two-toned wail from smoke detector to which Ronnie Ray reacted by stuffing the freshly lit cigarette between his legs into the toilet but, missing in his panic, hit the side of his penis and he jumped up smackin' at the left side of his scrotum as the cherry ember made a nice hole producing a scream convincing enough to cause other passengers to brace themselves, wide-eyed and pale for the Second Coming.
After six hours handcuffed in front of Federal and state authorities at Atlanta Hartsfield's mini-jail, Ronnie Ray found himself walking to the curb for a cab clutching his suitcase and a $2,500 Federal citation, muttering, "God bless America and 'Messico' can kiss my big, fat..." but words were substituted with Ronnie Ray's brain flashing like cameras as he wheeled and burst back inside the terminal, desperate to find a restroom and swearin' he'd never leave the U. S. of A. again.
Ronnie Ray sat in the men's room stall sporting the pained facial expression of a man with V.D. and amoebic dysentery. Burns on his penis and scrotum from his poor effort to stuff the lavatory with the cigarette earning a $2500 fine still angered him but, hey, things was about to start lookin' up.
He sat in the terminal on his cell phone, calling Earleen, "YES, baby, I feel like hammered crap 'n they wouldn't let me board the flight with this flu and so I'm still in San Diego and gotta grab a cab and hotel and I'll call you later," and he abruptly hung up with a quickly groaned and coughed "Luv ya."
He rushed to the East Seaboard Airlines counter and got in line to buy a round-trip ticket to San Diego, and remembered that when he had previously booked his ticket, he had declined the airline's offer of a package of hotel and rental car that would be slicker than snot on a ice-skatin' rink to accept this time.
The ticketing process was effortless, paying $682 in cash and traveller's checks, signing the agreement that last-minute packages were nonchangeable, noncancellable, and non refundable beginning with the flight's departure in an hour-and-a-half for two days' of ample time to forge excuses for Earleen and his family and any butt-inski's to butt-out.
Sitting in his departure gate. he sighed relief just as the loud voice of a deplaned passenger yelled out, "Ronnie! Ronnie Ray, izzat YOU!??" the voice belonging to Earleen's brother from San Francisco, grinnin' and bellowin', "Boy howdy, this is Earleen on my phone tellin' me youse sick as all git-out and stuck in San Diego," as Ronnie Ray muttered, "Aww, damn, shit, hell!," wishing for a death ray to deliver him from all evil and in a hot minute for what must and would come next as the cell phone was extended toward his suddenly immovable hand.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Looking Down Deep
I’m myself, lately.
The more familiar facets of me you’ve come to know have been necessarily focused on confrontations with life decisions, not of my own, but in my own.
My compass’ indicator is 180° from the funny and laughing and creative side of a personality rounded by genes, experience,. environs, ethics and, regrettably or joyfully, moods.
These challenges are again whittling and carving my character, character much like contact lenses through which I can see but not see themselves, and it’s as apparent to you as it is invisible to me.
My nearly-six decades have marked suns and tides impacting little.
I know and sense a soul inside, see the irony of being grateful to evolve and adapt as my being’s journey logs more frequent and accelerated missteps toward the pane of my mortality.
The more familiar facets of me you’ve come to know have been necessarily focused on confrontations with life decisions, not of my own, but in my own.
My compass’ indicator is 180° from the funny and laughing and creative side of a personality rounded by genes, experience,. environs, ethics and, regrettably or joyfully, moods.
These challenges are again whittling and carving my character, character much like contact lenses through which I can see but not see themselves, and it’s as apparent to you as it is invisible to me.
My nearly-six decades have marked suns and tides impacting little.
I know and sense a soul inside, see the irony of being grateful to evolve and adapt as my being’s journey logs more frequent and accelerated missteps toward the pane of my mortality.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Mixed Signals: An Uncle Don Tale
Ohio's state mental hospital was situated in the far outskirts Cleveland, its massive edifice situated on hundreds of acres surrounding by a fence that bore warnings and no tresspassing signs every 90 feet or so.
The hospital and outbuildings' power were solely dependent on the railroad's bi-monthly delivery of two bottom-dumper coal cars carrying Pennsylvania's best bituminous, a process repeated every two weeks for decades and perfected by reptition to the extent the minimal crew of a single locomotive engineer and assistant could perform the procedure:
■approach the gates with the locomotive and the assistant jumps down to open it;
■while the engineer pulls the train forward and opens the massive coal chute doors between the rails, the assistant runs nearly 150 yards back to close the gates in the perimeter fencing;
■the assistant stations himself behind the last coal car and uses time-tested hand signals as commands for the engineer's locomotive operation to achieve perfect alignment of the car's bottom over the open doors of the underground cavern's coal storage.
