Where the Hell Was I?

Angling for Apartments

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:25:08 -0500

(Up first, updates from the Bugs & Cranks side of life:

(Two-)Grand Finale: "Cox is listed 4th all-time with 2355 wins right now, but that could change day-to-day, based on the Canuck economy, Cito Gaston’s stock price, and the state of the beaver pelt futures market."

Wednesday Walk Watch: Week nWine: "Basically, if you want to give one of these guys a free pass, then you’d damned well better smack them with a fastball."

And up second... well, you'll just have to read on to see that, now, won't you?)

My apologies for being somewhat scarce this week. Or, if you prefer, 'entirely absent'.

In my defense, it's not especially my fault. In addition to the usual workplace madness, my pesky pooch, the demands of the missus, and a handful of truly trying fantasy baseball teams, the wife and I are also in the dual-barreled process of selling our current house and buying a condo.

"Evidently, I've been barking up the wrong binky."

Which is not to say that I'm 'too busy' to write, exactly. It's just that I spend an awful lot of time these days staring blankly into space, or curled into a fetal position under my desk, rocking slowly back and forth.

The latest potato up my proverbial tailpipe, homeowner-wise, is the fact that the closing dates to sell our current place and to take the reins of the new one are separated by thirty-five days on the calendar, give or take an afternoon. Which means the missus and I -- and that muddle-minded mutt of ours -- are effectively temporarily homeless, starting in late July. Which is just a few short weeks away. All we have to do by then is pack all our crap, find a place to store it, find a place to live for a month and change, find someone to move us out as well as in, thirty-odd days apart, and manage to make it to work most of the time, so all that stuff we told the mortgage people about having sources of income are still true. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick...

That fetal position? Looking pretty good right about now.

In lieu of checking out completely and regressing to our thumb-sucking, binky-clinging ways, my wife and I have begun a search for temporary digs. You'd think, had you never done so, that locating a place to rent for just a month or so would be way easier than finding an entire house or condominium to buy for scads of money and live in for years and years.

I thought so, anyway. Evidently, I've been barking up the wrong binky.

Our main source for this search has been the Boston-area branch of Craigslist, that popular virtual local bazaar for everything from personal ads to modeling jobs, from 'adult' services to NSFW gig postings, and from adverts for 'therapeutic massage' to something apparently kinky called 'ridesharing'. Yowza.

(Me, I've only ever used Craigslist to sell a TV, and to buy the occasional Red Sox ticket or two. Those transactions have only rarely involved any sort of 'modeling' or 'massage', and it's never been anything I'd call 'NSFW'.

Mostly.

But man, those were some sweet tickets.)

Anyway, it's been a bit of a demoralizing experience. It feels a little like going on a fishing trip -- only you don't know what you're fishing for, exactly, you can't predict what bait might work, and the ones that manage to wriggle off the hook come up to the surface to taunt you. Also, they can talk. And the little bastards are snarky.

Take yesterday, for example. I got up in the morning, fired up a browser, moseyed over to Craigslist and carefully pored over every word and image in dozens and dozens of ads.

Then I figured I should probably look for housing. So I navigated out of the 'naughty exhibitionist women seeking internet voyeurs' personal ad area, and into the 'sublets / temporary' housing section.

(Hey, it was Saturday morning. Some people watch cartoons. And you don't see me over here judging them.)

After a bit of a browse, I found four properties that met our troika of criteria -- August availability, allowance of pets, and asking less than an arm and a dewclawed hindlimb in rent. Flushed with excitement -- or the pic of one of those exhibitionists I'd adopted as my new desktop image -- I cast four lines into the murky waters of internet-mediated sublet negotiations. Now, I haven't fished in years, and I don't recall ever fishing with four poles at the same time. If my utter lack of success with one pole was any indication -- or if I'd worked out the math that 'nothing times four' still equals a big fat bupkis -- then I shouldn't have been surprised by what happened next.

But hope springs eternal, I guess. Hope's kind of an idiot that way.

Springy idiot wishings notwithstanding, the answers to my queries reeled themselves in over the course of the day. First was the message deemed 'undeliverable'. Too old an ad, and the apartment long taken. Then, the guy who wanted to rent for July and August -- no exceptions, no discounts. Next, the lady who apologized because my email came just after she'd already rented the place. Hope her tenants turn out to be rowdy frat boys -- or a guy with a surname of Bundy. Al or Ted, it doesn't much matter.

Finally, the last response came back -- a short, curt 'sorry, can't help you'. Maybe the guy didn't like the way I worded the inquiry. Or he wanted to put 'dogs allowed' in the ad to seem friendly, but really wasn't. Or maybe he's read this site. Something. But he wasn't having any part of us, so we struck out. On four poles. Maybe if someone would teach this man to fish, I could find an apartment for life. Or at least August. Evidently, I just need to learn to fish a little.

Anyway, the search goes on. Tomorrow, I'll be up early again and casting poles in the direction of any housing ads that seem to be up our alley. But why do I get the feeling that the landlords are the sharks -- and I'm just the chum in the water?

Weekend Werind: Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Browser?

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:54:40 -0500

(First up, a bit of news from the B&C front:

First Date with Nate: A Day Late, Not Great: "So much for making a ‘big splash’ in your debut performance. This display of ‘hitting’ looked more like a post-nasal drip."

Now let's move forward to this week's look back. Onward and backward!)

" I can only conclude that there are some real perverted pieces of personry out there -- and that I've written some pretty oddball combinations of words that probably shouldn't be considered legal in the English language. Or this state. Or possibly humanity as a whole."

One of the many kicks I get from blogging -- most of them to the groin, as it turns out -- is browsing through the logs to see what searches are bringing people to the site. Every so often, I'll highlight some of the more disturbing query fare with a post in the Googlicious! category. Whether those searches reflect more scarily on the mommy's-basement weirdos making the searches, or the unbalanced, twitchy blogger who wrote the pieces that led Google to send them this way, I can't really say. I can only conclude that there are some real perverted pieces of personry out there -- and that I've written some pretty oddball combinations of words that probably shouldn't be considered legal in the English language. Or this state. Or possibly humanity as a whole.

Sometimes, though, the searches leading here are more innocent, if no less scary. Unlike the vast majority of searchers, these are folks not actually looking for comedy websites, nor for 'kinky grandma wrestling', nor for 'shaved ostrich porn clips'. Instead, they're genuinely looking for information -- trying, in possibly misguided ways, to better their own lives. And using the web to do it. So that's a couple of strikes against them for starters, even before they wind up here.

Take, for instance, an early post of mine entitled, 'So, How Many Weight Watchers Points Would 'M&Ms Chili' Be?.

(Yeah, I know. Back in the day, the titles were nearly as long-winded as the posts. Shaddup, you.)

In this entry, I mentioned that I've been trying to eat 'healthier', and poked a little fun at the series of 'I lowered my cholesterol!' TV ads that were airing back then, before many of you were actually born. The actual content of the post isn't so relevant, in this case. Embarrassing, perhaps. Riddled with parenthetical asides, naturally. But relevant -- not so much.

By one metric, though, that post is one of the most 'popular' on the site. It's because of the juxtaposition of those two elements in the title: 'Weight Watchers points' and 'M&Ms'. A fair percentage of people visiting this site do so because they've seen fit -- and I use the term 'fit' loosely -- to enter those two terms into Google. And Google sends them to me.

No. I'm not making this up. A lot of people really seem to want to know the WW score for M&Ms. Sometimes, they'll be more specific, asking about 'peanut butter M&Ms', or 'M&M minis', or 'a party-sized bag of M&M candies'.

I've never been in Weight Watchers, myself. But I can't imagine these people are doing it right.

I've also wondered how many of these questions come after the fact. A lot of people overeat on impulse, or in response to stress. I find it hard to believe that many of them are taking the time to fire up their modems in the middle of a chocolate-fueled candy lust to ask how many points they'll incur if they go through with that plan to snarf a whole bag of treats. My guess is they're mostly sitting there afterward, with heaving breaths and sticky brown fingers, hoping they've still got enough points left to eat something besides rice cakes and celery stalks for the rest of the month.

Dubious as they are, though, these searches are pretty common, so I've gotten used to them. Ditto most of the other WW queries -- I mention a lot of other (really, terribly unhealthy) foods in that post, so Google will sometimes send people looking for 'Weight Watchers points' and 'chili' or 'milkshakes' or 'Snickers' or hot fudge' my way. Not that I'm of any help to them, or that they read any further than a sentence or two, I'm sure. But the stream of seekers is steady and unwavering, and over time, I've come to expect just about all of them.

Until yesterday. In the afternoon, I was looking through the logs and found a new one to me. Someone out there had popped onto the site by Googling:

'Weight Watchers points for a 72-year-old man'

Yow. And I thought a bag of M&Ms was binging. Somebody out there has seriously got the munchies, and I'm afraid his surname may be 'Lechter'.

Still, it's probably healthier than that M&Ms chili I was on about. Plenty of lean meat on those septuagenarians, if you know where to look. I just hope the person has a side salad instead of the French fries -- it pays to cut back on calories whenever you can. Just ask Weight Watchers.

The Cross-Wired Crackpot

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:52:22 -0500

(Lots of baseball buzz going on lately over at Bugs & Cranks. To wit:

Dancing with the (Dirty Bird) Devil: "There’s no hurler this side of C.C. Sabathia in a padded suit of armor that’s going to stand in there with Vick chugging up the first base line."

