MRI Dreams

When I was younger, I remember seeing a picture of an old woodcut image where a person was beset with joint pain. In this woodcut, the pain is caused by tiny demons poking little pitchforks into him. They sure had wild imaginations five hundred years ago.

I was thinking of this, as the Tech got me set on the little bed. She put earplugs in my ears, clamped my bad shoulder in some odd plastic cage.
Slowly, the narrow bed I am on is pushed into the hole of the machine. My arms scrap against the sides a little, so I pull my arms in. There are two little light strips above my forehead, an inch above my forehead.
I can’t move. My arms are tight against my sides. I would be okay, but thanks to a surgery on my left arm ten years ago, my ulnar nerve is on the side. The pressure on my left arm is causing it to hurt and my left hand is starting to go numb.

So as I am lying there in the metal doughnut, listening to the growl and bang of the MRI machine, wondering what the Tech sees on her screen. Then the old woodcut comes to mind.
It sure would be amusing if she rolled me out of the coffin like structure and said. “Yes, Mr. Hogg. If you look at the screen, you can see little demons here, here and here. They are what is causing the pain in your shoulder. ” She indicates grey little blobs holding pitchforks. “Now the good news is that there are only three and they are weak demons.” She picks up a scalpel and a stainless steel pan. “We can tell that it’s a simple matter of your humors being out of balance.” She swabs my arm with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol. “A little bloodletting will get you humors back in balance.” The scalpel doesn’t hurt as much as my shoulder joint.

After a half hour in the steel doughnut, the banging, growling and grinding noises stop. “All done.” The voice says from the speakers. I feel the bed move. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I blurt out through clenched teeth. My right hand is clenched tight and there are small tears coming out of the corner of my eyes. The pain in my left arm is killing me.
“You can sit up.”
I do and start to massage my left arm.
“Are you okay?”
“My arm is killing me. It was tight in there.”
“I thought so. You were shaking in there.”
I shook my arm and could feel the pins and needles as the blood returned to my arm.

“Your doctor will schedule an appointment within a week, to go over the results.”

As I drive home, I wonder how many little demons showed up on the MRI and if there is damage.

Snicker

So we are at the end. I put the last Snickers bar in the freezer for Wonder-Girl.

Right before I left for Cebu, I bought a case of Snickers bars. Yes kids, a case. Forty-eight Snickers bars.
I took some with me as favors for my friends in Cebu, hid a dozen around the house for WG to find and hid the box in my closet.
She found all of them since I did not hide them well.

That was two months ago and I gave her the last one tonight.

This weekend we will go do our monthly shopping at the big-box store. If I shop by myself, I can sneak another box of Snickers bars home. Ready for when WG gets a craving for a chocolate bar.

But if we go together, then I will have to make a separate trip on my own and smuggle a box back into the house.

Being sneaky is difficult

Dark Angel

Dark Angel
By G.W. Hogg
©10-31-08



Nancy looked up from her book, just as Jane flew in through the open doors that led to the backyard
“God Damn it!” Jane exclaimed as she landed with a thud and folded her dark leathery wings against her bronze body. “Next week, I’m going to see the plastic surgeon!”
“What’s wrong?” Nancy said as she stood and glided quietly over to Jane. She reached up, wiped the trickle of blood from Jane’s chin. “I can see you fed.” She seductively licked the blood off her finger. “And you fed well.”
“Not well enough. You know how I like to frighten my victims!”
“I could never understand that. They taste so much better, when improperly seduced.” She sat down again as Jane continued to pace.
“I know you like the smoky mix of serotonin and endorphin that you get from seducing a man, but nothing beats the sharp tang that adrenaline gives to the blood.”
“To each her own. But you never have a problem frightening them.”
“It’s not just frightening them, it’s how you do it. Oh, you wouldn’t understand!”
“Oh come on Jane. I’m not dead!”
“Well, you know how I like to swoop down on my victims.”
“Yes.”
“There is a subtle difference in the taste of blood, depending on how you frighten them. Startling them is the absolute best! Their blood is just flooded with adrenalin!”
“So.”
“So, I just can’t startle them with my damn breasts!”
Nancy just started to laugh. “You of all people…” and she continued to laugh.
“What do you mean, me of all people!”
Nancy caught her breath and looked her friend up and down. “You have this wonderful, slim, petite body. Your breasts are just the perfect size for your frame! I don’t know why you insist on frightening your victims when you could seduce them so easily!”
‘Damn it! It’s not the size! See how the left nipple turns out?”
“So.”
“So! So! Don’t you know anything about flying? When I hit top speed in my dive, the aerodynamics are such that my left nipple whistles!”
Nancy started laughing so hard that she fell out of her chair and rolled on the floor.
“It’s not funny! Half-way through my dive, they look up and see me! It ruins the surprise!”
Nancy finally caught her breath. “I just wished my little breasts could whistle. ‘Hello Sailor’.” And she started laughing again.
Jane was so furious that she couldn’t speak.

When Nancy finally stopped, she got back up and gave her friend a hug. “I know you are picky about the food you drink. I shouldn’t laugh, but you know how live women obsess over their breasts.”
“You didn’t have to laugh!”
“Oh come on! Admit it, it is a little funny.”
“Well…”
“Anyway, maybe you should wear a bra?”
Now Jane laughed. “A vampire in a bra? That would look so ridiculous! I want to frighten them, now make them laugh.”
“Well, how about a sports bra?”
“What? And flatten my perfect, perky breasts? Never!”
They both started to laugh until there were tears coming out of their eyes.

The rooster crowing in the distance stopped their laughter and they looked out the window at the lightening sky.
“Almost bedtime.”
“Yes. Let’s get ready.”
They blew out the few candles and walked into the next room of the abandoned house, pulled open the hidden trap door and descended the rickety staircase into the basement. Nancy’s too white skin appeared to glow in the darkness, while Jane’s natural bronze worked to hide her.
They each slipped into their clammy shrouds and climbed into their coffins.
“Good night Jane.”
“Goodnight Nancy.”

The coffin lids squeaked safely shut, just as the sun rose over the horizon.

Do you really want to hurt me?

Do you really want to make me cry?
Last week
Wednesday
I am not sure what I should say to my PT tomorrow.

‘If things don’t improve soon, I am going to have to ask you to stop helping me.’?

Oh, she does not like to hurt me, but she has to try. That’s the only way she can tell how my frozen shoulder is. Move it until it hurts a bit, then move it a little bit farther. She says that I am a little better.
The problem is, by the next day my whole arm hurts like hell. It moves a little more but hurts more.
Push the limits.

Last Monday I saw the Orthopedist. The idea was to get a nice shot of cortisone in my shoulder joint. Ease the inflammation and the pain. Regain some mobility. Maybe break loose the scar tissue that has built up in my shoulder joint.
I let him move my arm places that it did not want to go. Nothing tore, as far as I could tell, but it hurt like hell.
‘Yes, it looks like adhesive capsulitis.’ He said. ‘We can try a little cortisone.’
No, I did not look too closely at the 3inch (7.5 cm?) needle.
But the needle slipped into my shoulder joint easily, I am sure the lidocaine in mix helped.

But the little cocktail did little for my shoulder joint. I think the Orthopedist was disappointed it didn’t help much.
But the shoulder was a little better and he could move it around a lot more.
(Little did I know that I would pay for days.)

Ortho–doc thinks there might something else causing problems and will schedule an MRI. That might be fun, I have never had an MRI.

By the time Thursday rolled around, my arm was better and maybe a slight improvement from the shot.
The PT worked me over pretty well, but she was careful this time. She tends to wince when I jerk from the pain. She tells me that the cortisone can take up to a week to fully help.

A week later-
So I do my stretching exercises every day. Just a little each day. Keep some ability to move. I hope no one tries to dance with me at the party this Saturday. Or at least not until I have had enough beer to not feel my arm scream.

Which wife

So, last Friday night, Wonder-Girl was hosting a Bunko party with all her girl friends.(boys not allowed :-)
It was Bunko night and there were a dozen ladies there.

Anyway, Wonder-Girl shows them the picture of me and witch-girl on the broomstick, flying over the Chocolate Hills. They all thought it was neat. And then one of the ladies asked
"Who is the cute young lady on the broomstick with your husband?"
"Oh that's Shy, his Filipina wife." WG said.
The women that knew us just laughed, but a few of the ones that don't know me just kinda looked around, not knowing what to say.
I wished I could have been there to see some of their faces!

(Sure, some of you will ask, like Glinda of oz did, is she a good witch or a bad witch? All I can say is, it depends on how you treat her!

When I did get home, around 9:30, the party was ending. The Garcia sisters Aunt A & J-Gram (both in their 70’s) were admiring my kitchen floor and Aunt A said, “You did such a good job! Do you want to do my kitchen?”
“No.” I answered.
“Why not?”
“You can’t afford my rates.”
“Anyway,” Her sister J-Gram piped in, “He only does this stuff for his wife.”
“Well,” Aunt-A said, “How do you feel about having a second wife?”

One should stay away from the Garcia sisters!

Survivor

So I went in for my six-month check up on the skin cancer that was shaved off the back of my hand (you know, last Feb.)
Unfortunately, my female doctor moved to a different office, so I have some guy doctor that Wonder-Girl said was pretty nice.
Maybe that is fortunate, for I was sure that the female doctor wanted to do some more cutting.