■if the alignment is the slightest bit off-center when the car discharges the coal, both engineer and assistant are in for a long afternoon of shovelling.
An ice storm hit Ohio with full force on the day Uncle Don engineered the locomotive but the inclement weather only annoyed the railroad men (especially the assistant), but weather never influenced successful completion of the ritualistic chore in just under an hour before the train's exit.
On this day, after 45 minutes of speeding up, slowing down, forwarding and backing the train, again and again just to get the first of 2 cars aligned, Uncle Don jumped down off the locomotive, cursing a blue streak and possible death scenarios for the assistant while running back to the last car to find out the cause of all the contradictory signalling.
Don abruptly stopped, speechless to see the assistant sitting with a broken ankle 150 yards away by the gates, while Uncle Don found himself face to nearly-frozen face with a grinning, deliriously happy mental patient who had observed the railroaders in the past and, today, flawlessly mimicked signals while shrieking with delight to see a train moving erratically in symphony with his hands.
The hospital and outbuildings' power were solely dependent on the railroad's bi-monthly delivery of two bottom-dumper coal cars carrying Pennsylvania's best bituminous, a process repeated every two weeks for decades and perfected by reptition to the extent the minimal crew of a single locomotive engineer and assistant could perform the procedure:
■approach the gates with the locomotive and the assistant jumps down to open it;
■while the engineer pulls the train forward and opens the massive coal chute doors between the rails, the assistant runs nearly 150 yards back to close the gates in the perimeter fencing;
■the assistant stations himself behind the last coal car and uses time-tested hand signals as commands for the engineer's locomotive operation to achieve perfect alignment of the car's bottom over the open doors of the underground cavern's coal storage.
■if the alignment is the slightest bit off-center when the car discharges the coal, both engineer and assistant are in for a long afternoon of shovelling.
An ice storm hit Ohio with full force on the day Uncle Don engineered the locomotive but the inclement weather only annoyed the railroad men (especially the assistant), but weather never influenced successful completion of the ritualistic chore in just under an hour before the train's exit.
On this day, after 45 minutes of speeding up, slowing down, forwarding and backing the train, again and again just to get the first of 2 cars aligned, Uncle Don jumped down off the locomotive, cursing a blue streak and possible death scenarios for the assistant while running back to the last car to find out the cause of all the contradictory signalling.
Don abruptly stopped, speechless to see the assistant sitting with a broken ankle 150 yards away by the gates, while Uncle Don found himself face to nearly-frozen face with a grinning, deliriously happy mental patient who had observed the railroaders in the past and, today, flawlessly mimicked signals while shrieking with delight to see a train moving erratically in symphony with his hands.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
A Happier Anniversary
Sheila enjoyed the candlelight dinner Preston prepared for their anniversary, and was sipping wine looking into the eyes of a man whom she'd loved since first sight at 17.
Shock, from his termination at the mechanical engineering firm where Preston had labored 7 years, had turned his mind into a nerf ball of numbed stress about finances, despite their savvy budget-planning and investments that were enough to keep him and Sharon afloat for a shortening while.
She began to unbutton her blouse with one hand as she took his hand, motioning toward the bedroom with a nodding whisper, "Your anniversary present is in there," the bedroom where no dam had ever ebbed the flood of passions yielding mutual satisfactions leaving wont for no other.
"There's one more present for you, Preston, and it's a photograph you'll find inside your pillowcase," as his reaction nearly ripped the case from the down pillow.
He found the photo and, as he looked at her quizzically, heard her say, "Yes, those are my legs, and the same one's around you now..." as she scissored him and grinned, "are gonna support us both because I just received a hundred thousand dollar advance for that photo's selection to be on every print ad and billboard for a new line of stockings, worldwide."
He'd have fainted if she hadn't struck the first blow to the ensuing grandaddy of all pillowfights that turned into tickling, giggling, and finally wrestling on what would become their most celebrated anniversary to date.
Shock, from his termination at the mechanical engineering firm where Preston had labored 7 years, had turned his mind into a nerf ball of numbed stress about finances, despite their savvy budget-planning and investments that were enough to keep him and Sharon afloat for a shortening while.
She began to unbutton her blouse with one hand as she took his hand, motioning toward the bedroom with a nodding whisper, "Your anniversary present is in there," the bedroom where no dam had ever ebbed the flood of passions yielding mutual satisfactions leaving wont for no other.
"There's one more present for you, Preston, and it's a photograph you'll find inside your pillowcase," as his reaction nearly ripped the case from the down pillow.
He found the photo and, as he looked at her quizzically, heard her say, "Yes, those are my legs, and the same one's around you now..." as she scissored him and grinned, "are gonna support us both because I just received a hundred thousand dollar advance for that photo's selection to be on every print ad and billboard for a new line of stockings, worldwide."