The Big Zero: "But thanks for the memories, Tommy. You did all right for a kid with a slapshot better than his fastball."

Wednesday Walk Watch: Week eiWght: "You’d think just by dumb luck, these guys would garner more than a walk a week. I guess some luck is dumber than others."

For those of you not into leather and horsehide and pine-tarred bat knobs -- and you don't know what you're missing, folks -- here's a bit of non-baseball buzz to tide you over, too.)

Some things, I just never seem to grasp.

I'm not talking about the really tricky 'thinky' sorts of things, like religion and politics and the importance women ascribe to long eyelashes. I don't grasp any of those things, either, but I figure I'm not really meant to. None of them has much to do with me, and that's the way I like it.

Sometimes, though, there's something I should be getting. I'll be told something very simple and straightforward -- usually by my wife -- and it'll slip through the holes in my brain like champagne through a sieve. I want to remember these things. Often, I need to remember these things. And -- if it was indeed my wife who told me -- I'm desperate to remember these things, lest she shake her head sadly at me (again) and say:

'You just don't listen, do you?'

Well.. yeah. I listen. I just don't remember, so much. If you're looking for a faulty organ in this circuit, the ear is definitely not the problem. Don't shoot the messenger when it's the recipient that's an idiot.

"I asked for everything I could possibly think of -- 'pork and beans', 'dog and pony', 'spit and polish, 'Cagney and Lacey', the works. None of it got me anywhere."

Segue now to the home inspection on the new place my wife and I are buying. We walked through with the inspector, and found the unit largely free of major problems, with one exception. When it came to the electrical system, he took issue with the age and type of much of the wiring used. He told us that this particular type of wiring was quite old -- not too surprising in a New England brownstone built near the turn of the last century -- and that many insurers refuse to cover homes with this type of wiring present.

The type of wiring in question? 'Knob and tube'.

Knob and tube. He must have said it fifteen times during the inspection. Knob and tube. Knob and tube. Knob. And tuuuuube.

Thirty seconds later, and it was gone from my head. All I retained was the 'and'; I knew it was 'something' and 'something' -- but what? And what? I asked my wife what he'd called it.

'Knob and tube'.

Whoosh. Gone again. What was it, honey?

'Knob and tube.'

*zzzzzttttt!* Lost it. Do you remember what kind of wiring he said?

'For the love of god, knob and tube.'

Nope. Still not getting it. One more time, please?

'*sigh* You just don't listen, do you?'

Indeed, I do. We've been over this, dear; don't call me 'deaf', when 'dumb' will do.

Sadly, the frazzled nerves and gentle barbs of my ever-patient wife were not the end of this particular ordeal. The discovery of this bit of electrical archaeology represented a serious kink in our home-buying plans -- and a possible hurdle, depending on the scope. My wife asked if I'd mind getting an estimate for the cost of the upgrades we'd need.

That meant calling an electrician to have a look around -- and that entailed describing the problem to someone with whom I haven't exchanged marriage vows, and who is therefore under no obligation 'to have and to hold, to honor and cherish, no matter how addled and jackassed he gets'.

(Yes, we wrote our own vows. She used hers to be sweet and romantical. I saw mine as an opportunity for contingency planning.

Sure, she wasn't happy at the time. But just wait until the dementia sets in, and then we'll see who's stuck with whom. That's some ironclad betrothing language there, kids.)

I found an electrician in the phone book and phoned in to set up an appointment.:

'Yes, I'd like someone to come out to get an estimate on having some old wiring replaced.'

'No problem, sir. What type of wiring is it?'

Damn. Ten seconds into the conversation, and I was already in a pickle. And my wife was at work, so I was on my own here. Maybe if I got close enough to the actual name, they'd just figure it out.

'Uh... rack and pinion?'

'Excuse me, sir? What kind?'

'Er, um, bread and butter, I think it's called. They're bread and butter wires.'

'Sir?'

'Tom and Jerry?'

'Sir, I'm not sure I can help you here.'

'Buddy, you don't know the half of it.'

I hung up and tried to regroup, racking my brain for the stupid name of the stupid type of stupid wiring I was supposed to be mentioning. Nothing. Lyrics to an old Marcy Playground song jumped into my head. Then nothing again. Then I remembered where I'd left my car keys back in college, when I thought I'd lost them and had to have a new set made. And finally, nothing.

Undaunted, I picked up the phone again and thumbed through the Yellow Pages. Things like this are why they list so many electricians in there in the first place, right?

I asked the next guy how much it would be to replace 'cloak and dagger' wiring. He said he didn't know, and to try calling the CIA. The guy after that agreed to look at my 'chutes and ladders', but I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking about wiring any more. One by one, I called up electrical specialists, and one by one, they shrugged at me over the phone, nonplussed. I asked for everything I could possibly think of -- 'pork and beans', 'dog and pony', 'spit and polish, 'Cagney and Lacey', the works. None of it got me anywhere.

I was on the last listing in the book -- must have been Zimmerman Electric or Zarathustra Contractors or something -- and was just about prepared to ask to 'have my S and M wiring torn out', when fortune finally shone on me.

'Yeah, I've got some old wiring I need looked at.'

'Old? You mean, like, knob and tube wiring? That old?'

Sweet merciful heaven. 'Knob and tube'. Finally. If I made a habit of making out with gruff-sounding electrical contractors, I'd have tongued the guy's ear through the receiver. Hallelujah to you, my sweet plumber-cracked angel.

'Yes, that's it exactly! Our inspector found--'

'Ah, sorry, we don't do knob and tube. Too much of a hassle. Maybe try somebody in the phone book.' *click*

So much for angels.

Still, now I had the info I needed. After an hour of making up ridiculous nonsense, now I could simply look up one of those other guys, call back, and tell them that I needed them to fix my...

Uh.

My wiring. That old kind, that's the... um. 'Something'. And 'something else'.

Shit.

Forget it. I'll just pretend I never tried to deal with it, and tell my wife later that she was supposed to call.

It's not like she'll remember the arrangement we had. She never listens, anyway.

Not So Sincerely Yours

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:50:33 -0500

I've noticed something odd around the office lately. Maybe it always happens, and I've just begun to notice. Or maybe it's a new strategy for influencing peoples' behavior, or covering one's ass via email. And maybe it's high time I actually told you what the hell it is I'm referring to.

Fine. I'm getting to it. You don't have to be so pushy about it.

"I've never been sure how to feel about 'warm regards' in the first place. Are these regards that were in the oven, and have now cooled enough to touch?"

The thing is this: I've noticed that as the amount of work requested in an email increases, so does the length -- and warmth -- of the final signoff. It has little to do with the actual gratitude expressed in the body of the message -- some people gush profusely for a small favor, while others ask for the moon without bothering to offer thanks -- but always the last line before the signature reveals the magnitude of the task involved. I've gotten to the point where that's the first thing I read in an email, just so I know what's coming.

Take my usual batch of work emails, for instance. Most are memos or meeting announcements, that sort of thing. Innocent stuff; real 'no action necessary' material. You skim to the bottom of those emails, and you'll see a lot of 'Thanks,' or 'Yours,' maybe the odd 'Sincerely,'. But that's it. Nothing personal or flowery to suggest that real effort is going to be asked of you. Most of these wind up in the virtual trash bin.

(Occasionally, I'll keep one that ends in 'Yours', if it's from someone I know, because it's fun to think about having your own personal lackey to command around. I take things literally that way sometimes.

Unfortunately, the senders of the emails do not, as a rule. I 'commanded' one of them to get me a cup of coffee once, and they pennied me into my office. If the janitorial staff hadn't come in over the weekend, I might still be locked in there. Personal lackeys aren't all they're cracked up to be, I've found.)

Next, you get the closings meant for one person specifically. These are fine, so long as they're not overly wordy -- or if they happen to be pointed in someone else's direction. So a 'Best Wishes,' or 'Cheers,' or 'Thanks,' is usually okay, if you're the intended recipient. But if you see 'Many Thanks,' or 'You're the Best,' or 'Warm Regards,' then be afraid. Be very afraid. Or hope to hell you're only being cc'ed.

(I've never been sure how to feel about 'warm regards' in the first place. Are these regards that were in the oven, and have now cooled enough to touch? Or are they room-temperature regards that sat out too long, and now they've gotten all swampy? Are regards best stored in a cool, dry place until use?

I'm frankly a little uneasy about handling another person's 'regards', no matter the temperature. We'd have to exchange a whole lot of 'sincerely's before I'd be comfortable with any of that business.)

Of course, this was all just an amusing little observation until this afternoon. About an hour ago, sitting at my desk, I received an email from the head of our department. It was addressed to me, with several other people cc'ed on the note. The message was six or eight paragraphs long, so I buzzed to the bottom, fully expecting to find a nice 'Thanks,' or 'Regards' there. Instead, I found this:

'Many thanks with warmest regards and all the best wishes,'

Ho. Lee. Crap.

I didn't even attempt to read the rest of the email; I bolted from my chair and ran screaming into the bathroom. I've been holed up here in a toilet stall ever since, with a nice big fort of toilet paper rolls barricading the door. I'm prepared to stay in here forever -- or at least until I can feel my legs again, seeing as how they fell asleep ten minutes into my ordeal. But if anyone finds me here, I'm prepared to beg, bribe or abduct them to avoid having to read that email. Or worse, do whatever it's asking of me.