I was pleasantly surprised when Repair-girl-two called me into the doctors' office. I used to work with her, three blocks from here when the WC office still existed. She was one of the two techs that I would come running to when I needed a board repaired and sent to a customer. She was a few years younger than me and just as cute as a button. (maybe cuter, but I digress)
Now she is a nurse in a doctors office.
With a huge smile on her face, she says ‘the doctor will see me now.’ (you know, there is nothing better than being greeted by a big, warm smile from a young lady. But again, I digress)
So we go into the exam room, asking how things are going.
She was pleasantly surprised that I still worked for T. One of the last, a survivor I guess.

“Do you want the whole body exam?” She asks while looking at my records on the computer screen. “Or just the upper torso?”

Now if any of you had worked with us back in the WC days, you would know that a question like that would lead to, at minimum, an “Oh Baby!” (especially when asked by a pretty young lady) And then someone would whack me on the arm.

I just smiled at her and she smiled back. We know what jokes would have been said, back in the days.
“Just need to have my hand checked, but the upper torso is a good idea.”

We chatted for a few more minutes, then the doc came in and she stepped out.

The good news is that there is no sign of the skin cancer reoccurring on my hand, but the doc warned me that there was a good chance of a reoccurrence somewhere else. You know the drill, sunscreen, wear clothes, lip balm.
He looked over my arms and face and said the rest of me looked okay.
Come back in six months for another checkup.

I said goodbye to RG#2 on the way out, got a nice hug and told her I’d see her again in six months.

I survived not having ‘trench work’ done on my hand. I am still at ‘T’, long after almost everyone else was let go.
There are so many things I have gotten past and over, removing a little spot on my hand seems trivial. Not something you survive.

Overboard

I think I had a good night. At least I don’t remember waking up a lot. I wake up a lot nowadays.
I have Frozen Shoulder. Not sure what caused it, my physical therapist doesn’t know what caused it.
But my shoulder joint sticks. If I force it, it hurts like hell. My therapist shows me way to force it.
So nice of her.
If I don’t keep moving it, it will get worse.

I sleep very hard, usually. Very little wakes me up. Once when I was younger, a woman walked on me in the middle of the night.
I never woke up.

I wake up now. Many times at night. It seems every time I move in bed, my arm hurts. Hurts enough to wake me up.
Messes up my sleep so much that I am tired and want to nap in the afternoon.
My boss would not like that.

I think it keeps me from dreaming like I usually do.
Except last night when I keep having the same dream over and over and over..

The dream starts with my friend and her friends are on a ferry, traveling between islands. Terrorists take over the ferry and everyone hears news reports about how they killed some people, including my friend.
But in my dreams I kept seeing her escape. She jumps off the ferry. She throws a life jacket overboard and jumps over the railing.
Sometimes she hits the side of the ferry, sometimes she doesn‘t.
Sometimes she curls up like a ball and makes a big splash when she hits the water.
Over and over, I dreamt the same thing.

Every time I woke up I knew that she was alive, but swimming in the ocean. Safe from the terrorists, but not safely on shore.
Except once when her head smashed against the side of the ferry.


I kept waking up last night, my arm hurt like a son-of-a-bitch and my friend was in trouble.

Not a good night.

What she didn’t say

It starts with keeping a secret. One that some know. We may wink at one another, for only we know.
I am not sure all who know, just a few.

I am reminded again just how much fun it can be in Cebu. Not just because of old friends, but because I have (as usual) made new friends too. I expected one NC to meet me at the Marriott. Instead, a strange SUV pulled up, the window rolled down and a familiar voice behind a great big smile said, “Get in Warty! Ha! You didn’t expect some chick in a car to pick you up.”
The fun begins.
This first night was a fun dinner with the Night Creatures and others. Sure, I suffered through the embarrassing happy birthday song and the funny hat. (note to self, destroy the evidence and don’t come over here on your birthday!) Then off for a drink and some dancing. Sundae is burning up the small dance floor and drags me out there. (note to self, next time she selects the bar, bring young men as decoys!:-)
With careful coaching I manage a little dancing and don’t crush her toes. She encourages me, says I am doing well. I know different and it is confirmed a week later when I overhear her tell someone I have two left feet. Ha! That will teach you, girl. I told you I don’t like to dance and there is a reason. I am no good at it.
But still, it was fun.
That’s how it started.

The days are full of meetings and classes. Barely enough time to do any real work. But each thing I teach opens up new avenues of exploring and more questions. Thirsty for knowledge, they drink deeply.

Every night, a dinner with two to three different people. We learn who is who, what the personalities are like. The newbies become at ease. They learn the smiling giant is just fun to be around. That is important.
There is the quiet and shy one, the noisy one, the quietly demanding one; all manner of person.
They learn, I learn, the week progresses.
I have an hour to myself at work, sometimes. Catch up on work emails, peek at personal email, call the WG and tell her I miss her.
But there is little time to myself and that is good. Less time to wonder how my WG is doing, how much we miss each other.

Saturday involves friends and a resort with pool and beach. Lazy swimming and laughing over plates of Philippine food. Just fun and relaxation.
Sunday is the tour of Bohol island. A ferry ride over the calm ocean. Is it the ocean between islands? Or maybe called a strait? And when the tide goes out it is a strait-flush? (I know, bad joke)
The Chocolate Hills are interesting and cool to looks at. Tarsiers much more interesting in person, especially from six inches away! None of the girls wanted to stand next to the python for picture-picture. Bunch of scaredy-cats. Lunch on the river, a bridge across the river, but no on ramps?
Everything is green, beaches look inviting, I wonder how the old church still stands after more than one hundred years, maybe because it is still being used?
All too quickly, we are on the ferry back to Cebu island. Yes, two days would have been better. Maybe some beach time. Would be nice with WG.

Monday comes around again and the crush of training and meetings is upon me. This is good. Less time to brood.
When you have been together as long as we, you enjoy the first few days apart. As time goes by, you slowly miss each other a little more each day.

Heard from WG that our dogs teamed up and caught a rat. Molly flushed it out of the ferns, right into Tommy’s jaws! Now how cool is that?

Gave Spam-girl-one some pointers on using her clutch on a hill. “Thanks.” She said. “It’s like having my dad here helping me.” Bingo, just the reaction I wanted.
Sundae said to me, “I know you have lots of girls here, but don’t forget your woman!”
That’s not possible, but it serves to illustrate; they are mostly girls. Even Warm Chick, despite that she is older than most. Because most are younger than my son, they are kind of like little girls; at least in my eyes.
But I forget too easily sometimes, that I could be their father. Amusing perhaps, until the old guy(older than me) bought Danger-Girl a drink. I saw her mouth the word ‘pedophile’
Sure, I teased her that it looks like we should go and leave there, but I would never do that.
Still, it makes me pause. The guy was not that much older than me. One misstep I would gain that label. I walk as carefully as I can. (but I take less care with my ‘woman’ :-)

And I almost spill the beans.

The remains of the second week are filled with discoveries. My coworker/friends are finding out new things and I am discovering just how much more I have to teach them! Spam-girl-one says she wants me to stay another week, others echo the sentiment.
Nice to be wanted, but I have a home waiting for me.

Amusing how one of my ducklings is called balut.

Before I know it, it is Friday afternoon and I am being driven to the airport. So much work got done, so much left to be done, way too much fun also.
But it’s goodbye till next time. So nice to have friends in faraway places. Even if M&M echoed balut. ‘I’ll miss you when you leave today, but not tomorrow.’
Mischievous little imps, but that’s why I like them.

So I sit here in the Manila airport waiting for my flight. I wonder whatever happened to Pip? She is somewhere around Manila, but vanished off the web.

At least I got to say goodbye to my friend.

She may not be here next time I come.

At least she didn’t say what Blondie said to me, about forever.

Makes the parting easier.

How to kill a fly

Here is how I used to kill the flies that would buzz around the center of the room.

1. Stand at the perimeter of the room.
2. Hold a Zippo lighter in one hand. A can of butane fuel in the other.
3. Hold the nozzle an inch or so from the lighter.
4. Light the lighter and touch the nozzle of the butane canister for just a brief moment.
5. A very satisfying little fireball blows into the center of the room, killing the little flying monsters. Those that are not killed get their wings singed off and they can no longer fly and annoy you.

Warning:
Try this outside first so that you learn to make small fireballs, not big ones. This lessens your chance of catching things on fire.
Keep a fire extinguisher handy.
Do not do this when your parents are at home! They just do not understand ‘fun’.

Miss Adventure in L.A.

Yes, Molly is fine, the little shit!

So we are in L.A. and staying with our son and his roommate.
Saturday night, we leave their house to go see Donna Summer. All three dogs are getting along and while we expect them to be rambunctious, they will be okay. Okay Tommy(the old mutt) sleeps a lot and Enzo(the devil dog Jack Russell terrier) and Molly(the mostly good Beagle) chase each other.
(Nice concert, by the way)

We get back from the concert at about 11:30 PM and Tommy and Enzo greet us at the front door.
Molly is nowhere to be found!

And the little gate to the side yard has been shoved open! One of us forgot to lock the bottom latch and the Molly dog pushed through!

Of course we were frantic. Miles from home and the hound dog has gone wandering. We searched the neighborhood but could not find her. There are a number of busy streets around, so of course, we were worried.