He'd have fainted if she hadn't struck the first blow to the ensuing grandaddy of all pillowfights that turned into tickling, giggling, and finally wrestling on what would become their most celebrated anniversary to date.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Tidying Up
"Kalispell Police, Officer Cleburne, is this an emergency?"
"Uh, well I don't think so because I'm just calling to report a missing person...my wife."
"Where and when did you last see her, sir?"
"Right here, we're about 8 miles outta town, and I think it was May 6th."
"Sir, MAY ain't here yet!"
Clifton didn't like the officer's tone and gently placed the phone back on its cradle, grateful the bears hadn't left him with much clean-up work to do but, dammit!, he needed that report for the insurance company.
"Uh, well I don't think so because I'm just calling to report a missing person...my wife."
"Where and when did you last see her, sir?"
"Right here, we're about 8 miles outta town, and I think it was May 6th."
"Sir, MAY ain't here yet!"
Clifton didn't like the officer's tone and gently placed the phone back on its cradle, grateful the bears hadn't left him with much clean-up work to do but, dammit!, he needed that report for the insurance company.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Last of the Rail Yard Lunch Bandits: An Uncle Don Tale
Summer nor winter was ever kind to the physical labor it took to work Cleveland's railroad yards, but my uncle Don and his crew endured there.
For tough as nails workers, the shabby breakroom doubled as a lunch area just around the corner from the grizzled workers' lockers holding bagged lunches, coveralls, gloves, overclothes for winter, and hats proudly displaying their Union's cause.
The weary workmen would cycle themselves to the shack for lunch, hauling out their respective bags often comprised of leftovers or sandwiches, fruit, cookies and pastries, chips, pickles and condiments--a whole array representing kitchens both foreign and domestic in content. A few months after one of the yard crew was divorced, he was suspected of being the culprit in a recent rash of lunch- bag or box theft, stuffing not only meal remains but the containers themselves into the trash.
Every type of trickery and trap had been set but failed to catch or identify the 45-ish sorrow-storied divorced soul as the evil-doer, leaving Uncle Donald with a single last resort that required a trip to the veterinary supply store with the woefully sad and completely untrue tale of a very sick animal.
Two days later in winter's onslaught, lunch rotations were midway through when the behemoth divorced man burst into the rail yard enraged. He was armed with a 15-pound wrench, threatening to kill my now-running Uncle Don, who was only guilty of making a tuna salad sandwich drenched in an oil-based cow laxative that had caused the thief to brown-blast not only his pants, but saturate his outer wear as well. And that uncomfortably dreadful event had been witnessed by the whole crew during the unsuccessful culprit's half- hour's running attempt to locate my uncle. But Don was hidden on an axle underneath, of all things, a cattle car (and stayed there until the irate worker headed for home, seated on every newspaper he could find in the lunchroom's trash barrel).
For tough as nails workers, the shabby breakroom doubled as a lunch area just around the corner from the grizzled workers' lockers holding bagged lunches, coveralls, gloves, overclothes for winter, and hats proudly displaying their Union's cause.
The weary workmen would cycle themselves to the shack for lunch, hauling out their respective bags often comprised of leftovers or sandwiches, fruit, cookies and pastries, chips, pickles and condiments--a whole array representing kitchens both foreign and domestic in content. A few months after one of the yard crew was divorced, he was suspected of being the culprit in a recent rash of lunch- bag or box theft, stuffing not only meal remains but the containers themselves into the trash.
Every type of trickery and trap had been set but failed to catch or identify the 45-ish sorrow-storied divorced soul as the evil-doer, leaving Uncle Donald with a single last resort that required a trip to the veterinary supply store with the woefully sad and completely untrue tale of a very sick animal.
Two days later in winter's onslaught, lunch rotations were midway through when the behemoth divorced man burst into the rail yard enraged. He was armed with a 15-pound wrench, threatening to kill my now-running Uncle Don, who was only guilty of making a tuna salad sandwich drenched in an oil-based cow laxative that had caused the thief to brown-blast not only his pants, but saturate his outer wear as well. And that uncomfortably dreadful event had been witnessed by the whole crew during the unsuccessful culprit's half- hour's running attempt to locate my uncle. But Don was hidden on an axle underneath, of all things, a cattle car (and stayed there until the irate worker headed for home, seated on every newspaper he could find in the lunchroom's trash barrel).
Shepherd of the Roses: Whatta Pisser
Parma's Frankfort Avenue is 1/3 of a mile in length but only fronted with 4 houses whose address bear the name. Uncle Don's was a large, 2-storey bungalow stylishly consistent with the others...a small porch, and finished basement customized to accommodate a garbage-eating potbellied furnace not far from the '50s refrigerator modified for a beer tap's protrusion through the door.