Better to live as a numb-legged toilet-paper-eating hermit than to deal with something that closes with that bombshell above. Not to mention that it includes 'warmest regards'. I might need an oven mitt to deal with those things. Or an extra-long set of tongs. Yow.

My Cup Runneth Empty

Fri, 29 May 2009 23:49:19 -0500

I mentioned earlier that I recently saw my doctor, and was bamboozled into submitting to a full physical exam.

Well, maybe not 'bamboozled', exactly. It was for my own good, I'm sure. And there was neither bamboo nor booze involved, so far as I know. Certainly not both. This is not some sort of voodoo tiki doctor I'm going to here. Moving on.

"I'm surprised they didn't send some burly guy named Vinny to work some blood out of me in the meantime. Some of these HMO docs are hardcore."

At any rate, part of the deal in getting my foot healed up was submitting to a battery of lab tests. I told the doc fine, I'd run by the outpatient place near my house the next morning. Or the day after. End of the week, at the latest.

Later that day, our house went on the market -- which is a whole other extended saga, but suffice it to say that having holes poked in my arms and fluids sucked from my body was really low on my list of priorities. For about three weeks. I'm surprised they didn't send some burly guy named Vinny to work some blood out of me in the meantime. Some of these HMO docs are hardcore.

Finally, I made it over to the lab. By that point, I'd forgotten exactly what I was being tested for -- cholesterol, cholera, swine flu, goose rabies, cat hair, who the hell knows? But I drove in, really to step up, bleed out, and be on my way. I strutted up to the counter to check in, gave the girl -- who pretended to be very unimpressed with my strutting, I might add -- my name, and waited to tell her into which arm I wanted the needle jammed. Instead, she threw me a curveball:

'Fine. Here's your cup. Bathrooms are down the hall.'

Um... a bored bitter nurse says wha, exactly?

She didn't look like she wanted any guff -- which I could tell with great certainty covered a question like, 'Great. What in the hell do you expect me to do with, or in, this little thing?'

So I took the cup, found a bathroom and pondered my options. I knew the doctor mentioned blood tests. Maybe this was some sort of 'self-service' lab where you draw your own blood, pour it in the cup, and save a frazzled tech some work. But I didn't see any needles in the room. Not even a razor blade to slice with. If I sawed back and forth on the toilet handle just the right way, I might break the skin, but it was sort of a long shot. If they wanted blood from me, they were going to have to be a little more straightforward about it.

That didn't leave many options. I could only think of four or five other things that I could possibly deposit into the cup for the doctor -- and only two that any sane person in modern society might be willing to hand to their primary caregiver. Still, two is more than one, so I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to be doing in that bathroom.

So I went back out to the reception area, empty cup in hand, and tried to play dumb. Not much of a stretch, under the circumstances. The nurse lady rolled her eyes and informed me:

'Some of the tests here require a urine sample. Get that done, and then we'll take blood afterward.'

'But... I didn't know I'd be giving a urine sample.'

'Well, just do the best you can.'

'But I just went to the bathroom before I came here.'

'Just do. The best you can.'

That last bit was spoken with one of those implied 'or I'll stab you in the eyehole' looks that mothers, teachers -- and nurses at reception desks, evidently -- are so very good at summoning. I decided to be a good little urine patient and toddle back to the bathroom to do the very best that I could.

Which meant standing for ten minutes in front of a toilet, with an empty sample cup in one hand and the business end of an empty bladder in the other. As hard as I squeezed, no matter which muscles I could think to clench, over and over, not a lot of progress was made. There was room in the cup for one hundred millileters, maybe one fifty. Lot of big water drinkers in the medical profession, I guess.

Me, I managed about thirty. With a lot of effort. At least I could tell the doc I'd done some abdominal exercises that week. So I've got that going for me.

Of course, when I returned with the cup, I had to endure the disparaging looks from the nurse lady all over again. I'm sure I personally made her rethink her entire career path that day. 'Why me,' she must have asked. 'How is it I get patients who can't even find a way to pee right?'

That's me. Lowering other's expectations of humanity since 1970. I should get T-shirts printed.

Luckily for us both, there was juuuuust enough liquid gold in the cup for them to run their tests -- and it was a different nurse who wound up taking my blood. If the woman at the desk had done it, she'd have probably stuck me with a lawn dart and hooked me up to a funnel. Six quarts later, and I'd either be dead or I'd have the local blood bank renamed after me. And possibly both.

Instead, I made it out alive and with the merest shred of dignity left. If nothing else, I did have the good sense to ask, eventually, precisely what it was that was expected of me. I didn't go and deposit any of those unspeakable things I'd thought of into the cup on a whim.

On the other hand, I feel sorry for whoever opens the medicine cabinet in that bathroom next. Hoo boy. Man, if they didn't need a doctor before, they'll sure as hell need one after.Some biological samples, you just can't unsee.

I'm Just Here to See the Heel-er

Wed, 27 May 2009 23:39:29 -0500

(The Bugs & Cranks train rolls on. In the station this time:

Wednesday Walk Watch: Week seWen: "This week’s Walk Watch has more ‘free swingers’ than a hippie love-in at Hef’s bath house."

Now, back to the nonsense.)

A couple of weeks ago, I called the doctor's office about the ouchy foot problem I was having. The receptionist, a shrewd little minx, heard my complaint and replied:

'Well, as long as you're seeing the doctor, we'll just sign you up for a physical exam, too.'

I agreed, partly because I hadn't had a checkup in a while, and partly because it didn't seem like she was giving me much choice in the matter. And the last people you want to piss off are the staff who work with doctors. I watch Scrubs; I know how the medical world works. And those people are loco. No, thanks.

"The woman could have suggested that I come to the office in a black evening dress and heels, sing show tunes during the exam and coo sweet nothings into the doctor's stethoscope for an encore."

Mostly, though, I agreed because the pain in my throbbing toe was clouding any other sort of judgment. The woman could have suggested that I come to the office in a black evening dress and heels, sing show tunes during the exam and coo sweet nothings into the doctor's stethoscope for an encore. I'd have done it, just to have that stupid wonky foot fixed up.

And I'd have brought the crowd to their feet, too. Or their knees. One or the other.

Anyway, I accepted her terms, and said I'd go in for the full head-to-toe physical. On the condition that they begin with the toes. Do whatever you want to me, I told her. Just have the decency to start at the bottom and take care of the immediate problem, then work your way up. It's the merciful thing to do.

So that afternoon, I gimped into the office and was shown to a room. Where the nurse proceeded to start the exam. At my mouth. By taking my temperature. I thought maybe she didn't get the 'foot message', so while I was sucking mercury bulb, I figured I'd give her a friendly reminder:

'Umgh... shyou know what'sch weally ovewheated wight now? My footch!'

She just shook her head and gave me a look that said, 'Hey -- who's the doctor here?'

(Unfortunately, the look didn't say it out loud, or I could have offered, 'Neither of us, nurse. So maybe you could run along and find someone qualified to fix my toe now.'

Not that I would do that, of course. I'm far too nice. Also, these people are trained in the use of various small and very sharp objects. She could probably even make it look like an accident. So I kept my mouth shut. Except for the thermometer. Of course.)

After measuring -- and probably causing -- my slight fever, I figured Ms. Ratchet would maybe move on down the road to my foot. Instead, she went for the arm, and hooked up a blood pressure cuff. I couldn't help myself:

'You know what really gets my blood flowing? Somebody fixing my foot.'

This dance went on for the next twenty minutes or so -- 'You know what really gets my heartrate going?...', 'Can I tell you what'd really quicken my reflexes?...', 'Hey, I'll tell you something I could really drop my pants and cough about...' -- until she was finally done with her nursely workup. Then she left, and informed me that the doctor would be in soon.

Whether to look at my foot or put me out of my misery, she didn't say. And I was starting not to care which.

Finally, the doc came in, checked out my foot, diagnosed the problem, handed me some info, diagnosed a painkiller, and sent me on my way. Rather anticlimactic, really. All in a day's work for the good doctor -- and my foot has been pain-free since I've been on the meds. Also, I can't feel my face and I get tipsy after using mouthwash -- so you know it's the really good stuff. I'm thinking I should have injured myself earlier, frankly.

As I was leaving the office, though, he had one more trick up his hospital gown for me. This being an 'official' physical exam and all, he wanted to run a few tests to see how the old body is holding up. Cholesterol, triglycerides, swine flu, transmission fluid, LDL, HGH, olly olly oxen free... all the usual stuff. So he ordered up the tests, we agreed that I'd visit a lab near my house to have blood drawn, and I promised to get there as stat as I could. The next day, end of the week at the latest.

The next morning, our house went on the market, thus beginning a two-week odyssey of cleaning the place spotless each morning -- the better to impress spur-of-the-moment househunters visiting in our absence -- and hustling the mutt to her 'doggy day care' joint across town. Which is nowhere near the lab the doc and I zeroed in on. So it was just yesterday that I made it to have those tests done. And while I was at the lab to have blood drawn...

Well. That's a story for next time. Tune in soon to see what sort of blood, sweat and... other stuff was spilled during that visit. It's a page-turner. Really.

But you'll probably want to wash your hands first. And definitely after.

Weekend Werind: (Real E)State of the Union

Sun, 24 May 2009 23:08:03 -0500

I may have mentioned (ad nauseum) that my wife and I are in the process of selling our house. We've never sold a house before, having popped our proverbial real estate cherry on our current abode.