Molly’s tag has our home phone number on it, but that does us no good when we are 400 miles away. We thought of calling our neighbor and having her go to our house to listen for messages. Then I remembered that we can access the messages remotely, but that I had no idea how.
So while some were driving around looking, I went online and found the manual for our answering machine. However, I did not know the access code. Roommate looked up the same info and was able to read the default code!

And the first message was from a guy asking if we were missing a Molly dog! And he lives on the next street over.
Roommate called him, apologizing for waking him up at 1:30 in the morning. Yes they had the dog and we could meet them tomorrow morning to pick up the little rascal.

So by 9am the next morning, little Miss Adventure was back in Wonder-Girl’s arms being punished with hugs.

Our son screwed a board to the little gate so Molly can’t escape again (she still pushes on it.)
We will add a cell phone number to her dog tag.
We will never trust a beagle.
I don’t think I will forget the code for the answering machine!

I Got Mine

I try to offer words of encouragement, advice to my friends; but knowing full well that my words are flawed.
I got mine.

And it wasn’t that hard.

So as I offer words of hope and I expect you will all understand that I always think that things will turn out okay for you.

They did for me.
I got mine.

And it wasn’t that hard and I didn’t look that long.
And I was probably very lucky!
(And maybe she was a little bit lucky.)

I got mine.

A good wife, a nice house, a job I like, a good son, some dogs that think I am almost a deity.

Okay, so I got lucky and got mine.

But I think that you can get yours too.

Never Gonna Fall in Love Again

I was alright, for a while. In fact, I could smile for a while. I kept my good face on the whole week, while in N.R.
Meet new people, train new people, keep myself busy and pay as much attention to my Chickadee as I could

And I got through those two weeks without a problem until Thursday afternoon when it was time to leave for my flight home. I went to give Chickadee a hug goodbye and she said, “I guess this is goodbye forever.”
Damn! She didn’t have to say that!
“No my friend. The next time I am out here, we will meet for dinner.”
“We will?”
“Yes, just like Skinner, I will make time for you.”

I made it outside, to the car, before my eyes got wet.

A month later, at the end of June, I was lucky, for there were over a thousand fires burning around the state and the air was full of smoke for a week. It was Chickadee’s last day and I called her on the phone to say goodbye. Then I went outside to think. The smoke in the air was good and thick. If Wonder-Girl asked why my eyes were watering, I could say it was the smoke in the air.

I’ll go through this all again, when Office-Jewish-Mother has her last day. And that is almost the last of them. All I have left are newbies and they are six thousand miles away. It will be hard to miss them as much since the ocean keeps us from getting too close.
Yes, keep telling yourself these lies and the next time will be easier.

High Bridge Campground

What is up with this sign at the campground’s outhouses?

Who or what is ‘Ol Henry’?

Is the same ‘OL HENRY’ sign at other campgrounds?

The Tail of the Horny Bitch

So most of you have heard of our new addition, the very cute little Molly dog. She is busy learning the house rules, with the Tommy dog helping.
Molly is very much a beagle, including some early morning howls to wake us up. Of course, if we forget to close the dog gate, Tommy leads Molly into the back of the house to check on us.

Just after we got Molly, we took her to the Vet for a checkup. The Vet said he could not see a scar on Molly’s stomach, so he does not think she was spayed. We ask some questions about what to look for since we have never had a fertile dog before, much less a female.

Two days later, little Molly dog begins to leave little drops of blood here and there.
The bitch is in heat!

So we get dog diapers for her and wait for the hordes of male dogs to start scaling the walls.

Poor, poor Tommy dog! It’s bad enough that this little three-year-old pint-sized dog wants to play all the time; now she wants to PLAY!

Molly will bark at Tommy to get his attention. Then she will paw at this chest or shoulder. Then she slides up next to him and bumps her butt against his. It’s like she is signaling, ‘Climb aboard big boy and I’ll give you a ride!’
Tommy is fixed and couldn’t care less.
Molly won’t take no for an answer! She will bite at his ears, his chest. She’ll mount him from behind, she’ll get on his head and hump on it.
When Tommy has had enough, he will ‘talk’ to Molly (he has a pretty good bark on him) and she leaves him alone for a while.

And half an hour later they are at it again.

We have two more weeks of this fun, then we can get the horny little girl ‘fixed’.

Duckling Tails

Make way for ducklings.

While I was back east, we took a tour of Boston, via the Freedom Trail.
My Boss and his M’ad friend lead the tour, with-
Two young ladies from China,
Three young guys fro Costa Rica
And five young ladies from Cebu. (okay, the M’ad friend is from Cebu too, but it’s my story and I get to tell it my way.)

So, it was while we were trying to cross a street and the Cebuanos were dawdling, that I tried to hurry them along and said, ‘Come on…Come on…’ and they the perfect name came to me! “Come on DUCKLINGS!” I said in a loud voice.
Amidst laughs and giggle, the ladies hurried across the street.

And so they became The Ducklings. It fit so well, since the story, ‘Make way for Ducklings’ takes place around the Boston Public gardens, where we started our trip.
(if you want to know more, look here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Way_for_Ducklings)

Amusing how one of them asked me, “Why not ‘chicks’?” I know she meant, as in cute, young thing.’ (which she is, but I digress)
I had to explain how ‘chick’ had acquired a bad connotation, as in ‘you can’t do that, you’re just a chick.’
No one uses ‘Duckling’ and it is cute enough.

So Warty has his Ducklings now.

One of them called me ‘Mother Goose’, so I had to correct her and say it should be ‘Father Goose.’ Which made me immediately think of the Cary Grant movie(it’s a fun movie.)

So, that’s the duckling tale.

Molly reactions

Skinner, who owns a male beagle named Buddy said-
"If you wanted a beagle you should have just told me. I'd have packed Buddy up within the hour!"

My son, who owns Enzo (aka the devil dog) a Jack Russel terrier with no off switch said
"She is VERY cute...and looks to be well behaved...want to trade??? No really, I'll pay you!"

A new, the nine billion names of dog.

(sure, only older brother recognizes the title)

Molly Bolt
(bolts out the door)

Molybdenum grease (Yes, Molly grease. Like greased lightning)

A wiggle butt and a wag tail pup.

A Miss Creant

Like any beagle, we know she is up to no good.

Enough silliness-

So the update on the new dog is that Molly the 'no longer fertile beagle' (no, really, we have a certificate from the vet stating that she had been spayed)is doing just fine and is adapting well to her new house.
She knows a lot of commands and obeys them (mostly).

We took her to the vet last Monday, for a check up and have her ear looked at. The vet could not find a scar on her stomach, so he could not confirm that she had been spayed.
Wednesday, Molly went into heat. She is now wearing a little diaper to keep from leaving little blood spots everywhere.

Once she is no longer in heat, we will have her spayed.

With luck, we will be able to keep her safe until she is no longer fertile

Such ugly green eyes

You know my friends, you should not be so.
Neither one of you looks good with green eyes.

You need not be so possessive. Are you not already one of my favorites?

Or am I wasting my breath, because I feel you'll never read this.

New Addition.

We went to one of the local dog rescue places, to look for a new dog for Wonder-Girl. She wanted a smaller dog, maybe like a pug.
Our fifty-five pound Tommy is too large for WG to lift into the car.

So we heard of a Puggle that was available, but overweight. Now a Puggle is a Pug-Beagle mix. Maybe not as many health problems as a full pug, with that goofy looking smashed face. And frankly, I just don’t like pugs.

We got there and the Puggle seemed okay, but not a lot of personality. He was a little bigger than Tommy and very fat! But even if he lost weight, he would still be bigger than Tommy.
And then they let the little three-year-old beagle out of the kennel. She immediately warmed up to Tommy and started following him all around the yard.

Okay, so Molly seems to have chosen Tommy and they both got along very well. WG was torn between both dogs, mostly worried that the beagle would easily be adopted and the Puggle wouldn’t. But the shelter people assured WG that they do not have the dogs put down and always find homes for them.
So we took the beagle, Molly. (Okay, they would have thrown in the Puggle for a few more dollars, but two dogs are plenty.)
And come on, a beagle is so much better looking than a pug. Plus beagles were bred to do something. Pugs were bred to just be lap dogs. Kinda hard for a guy to walk a pug and keep his dignity

Molly has made herself at home and follows commands that Tommy already knows. So despite here being found as a stray, she did have a family that took care of her and worked with her.

She is slowly settling into the household routine and we shall see. But I think she will work out well.

And WG is very pleased with the gift I got her and the Tommy dog helped pick out!

Dealing with the Nubies

So, we have a new batch of Nubies to deal with.

It is so hard to train them, especially since their ages range from 24? to 33?. No, I have not asked their ages, that can be considered rude.

But I do want you to be aware, that I am listening to every word you say, tasting the sound, listening to the feel, playing with the phrases you utter.
And always thinking of their other meanings, what has not been said, looking for a way to make something funny.
And when I say things, at times I am leaving an opening for one of you to say something, if you listen well enough.

You will get points if you catch on faster than others.

Like last night, when we were driving back from dinner and I said that with all of these pretty ladies, the hard part was not playing favorites.
L2 said, “So, you admit that we are all pretty.”

I could not see her, but I will bet she was smiling. Nice catch L2 and nicely played. You get a Ganda point for that one.