His sidewalk's terminus was accented by small (square yard/meter,each) gardened squares of roses in which he took pride, save for a daily visit from a loose German Shepherd's stop to hike his leg, urinating on a selected bush or 3 much to the ex-Marines' creative string of combined profanities.
Cousin Jerry wandered into the garage one afternoon, following his dad's voiced expletives, to find my Uncle Don messing with old rusty steel-meshed screen, tin snips and wires, only to be greeted with a raised hand exhibiting screen-punctures, declaring, "Don't begin to THINK about asking because it's a surprise for that German fuck-ing Shepherd who's fire-hose pissing all over your Mother's god-dam finger pricking roses and I'm fed up with it to where I'd stick my boot up his poop-chute 'til he barked the German national anthem if I could catch that goddam bladder bomber," at which my cousin slinked away shaking his head and laughing at his ole man's temper.
My uncle sat behind his screened door with child-like fiendish delight the entire next afternoon laying in wait and, as he spotted the dog, reached down from his chair and connected the wires.
Here he came, running from side to side across Frankfort all collared and groomed bee-lining to his favorite roadside rest area and hiked his leg, only to get an electric charge traveling upstream to his penis from the screen's attachment to car batteries, sending the dog howling never again to alter the sweet bouquet of Aunt Almira's roses, as Uncle Don jumped up and down inventing celebratory new expletive combinations to express, anew, man's dominance over the rest of the animal kingdom.
His sidewalk's terminus was accented by small (square yard/meter,each) gardened squares of roses in which he took pride, save for a daily visit from a loose German Shepherd's stop to hike his leg, urinating on a selected bush or 3 much to the ex-Marines' creative string of combined profanities.
Cousin Jerry wandered into the garage one afternoon, following his dad's voiced expletives, to find my Uncle Don messing with old rusty steel-meshed screen, tin snips and wires, only to be greeted with a raised hand exhibiting screen-punctures, declaring, "Don't begin to THINK about asking because it's a surprise for that German fuck-ing Shepherd who's fire-hose pissing all over your Mother's god-dam finger pricking roses and I'm fed up with it to where I'd stick my boot up his poop-chute 'til he barked the German national anthem if I could catch that goddam bladder bomber," at which my cousin slinked away shaking his head and laughing at his ole man's temper.
My uncle sat behind his screened door with child-like fiendish delight the entire next afternoon laying in wait and, as he spotted the dog, reached down from his chair and connected the wires.
Here he came, running from side to side across Frankfort all collared and groomed bee-lining to his favorite roadside rest area and hiked his leg, only to get an electric charge traveling upstream to his penis from the screen's attachment to car batteries, sending the dog howling never again to alter the sweet bouquet of Aunt Almira's roses, as Uncle Don jumped up and down inventing celebratory new expletive combinations to express, anew, man's dominance over the rest of the animal kingdom.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Cast
When the brake wheel atop the freight car came off in his hands and against his chest, Don's body was hurled to the ground, breaking his back across the railroad tracks, an injury compounded by the heavy iron wheel against his chest, fracturing sternum and ribs, too.
In full body cast, he'd often shuffle to the front door just inches at a time and peer at the Pinkerton men (one always with binoculars, trained) spying to negate his insurance claim with the railroad, and in return, Don would sometimes push the tattered screen door open to wave and scratch his testicles just to inflame the ire of the day-in, day-out car-bound detectives.
Standing or flat on his back were the only postures Don could experience, transitions perfomed by 6-handed maneuvers to right this husband and father encased in plaster for just 11 just more months.
As he lay on the floor watching TV around sunset, a rattlesnake wound through the open screen unnoticed and slid up into Don's cast to mortal terror's throat-clenched shreiks and frantic side-to-side rocking as he sensed something alive slithering in the plaster's confines, repeatedly feeling fangs tearing into encasement-tenderized flesh before the snake curled up comfortably under the small of Don's dead and arched broken back.
Gone less than two hours, Don's wife and teenagers returned home about 7:45pm from a to visit Granma Connie's nursing home, horrified to find Don's lifeless body, knowing...convinced that his death had occurred at the hands of the Pinkerton men now conspicuously absent from across Spruce Avenue, and all to escape Don's justifiable injury payoff.
Time of death was placed about 3:16AM when ambulance drivers discovered the body of the assistant coroner bearing fang marks in his neck, crumpled on the floor next to the gurney holding Don's half-casted remains.
A snake coiled peacefully venomless, content, in the corner of the county morgue's reception room.
In full body cast, he'd often shuffle to the front door just inches at a time and peer at the Pinkerton men (one always with binoculars, trained) spying to negate his insurance claim with the railroad, and in return, Don would sometimes push the tattered screen door open to wave and scratch his testicles just to inflame the ire of the day-in, day-out car-bound detectives.