(No. Don't try and picture that. You're only going to hurt yourself.)

Not knowing quite what to expect from the process, we naturally expected the very worst. We figured we'd wind up with seller agents without the requisite experience -- "What is this 'condominium' word you keep saying?" -- bloodthirsty cutthroat agents on the other ends, and ridiculously difficult buyers, if any at all.

"We braced ourselves to have the house spend months on the market with zero interest, then to endure a contentious negotiation where we'd be forced to give up half our furniture, the car, the dog and a rented parking spot in exchange for a tiny fraction of our asking price."

We braced ourselves to have the house spend months on the market with zero interest, then to endure a contentious negotiation where we'd be forced to give up half our furniture, the car, the dog and a rented parking spot in exchange for a tiny fraction of our asking price. Meanwhile, we'd spend the sale proceeds, our life savings and a hefty loan to squeeze into a ramshackle crapshack studio thirty miles outside of town, after spending six months living out of an overcramped storage bin because none of the real estate sharks would deign to sell us a place.

Hey, we both saw The Money Pit. We know how this real estate dealie works.

Now, I don't want to jinx anything before all the papers are signed and the keys are exchanged, but so far, it looks as if we'll have a somewhat smoother ride than expected on the home-moving train. In fact, you could say this train's been an express, with comfy seats and lots of room and a nice dining car, in case you need a snack. Also, the booze is free and the conductor comes by to give foot rubs every half hour or so. And she's Swedish, so that's a nice touch. I couldn't choo-choo-choose a smoother transition. So far.

Like I said, I don't want to jinx this.

So I won't go into detail about our current situation, other than to say that we have both a party interested in buying our house and another party willing to sell us their place, with paperwork already in progress for both transactions. And the new place is a condo, which we really wanted -- and in our old stomping (and renting) grounds in Brookline, which was also our strong preference for location, location, location this time around. You might glean these not-so-secret housing desires from a post I wrote around four-and-a-half years ago, after we'd been in our current joint for maybe eighteen months or so:

Antennae on the Potato Salad? That's a Paddlin'!

Note the wistful longings for life back in 'walking territory', and where we don't mow our own yard or worry ourselves about the shade of paint on the building's exterior. If all goes well, we'll be back to our old ways by the end of the summer. I've got six fingers and four toes crossed that everything goes to plan without a hitch. Because if this train derails, we'll be back in that ramshackle studio somewhere on the Maine border, wondering where the hell all our money went and what our dog and car and dining room table are up to these days.

And I'm really hoping to avoid that. Keep this engine on the tracks, conductor. And don't be afraid to work the pinky toes down there. I want to enjoy this ride.

Make a U-Turn, Then Ask Someone Who Knows

Thu, 21 May 2009 23:32:29 -0500

(Two bits of B&C goodness since last time:

Wednesday Walk Watch: Week sWix: "When you’re toiling past the middle of May taking fewer walks on the season than Joel Piniero, Derek Lowe or Chan Ho Park, you’re really putting something special together."

Kris Medlen, Renaissance Man: "Luckily for Medlen, the game’s not in Colorado — humidor or not, who wants to start a pitching career there?"

Now back to your regularly-scheduled dose of drivel.)

I've been told that I give lousy directions. This is surprising to me, for two reasons:

A. I'm a reasonably eloquent guy.

I'm sure Hemingway or Oscar Wilde could get you to the Home Depot down the street more compellingly, but I like to think I have enough word smarts to get across the directions I'm trying to convey.

(Though not quite enough to come up with a better term for 'word smarts', apparently. Baby steps, people.)

"And while I occasionally still get tripped up on the whole righty-lefty thing, I'm happy to use those little pointy things on the ends of my hands to make myself clear."

So far as I know, I don't have any kind of thick, impenetrable accent. And I use all the local Bostonified versions of various direction-giving terms -- like 'rahndabaht' for 'traffic circle', 'stahp light' for 'traffic signal' and 'ehfing retahds' for 'other drivers'. And while I occasionally still get tripped up on the whole righty-lefty thing, I'm happy to use those little pointy things on the ends of my hands to make myself clear.

(Fingers! Those are called fingers! I say, I'm getting word smarterer every day. Huzzah.)

2. I rarely know how the hell to get anywhere.

So the vast majority of the times when I'm asked to give directions, I just shrug my shoulders and walk on by. It's only when I really, truly, deep in my heart of hearts believe that I know the way that I'll attempt to share. And given my backwards sense of direction and memory like a rusty sieve, whatever you're looking for pretty much has to be within eyesight for me to be of any use. That, and I can tell you the way to get to my house.

Usually. If we're close by. And you don't mind going the wrong way down a few one-way streets. Or cutting through a playground. There's just too damned many turns otherwise.

Still, people routinely tell me that my directions are nearly useless. I mention all of the right streets, and if you already knew where you were going, you might be able to interpret my gibberish as directions after the fact. But if you're relying on me to get you somewhere, then you might as well just stay home, apparently. Or buy a GPS, for crissakes. Like it's my job to get you people where you're going, anyway.

For most practical purposes, I've been taken completely out of the direction-giving loop. My wife tells people how to get to our house.

(And avoiding the playground crossing, even, which is a huge plus. According to the local cops and concerned parents groups, anyway.)

In other situations, I defer to whoever's around that looks remotely competent. Out with friends -- let one of them navigate for a stranger. Sitting in the office -- some co-worker can get you to that new restaurant, probably. I've got important non-direction-giving work to do over here; surely you can see that. Out on my own, with any doubt in my mind -- I dunno, man, go ask that squirrel over there. Maybe he knows where the high school is. You don't want my advice, trust me.

Every once in a while, though, a perfect storm of navigation querying comes along. Like this morning, on my way to work. As I was strolling the few blocks between my car and the office, a truck turned the corner ahead of me and pulled up alongside me. The driver leaned out and asked:

'Hey, buddy, do you know where XYZ hospital is?'

As it turns out, I know very well where XYZ hospital is, seeing as how it's right next to the hospital I work at. The local city planners have seen fit in their wisdom to cram all of the local hospitals into a three-block area where I work -- the better to treat you for any ailment, once you're within range, I suspect.

Of course, the large areas of town relatively far away from this little postage stamp-sized mecca of critical care are pretty much screwed. But those people knew the score when they decided to live on the outskirts, right?

('Oh, if only you'd have gotten here sooner, Mr. Johnson, we might have saved your legs. But you had to go and buy a condo out in the boonies, and now I'm afraid we have to Cap'n Dan you. I would really have a stern talk with my real estate agent, if I were you, sir.')

City planning snafus notwithstanding, this was one rare occasion where I actually knew the directions I was asked for, it involved very little navigatory work, and the destination was quite close by. There's no possible way to give poor directions, from where I was standing. So I jumped right in:

'Sure thing! Just turn around, take this right, cross the riverway, and you'll see signs for the hospital in a couple of blocks.'

He seemed satisfied with that. Given my dismal record with such things, maybe I should have asked whether he had any questions, or if anything was unclear. Maybe he'd like a diagram, or I could pull the squirrel in to explain it in a slightly different way. But the guy nodded, looked fully on board with the plan, and took off again, presumably to pull a U-turn as I said, to start the directions.

As for me, I continued walking -- on the very same route I'd just given him. The two hospitals really are side-by-side, and once you make the right, it's a straight four-block shot to the bullseye. The traffic was light today, so as I walked, I kept an eye on the road to make sure the guy made his way in the right direction. I didn't see him pass during the first block -- but then again, it's a little tough to turn around on the street he was on, and that light at the turn is pretty long sometimes.

He didn't pass during the second block, either. But there is another light back there. And maybe he got a cell phone call and pulled over to talk or something.

Third block? No sign of him.

Fourth block. Nothing.

I finally crossed the last street before my building -- the last intersection he should have gone through before turning to reach XYZ -- and entered the building. Four blocks. Maybe six minutes elapsed. And a three-item set of dead-simple, no-muss, you-could-explain-it-to-a-first-grader directions that should have taken thirty seconds to put into motion. And which one of us had gotten entirely assed up.

I'd like to think -- not knowing the guy and thus able to postulate that he could, in fact, be a lobotomized ADD-addled orangutan in some kind of disguise -- that it was all his fault. But he was in an old pickup truck, and I've never known a monkey to drive a stick before. Especially the ADD ones. And especially after their frontal lobes have been put through the blender.

Alternatively, I could believe that the guy was kidnapped or truck-jacked just behind me, and never made the U-turn to follow the directions. But I'd just been walking that street, and there was nobody back there. Besides, who the hell jacks a beat-up old truck, anyway? Is there a black market for Hank Williams 8-track tapes I don't know about? Unlikely.

So I'm left to believe -- or have confirmed, once again -- that I just give crappy, unfollowable directions. I still don't see the problem. I mean, I could follow my directions. I just followed my own -- on foot, no less. But something crucial evidently gets lost in the translation from my brain to someone else's, and hitting that squirrel up for a map starts to look awfully good to people.

Frankly, it's just damned frustrating. Such a simple thing to do, and I'm apparently unable, even in the simplest case, to get anyone successfully from Point A to Point B. And now some doofus stranger was reminding me of that, and ruining my whole day in the process. I actually wanted to go back toward my car, comb the neighborhood for that guy in the truck, and tell the bastard he could go to hell.