Sleeping with my FB

Well, the annual camping trip is coming up and I was expecting to be sleeping in my tent, as usual.
But this year DeepT cannot make it. And FB’s son won’t be coming. So there will be an extra bed available in Fishing Buddy’s trailer.
(Oh, and I’ll bet you thought FB had a different meaning? You have a dirty mind!)

The amusing thing is that I have teased my friends about being wimps because they sleep in a trailer, instead of a tent, and now I will be one of the wimps! :-)
There response is to say that if I had been there two years ago, when it snowed, that I would have thought differently.
But alas, two years ago I missed the snow. I was forced, (forced I say) to spend two weeks in the Philippines. Sadly, business trips sometimes interfere with your life.
(of course we will ignore the truth. That I was made to spend time with my friends in Cebu. Made to spend time with pretty young ladies.
Look, this is MY story and I will omit, or bend, the truth to fit how I want the story to sound.)

So this year, I will find out what luxury camping is like.

Clouds are gathering

I was going to write about fun things, like the veritable plethora of feminine pulchritude that I had to survive yesterday-

However, when I opened my email this morning, there was a note from my high school girlfriend and she mentioned that her husband was in the hospital and she would know more on Monday.
From the tone of the note, there has been some type of problem for a little while. And It does not sound good.

Maybe I am reading more into the email that I should, but since she is my oldest and dearest friend, I am worried.
You don’t like to see friends sad.
Especially when there really isn’t much you can do to cheer them up.

It darkened an otherwise sunny day

Escape to X Minus One leaves me in Suspense

It’s one thing to listen to your iPod everywhere you go, but we all know that we do get tired of our favorite music.

And then I realized that during the long boring drive to and from work, I could be listening to my collection of old radio shows from the forties and fifties!

As most of you do not know; before the invention of television, people listened to the radio for their entertainment. In some respects, it was and still is better, simply because you imagine how things look. This is especially true of Horror and Sci-Fi. Your imagination is always better than the image you see on TV or in the movies. Now these are not ‘books on tape’ being read by someone; these are dramas with multiple actors, sound effects, music.
Escape opened with these lines-

Tired of the everyday grind?
Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure?
Want to get away from it all?
We offer you ... ESCAPE!

And that is precisely what OTR shows enables me to do, to escape.

Right now I am halfway through my collection of X Minus One. It is a series of Sci-Fi radio dramatizations from the mid-fifties.

So I get in my truck, listen to the morning new for a few minutes, then I select the next show on my iPod and lose myself for the next thirty minutes

“Countdown for blastoff... X minus five, four, three, two, X minus one... Fire! From the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future; adventures in which you'll live in a million could-be years on a thousand may-be worlds”.

And all of our petty problem go away.

Bees Needs

A few weeks ago some bees gathered in our tree out front. They were not more than eight feet off the ground.
I have dealt with bee swarms when I was young, but since Wonder-Girl is allergic to their stings, I could not capture and keep them.
So I called the local beekeeper group and they would come and get them the next day.
And the guy wanted $100. I told him that the web site states the charges are $50. He agreed to the $50 and came and got them the next day.

Now I don’t mind a small fee, but $50 seems high. Especially since they were in a tree and easily collected. So I had to pay the guy and he gets a free swarm. Bees sell for about $85.
If they were stuck in a wall, maybe I would pay. (okay, if they were stuck in a wall, I would use my Chlordane.) But if the swarm comes back next year and the guy says it’s $100. Then I will tell him it is too high. He can either come and get them for free, or I will wait until late at night, dump them into a box and drive them to the edge of town and leave them there.

The bees will be fine.

Quotes from Bjorn....

My coworker collected phrases he overheard on the manufacturing floor. On his last day at work, he gave us copies.

Things I've Heard….

I have the habit of collecting memorable quotes at work. The only criteria I use is that the quote has to be something that was not meant to be funny when it was said. I have collected quite of few of these quotes over the last few years. All of these quotes were said quite innocently and the humor only came after the statements had sunken in for a few seconds. Usually, the person who said it laughed the hardest because they had no idea what they had just said.
Although many of these quotes sound sexual, I can assure you that almost all of them refer to some part of a system or to a tool of some sort. Whenever I heard one of these, I would write it down in my Newton. (See? It was good for something!) It was my way of capturing the fun we have around here. This is the part I'll miss the most about working here. Now that I'm leaving, I'd like to pass them all on to you as my way of thanking you all for making the last 2 1/2 years so fun for me. I'll definitely miss you all.

Bjorn J.


Sue H.
Quit playing with my springs!
Where's our rubber?
We need some little dikes... go see Paula.
Are you blowing or sucking?
I can't get this hose into the hole.
The last time I saw it, it was in your slot.
Does anyone have Vaseline in one of their little compartments?
I've got trouble down there in the fudge pipe.
I've got rusty nipples.
Any time you put something in front him he grabs it and sticks it.
You can't put it in the other hole.
Do you have any of those shaved nuts?
Are you in charge of nipples?

Paula N.
I'm so sticky!
I want bigger ones.
Let's go play Royster.

Tony T.
I need a bigger tool.

Richard D-M.
I got excited and forgot to wrap the tip.
I've got another 10 inches

Bjorn J.
He's walking around with a lot of little parts.

Steve D.
Sausage tastes good!

Royster M.
Hey Sue! Do you have a 3/8" nipple?

Ruth M.
Monica has some stuck pins.

Hugo Q.
I'm looking for 69... 1888-2-069

Richard 0.
I don't like to touch your stuff unless you are aware of it.

Dan P.
I like that little Wally

A little pain, a little blood

I saw her again Monday. She was one of those people I instantly like, but don’t know why.

About five–four, slim, long brown hair. Large eyes, a nice smile and a pleasant face. More pleasant looking than pretty. The type that is more attractive when she smiles than anyone with just a pretty face. Perhaps about thirty-five and unmarried.

It wasn’t until today, when I shook her hand and looked her in the eyes, that I realized why I liked her. She reminds me of Patch of Gravel. (similar handshake too)

And she seemed pleased to see me, genuinely please to see me.

And here is where I pause in the tale, trying to figure out how much more I should mislead you.

So let's stick to the facts.

Yes, it seemed odd that she was pleased to see. Doctors just see patients. I was one of many. None the less, she did seem pleased to see me, But I digress.
Anyway, she checked the spot on my hand where the mole was removed and said it looked like it was healing well. Still, she seemed concerned. She explained that even though the edges of the biopsy was negative(the center was positive), there was a chance the lab tech didn’t see everything and she was concerned with the lab technicians choice of terms in his description of the non-invasiveness of the skin cancer.
She talked about how the next step would be to pull up the skin and cut off an oval, then stitch it up. If that was needed. She said she wanted to recheck my hand in the near future, but she talked like she wanted to for sure do some more cutting.
We talked about a few other things involved in the treatment and agreed that I would schedule another appointment in six months.
Then she got out the liquid nitrogen and froze the shit out of the site where the mole had been removed. No, I am not exaggerating! There is a half-inch blister on the back of my hand right now. (yes, it burns.)
I wasn’t very concerned with how eager she is to see me again and maybe schedule a surgery until she emptied the liquid nitrogen bottle on my hand.
Okay, so I exaggerate just a little. Just like I might be exaggerating and misleading you when I say that she wants to see me again.
But she seemed to go overboard with the freezing like she felt something was wrong.

So I have a date to see her again in six months. Sure, you say, I don’t mind seeing her again because she is an attractive young woman and very personable.

But I fear there will be a little more pain next time.

And I fear there will be blood.

It’s getting crowded here.

It has been said that there are six people in every relationship.

There is

Who I am.
Who I think I am
Who you think I am.

Who you are.
Who you think you are,
Who I think you are.

I would like to add, that with the advent of the internet and social networks, perhaps we can add two more?

Who I pretend to be.
Who you pretend to be.


It may turn out that I am not really who I think I am. But I suppose it's okay, as long as I remain who you think I should be.

The woman who wasn't there

While at your site, I chose to stare;
At your face, but you weren't there.
You weren't there again today.
I wonder why you went away?

Betty’s little sister.

I walked into our little bank and the teller is still there. She looks like she could be Betty’s little sister.
Slim, petite; just like Betty. But long brown hair and brown eyes.
Reese Witherspoon looks a little like Betty, but Betty is so much better looking!

Now you know what I have written about Betty look-a-likes. (If not, then get your lazy ass in gear and read! Or maybe I should say, get your eyes in gear? But I digress.)

I am kind of in luck, for of the three tellers, the BLA will wait on me. I say kinda, because I want to stare at her face, study it, but I know it will creep her out. So I chat with her as I do my business. Keep my eyes away from her or on her eyes.

Yes, she looks so much like Betty. Same smile, same sparkle in her eyes. I say ‘little sister’ because she looks like Betty did fifteen years ago.

I wonder if Betty needs parts again?

Was it something I said?

One of my friends vanished from the web. Kinda makes me sad. Yes, I have neglected my relationship with her and have not sought her out and chatted with her.

It’s just not been a good five months, but that’s no excuse not to say hi.

I just wonder what happened to her?

I can only hope that she has abandoned the virtual world because she has found something better in the real world.

A close Shave

So I finally went to see the dermatologist about getting an ugly, nasty looking mole taken off my hand. (At Christmas, my doctor-sister saw it and said I should have it removed soonest!)