Standing or flat on his back were the only postures Don could experience, transitions perfomed by 6-handed maneuvers to right this husband and father encased in plaster for just 11 just more months.
As he lay on the floor watching TV around sunset, a rattlesnake wound through the open screen unnoticed and slid up into Don's cast to mortal terror's throat-clenched shreiks and frantic side-to-side rocking as he sensed something alive slithering in the plaster's confines, repeatedly feeling fangs tearing into encasement-tenderized flesh before the snake curled up comfortably under the small of Don's dead and arched broken back.
Gone less than two hours, Don's wife and teenagers returned home about 7:45pm from a to visit Granma Connie's nursing home, horrified to find Don's lifeless body, knowing...convinced that his death had occurred at the hands of the Pinkerton men now conspicuously absent from across Spruce Avenue, and all to escape Don's justifiable injury payoff.
Time of death was placed about 3:16AM when ambulance drivers discovered the body of the assistant coroner bearing fang marks in his neck, crumpled on the floor next to the gurney holding Don's half-casted remains.
A snake coiled peacefully venomless, content, in the corner of the county morgue's reception room.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Untwined
Stacy and Tracy were as identical as twins could be but psyche was where the two parted ways, an unsettling contrast with other parents' experience raising paired children.
Stacy's main interest was always Stacy, a spiteful core within that despised someone else in life being mirror-imaged, as if stealing part of her soul along with her identity.
Stacy often jumped rope with friends, insisting and forcing the issue that Tracy was barred from participating. So Tracy would play on the nearby swing-set's 'monkey bars', feigning nonchalance and often trying so many cartwheels the rompers on her slight frame hung like grass-stained testimonials to skidded failure.
No little girl had a stronger desire to jump blue-bells and double-Dutch with her sister and friends, but Tracy's diversions proved to be satisfying enough to avoid acting-out against her sister's inexplicable and ever-present mean streak.
A felony drug conviction denied Stacy's passport application to attend the 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro and, as the U.S. flag was raised simultaneous to goosebumps on Tracy's arms--her neck stringed with the adornment of the silver medal in overall women's gymnastics--back home, that moment marked a pink-braided rope from childhood swinging slowly to a stop from its tether on a deserted yard's swing-set, straining from 157 pounds of listless, voiceless remorse.
Stacy's main interest was always Stacy, a spiteful core within that despised someone else in life being mirror-imaged, as if stealing part of her soul along with her identity.
Stacy often jumped rope with friends, insisting and forcing the issue that Tracy was barred from participating. So Tracy would play on the nearby swing-set's 'monkey bars', feigning nonchalance and often trying so many cartwheels the rompers on her slight frame hung like grass-stained testimonials to skidded failure.
No little girl had a stronger desire to jump blue-bells and double-Dutch with her sister and friends, but Tracy's diversions proved to be satisfying enough to avoid acting-out against her sister's inexplicable and ever-present mean streak.
A felony drug conviction denied Stacy's passport application to attend the 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro and, as the U.S. flag was raised simultaneous to goosebumps on Tracy's arms--her neck stringed with the adornment of the silver medal in overall women's gymnastics--back home, that moment marked a pink-braided rope from childhood swinging slowly to a stop from its tether on a deserted yard's swing-set, straining from 157 pounds of listless, voiceless remorse.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Toyotas Gone Wild: Open Season on the Open Road
Maybe you're not scared of Toyotas and their current acceleration maladies but I am, especially, after seeing video of a runaway Prius peace officers had to stop by putting the cop cruiser in front of the Prius' bumper at 94 miles per hour: ninety-freakin'-four.
I'd like to stencil the back window of my car or get a reflective bumper sticker:
ATTN: TOYOTA--CHANGE LANES NOW
TOYOTA: FREE GAS NEXT LEFT
TOYOTA: ROAD KILL REDEFINED
TOYOTA: RETURN TO SENDER
I'd like to stencil the back window of my car or get a reflective bumper sticker:
ATTN: TOYOTA--CHANGE LANES NOW
TOYOTA: FREE GAS NEXT LEFT
TOYOTA: ROAD KILL REDEFINED
TOYOTA: RETURN TO SENDER
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
What Does What You Just Asked, Mean, Exactly?
Suzy's in her 60s, an RN working swing-shift at the rehab wing of the 5-star facility.
She's standing before my mom with seeming reams of admissions forms coming off her clipboard, briefing each form's meaning as she requests signatures from the new patient.
"In case you should die here, Mary, do you want to be an organ donor?"
Mom's eyelids stretched their widest as she raised her hand and bellowed a long, "Noooooooooooooooo!"