Of course, I'd never be able to tell him how to get there, so what's the point, really? Stupid guy looking for the hospital, anyway. Probably bought a house on the outskirts. Meh.

Walk It Off, Doofus

Tue, 19 May 2009 23:50:07 -0500

Apologies to anyone who tried to leave a comment over the weekend. A wee little technical problem -- fixed now, I'm happy to say -- kept all of the programs on the server from working. Including the posting scripts, which is why the 'Weekend Werind' was also rather conspicuously absent. But all the hamsters have been properly fed now, and the duct tape doubled up on the corners of the server box, so we should be good to go again.

"I either need to stop turning around, or find body parts less likely to hold long grudges."

Just don't shake the screen too hard. We're not exactly working with Deep Thought here, after all. It's a fragile system.

Speaking of 'fragile', I had a semantics discussion earlier today with my wife. Or tried to, anyway. As usual, she cut through the language difficulties to tickle the crux of the matter directly. Here's how it went down:

I've been having some troubles with my foot recently. A trip to the doc and a couple of meds cleared that up nicely, but this ailment is just the latest in a long line of recent ouchies, hurts and boo-boos needing kissing. It seems like every time I turn around, my back or neck or arm or one of my toes objects to the activity and gives me grief for a few days. I either need to stop turning around, or find body parts less likely to hold long grudges. In the meantime, I'm stuck with my aches and pains, it seems.

Still, I don't let that sort of thing stop me. I've got a full schedule of softball and volleyball and billiards leagues scheduled -- the modern trifecta of 'fat old man sports' -- and a bad wheel or wonky wing isn't going to keep me away from my appointed dates with aging mediocrity. It was this distinction, the propensity for more nagging injuries as I careen over the hill versus not missing the very activities that are causing said sprains and strains, that I tried discussing with my wife.

With the usual results.

When I mentioned to her my latest minor malady -- a right knee that doesn't bend painlessly, since Sunday afternoon -- she offered a 'helpful' observation:

"Wow. You're really getting frail in your old age, aren't you?"

Point, her. That's my little sweetie muffin, all right.

But I had a question. Did she actually use the right term there? Is it fair to call me frail, if I'm not (yet) slowed down by most of my self-afflicted injuries? I called for a semantic point of order:

"Now hold on. Am I 'frail', or 'fragile'? I yoink something or other all the time, but I keep playing. Which one is that called, 'frail'? Or 'fragile'?"

"I think that one's just called 'stupid'."

My girl, she was never much one for semantics.

So now I've got a brand new ailment to worry about. I'm not sure how well I can play 8-ball tomorrow with a badly bruised ego, but I'm prepared to give it a shot. Can somebody just point me in the right direction of where to put the ice pack tonight? I should really try to keep the swelling down on this thing.

Choosy Dog Moms Choose Everything, Eventually

Fri, 15 May 2009 23:23:29 -0500

(Bugs & Cranks goodness that I neglected to mention last night --

The Twenty Percent Solution: "This guy could make Rick Camp hit like Albert Pujols. And look snazzy doing it, too."

Wednesday Walk Watch: Week fiWe: "Who’d have thunk ‘Cristian’ and ‘charity’ would be mutually exclusive for more than a month?"

Now back to our regularly scheduled nonsense.)

The dog is officially a load.

Oh, she's always a handful. We're used to the 'handful' routine. The walks, the feeding, the begging for Snausages and peeing on just the right particular corner of the lawn -- that's old furry hat by now. And we nursed her through several months of lymphoma treatment, which wasn't especially her fault, so we didn't call her a 'load' just for that.

Of course, if there are any dietary choices that could be risk factors for developing lymphoma, then perhaps she's not entirely innocent. She does seem to enjoy drinking from the toilet and snurfling through the trash when we're not looking. Also, she spent a year or so as a puppy making a habit of eating poop. The dog's not exactly a star Atkin's pupil here.

But she was sick. So we didn't call her a 'load'.

These days, she's all better. No more chemo, down to bi-monthly vet visits, and all of her various doggie tests have come back clean.

"That poop over there is just ground up pig tendons and donkey gristle that's been slow-filtered through the golden retriever down the block. Make the right choice, girl."

Well, probably not 'clean', what with her being a dog and all. I mentioned the trash snurfling, right? Nasty business, that. But the tests come back free of cancer, and that's the news we're looking for. For a goofy mutt of her advanced age -- she's a little over ten now, which is somewhere up in Abe Vigoda land in dog years -- she's as healthy as a horse.

Which stands to reason, since her kibble is probably mostly made from horses. Or Abe Vigoda. But I digress.

The point is, the pooch is healthy these days. She is, however, on a bunch of vet medications for various nagging canine ailments, and that's where the dog really comes out of her mild-mannered, happy, sloppy sappy shell.

And becomes a load.

See, these meds come in pill form, mostly. One is a powder capsule, and another might be a gelcap of some kind, but they're all little bits of apparently foul-tasting medicinal product meant to be ingested on a regular basis by our flaky fuzzy friend. Only she doesn't want to ingest them, because none of them taste like kibble or Snausages or our kitchen trash can. Or poop, apparently.

How on earth any creature can happily snarf down poodle turds -- and right off the dirty ground, too; I mean, who knows where those things have been? -- and just a few years later turn its nose up at some little stupid pill because it 'tastes funny' is beyond me. Heaven help me, I just want to reason with the poor animal. I want to say:

'Look, dog -- here's the thing. These pills were specially formulated by very smart people to keep you healthy, so you can run around around underfoot and piddle on the carpet and slobber on our blankets for as long as caninely possible. That poop over there is just ground up pig tendons and donkey gristle that's been slow-filtered through the golden retriever down the block. Make the right choice, girl. You can do this.'

And yet, she can't.

To be fair, her scat-scarfing days are well behind her. But given any option whatsoever, she will absolutely avoid any sort of mouth-related contact with anything that tastes like, smells like, looks like, has touched, came from the same shelf as, or rhymes with any of her various medications. This leaves us with two avenues to pursue:

A.) Give her no option whatsoever.

That one is my choice, and it came to that once or twice early on. We gave her a pill; she refused the pill. We popped it in her mouth; she spat it on the floor. We picked it up, pried her mouth back open, popped it in and massaged her throat until she seemed to have swallowed it.

And she spat it on the floor, then ran upstairs and hid in her crate. Where we found her, pried her open again, popped it in again, massaged her throat again, and she finally, grudgingly swallowed it. See? Simple.

There are only two problems with this approach. One, my wife isn't on board with it, because she doesn't like to be 'mean' to the dog. All those 'we's above are really 'me's, since she objects on principle to forcibly prying the dog's jaws apart, and on sanitary grounds to sticking her fingers in there once they're open. Smart girl. I could probably learn something from her.

And two, the dog needs these pills twice a day, and there are four or five of them per med session. And given that the process of eventually chucking a pill down the mutt's gullet takes around twenty minutes or so, I'd have to quit my job to become a full-time 'canine pill administerer and neck massage technician'.

I've had a lot of ambitions in my life. Owning that particular title is not one of them.

So instead, we go with: 2.) Disguise the medications as something the dog finds tasty.

And that's where the dog really becomes a load. Because as it turns out, our mutt is a finicky snacker.

Not a finicky eater, mind you. She's been on the same brand of ground-up hog hooves and sawdust for several years now. She's got no problem getting snout-deep in a bowl of that stuff when mealtime rolls around. But when you're prepping her a 'treat', to make the medicine go down? Weeeeell, now it just depends on what she's in the mood for today.

In the beginning -- her pre-lymphoma, low-volume med days, say -- a simple Snausage would do the trick. Push a pill deep into the heart of one of those, toss is in the dog's general vicinity, and it'd be scarfed down before taste buds, tongue or teeth had any idea what was going down. Gobble 'em all, and let the duodenum sort 'em out. That was our pup's motto.

That lasted for a few years. And then, like a switch was flicked -- or more likely, one of her three sputtering neurons finally keeled over -- the dog simply went off Snausages. Quit cold turkey. Didn't matter if they were hiding pills or not, she eventually just decided they weren't worth the risk any more, and stopped eating them.

Thus began an escalating arms race that continues to this day. We must be in the ninth or tenth cycle by now; only my wife knows for sure. But when the Snausage trick had run its course, the missus looked for something else to use, instead. Early on, it was cheese. Kraft American singles, to be precise. One slice could be split into quarters and pressed into a ball, each portion concealing a pharmaceutical payload squished within. That lasted for a while, until it didn't, any longer. The dog would actually turn up her nose at the sight of a tasty hunk of semi-soft cheeselike food. It boggled the mind.

So my wife slathered them with peanut butter.

I can't say I would have made that particular leap from point A to point B. But she did, and damn if it didn't work. The mutt smelled those and sucked down pills like an octagenarian hypochondriac at the old folks' home. For a while. And then, not so much.

That's when the missus started balling up little bits of bread, and smearing those with peanut butter. And god only knows where it went from there. Hunks of meat, dijon mustard, a box of takeout egg foo yung -- who knows what she's employed to get those pills down the dog's throat? Frankly, I should eat so well -- and especially when I have to take some sort of medicine or other. All I get is a glass of water and a pill in the hand. Where's my skirt steak wrapped in bacon and smothered in cheese sauce, I ask you? And can I get one every morning with my Flintstones?