So the dermy comes in, (a rather nice looking young doctor. I figured she was mid-thirties. But I digress :-), she takes one look at the mole and says it has to come off.
“Shave?” Says the not nearly as pretty nurse.
“Yes.”
So they set things up, take measurements and a picture (I don’t know why they need a picture.)
The Doc sits down at the terminal and enters the info about the mole. “We’ll have to have a biopsy”. She says.
“I expected that. It’s pretty nasty looking.”
“If the results are positive, then you’ll have to come back.”
“Yes, because you’ll have ‘trench work’ to do.”
She stopped typing for a second and I could see her thinking. Rolling the phrase around in her head, feeling how it tasted. Then she smiled just a little. “‘Trench work’, I like that. It will require stitches.” And she resumed typing.
And I knew I had her. She liked my odd sense of humor and she understood it. She was like me in some strange way.
She turned to me, “Just the mole on the hand?”
“No, there is a large mole/skin tag just below my belt line, here in front.”
“Does it bother you?”
“I’ve caught it with my fingernail a few times and torn it when I got undressed.”
“Let me see.”
I pushed the waistline of my jeans down an inch or so and she could see it. (No, I don’t take my pants off for just anyone, even an attractive young doctor with a good sense of humor!)
“We’ll freeze it.” She said.
(Yes, I know what you’re going to say; of course I didn’t want to take my pants off. I didn’t want her to cut off the wrong little odd piece of skin! Well, you can just shut up, smart-ass.)

A few blasts of liquid nitrogen and then it was time for the slice and dice.

A little alcohol, a couple of pricks with the needle and the back of my hand was numb. Then the Doc picked up a thin piece of metal between her thumb and forefinger and it bent into a U-shape.
“That looks like half of an old-fashioned safety razor.”
“It is.”
“Good to see they still have a use for them.”
She smiled a little, blocked my view with a piece of gauze and shaved the mole off .
Neat, smooth, practiced. She dumped the lump of flesh into the sample bottle the nurse held and then started dabbing the wound to staunch the flow of blood.
She looked up at me. “Do you take aspirin?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s working.” And she smiled a little.
Yes, a good sense of humor. Too bad she is a dermy, not a GP. If she were a GP, I’d change doctors right away. And it’s not just because she is good looking. She has a sense of humor. My current GP doesn’t have one.

She finally got the blood to slow and put a large bandage over the 3/8 inch(9.5mm) hole she had scooped out of my hand.

After I got the wound care instructions and a bag of antiseptics and bandages, I was done.

Now I have those classic conflicted feelings. To see the nice pretty doctor again would be a good thing. But if I go back to her office, it will be because the mole was cancerous and she will have to carve a trench in my hand.

I am not looking forward to that.

Imaginary Mistress

It’s been a little over a week, since I had my last cigarette. I have my happy pills and my nicotine patches, so I guess I have all the help I can get.
It’s funny how an antidepressant is supposed to help reduce the cravings. I guess since I do not notice a change in the way I feel, I was never depressed :-)

But the cravings for a cigarette are still there, at times. When we were driving over to visit my Step-mom on Sunday, Wonder-Girl turned to me and said, “You seem to be doing pretty well. Do you still feel the cravings?”
“They come and go. Right now, I could really, really, really use a cigarette. It’s like…
Well it’s like lying next to a naked twenty-year-old syphilitic mistress.
You want to touch her and it would be so easy, but you also know that every time you touch her, your life gets shorter. And there is a good chance it can get drastically shorter.”

Wonder-Girl smiled. “That’s a pretty good way of thinking of it.”

We drove in silence for a while.

So everywhere I go, my ‘Naked twenty-year-old syphilitic mistress’ is right beside me. She seems so alluring and it would be so easy to reach out and touch her.
Feel her in my hands, feel her on my lips. Enjoy the sensation of drawing her essence into my lungs, her smell, what it does to my head.

And from what people at the clinic told me, that she will be always by my side. And for the rest of my life, I will have to constantly say ‘No’. Resisting her.
Forever.

Insubstantial Beings

If Bad Warty is like a dark mist whispering sweet lies in your ear.
What happens if he encounters the Ethereal Miss, somewhere in the aether?
Would their insubstantialness merge into one being?
So that when she licks her lips, he can taste her.

The naughty time of the year.

So if Santa always asks if you have been a good boy or girl this year.

And you get your gifts on the 25th, because you have been good.

And the year starts on the first of January.

Doesn’t that leave six full days to be naughty and it doesn’t count?

Like a werewolf waiting for the full moon, does the Bad Warty come out this time of the year?

Sleeping with Mina.

‘Sleeping with Mina’, a pretty good title I think, but not quite accurate. Maybe it should be, ‘Going to bed with Mina.’? Better, but not as fun.
I ponder the two titles each day, as I drive down the freeway at seventy miles per hour. Best to think of the titles, not of where I am going or where I have come from.

“You okay?” Wonder Girl says from the passenger seat.
“Yes, I’m okay.” I lie. “You okay?”
“I’m okay.” She might be lying also. That’s okay.

Which title should I use? I wonder as I slip into ‘Walter Mitty mode.’

Oh, I am sure that some drama queen will read it and think ‘OMG and he’s married!’. Willow would read it and say something like, ‘Oh stop pulling my leg Warty, I am tall enough already!’ Willow knows me well.
Jive-Daughter might say, ‘It’s okay, I wouldn’t mind being a few inches taller.’
Not sure how well JD she knows me.

So while we drive back and forth to the hospital, I think of other things. Anything but my dad lying in the hospital. I have to keep my eyes clear and watch the road. There is no time for tears.

For over the last few days, we have come to understand what lies ahead for my dad and how the end will come soon.

And I have trouble sleeping.

So as I snuggle up to my warm wife, I put my thoughts elsewhere. Since we know how hard it can be to calm your thoughts and sleep. So instead of trying not to think of something, I learned a long time ago to worry a story.
I’ll lie there and go over and over a scene. Tweak the dialog, imagine what the characters look like. Play the scene through and change how they act. Last summer I watched as an alien prepared to destroy a planet. Recently, I have toyed with how Carric(Inky) would save Cynthia(Sucky). But as I work on chapter four of the Inky-Sucky saga I realized that I really don’t want to drag Mina into it. For Mina Harker (You should know who she is if you have read the classics. Okay, google her name.) brings a whole mess of myth into the stories that I don’t want to use.
But I still have the scene that I will never use. And now I can use it to put myself to sleep.

So every night, for the last month or so, I go to bed with Mina, and Mina helps me sleep.
--

The Mina Scene
Not to be used in the Inky – Sucky saga
By G.W. Hogg

Carric paused across the street from bar, ‘Mina’s place’. He was full of trepidations about the upcoming meeting with Mina. The last time he encountered her, he had the upper hand. Today might be different.
He shrugged, it had to be done to save Sucky. He dashed across the dark street.

Pushing through the Bar’s heavy front door, he was surprised to find the bar was well lit. Booths lined the two walls on either side of him, upholstered in red leather. There were flowers on the tables and well-maintained plants hanging from the ceiling. Small tables filled the space between the walls and the long bar against the right wall. Women of all types were seated in groups in the booths and tables.
As he walked to the bar, the patrons watched him. He was not wanted here he knew, but that was not his worry.
He slid onto one of the bar stools and the young woman behind the bar put down the glass she was drying and walked over to him.
“Hi. Do you know where you are?”
Carric glanced around before replying. “Sure. I am in a quiet neighborhood bar. A place where people accept you for who you are, not judge you for what you are. A place where a person can enjoy the quiet company of friends, or enjoy a cold beer and be left alone.”
The bartender frowned for a moment. “Well, you summed us up pretty well. What can I get you?”
“A Harpoon IPA would be good.”
“Okay, coming right up.”
Carric watched her as she poured the beer from the tap. She was a handsome young woman, but a little too masculine for his tastes. Not that it mattered. This was not a place to try for a pickup.
The bartender came back with the cold mug of beer and set it down in front of him. He fished out a twenty and placed it on the counter. He took a sip of the beer, it was good and cold and with the nice extra bite of hops that he liked.
“If you don’t mind my asking, why are you here?”
Carric put the mug down before answering. “Besides knowing that I’ll be left alone here, I was hoping to chat with Mina.”
“You a friend of hers?” The bartender looked skeptical.
“Ah…more of an acquaintance than a friend. I ran into her years ago. I heard she had a nice little bar here in town and I thought I’d stop in and say hello.”
“I think there is something more.”
“Maybe. Is she here?”
“Yes, in the back room.”
“Can you ask her to come out? I’d like to say hello.”
“Sure.” She still looked skeptical, but she walked to the end of the bar and disappeared through the doorway.