On the drive home, I laugh myself silly imagining I'm a patient being approached by my transplant surgeon, "And the great news is that we found kidneys, a liver, lungs and heart for you, all born in 1918."
I wonder if there are extended warranties on used organs, or if the price is pro-rated based on use...like car batteries?
She's standing before my mom with seeming reams of admissions forms coming off her clipboard, briefing each form's meaning as she requests signatures from the new patient.
"In case you should die here, Mary, do you want to be an organ donor?"
Mom's eyelids stretched their widest as she raised her hand and bellowed a long, "Noooooooooooooooo!"
On the drive home, I laugh myself silly imagining I'm a patient being approached by my transplant surgeon, "And the great news is that we found kidneys, a liver, lungs and heart for you, all born in 1918."
I wonder if there are extended warranties on used organs, or if the price is pro-rated based on use...like car batteries?
Monday, March 8, 2010
The Deja View
When you're a little boy and your mommy's sick, maybe you get to take her a glass of water, or carry soup down the hall and hope you don't spill it.
You don't like to see Mommy hurt or sick, and you sure hope she gets better.
When your mother's life story is well into the final chapter, and few paragraphs remain to a known, earthly end, you find yourself at her bedside.
You move a spoonful of soup toward her mouth, encouraging her to sip, telling her it will be soothing and soak up the medicines just as you offer her water positioning the straw so she can swallow with ease in the positioned bed.
You hope you don't dribble water or soup down her chin onto her chest, should her head change position or your hand waver mid-process.
You don't like to see Mom hurt or sick, and you sure hope but you know.
You don't like to see Mommy hurt or sick, and you sure hope she gets better.
When your mother's life story is well into the final chapter, and few paragraphs remain to a known, earthly end, you find yourself at her bedside.
You move a spoonful of soup toward her mouth, encouraging her to sip, telling her it will be soothing and soak up the medicines just as you offer her water positioning the straw so she can swallow with ease in the positioned bed.
You hope you don't dribble water or soup down her chin onto her chest, should her head change position or your hand waver mid-process.
You don't like to see Mom hurt or sick, and you sure hope but you know.
#12's Mom
"One suicide, one raspberry, and one lime n' orange."
"I need three tickets, honey."
"Mary, can I get one blue raspberry, one ice cream sandwich, and a Coke, please?"
"Sure, Coach, good game! That'll be one ticket and 50¢, please."
This year, Spring training's rebirth of baseball reminded me of the four summers my mom worked in sweltering heat making sno-cones at the little league's snack shack, proud of her little king of the mound.
"I need three tickets, honey."
"Mary, can I get one blue raspberry, one ice cream sandwich, and a Coke, please?"
"Sure, Coach, good game! That'll be one ticket and 50¢, please."
This year, Spring training's rebirth of baseball reminded me of the four summers my mom worked in sweltering heat making sno-cones at the little league's snack shack, proud of her little king of the mound.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
PTOOEY!
Juan Valdez pulls his ass up that Colombian mountain for guys like me, members of 'Team Caffeine.' I'm sure that ass is just as grateful for gravity-under-load (downhill) as I am for my first mornin' cup ('down the hatch').
I do everything I can to please my palate with the best cup of java I can: if ground, it's in the fridge; if beans they're frozen; unbleached cone filters; filtered water.
My love for bean brew sparked the possibility of a business venture that caused me to peel Benajamins for a flight, hotel, car, and tuition to the American Coffee Training Institute for classroom and practical experience in the specialty coffee industry (blending, roasting, et al).
When I slid the drawer open. this morning to find no brown conical coffee filters, it was if I'd been sucker-punched, forcing me to perforn a pre-dawn strategic strafe of the 24-hour Walgreen's shelves.
If one's outta toilet paper there's always leaves but there was no way on God's green coffee mountains I was going to drink the product of my sister's action this morning, my precious grind filtered by a paper towel stuffed into the cone which any of my drink's disciples would deem a sacrilege in the cathedral of caffeine.
I do everything I can to please my palate with the best cup of java I can: if ground, it's in the fridge; if beans they're frozen; unbleached cone filters; filtered water.
My love for bean brew sparked the possibility of a business venture that caused me to peel Benajamins for a flight, hotel, car, and tuition to the American Coffee Training Institute for classroom and practical experience in the specialty coffee industry (blending, roasting, et al).
When I slid the drawer open. this morning to find no brown conical coffee filters, it was if I'd been sucker-punched, forcing me to perforn a pre-dawn strategic strafe of the 24-hour Walgreen's shelves.