Of course, what makes the dog a big fat load is not that she gets these treats in the first place. It's that she can't ever seem to be fricking happy with any particular ridiculously sumptuous morsel, and eventually refuses them outright. And tonight, I stepped on some crusty bit of barely-gummed food that had a doggie pill of some kind inside. I don't know what the treat was, exactly. I only know that it smelled better than, oh, any meal I've had at any time in the past three weeks. That includes a dozen or more tasty lunch burritos, and some pretty damned good pizza, just off the top of my head.

And the dog wouldn't touch it. You'd think it was rat poison, or an overripe durian fruit dangling from my fingers. Whatever it was, I thought about finding a few more bits of it, zapping it in the microwave, and calling it 'dinner'. Pills and all -- how much could a heartworm pill and half a dose of dog incontinence meds really hurt me, anyway? It'd be worth finding out, if the stuff tasted half as good as it smelled. And the mutt? Not remotely interested. She gave me a look, as if to say, 'Frankly, my dear, I'd rather lick terrier turd than eat that garbage.' Some dogs, you just can't reach.

So I guess it's time for my wife to make the next move. Could be filet mignon this time. Or a nice dip in caviar. Maybe a creamy alfredo sauce, and homemade raviolis to hide the little pills. And someday soon, no matter how delectable -- or how much I happen to drool over it -- the dog will sniff it gingerly, scrunch her nose, and refuse to eat it. Under any circumstances.

Have I mentioned? Our dog is quite simply a fricking load.

Il(lin') Postino

Thu, 14 May 2009 23:11:55 -0500

I think I'm in trouble with the mailman. That simply can't be good.

I happened to run into our intrepid mail carrier a few days ago, as he was making his appointed rounds. I took our mail at the bottom of the considerable stairs and we chatted for a while. He thanked me for saving him the trek up the hill, and I mentioned that we're in the process of selling the house. That's when he hit me with a little proposition:

'You know... I don't mind the stairs, really. I've been coming up here for years now. But just the same... if there are going to be new people here soon, you think maybe we could start them out with the mailbox just a little further toward the street?'

"This is the man who knows where my Victoria's Secret catalogs are, and when they're supposed to be delivered."

I didn't see any problem with that. The box was already at the base of the porch, saving the guy ten stairs or so from front door level. Below that, there's a twenty-five foot or so walkway, then sixteen or so stairs leading to a landing, and another handful of steps down to the street. It's a hike, even if you're only going as far as the mailbox. Some days, I set up a base camp on the walkway myself, just to break up the trip. I've considered installing a tent with cold water and oxygen masks on the landing. I feel his pain, is what I'm saying.

So, I promised to do my brother in short blue pants a solid, and move the mailbox closer to the street. When new people move in, they'll see the box there and be encouraged to also help the man out. It's just good manners, really. And the last thing you want is to be rude to the person who delivers your bills, magazines and paper-based spam. That stuff could end up in the bushes, or down the block, or stuffed in the sewer grate out front. Or on the internet. Ouch.

The next morning, I was still in the house when the mail ran -- and hadn't moved the box yet. Strike one on my permanent record, no doubt, but hopefully the mailman just assumed I'd forgotten. And I dutifully kept my promise on the way out the door, escorting the box down to the landing, just a few steps from the sidewalk.

I also dutifully called my wife to let her in on the plan, lest she think we have some sort of mailbox-moving gnome infestation on the premises. Those things can be hell to get rid of, and have you seen the cost of gnome traps lately? Best to practice full disclosure, and nip any misunderstandings in the bud. So I rang her up, explained in detail why I'd moved the box and how the situation came to be, and assured her that we remain, to the best of my knowledge, fully gnome-free as a household. She listened, patiently waited through the whole explanation, and then offered the following bit of constructive criticism:

'Crazy husband did what, exactly?'

She pointed out that a mailbox mere steps from street level is a much juicier target for those unscrupulous characters who might decide they'd like to steal our mail receptacle. Which I can see, I suppose. Assuming that anyone would actually want to steal a twelve-dollar mailbox -- or the cable bills and nine pounds of catalogs that are delivered therein six days a week. Or that our immediate neighborhood is populated with fewer scruples per capita than I'd given it credit for. Everybody walking around the area looks pretty scrupulous to me. I thought we were fully scruplified around here. Maybe there are roving bands of scruple-free mailbox bandits from points beyond that I'm not aware of, but short of that, our mailbox seemed relatively safe to me.

None of these points convinced my wife, of course. She also noted that 'scruplified' isn't actually a word, and that most of those catalogs belong to me.

Hey, I made one purchase from Harry & David's once, and now I'm on every godforsaken apple and raisin and seedless banana mailing list from Washington state to the Tallahassee orange groves. How the hell was I supposed to know?

Anyway, when she got home that night, she moved the box back to its original location, without our mail toter so much as seeing it in the new, closer to sea level, perch. And I'm not sharing a bed with the mailman, so I left it the hell alone when I arrived home later in the evening. I did ask my missus whether maybe she'd left him a nice note, explaining the situation. She said, 'Pffft. It's not like I talked to the guy.'

Nice. Throwing me under the mail truck. That's my sweetums.

I figured the deal was done, and that was the end of it. The mail carrier would leave us a nasty letter or open all our personal cards to steal the checks, or just leave a big fat steamer in the mailbox, and then we'd be even again. I thought about wearing gloves -- and possibly a hazmat suit -- to check the mail for a few weeks, but other than that, I basically forgot about the whole misadventure.

Until the next day. When I arrived home before my wife, and found the mailbox, with the day's haul inside, sitting on the landing just above street level. Seems the mailman, unaware of the drama going on when he wasn't around, gave up on me remembering our conversation and took matters into his own hands. Now he had moved the mailbox back down to where we'd talked about.

I stood on the sidewalk for a full minute, just staring at it -- and considering my options. Luckily for me, I was heading back out of the house that night, and before my wife got home. Certainly, the mailman wouldn't be back by before I jetted, either. So I just pretended I never saw the stupid mailbox. Do not collect mail, do not move box, go directly to house and for the love of god, get the hell back out before anyone sees you. That was the plan, and I executed to perfection.

When I got back to the house, after a few hours out, the mailbox was where I expected it -- back by the porch, and far, far away from the mean street below. My wife was in bed, sleeping comfortably with the knowledge that no mailbox-thieving ruffians were having their way with our precious post box tonight.

That's when it finally dawned on me -- the mailman knows nothing of any of this. All he sees is: mailbox not moved down, mailbox not moved down, mailbox moved down my own damned self... and mailbox moved back up again, to the top of Mount Charlie. It's possible that he'd guessed my wife vetoed our little plan -- perhaps he has a mail-missus of his own back home, and can relate -- but it's just as likely that he thinks I'm forgetful, deceitful, or worst of all, just trying to screw with his head.

This is the man who knows where my Victoria's Secret catalogs are, and when they're supposed to be delivered. Not cool. Not cool at all.

Meanwhile, my wife refuses to leave a note, and I'm collecting the mail these days with oven mitts, a paper baggie and a set of extra-long tongs. Just in case. There's a federal employee who may well think I'm spitefully adding an extra sixty feet, round-trip, to his daily rounds, and there's no telling what sort of mood he's going to be in by the time he reaches our box. Or what he might have jostled loose to leave us as a 'present'. I can only imagine what important bits of mail he might withhold to teach us a lesson. Tax documents, perhaps, or credit card bills, or the extra-special push-up bra blowout sale. The horror.

In fact, all I'm seeing lately is those damned Harry & David catalogs. Guys, seriously. I gifted a crate of peaches to a family member -- once. I'm not that into fruit. Give it an effing rest, already.

Weekend Werind: Bean(town)ie Babies

Sun, 10 May 2009 23:15:05 -0500

I'll admit to two things tonight. Or rather, 'tonight'.

First, I'll allow that I'm going to be pretty lazy when it comes to this post, what with the whirlwind I've been spun through over the past few days. I'm sure I'll have more to report about recent events soon, but for the moment, let's just say that if I were equipped with 'the vapors', I'm pretty sure I'd be 'feeling' them right about now.

And second, I'll admit to back-dating this post by a half-hour or so, because I just arrived home, it's currently in the wee small twelve-o'clockish hour of Monday morning, and I haven't written a Weekend Werind yet this week.

"Sometimes, being in Boston is hard. I bet people in places like Kansas City and Cincinnati and whereever the Raiders play these days don't know how good they have it"

(Or last week, if you're one of those ballbusting Type-A people who says that the week starts on Monday, and 12:30 am is as good a time as any to decide that Monday is 'official'.

You people make me sick. You probably file your taxes in February and alphabetize your sock drawers, too. Sickos.)

Anyway, my reason for not-writing this post in the past several hours is simple -- tonight (yes, yes, I mean last night, for you anal-retentive stickler whackjobs) is a good night to be in Boston.

Rather, tonight (and I'm just calling it 'tonight' from now on; damn the chronologically-precise assholes of the world) is quite an excellent night to be in Boston. At least if you're a sports fan. Which I am.

See, without going into too much detail for you non-sports-watchers, the professional teams that go by the names 'Red Sox', 'Celtics' and 'Bruins' all played tonight. And they all hail from Boston, with their constituents competing in the sports of baseball, basketball and hockey, respectively.

And they all won.

Which, when I moved here in '99, was not something to be expected of pro teams in the Boston area. Ever.

