Life In The Slow Lane

It’s Labor Day and, of course, time for Jerry Lewis’s annual appeal.

Pssst, Jerry, got a couple of bucks you can spare???

Katie D. Kat has her appointment with the vet tomorrow. It’s spay day and she’s the last of the bunch who needs to be fixed. It’ll be a relief to get that done and over with, but I’ll have to keep a close eye on her tomorrow to make sure she doesn’t start doing her normal Mexican jumping bean impression and rip out her stitches.

Friday’s a day on the road. I have to travel to Utica for a story, leaving early in the morning and likely arriving back late in the afternoon and writing. It’s going to be a long, long day.

I’ve been asked to cover a clean-up effort on Saturday, so I can kiss some of that day good-bye.

And then Sunday is the day of rest to prepare for, what else, work.

Yes, my friends, the hits just keep on coming.

See you in a few days.

In the meantime, how about a game of bowling?

Many years ago in Cincinnati I had my left ear pierced. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to get ready for a Halloween party. I had no costume, so I decided to go as a rock star. Simple concept. Slick the hair back with grease, stick on a pair of dark sunglasses - even at 9 p.m., and try explaining that one to the cops - and get the ear pierced.

Yeah, I was one cool dude.

Rock on, Cincinnati!

I still have some of my ear ornaments tucked away, but I haven’t worn them in years. The hole that used to be in my left ear lobe has long since closed, and I had - you’ll notice I said “had” - no intention of getting the ear pierced again.

The cats had other ideas this morning.

I’ve already related in a previous entry that I have two or three cats pinning me down through the night when they sleep on my body. Such was the case last night and when I woke up at about 5 this morning and needed to readjust myself, out came the claws.

And into the ears they went. Not just one, but both.

I don’t know who’s the guilty party. All their claws are equally as sharp. What I do know is (1) it hurt like a sonofabitch, and (2) I’ve never seen blood spurt out as fast as it does from the inner ear.

Understand, I’m in a fog at that hour, but it’s amazing how quickly you wake up when claws are jammed inside your ear and you suddenly see a red liquid all over your hands when you put them up to the aforementioned ears.

Ever try to stick a Band-Aid in your ear to stop the bleeding - especially at 5 a.m.?

It’s not easy, folks, trust me on that one.

The cats make life such a pleasurable experience these days.

As if putting a tourniquet around my ears to stop the bleeding wasn’t enough, I had to contend with the second consecutive day of Sissy barfing on the kitchen floor. That’s how my week started - never a good sign and you know the week’s only gonna go downhill from there. There I am, laying in a semi-conscious state Monday morning when I hear the sounds of the inevitable hairball. Clean-up on Aisle 3.

And she did it again today. Just for good measure, I suppose.

So, once I stopped the ears from bleeding, I had to clean up her mess - which of course was all over the kitchen floor because cats for some strange reason never stand in one spot when they’re puking. They choose to run around to make sure the entire floor is covered before they’re done.

I’m running out of patience with the animals.

Holly’s been laying in the bathroom sink, so I have to shave and brush my teeth while I’m in the shower as opposed to before I jump under the water. Ever try to shave your face without the benefit of a mirror? Keep the tissue paper handy. You’re gonna need it to cover up all the nicks.

Sissy’s been laying on top of the stove, so I can’t cook a meal for fear of catching her tail on fire. And she’s been laying on top of the clothes washer, making it damned near impossible to do laundry. Not that that’s a bad thing.

Katie’s been climbing up the window screens in a vain attempt to get to the birds that are feeding in the back yard.

Tabu, well, she waits until the moment is right - normally when I least expect it - to jump on my shoulders and stretch around my neck like a big black fur stole like the rich ladies wear to tea parties. And, of course, there are claws involved in that effort - and more blood.

And yet the nurse at the doctor’s office has a hard time getting a drop of blood for testing every time she pokes me.

She should just ask the cats.

They’re experts.

If you’re older than the hills like me, you probably remember this sage piece of advice passed on to Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate”:

Well yessiree, it appears Mr. McGuire knew exactly what he was talking about in the 1960s.

Here we are in the new century and it’s plastics, plastics everywhere.

And I can’t stand it anymore!

Have you tried to get a pill out of its plastic compartment these days? It’s not just impossible, it’s enough to send a sane person over the edge.

I needed a pill for my back this morning and they come in those nifty individualized wrappers in which you’re supposed to grab the edge and give it a twist and pull the paper back and the pill’s supposed to pop out with ease.

Question.

Did anybody in the laboratory actually test that concept before they put it out on the market?

It doesn’t work as advertised, folks, and I pity the poor people who have to go through that drill to take a pill for arthritis.

When is childproof too childproof?

You’ve got pills like the back pills that you can’t get out of their little compartment without using a pair of scissors or a drill or a hacksaw.

And if that’s not bad enough, you’ve got pill bottles with tops that you’re supposed to press down and twist and, if you’re actually successful in removing the top, you’re faced with heavy-duty paper covering the opening to the bottle and a wad of cotton about a mile long stuffed inside the bottle - and of course, it comes out piece by piece instead of in a mile-long strand.

Sick people don’t need to go through this aggravation.