While she was gone, several women came in and sat down at the bar, blocking Carric’s view of the doorway. He continued to sip his beer until he saw the bartender return.
“I didn’t get his name, but he seems okay.” She said as stopped in front of Carric.
Carric leaned forward just as Mina turned.
“You!” Mina exclaimed as she recognized him. Her hand lashed out and she grabbed his neck and squeezed. It was like a large pair of pump pliers squeezing his neck and trying to crush it. Carric tensed his neck muscles and Mina felt as if she was now holding a large iron pipe. He watched as her eyes changed from surprise to something darker. The darkness spread around her eyes until it was a swirling dark abyss. Carric smiled, then blinked to clear his vision and her eyes were suddenly their normal dark gray.
“Your powers won’t work against me Mina, but you know that from our last encounter. Stop trying to bend me to your will and release my neck.”
“You have some nerve showing your face in my bar.”
“Release me!”
“Or what?”
“Or I will cast such a glamour on you that you will strip your clothes off, crawl onto your bar and beg me to take you!”
“You wouldn’t”
“Remember what I did to you last time we met?”
Mina slowly released him and glared. “I hate you!”
Carric smiled. “No you don’t. You are just mad at me because I bested you.”
“You took from me!”
“Just as you were going to take from me. It’s just that I took control of you first. That’s what irks you.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“And you were going to be a bitch.”
She sighed and her shoulders relaxed. “Yes, you’re right.”
“Now. Why don’t you join me in a booth. I have a proposition for you. Something that can benefit us both.”

Sorrow

Bye Dad

Stones

Pain is sometimes good, I tell myself as I look over the concrete pad, half covered in stones.
Only a little left to do, 6-8 hours? Can my knees take it?
They have to, for there is no other to do the work. (WG’s knees can’t.)
All the tools are lined up, the mortar is mixed. I start.

I kneel next to the blue-gray flagstones, all carefully fitted, and move them out of the way.
Several scoops of mortar, smooth it, place the stone. Tap, adjust, level, ready for the next stone.
Wince
My knees complained from the first moment I knelt. The left one screams at me if I twist it too far. The three Motrin I took with breakfast only dull the screams a little. The four I’ll take with lunch will keep the bastard quiet.

Tap, adjust, level, ready for the next stone.
Wince.

But it is really okay. The aches that start in my knees make me forget my other aches. No time to think about what might have happened at the convention in Vegas, what she might have done. You know that some drama-queen saw them together, put two and two together and came up with eight.
As word spread from DQ to DQ, the drama increased.

I shift my focus back to what I am doing. When you swing a rock hammer, you have to pay attention. Thumbs don’t take kindly to being whacked by a sharp edged hammer. And who wants bloodstains on the rocks?

So I ignore the lies I heard and concentrate on the stones and my complaining knee.

And maybe I’ll forget about the phone too.
Forget that I am hoping for good news from the hospital.
Forget that I am dreading the bad news.

Tap, adjust, level, ready for the next stone.
Wince.


Two days later, my knees don’t bother me much and work keeps me occupied. But the coming phone call looms.

So I will laugh and flirt with you when I see you on IM. Maybe it brightens my mood a little, but I will not darken yours. So I will lie and tell you all is well. That’s the nice thing about IM, no one can see my face. I can easily pretend that I am doing okay.



It’s all about dealing with the next stone.
And the stones are mine alone. So I keep them to myself.

STORYTIME - Whstler

Preamble to Whistler.

Some time ago, I was trying to explain to JD why I liked the night. But it’s not just the night, though I prefer the midnight hour. Early mornings are almost as nice, for everything is dark and quiet.

I told her about the opening lines of The Whistler and how I liked it.

All that made me think of a story and here it is.

And yes JD, I have been thinking about a story based on what you said you wanted. I think I have it thought out. I just have to figure out if I can write it.

GW

Whistler
By G.W. Hogg
©11-30-07

“I am the Whistler, and I know many things, for I walk by night. I know many strange tales, many secrets hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak.”
The opening lines from the radio show, ‘The Whistler’

I used to love hearing those lines as they came out of the radio. For I knew that I was about to hear a strange tale of a crime gone wrong.

I still think about the show, as I walk the dark, quiet streets at five in the morning. Foggy mornings are better, as I walk with the dog. You can’t see across the street and the cone of light from the streetlamps makes a wall of white that you can’t see through. In the distance, I can see a figure crossing the street. It’s a dark shadow among other gray shadows. Maybe it’s another early morning walker, or something else?

I always wonder what is going on in the quiet houses, on the next dark street. Am I missing something nefarious that is happening maybe just a block away? Is there a shadow moving in those bushes over there? No, it’s just a cat that my dog wants to chase.

The darkness just before daybreak is okay, for life is returning to the land.

It was different, that night I slipped over the wall of the cemetery. The fog was thick, so I knew that no one could have seen me.
Inside the cemetery, the ground fog was much thicker. It rose off the acres of damp grass and like a gray tide, swept in and covered everything. I dropped into it and was enveloped by the damp darkness.

It was fun at first, as I wandered past the silent gravestones. I had been here with high school friends, but during the last few months, I came here more and more on my own.
It was nice and peaceful, walking through the gray mist. I could see maybe fifteen feet around me. No one to bother me, no one could see me.

I crossed the gravel walkway and entered a small group of trees and bushes. There was a clearing in the middle with a little stone bench. A nice secluded place to sit and think.
Just before I pushed through the bushes, I heard a clink, the clink of metal on stone.

I froze and held my breath. Cemeteries are supposed to be quiet. I moved slowly to my left, where there was a thinning in the bushes. I eased myself into the gap, careful to let the small branches bend and not break. Slowly, I pulled the last few leaves away and peeked into the clearing.

At first, all I could see was the indistinct shapes and shadows in the gray mist. But then I realized there was a man standing near the bench. Leaning against the bench was a shovel. I continued to watch and realized that the man was slowly taking off his shirt. The bench was ten feet from me, the man was five feet beyond that. I was puzzled and thought it would be best if I slunk back into the bushes. Then I saw movement on the ground. The fog cleared for a moment and I realized that the indistinct white shape was a naked woman. Her body was squirming back and forth, but her arms and legs were motionless.
I don’t know why, but I slowly crept out from the bushes towards the bench. I didn’t even have a knife on me, but the shovel was close. The man started humming to himself.
I reached the shovel and carefully wrapped my hands around it, lifting it silently away from the bench. The man was undoing his belt as I lifted the shovel over my head. Two quick steps, the woman’s eye got wide and the man started to turn.
And there was a thunk as shovel smashed into his head. The man collapsed and I paused. The sound was just like on the old radio shows, I thought.
The man started to move and I raised the shovel and hit him again. He moaned and I hit him again. He twitched and had to hit him again, then again and again and again.
I stopped when the shovel handle broke. I stood there, panting. There was a bloody mess at my feet and my head slowly cleared. I looked around and saw the man’s shirt. I picked it up, wiped off the shovel handle and dropped it.
I saw a silvery shape on the ground next to the man and I picked it up. It was knife about a foot long with a strangely decorated handle and sheath.

When I approached the woman on the ground, I realized it was a young girl. She was staked to the ground and squirming frantically against the ropes that held her. The gag in her mouth only allowed a whimper, but her eyes were frightened and pleading.
“It’s okay. I’m not here to hurt you.” I said it as softly as I could. Her eyes said she didn’t believe me. I draped the shirt over her, then unsheathed the knife and carefully cut the ropes that held her legs. She tried to kick me and I rolled out of the way.
As I got up, she was still trying to kick me.
“God damn it! I am trying to help you!” I barked at her.
She still tried to kick me. I sighed. I got up and went to one of her hands. When I cut the rope she rolled over and frantically grabbed at the last rope binding her.
“If you promise not to attack me, I’ll cut the last rope.”
She stopped and looked at me. Then she reached up and pulled the gag out of her mouth.
“Who are you?”
“Just a guy who went for a walk. Now, can I cut the rope without you hitting me?”
“Sh…Sure.”
“Okay.” I walked over and cut the last rope.
She scrambles away from me and I didn’t move. She picked up the shirt and put it on. I didn’t move.
When she realized I wasn’t going to do anything, she buttoned up the shirt.
“Now, let’s get you out of here.”
She nodded, then walked over to the dead man, looked at him for a moment then turned to me. “He was…He was gonna…he was going to…” Then she burst out crying. I walked over to her and put my arms around her and let her cry until the wracking sobs subsided.
She pulled back a little from me. “Thank…you.”
“You are welcome. Can we go?”
“Sure.”
I let her go and she let me go, then she grabbed my hand. I led her out of the clearing, keeping to the wet grass. Gravel would hurt her bare feet.
“Where are your clothes?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know where I am.”
I almost told her, but thought better of it. “I’ll have you out of her in a few minutes.”
“Okay.” And she shivered.
“Are you cold?”
“Yes.”
I let go of her hand and took off my faded green jacket. I helped her into it and she grabbed a hold of my hand again.

The wrought iron front gate was too tall to climb, but the wall next to it had concrete planter boxes that we could climb. I made it to the top of the wall, reached down and pulled her up.
“Just hang on to my arms, like this.” I showed her how to grab my wrists. “I’ll lower you down and then you’ll have to drop the last few feet. Okay?”
“Sure.”
She was light and I held her easily as I lowered her towards the ground.
“Okay, it’s just a few feet. I’ll let go of your wrists. You let go when you’re ready.”
“Okay.”
I let go and then a moment later she let herself drop. She collapsed to one side, then slowly got to her feet. I swung myself over the wall, hung for a second and dropped.

As soon as I stood, she grabbed my hand again.
“Come on, there’s a service station at the end of the block. There’s a pay phone there.”