Just take a look back. Nearing the turn of the millennium, the Red Sox were lovable losers, the Bruins were terrible, the Celtics were nearly twenty years removed from any real hardwood success, and the New England Patriots were a .500 team who hadn't yet heard the names Belichick, Brady, Welker, Moss, Vrabel, Wilfork, Samuel or Gostkowski. Outside of molasses-baked beans and a decidedly Irish slant, what did the city have, really? It's kind of sad, when you think about it that way.

But now, a scant few years later, all that has changed. A resurgence in just about every major sport around has rendered Boston a city of pride again, of tradition, and of sporting fanaticism. And that's what I was steeping in tonight. Which isn't so terribly easy, when you're looking for a place with decent food and three different satellite feeds that also serves beer -- Guinness, if you please -- in a state that still has a few Puritan-inspired 'blue laws' littering the books.

On the other hand, I've been here just about a decade now. If I hadn't found at least one place to slug brews and watch sports on a Sunday by now, then how the hell was I misspending my time here? Luckily, I wasn't. So I got to watch all three sporting events fall in Boston's favor -- and drank a beer or three in the process. Good times. Wicked good times.

Still, that doesn't leave an awful lot of time for writing. So instead, before hitting the sack, I'll duly relay a Weekend Werind that includes a couple of my favorite posts from the 'Wicked Pissah Bahstan' category. If there's ever a better night to celebrate being in Boston -- and possible upcoming eliminations from hockey and basketball playoffs, plus a troubling inconsistency on the baseball club, say there might not be -- then I don't know what it is. So indulge me if you will, in just a smidgen of Bostonian pride, represented in these previous gems:

June 20, 2003: A Boston Compendium in Three Acts

August 9, 2003: Fenway -- It's No Walk in the Park, You Know

June 26, 2006: Wherein I Patronize the Arts

August 27, 2006: They're Baaa-aaaack!

September 29, 2006: The Importance of Being Boston

November 20, 2006: The Fool of Faneiul Hall

July 2, 2007: Feeling Fenway

That's all for now, as I'm soon planning to simultaneously bask in the glow of multiple Boston-area team victories, as well as the nighty-bye comfort of my soft cotton sheets. Excited, but spent and exhausted, I think what I need now is a good night's rest.

All the more energy for tomorrow, to celebrate those wins. And a little left over -- hopefully! -- for Tuesday, when all those teams play all over again, with as much if not more on the line.

Man. Sometimes, being in Boston is hard. I bet people in places like Kansas City and Cincinnati and whereever the Raiders play these days don't know how good they have it. Lucky bastards.

The 'Have It Your Way' Warrior

Sat, 09 May 2009 23:49:45 -0500

I recently caught a couple episodes of that new show Deadliest Warrior on Spike. It's an interesting series -- very much in the chest-thumping, fist-pounding, primal-grunting mold the network seems to be cultivating. I can only imagine their program directors are Al Bundy, Koko the gorilla and those metro-Neanderthals from the insurance commercials.

In case you're unfamiliar with this particular nugget of modern testosteronalated entertainment, each week the show staff picks two groups legendary for their ferocity, ruthlessness, and/or wartime savvy, and then scientifically explores the tactics and weaponry of each. This is in order to answer the sorts of burning questions that we men apparently struggle with, like 'Would a Yakuza mobster totally waste a Roman gladiator?' or 'How long would a Viking berserker last against a pissed-off Kamakura shogunate samurai?'

(Personally, these are not the kinds of dilemmas that keep me awake at night, mostly. But if the show started with any combination besides 'pirate vs. ninja', then those Spike people are raving idiots.

"But when you find yourself watching some skinny tanned actor in full Native American regalia chucking arrows at a fat pasty guy in a gladiator helmet shaking a trident, you wonder whether the kids at Spike have had one too many sweaty Star Trek holodeck fantasies."

And ninjas would totally kick pirate ass.)

Anyway, it's entertaining. And some of the sciency parts, though dicey -- 'This Apache tomahawk generates enough damage per square inch to slice through a water buffalo, or possibly the Chrysler building' -- are pretty interesting, too. I'm down with the head-to-head angle for the show, too. In fact, for my money, there's just one teensy little problem with the concept.

They've gone and gotten it all wrong.

Look, I understand they're doing the 'manly' thing for the 'manly' network, and that's fine. These warrior cultures and mob cliques and such are appropriately violent, sure, and the science bits elevate the show -- barely -- above the level of a Rambo movie marathon loop. Think 'Mr. Wizard' meets 'Faces of Death', with a dash of history and high-speed cameras thrown in.

The problem for me is, it's all just a little too far-fetched. At the end of the show, the guys apply what they've learned, and enact -- not 're-enact, obviously -- what it might look like if one of Attila's Huns met a Navy SEAL. And frankly, it looks pretty ridiculous. Yes, it's the result of dozens of computer simulations, and precise calculations based on armor quality, weapon damage and military techniques. But when you find yourself watching some skinny tanned actor in full Native American regalia chucking arrows at a fat pasty guy in a gladiator helmet shaking a trident, you wonder whether the kids at Spike have had one too many sweaty Star Trek holodeck fantasies. And whether they go home at night and make their Xena action figures make out with their metal bikini Princess Leia dolls.

(Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I mean, to me, Padme and Gabrielle would make way more sense. But I'm not a bigshot network executive; what the hell would I know about pairing up fictional female characters in skimpy costumes?

Oh, stop looking at me like that. You know Aeon Flux and the Lady of the Refrigerator would totally kick ass together.

That's right. It's a gift. I can feel your envy.)

Anyway, where the hell was I? Oh, Deadliest Warrior, right.

So my problem with the whole deal is that it just doesn't look right to pit these soldiers and ninjas and guerrillas from up and down the historical timeline against each other. And I think I have a better, more modern idea. Here are a few of the 'Deadliest' head-to-head battles I'd suggest for future episodes:

DMV clerk vs. IRS auditor:

Long-range weapon: Orange traffic cones vs. large scientific calculator
Short-range weapon: Number two pencil vs. red ink pen
Defensive tactic: 'THIS WINDOW CLOSED' sign vs. threat of federal incarceration
Special attack: Ugly-enhancing flash photo vs. long lectures on fiscal responsibility

VERDICT: Both competitors are scary, and legendary in their own time. And while the DMV clerk's traffic cone maze and pencil jabs would certainly slow the auditor down, the specter of 'the gubment' coming to get you would no doubt send the DMV lackey into a blind panic.

In the end, this hotly-contested battle comes down to the special attacks. Grim though they are, the ass-ugly license photos are over in just a few seconds. A stern talking-to from an IRS auditor all lathered up over frivolous exemptions -- like deductions for orange cone polishing, perhaps? -- can last hours, if not days. This fight is a marathon, not a sprint, and the advantage goes to: IRS auditor.

Cable guy vs. contract electrician:

Long-range weapon: Beat-up cable company van vs. dilapidated electrician pickup truck
Short-range weapon: cable snips vs. wire cutters
Defensive tactic: Not showing up on time vs. not showing up, possibly ever
Special attack: Talking you into phone/internet package vs. overcharging by 300%

VERDICT: The vehicles are a wash. The little clippy snippers are a wash. And bilking you out of most of your money -- while both expected and very annoying -- is also pretty much a wash.

However. No matter how small or unrealistic a window the cable company gives you, or how many excruciating hours later that the guy finally shows up, the cable guy does, most of the time, arrive at the fight on the specified day. Contractors, on the other hand -- particularly electrical contractors? You'd be lucky to see them in the same month as when they say they'll be there. And you can't kill what never bothered to drive out to the battlefield in the first place. Advantage: contract electrician.

Quaker Oats guy vs. Burger King king:

Long-range weapon: Rock-hard granola bars vs. incendiary Whoppers
Short-range weapon: Instant oatmeal packets vs. floppy French fries
Defensive tactic: Wicked scary costume vs. wicked scary costume
Special attack: High-fiber bathroom marathons vs. high-fat explosions

VERDICT: The creep factor is through the roof with these two. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're the only ones who could possibly fight the other; I sure as hell wouldn't get within fifty yards of one of these freaks. So, who wins the actual battle?

None of the weapons are particularly powerful -- though an oatmeal bar square to the noggin might leave a nasty bruise. And they both have the ability to debilitate their opponents with long, painful forays into the bathroom. But while the Quaker's fare is (allegedly) good for you, the King can kill you in a number of ways -- immediately with a heart attack, less speedily with cholesterol, and long, slow and painfully with complications from supersize-mediated obesity.

It's a formidable arsenal. Add to that the scary visage and comprehensive media blitz, and this might well be the deadliest dude of all time. I'm thinking the King might even stand up to those crafty ninjas. Think about it -- you ever see a chubby ninja, with high blood pressure and fry-grease fingers? Me, either. I'm just sayin'.

Home Staging on Several Dimes

Thu, 07 May 2009 23:29:52 -0500

(First, the baseball buzz over at Bugs & Cranks --

Wednesday Walk Watch: Week fouW:

"The faithful gnawed at shattered nails,
As though t’were snacks made by Nabisco.
While their last great hope unfurl’d his sails
‘Gainst Rangers’ closer Frank Francisco."

And it's pretty much all downhill from there. Speaking of which...)

Our house, she is officially on the market. Evidently, this happened early this morning, when the realtor made the final touches to the ad and popped it in the magical online Real Estate-Mo-Tron doohickey that pushes info out to prospective buyers. This is a positive and exciting step in our home-selling process.