Mr. McGuire told Benjamin Braddock, “One word - plastics.”

Well, I’ve got two words.

Plastics suck.

The weather forecast is the same day after day.

Rain.

Thunderstorms.

Right now it’s raining in barrels and the sky is black and the only way not to stub your toe on furniture in the house is to turn the lights on because it’s so dark - at 11:30 in the morning.

And I’m sick.

I don’t know what bug has bitten me this time around, but it’s not good.

I went into work yesterday for a 2 p.m. photo shoot that got canceled, and I left right after that because my stomach is so torn up right now.

Today’s not any better.

Maybe it’s the weather, or not eating right, or not eating at all, or maybe the stress of the job, or maybe not getting enough sleep because my internal alarm clock has been getting me up at all hours of the night lately.

Whatever the case, I’m miserably sick.

But I’ll try work again today.

If it doesn’t pan out, well, the house is only a hop and a skip away and I’ll come right back home and toss myself into bed again like I did yesterday.

Sick sucks.

I’m stunned after reading the latest weather warning for St. Lawrence County.

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT… THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A TORNADO WATCH FOR ALL OF VERMONT AND NORTHERN NEW YORK…UNTIL 6PM THIS EVENING. A STRONG COLD FRONT WILL APPROACH AND CROSS THE REGION THIS AFTERNOON INTO EARLY THIS EVENING WITH WIDESPREAD THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY. WITH HOT AND UNSTABLE AIR ACROSS THE REGION…CONDITIONS ARE RIPE FOR MANY OF THESE STORMS TO BECOME SEVERE…ALONG WITH DAMAGING WINDS…LARGE HAIL…AND POSSIBLY A FEW TORNADOES IN AND CLOSE TO THE WATCH AREA.

Did they say tornado?

In Upstate New York?

My God, the end of the world is near.

Could we be visiting the Wonderful Wizard of Oz sometime soon, the man who gave the Scarecrow his brains and the Tin Man his heart and the Cowardly Lion his courage and Dorothy a free ride back home to Kansas - though one has to wonder why the hell she’d want to go back to Kansas since there doesn’t seem to be a neighbor within 50 miles of Aunt Em and Uncle Henry except for Elvira Gulch and we all know how nasty Elvira can be.

“What can I give you today, young traveler?”

“Well, Mr. Wizard, if it’s alright with you, I’d really like this hot, sticky weather to go away. And I’d like a new car and a new job and better health insurance. A couple of million should cover that and while you’re at it, how about a garden that actually grows something other than weeds.”

“Oh yeah, and if it’s not too much trouble, could I have a pony?”

Tornadoes? Who’d have thunk it?

The last time I went through a tornado was in 1999 in Cincinnati. Hell, I didn’t even know one had touched down even though it was about 10 minutes from my apartment. I got up in the morning, popped my Pepsi, grabbed my M&M breakfast and turned on the radio.

The emergency alert system was in full force.

And that’s when I knew something wasn’t good. And when I drove into work that day, I was in awe over the devastation I witnessed in a neighborhood just a stone’s throw away from me. That gave me a new respect for the power of Mother Nature.

You can still read all about it here.

And here’s yet another sign that the end of the world is near.

Tomatoes pulled off shelves amid salmonella scare

“Tomatoes?” he asked. “Who gives a rat’s ass? I can’t stand the things anyway. Who’d want to put something slimy like a tomato in their mouth to begin with? Yuck.”

You say tomato, I say tomato.

You say tornado, I say tornado.

I think my back can now officially be classified as “gone to hell in a handbasket.”

And now my knees aren’t far behind.

I don’t know what’s going on, but I woke up yet again this morning feeling like I had been run over by a tractor trailer.

Remember years ago when Billy Ray Cyryus lamented about his achy breaky heart?

Well, I’m lamenting about my achy breaky back and my achy breaky knees and my achy breaky whatever’s next in the line of medical dysfunctions.

Old age sucks.

And it doesn’t help when I receive e-mails that ask me to click on a link so I can find out what happened the year I was born.

How old do you think I’m supposed to feel when Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states the year I was born?

Good lord, I’m an old coot.

I should be sitting around the fire with a grandchild on my knee - as opposed to a banjo on my knee, of course - telling stories about the “good old days” when we only had 13 cable stations and radio stations were actually staffed by real people and we had to walk two miles in the snow and cold to get to school and the Beatles were taking America by storm and we could only go so far with a phone because of this thing called a cord that was attached to it.

And that was after we were able to actually use the phone because of this primitive thing they had called a party line, when you cut back on your phone bill by sharing the phone with another person somewhere else in town and you never knew who it was but wasn’t it great fun to get on the phone and start doing the armpit farts while they were talking.

Kids don’t have it like that anymore. Now they sit down and try to figure out what they’re going to watch from the 500 stations available on cable - and they still can’t find anything. Or they’re busy playing their video games. Or they’re spending every waking hour on the Internet. Or they’re yakking and texting on their cell phone.

Or they’re blowing balloons with their nose…

Boy inflates 213 balloons - by his nose

Andrew’s first attempt - 184 balloons in February - was rejected because his father tied the balloons. This time he tied them off himself.

What’s this world coming to?