It was brighter here, with the streetlights and the fog was not as thick. The closed service station was still lit up. No cars on the road at this hour. Bright, quiet and well past midnight.
I fished a dime out of my pocket, put it in the slot and hit the ‘O’.
It rang once and was picked up.
“Operator.”
“Operator, I need the police.”
“One moment please.” Click, ring.
“Police department, Sergeant Buckler.”
“Sergeant, I am at the corner of Valley Road and Main. There is a girl with me who was attacked by some man. And she needs help.”
“Listen kid, this had better not be some joke!”
“There is also a dead man in the cemetery. I had to smash his head in to save the girl.”
“What?”
“There is dead man in the ‘Remembrance grove’.”
“What’s your name kid.”
“That doesn’t matter. Please send someone to help her.” I hung up the phone. And turned to the girl. “The Police should be here soon.”
“You’re leaving me?”
“Not yet, but soon.”
“Why?”
“I am not supposed to be out at night. Mom and Dad would be pissed.”
“But, but, if it wasn’t for you…I’d…”
“Be dead, or worse.”
“Worse…”
“But you’re gonna be okay now, you’re safe.”
“Who are you?”
I heard sirens in the distance, a bunch of them. “Whistler.”
“Whistler? That’s you’re name?”
“It’s close enough.”
“I’m Sue.”
“I am glad I was there to help you Sue.” I gave her a big hug and she held me tightly. The sirens were getting closer. I pulled back from her embrace and let my hands slide down her arms until I held her hands, then I gave her a kiss on the forehead. “You’ll be okay now.”
“How can I thank you?”
“You just did, you’re safe.” I let go of her hands. “I have to go.”
“Your jacket?”
“Keep it, you need it.”
I turned and ran back to the cemetery. She yelled a thank you.

The planter boxes in the front of the cemetery were higher than the ones inside. I easily made it to the top of the wall. I turned and looked back at Sue. Even a block away, I could see her waving to me. I waved back just as four squad cars squealed around the corner. Two of them stopped next to Sue and the other two continued towards me. I waved once more to Sue then dropped back into the cemetery.

I ran for a while through the fog shrouded cemetery, then slowed to a walk. No one would see me now. The lights from the police cars would create a white wall that would also hide me.
I paused at the top of a rise, next to the wall and turned. I could see their lights as they drove up to the grove. Too far away and they weren’t looking for me yet.

As I climbed my tree that hung over the wall, I heard more sirens approaching. Everything was being taken care of, as it should be. I dropped to the wall, then rolled off the wall, hung for a second, then dropped to the ground. A quiet two block stroll and I was home.


I still have the strange knife, locked in a case and kept in the bottom of my desk. Once in a while I take it out and study it. I wonder about the evil that I stopped and wonder about the evil had already been done with it.

I stopped walking at night, but I still like to walk in the darkness of the early morning. The early morning feels better. The sleeping are about to wake and the dead have crawled back into their graves.

A Bit of Karma Sauce

I was chatting with Pip a while ago, talking about my wife and me; and how our lives seemed to flow together without a lot of trouble. We weren’t even looking for someone when we found each other. Basically, we have had a pretty good life. Pip said that we both must have been very good people in our previous lives, to have such good karma.
I’m not sure I believe in karma, but that was a nice thing for her to say.

(I apologize for the terrible pun ahead of time)

But it did make me wonder, what happens to people who have very little karma? Neither good nor bad.

I know what happens if they are a woman. They join a Convent especially set up for women with little or no karma.

They become Karma-light Nuns.


Yes, it is a terrible pun. But I have been trying to figure out how to use that pun for the last five years, ever since I drove past the Convent in Cebu. I knew there was a way to use it and that it would come to me eventually.

And yes, I am sure I just used up some of my good karma.

Thanks for noticing me.

You know, it’s not a big deal. It’s just my twenty-five year anniversary gift. A small thanks for working for the company for all these years. It took me a while to find the paperwork, track down that it was shipped to you. Yes, I understand that it was delivered in mid-July and you put it in your desk until my anniversary at the end of August.
And forgot about it until you got my email yesterday.

I just don’t know why it bothers me so much that you forgot.

I am three thousand miles away, easily overlooked

It’s just a stupid clock.

I don’t need any more clocks.

I’ll just email her back tomorrow, ask her to send it out.

Tell her it’s not big deal and she shouldn’t feel bad about forgetting.

Why make her feel any worse about forgetting?

After all, we are professionals here.

I must be tired today. Yes, that must be it. That’s why it seems to bother me so much.

An Answer?

I said there was danger in her smile.
A mere whisper.
Something in her eyes.
I hear a quiet warning.

It has bothered me for quite some time, trying to understand what it is. Tough when you really know so little about the person. When you only met them once.
Conversations on IM just don’t show you who the person is.

And then you read something that gives a hint.
It seems she was spending time with someone and she knew she should not. For that someone has a girlfriend.

So she isn’t the one who is cheating, but she is helping someone cheat. Almost as bad.

Now I think I know why I sensed danger in her eyes, in her smile.

I have nothing to fear, for we all know what the song says,
“For nobody would ever want to court a warthog.”

But still, I will be on my guard if I am ever over there again.

Weary

“You’re so pretty.”
“I am tired of being just a pretty face.”

“You’re so smart and fun to be with.”
“I wish I was pretty.”

I can never win.

Maybe you never realized that your looks were what first attracted me to you.
Who you are, smart and fun to be with, is why I am still your friend.

Huge party

Over fifty people, friends and family!
We never ran out of cold beer.
Hamburgers, Huge hot dog, Turkey burgers and chicken sausages!
WG’s home made macaroni salad! (simply the best!)
Younger brothers special green salad.
Niece’s green salad
Chips, dip, vegetables and WG dill dip.
Shrimp and sauce.
Cake, ice cream, cheese cake.
Too much to eat and drink, too many people to talk to, too much fun!

And then so many people pitched in to clean up afterwards!

Simply the best time.


WG asked everyone to give me 50 of something
So I got fifty-

pennies
2 quarters(50 cents)
dimes
aspirin (really needed that this morning!)
pin wheels (and the confession)
q-tips
tooth picks (and spray starch; don't ask :-)
popsicle sticks with black tape (you figure it out! :-)
cotton balls
bottle caps (dude, you drank all that beers for me?)
suck(ers)
Hershey’s kisses
bottles of beer
erasers
screws
wire nuts
googly eyes
and so many other things!

And a bag full of fifty little bags of M&M's!
Blue and green, the colors of the party
each one said either
'D is 50!'
or
'Happy Birthday!'

Personalized M&M's, is there anything better?

My best friend (filet) drove down to celebrate
(First Office Wife, Hmmm...even if the complany laid her off, she still counts as an office wife, doesn't she?

Our 'adopted' daughter even came! I have not seen her in years!

Chemical Girl confessed that she was the one who had my front yard covered in Pink Flamingos last week! (Is that love or what?)
Okay, so I hate pink flamingos! And she knew that, which is why she did that.

I don't know if I should love her back, or take her over my knee and give her the spanking that she richly deserves!

How cool is this? Deep Throat made me a wind chime out of copper pipe!

Noiw, will he give me a '1' next year? :-)








It is so very hard to thank Wonder Girl enough for all her hard work and careful planning! Doing two parties a week apart! She is simple the best!

Reducing the Carbon Footprint

Okay you little bastard, thought you were so slick, sneaking into our yard
and eating our tomatoes!

Not so smart now, are we?


Well, I will not feel guilty about burning so many candles on my birthday cake tomorrow.

Instead of buying carbon credits, I simple removed one little furry creature that produces CO2!

Bwahahaha!

Terrible Lawn Art

So last Saturday we had the first of my big birthday parties. (we are having two, since not every one is available on the first)
Anyway, I wake up to find the following crap on my lawn!
I am fairly certain who did it, and it wasn't Wonder-Girl. I am just afraid of what I'll find this Saturday when I have my second party!

Too Cool Hydrant

Well, I finally finished the old fire hydrant that my brother in law gave us. I was lucky, since Waterman had already done most of the work refurbishing it. He had the hydrant powder coated in a bright red. Cleaned up most of the brass (it was a used hydrant!). So I just had to clean the rest of the paint off the brass and polish it. Putting it together was simple.



The next step was to pour a concrete base and cover the base with stones. Wondergirl got all the stones fitted (some chipping was required) and lined up on a round board. All I had to do was take them off the board and mortar them to the base.

And there it is, sitting nicely in front of the house. (and too far away for most dogs to get to!)

WonderGirl to is so happy!

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to me.

Happy Birthday to Even-Sister

Happy Birthday to Waterman (my brother in law)

Happy Birthday to Kellita, the Daughter-twin.

Hmmm...my piece of the Birthday pie keeps getting smaller.

Or so I’ve heard

I am sure you have been in a situation where someone says a funny line or makes a funny comment about what you’re wearing. Your brain doesn’t work and you have no answer. Then two days later, you think of a funny comeback!

Or maybe what is worse is something leaps out of your mouth and you watch it fly into the crowd and you just can’t stop it!

So last month we were at a party at Prickly and Fishing Buddy’s. It was a fun party.

At one point, we were talking about different drinks and Prickly’s dad said. “What is in a Long Island Ice Tea? There must be four or five different kinds of booze in it.”
“All I know,” I answered, “Is it’s strong enough to knock the skirt off a college coed!”
I suddenly realize what I had said, so I quickly said, “Or so I’ve heard!” (I don’t think anyone believed my denial.)