If one's outta toilet paper there's always leaves but there was no way on God's green coffee mountains I was going to drink the product of my sister's action this morning, my precious grind filtered by a paper towel stuffed into the cone which any of my drink's disciples would deem a sacrilege in the cathedral of caffeine.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Just My Luck: Cleared Thinking
I flew out of bed at my sister's knock, to find my 91-year old mom on the floor of her room with a huge knot on her forehead from a fall.
The 911 crew based down the street arrived in no-time to assess and transport her to the hospital where she stayed in the E.R. overnight only to be admitted to ICU with a small bleeder in her brain--a danger for anyone on prescribed blood thinners.
Sis had followed the ambulance last night but work demanded I go in for awhile as my 3 peers were scheduled late or gone, and it was 1pm-ish before I raced to the downtown hospital Mom requested from paramedics.
She was tubed-up amid sounds of whirring flow regulators for plasma, oxygen, I.V. meds, electrodes, housed with small flashing red and green lights, and her aged frailty looked as if it had taken the brunt of a Louisville Slugger to her left cheek, eye, and forehead.
She wasn't in pain, but the trauma's toll showed as did my sleepless semi-conscious grogginess until I got jolted by both my bladders and kidneys sending me out of ICU in search of a men's room with dam-bursting panic-speed.
I stood over the urinal thinking of too many things at once, mind racing yet mud-bogged with fatigue, what-if and to-do scenarios as I pulled the flush handle almost instantaneously feeling my shoe-tops awash in the urinal's overflow, unjamming the overwhelmed circuits of my brain and suddenly seeing the schematic of an orderly sequence commencing tomorrow.
The 911 crew based down the street arrived in no-time to assess and transport her to the hospital where she stayed in the E.R. overnight only to be admitted to ICU with a small bleeder in her brain--a danger for anyone on prescribed blood thinners.
Sis had followed the ambulance last night but work demanded I go in for awhile as my 3 peers were scheduled late or gone, and it was 1pm-ish before I raced to the downtown hospital Mom requested from paramedics.
She was tubed-up amid sounds of whirring flow regulators for plasma, oxygen, I.V. meds, electrodes, housed with small flashing red and green lights, and her aged frailty looked as if it had taken the brunt of a Louisville Slugger to her left cheek, eye, and forehead.
She wasn't in pain, but the trauma's toll showed as did my sleepless semi-conscious grogginess until I got jolted by both my bladders and kidneys sending me out of ICU in search of a men's room with dam-bursting panic-speed.
I stood over the urinal thinking of too many things at once, mind racing yet mud-bogged with fatigue, what-if and to-do scenarios as I pulled the flush handle almost instantaneously feeling my shoe-tops awash in the urinal's overflow, unjamming the overwhelmed circuits of my brain and suddenly seeing the schematic of an orderly sequence commencing tomorrow.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Bachelor Launch Pad
Sleepless and staring at the ceiling, I was unable to move from exhaustion infused to bone level from working in shade temps of 114 earlier in the day.
Catholic anesthesia came to mind and I knew I probably wouldn't make the 40 Hail Marys' mark before being startled awake by the clock radio's volume set at 'deafening' for 4AM, so I started.
I was still as dead, hands interlaced under my head on the pillow, and might have already knocked out a couple dozen of the Rosary's staples.
Just then, my chin tickled and only my eyeballs moved to see two antennae of the biggest, boldest, brownest, fastest, death-wishing cockroach the Arizona-Sonoran desert had ever produced.
I planned my move, sprang diving behind the roach toward the open closet floor flinging every object out behind me, until that roach met the afterlife of my prayers with the crunchy crack of my saddle oxford.
Were there trophy walls for bugs, he'd have been on it as he was a mountable keeper, but the dutiful son in me [her words] "shoulda...coulda" remembered to throw out that baggie before my mom came over to stock my freezer, the only day I ever heard her sail the F-bomb and at a commendably terrified volume and pitch, I might add.
Catholic anesthesia came to mind and I knew I probably wouldn't make the 40 Hail Marys' mark before being startled awake by the clock radio's volume set at 'deafening' for 4AM, so I started.
I was still as dead, hands interlaced under my head on the pillow, and might have already knocked out a couple dozen of the Rosary's staples.
Just then, my chin tickled and only my eyeballs moved to see two antennae of the biggest, boldest, brownest, fastest, death-wishing cockroach the Arizona-Sonoran desert had ever produced.
I planned my move, sprang diving behind the roach toward the open closet floor flinging every object out behind me, until that roach met the afterlife of my prayers with the crunchy crack of my saddle oxford.
Were there trophy walls for bugs, he'd have been on it as he was a mountable keeper, but the dutiful son in me [her words] "shoulda...coulda" remembered to throw out that baggie before my mom came over to stock my freezer, the only day I ever heard her sail the F-bomb and at a commendably terrified volume and pitch, I might add.