Also, there's evidently some early interest in our humble abode, as a buying agent made a request to see the place fairly early this morning, a scant couple of hours after the listing hit the interwaves. This is also positive, and most exciting.

"I assume it's similar to what the doting owner of a prized hamster might go through, if the house were on fire. And the hamster was retarded. And the owner was naked at the time."

However.

I discovered, indirectly, that I don't directly receive those agent requests to view the house. Those go to my wife, her being the one with the organizational skills and the scheduling knack and the responsible bone in her body. The better for me to not royally cock up something important, my dear.

The thing is, I'm a bit of a shifted worker these days. That parking situation I railed on about a few days ago occurs on streets where there's absolutely no stopping before 10am -- just one last parry-and-thrust-and-twist with the knife the meter weenies are sticking in our backs over there. But it means that I usually head into work later than most, and stay later than most. As a not-so-very-much-a-morning person, it works out quite well for me.

Except on days when a real estate agent has made a request to see the house, and I don't know about. And twelve minutes before the scheduled viewing, I'm sitting in my jammies checking email and enjoying a nice bowl of Frosty Chex, whiling away the morning until allowed-to-park time.

At eleven minutes before the scheduled viewing, the phone rang. This means nothing to me. Who answers the phone any more, anyway? It's only some telemarketer or wrong number or Fraternal Order of Police staffer begging for money so those meter weenies can have snazzier ticket pads. Sorry. Not interested.

At ten minutes and forty-five seconds before the scheduled viewing, the phone rang again. Interesting. The marketing monkeys are persistent this morning. I raised an eyebrow and went back to filtering spam and shoveling cereal.

At ten minutes and thirty seconds before the scheduled viewing, the phone rang again. I began to sense that something might be afoot. And that it might involve my wife. This phone business felt an awful lot like her secret code for alerting me when she's locked herself out of the house. On the other hand, there were a few sips of that really good sugary bit of milk left in the bottom of the bowl. And if she'd bothered to phone up three times...

Sure enough, at ten minutes and fifteen seconds before the scheduled viewing, the phone rang again. This time, I picked it up -- and sure enough, it was the missus. She informed me of the viewing, told me the scheduled time, and pointed out that I now had just about ten minutes to make the house presentable. Which included, preferably, getting myself and the dog the hell out of it. She ended the call with one final passing comment:

'Well... hope you're dressed, anyway.'

Yeah. That would make this ordeal a bit more manageable, now, wouldn't it? Pity, that.

It's interesting the thought process you go through when you have but mere minutes to prep an entire house, put yourself together such that you won't be arrested when venturing out into public, and corral a small animal that knows only the words 'sit', 'stay' and 'puppy wanna nummy biscuit?'. I assume it's similar to what the doting owner of a prized hamster might go through, if the house were on fire. And the hamster was retarded. And the owner was naked at the time. I wouldn't recommend it, frankly.

I quickly formulated a plan, making rapid-fire judgments as best I could at that early hour. First, put on some damned pants. Contact lenses in, find a shirt, rinse with mouthwash. I could hustle the mutt out the door -- luring her with a 'nummy biscuit', if necessary -- drop her off at 'doggy day care', and circle back home to clean up properly after the lookyloos were gone. Getting through that tangle of logic, wardrobe and Scope took maybe three minutes.

(Not bad, though if anyone happened to see and ask about my obvious 'bed head' at the dog place, I'd have to play it off as either "the way everyone in Europe is wearing it these days", or the result of an unfortunate incident involving a light socket, my tongue, and a triple dog dare.

And since no one would ever believe that I'm on the bleeding edge of anything fashion-related, I'd have to go with the latter. I'm always sticking my tongue in places it doesn't belong, anyway. Far more plausible.)

That left just seven minutes or so to make the place look like a house someone would want to buy -- 'cozy' and 'inviting', but never 'messy' or 'cluttered'. From the advice I've read on various real estate advice sites, you want prospective buyers to immediately imagine themselves living in the space, without leaving any shred of evidence that people currently do live there. It's a tricky business. And not something I could hope to master in just under seven minutes. Especially when I'd just scrambled out of my pajamas.

So I did the best I could -- dog bowls tucked away unseen, cereal bowl and spoon in the dishwasher, all the drapes and doors opened, and any mess I could see cleaned away, thrown out, covered up or cleverly distracted from, in ways that seemed like a good idea in the heat of the moment.

(No time to clean a spot of dirt on the foyer rug? Tape a stack of dollar bills to the doorway above it. You might lose a couple dozen bucks, but nobody's ever going to complain about that stain. Or even see it. Every once in a great while, money can buy you happiness.)

I'm proud to say I made it out of the house -- uncleaned, shoes unmatched, and my lunch money littered in various strategic spots around the property -- with nearly a minute to spare. I drag-carried the mutt to the car and whisked her off the premises post-haste. And I returned forty minutes later to find an empty house, a waiting shower, and a pair of loafers meant to be worn together. Also, I'm out thirty bucks. But nobody mentioned anything about that stain on the rug, or the shower curtain I pulled down, or the fire I accidentally started in the yard.

And to think I was worried about prepping the house. Silly old me. Ten minutes is plenty of time to get it ready -- at least until I hit my ATM limit for the day. This house selling gig is getting expensive.

A Foot Divided Cannot Stand, Particularly

Mon, 04 May 2009 21:55:16 -0500

I've often wondered whether anything could possibly make Mondays more unbearable. For a long time, I decided the answer was 'no'. With the weekend ending, the workaday grind picking up, the fuzzy morning fog, the time for playing and resting and sleeping until noon over with, I figured nothing could make Mondays any miserabler than they already were.

As usual, I was wrong.

Turns out throbbing, swelly foot pain can make a Monday worse. And considerably so. These are not the sorts of discoveries you'd like to make the hard way. If only someone had explained that to my wonky big toe at seven o'clock this morning. But no.

So I found myself nursing a hot and bothered wheel first thing to start the week. To be fair, I was pretty certain the foot was going to hurt today. It's been swollen and achy for just about a whole week, leading into the day. I even worked at home on Friday, when it flared up hot that morning.

"You grit your teeth to Monday pain, you know what you get? Gritty teeth, more pain, and a big fat Monday to deal with. That's not helping anybody."

But that was Friday pain. Friday pain is tolerable. You can grit your teeth to Friday pain, grab a couple of happy hour drinks, and use the whole weekend to recuperate. No problem. But today's pain was Monday pain. Totally different. You grit your teeth to Monday pain, you know what you get? Gritty teeth, more pain, and a big fat Monday to deal with. That's not helping anybody.

The thing for me was, whatever the hell was going on down there this morning was a full two or three frowny faces on the chart worse than what I'd gone to bed with. You hear the horror stories of single guys taking a '10' to bed and waking up with a '2'. Well, I went to bed with about a '3', pain-wise, and woke up with at least a '7'. And it was no freaking picnic. I'd go so far as to say it was 'coyote hurty'. If I could have reached my toe to gnaw it off and get away, I think I would have.

(Of course, if I could reach my toes with my mouth, I might never leave the house, either. That's a story for another time, probably.)

Anyway, it wasn't pretty. So unpretty, in fact, that I finally broke down, gimped over to the phone, and called for a doctor's appointment. A week of moderate foot pain is 'inconvenient', it seems. But stabbing toe pains searing enough to (further) ruin a Monday? Time for professional help.

Truth be told, I've limped this little dance before, just a couple of years ago. At that point, I waited only three or four days to make the call, and the pain never got quite so bad. I just didn't know quite what was happening, or why the big toe on my right foot was, apparently, attempting to secede the body. Possibly to set up a new government with its own organism, for all I know. Maybe I should've let my toe practice its religion of choice, and not taxed it quite so heavily. Lessons learned, I guess.

Meanwhile, I'd like to actually keep this toe, what with all the strolling and sauntering I have planned for the next few decades. So I'm going back to visit the doctor tomorrow. Last time, the diagnosis was a little... fuzzy. Essentially, the guy told me three things:

1. It's not gout.
2. It's not an infection.
3. If the swelling persists, I should come back and they'll drain my toe.

In other words, I'm not a decrepit fragile old man, I'm not a filthy squalor-living foot parasite-infested hippie, and I do not -- repeat, do NOT -- want to see any damned toes drained of fluid. Particularly not if they're still attached to me.

So, I got better, and fast. But that was a couple of years ago, and I don't remember quite how I managed it. This time around, I've done a little homework up front, to see if we can't nail down whatever it is holding my toe hostage. Without actually, you know, nailing it down. That's almost as bad as draining it. Yikes.

What have I discovered in my amateur medical sleuthing? Based on the symptoms, it seems possible now that I have a bunion.

Nice. So now I'm a decrepit fragile old woman. In high heels, apparently. Outstanding.

Gout's still got an outside shot -- and I am a bit older and more decrepit than when it was last ruled out -- but I'm holding out for something really juicy. Like a toe sprain, or a metatarsal fracture, or maybe swine flu of the toe. Something sexy like that.

At any rate, I should find out tomorrow. Hopefully, it won't involve any sort of draining or scraping or the throwing away of my fabulous loafers. And it will include walking out of the office, pain-free or nearly so, on a complete set of non-rebellious, throb-free, untender toes.

Because otherwise, I'll have to get my wife to chew the damned thing off. Well, either her or the doctor. Whichever has a stronger set of choppers. We'll just have to see.