Too late. Prickly’s mouth just dropped open and she said. “Did you hear what your Husband just said? Somebody whack him!”
Some gal hit me on the arm.

But Deep Throat(long story on his nickname) just raised an eyebrow, thought for a second and said. “I like that!”

I like it too, but I’ll be a little more careful about how I use it!

Stupid Dog

A couple of weeks ago, Wonder-girl happened to wake up before the alarm went off. As she was lying there, she heard the Tommy dog cross the kitchen (the forbidden zone) and come sneaking down the hall(where he is not allowed) to see if we were awake.
He poked his head in the room, then shook his head, causing his dog tags to rattle. Then he turned around and wandered back down the hall.
It happened again last week.

Now Wonder-girl understands why for years she would wake up and see Tommy’s tail disappear down the hall! The little shit may not know what time it is, but he knows Tommy time! And when it’s Tommy time for a walk, well, he must figure it’s his duty to come wake us up.

Yes, we were warned that border-collies like to keep busy

A Shame

There is a friend of mine who takes umbrage when I call her ‘short’. But come on, 5’2”(157cm) is short, especially to a giant like me.

Hmmm…if I am ever in Cebu again, and we are walking down the street together, I know what I’ll do.
I’ll slow down just a little, glance down at her little butt and say.
‘It’s obvious that you folks don’t have any building inspectors here. It’s such a shame that they built the sidewalk so close to your ass!’

I will laugh and she will hit me.

It's not Easy!

It’s not easy, having to drive fifty miles to work each day. But that’s the way it is.
Some days, when I have to see the Dentist or Doctor, I get to work from home. It’s either that or take the whole day off. That’s a waste of vacation pay and it just isn’t productive.
And then I hear you say, “Oh you are so lucky Warty, you get to work from home!”
Well, maybe.
Sure, at home, there is some peace and quiet. No bosses looking over your shoulder. No chatting with coworkers over the cubicle walls, distracting you. But you know, it’s not easy, for there are quiet distractions.

For when I work from home, I can usually focus on my work and ignore the little noises I hear, ignore the movement I see out of the corner of my eye. But not always.

For sometimes; when I am staring at the screen, trying to organize my data, figure the formula for the next little piece of data, and WG walks by.
Broad shoulders with a yellow tank top that fits her smooth lines and gentle curves. A slim waist that tapers down just the right amount, to delicious hips that move in a way that can befuddle a man's thoughts. Blue jeans that fit over a nicely rounded tush. They say a wave out on the ocean, could never move that way.
It can’t, for this vision can sweep you away like no other.

The vision passes from sight and I turn back to the screen. ‘Now where was I?’ I try to collect my thoughts.

An email pops up, or an IM message, maybe the phone rings. I can easily take care of each one, then turn my thoughts back to the task at hand. Simple. But remove the vision that can cloud my mind? Difficult.

And back to work, move the numbers, compose the email.

And a voice from the back of the house says, “Oh my goodness, look at the time. I haven’t even showered yet. I’ll be late for work!”

My wife is far enough away not to be a distraction. But there is a little voice whispering in my head now.
‘She is in the shower, wet and ….You know what that means!’
‘Oh shut up!’ I tell myself.
‘It’s okay, you have a license!’

But I am at work, so what if it’s just a desk in the corner of my house. I am at work.
So I push those thoughts out of my head, but I can hear them mumble. ‘Oh, you’re no fun anymore.’

When I get to work from home, at times, it’s just not easy!

Have you no taste?

I guess I should not be surprised to hear that you had a sex dream. What with the way you bad-mouth you husband in public. You constantly belittle his equipment and then you complain that he doesn’t use it enough on you! Darlin, you have told him, in public, that it isn’t worth the bother and now you wonder why he doesn’t bother?

So it comes as no surprise to hear that since you aren’t getting any in real life, that you have to dream about getting it.

One would expect to hear that your dream had Mr. Hunky-stud-puppy in it. After all, I have seen the way your (and WG’s) eyes light up when he enters the room.

But Please! Having a sex dream about the Warthog? I would think you would want it to be a nice dream! Getting naked with the Warthog would be unpleasant, at best. (I am sure that most of my female friends would agree) At worst, it would be a nightmare! (no need for my readers to agree with that. :-)

Sure, I know most guys would love to hear that some good looking gal was having dreams about him. Especially if it involved wild monkey sex!

I just thought you had better taste.

The Sargasso Princess.

I have had that title on my mind for years, not knowing how to use it.
And now I can use it.

Because the way I see it, she should probably put the white flag above her door and raise her arms in surrender.

You set your course for the furthest shores And you never once looked back

Maybe not go down with the ship, but jump off and swim for another. Better to risk a maelstrom (or three), than the doldrums she seems headed for.

‘For the winds of chance, they will bear me straight’ And you spoke as though you knew

For I fear she will end up as another Sargasso Princess. Stuck in the vast warm sea that never moves.
No wind to billow her sails, no current to move her hull. Never going forward, never back. Forever hoping to reach what she can’t get to.

Better to risk a hurricane’s excitement, than aimless drifting.

One hopes she abandons the ship.

The lines and the borders are gone

I think that I have told you about how Tommy will not enter the kitchen unless there are specific conditions, like the doorbell ringing. You can drop a piece of cheese six inches from the imaginary line, just past the doorway, and he will not enter the kitchen, cross that line and eat the cheese. At least not until you leave the room.
He does the same thing at friends houses. Vinyl floors are the forbidden zone! (well, he is part border-collie)

But now we have no (vinyl) kitchen floor and the imaginary line seems to have vanished!
Tommy keeps coming further and further into the kitchen and then he lies down in the middle of the forbidden zone and watches me make dinner! Today, when I turned from the sink he was right behind me, a full ten feet into the forbidden zone!

I just don’t know what will happen when we put down the stone tile. I think there is a rift in the space-time continuum and the imaginary lines and the borders are gone!

It may be a whole new world for the Tommy-dog!

The Wedding

It was simply a beautiful wedding
And a solid, good, well-planned reception.

We got off the boat at the Couer d'Alene golf course and took our seats. We were just at the edge of the beach, the lake forming a glistening backdrop. The hot sun beating down on us distracted us for a while. (Okay, so there were rivulets of sweat pouring down my back and chest)
Then the bride arrived, looking pretty and happy. The ceremony started and the Minister sped things up. He knew we were wilting in the heat.
It was a beautiful ceremony. Hard to pin down what made it so good, but it just was.

And then we were off to the reception just up the hill. Nice shade in the huge canopy. A cold beer in my hand and I was feeling a little better. Time to mingle, get some food, sit back and look at the smiling people. Especially the bride and groom. It’s so nice to see two people who were so looking forward to their life together. And because everything was going well, they could enjoy their day.
They are smart, good-looking kids. And they look good together. It’s funny how people compare the bride to Barbie, but she does look the part. Hmmm…no one compared the groom to a Ken doll. You know, I cannot remember what the Ken doll looked like.
But I digress.

Anyway, just a wonderful day. I am glad that things went well.

Don't Even!

Don’t Even be jealous of our authentic, rustic, plank flooring! (complete with black tarpaper spots)

Wonderful looking, isn’t it. Maybe I should just put a coat of varnish on it?
Well, here is the story. About four weeks ago, the lazy-susan began to stick a little. I thought it just needed adjusting, but when I looked closer, I saw mold inside the cabinet. Not supposed to be there.
So I pulled off the lower panel of the dishwasher and saw where water had been leaking. Traced it up to the soap dispenser. When I pulled the dispenser off, I could see where the O-ring was falling apart. So off to the garage and look in my plumbing parts drawer. Sure enough, I had an O-ring that was just the right size. Within a half hour the thing was fixed.
Wonder-Girl was a little disappointed that I was able to fix it, she said wanted a new dishwasher. (ours is ten years old)
The vinyl flooring was spongy so Wonder-Girl began pulling it up and found water under it. The underlayment was also wet and falling apart. Okay, so it is time for a new floor.

It did bother me that there was evidence of a lot of water. More than I could account for by the little leak in front.

The O-ring held for about a week, then it began to drip again. I told Wonder-Girl that I was not going to try and fix it again and trust it not to leak. Let’s just get a new dishwasher. (that made her happy)

So when I pulled out the dishwasher, I found that there was another leak at the drain in the wall. Our dishwasher has it’s own drain since it is too far from the sink.

And I find that there was a recall on our dishwasher because of the front leak. Seems that Maytag has had a few catch fire. The nice thing is that we will get $75 off the new dishwasher.

So three weeks ago, we tear up the old underlayment. I am sure that you know what that is like! It took us two days. I kept pressuring Wonder-Girl to choose between vinyl flooring or ceramic tile. I needed to know so I could buy the right underlayment.

Wonder-Girl made her decision, tile, and we bought a bunch of Hardi-back and I spent last weekend putting that down. And we put down tar paper again as a moisture barrier. It worked really well before.
We were supposed to leave for vacation on the Friday, but we postponed it till Monday. That gave me the weekend to get the underlayment down.

Monday morning, jump in the car and drive 900 miles to Spokane, Washington. (okay, we did it in two days. I didn’t want to drive 16 hours in one day!)

So we fled the floor and it’s problems. We can forget about it as we watch the preparations for our niece's wedding.