Penny Wise and Pounds of Ignorance
The "curiously strong" Altoids seemed harmless at a $1.99 in their cutesy little tins until I experienced psychogenic shock doing the math: $19.20 per pound.
And I'm eating chicken 'quarters'--leg and thigh-- for 59¢-79¢ per pound?
Coconut loves "Beggin' Strips" and I guess she's fooled thinking it is real bacon my local markets sell for $2.99 to $4.99 per pound. Roasts and many cuts of steak don't cost the Beggin' Strips' $7.50 per pound, so I promise your fare will improve dramatically, hoochy-pooch.
I really should listen to Clark Howard's syndicated money-saving shows but his voice is more annoying than gnats exploring my ear hole.
Shame on me with two college degrees and a calculator, but not paying attention to paying.
And I'm eating chicken 'quarters'--leg and thigh-- for 59¢-79¢ per pound?
Coconut loves "Beggin' Strips" and I guess she's fooled thinking it is real bacon my local markets sell for $2.99 to $4.99 per pound. Roasts and many cuts of steak don't cost the Beggin' Strips' $7.50 per pound, so I promise your fare will improve dramatically, hoochy-pooch.
I really should listen to Clark Howard's syndicated money-saving shows but his voice is more annoying than gnats exploring my ear hole.
Shame on me with two college degrees and a calculator, but not paying attention to paying.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Daddy Was a Man O' Promise
We wasn't rich by a stretch, in fact I growed up sleepin' in the front room and remember Daddy would come home from the bar and sometimes throw a fit, both, from too many beers and a bad day coal minin' not that they was many good ones.
He'd always promised Mama he'd never hit her and he was a man o' promise because iffen him and her had a screamin' and yellin' conniption he'd run outside and throw our plastic chairs sometimes right over our Doughboy pool 'cept in winter cuz it was put up then so it was just rigid snowy plastic chairs a-flyin' out back.
He swore 'n be damned he was gonna do three things one day and they was takin' Mama 'n me to Disneyland, put his big toe in the Pacific ocean, and drink one of them Falstaff beers at the Dodgers game that Pee Wee Reese and Dizzy Dean was always talkin' about, you know?
I was eight and it was along about June that we'd slept in the car 3 nights before rolling up to the biggest, bluest ocean I ever saw (well the only one) and I saw Daddy un-assin' that car throwin' off his shoes and pullin' up his trousers to the knee and hoopin' 'n hollerin' as he ran for the water and got knocked down by a wave and we was laughin' all the day long.
The ball game happened a'righty but that wasn't such a good idee cuz the man kept yellin' "ICE COLD BEER" and every time Daddy said, "Don't mind if I do," and he did and got sick and Mama wasn't too happy with stale beer and peanut throw-up on her 'goin to California shoes'.
I swear there never was a slower car ride than from where we was to Disneyland, but we arrived and checked into that fancy hotel but wuddn't there long cuz Mama an' Daddy was by the pool 'n got into it about his beer drinkin' and 'fore you know it a plastic chair got hurled clean over their pool and wall and we was in a passel of trouble and got throwed out because I just guess he didn't rightly remember it was a rooftop pool but I still loved him for takin' me.
He'd always promised Mama he'd never hit her and he was a man o' promise because iffen him and her had a screamin' and yellin' conniption he'd run outside and throw our plastic chairs sometimes right over our Doughboy pool 'cept in winter cuz it was put up then so it was just rigid snowy plastic chairs a-flyin' out back.
He swore 'n be damned he was gonna do three things one day and they was takin' Mama 'n me to Disneyland, put his big toe in the Pacific ocean, and drink one of them Falstaff beers at the Dodgers game that Pee Wee Reese and Dizzy Dean was always talkin' about, you know?
I was eight and it was along about June that we'd slept in the car 3 nights before rolling up to the biggest, bluest ocean I ever saw (well the only one) and I saw Daddy un-assin' that car throwin' off his shoes and pullin' up his trousers to the knee and hoopin' 'n hollerin' as he ran for the water and got knocked down by a wave and we was laughin' all the day long.
The ball game happened a'righty but that wasn't such a good idee cuz the man kept yellin' "ICE COLD BEER" and every time Daddy said, "Don't mind if I do," and he did and got sick and Mama wasn't too happy with stale beer and peanut throw-up on her 'goin to California shoes'.
I swear there never was a slower car ride than from where we was to Disneyland, but we arrived and checked into that fancy hotel but wuddn't there long cuz Mama an' Daddy was by the pool 'n got into it about his beer drinkin' and 'fore you know it a plastic chair got hurled clean over their pool and wall and we was in a passel of trouble and got throwed out because I just guess he didn't rightly remember it was a rooftop pool but I still loved him for takin' me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
