Reaper Madness

It's back - with a vengence!

October is finally here - and with it, hopefully, comes the return of my stray marbles. We're back to that time of year when it's not socially upsetting to decorate your house with skeletons and have a cemetery on your lawn. Interesting side bar - a new house was built down the street, adjacent to the old village cemetery. The plot was sold before the house was even finished.

I was curious what sort of people would willingly move into a graveyard - vampires, mad scientists, necropheliacs? I imagined something along the lines of The Munsters. So far, all I know is someone has a really nice motorcycle. It's not a bad spot; there's a Dairy Queen a stone's throw away and it's right off the highway. Apart from the walls bleeding at night, the place has a lot of charm.

So, what sort of shinangans will this season bring? I brought some halloween decorations to work with me now that everyone has a cube. Nothing crazy - just my plastic reaper, a child-eating tree figurine, and a tiny outhouse with a gremlin in it. We can all use the cheer after the craptacular month that just passed. Now that everyone's crammed into their own little boxes, I wonder who can come to work dressed as a vampire without anyone noticing? I'll bet the number's pretty high.

I'm also gearing up for my first dinner party - that's what adults do, isn't it? - on Halloween night. It should be interesting. If I have my way, there's also some ghost tours to be had. The last time I went to Salem, I took one of those "orb" photos. I'm not submitting it for scientific scrutiny or anything but it was still kind of cool. So let's enjoy this fixation with death before it becomes all weird and disturbing!

Going, Going, Gone!

That refers both to my sanity and this cursed month of September. I won't be sad to either of them go. This is one of few month's I'm glad to see fly by. It's brought a lot of change with it - restructuring at work, some family business, and a brand new school for Brianna. This fall marks a change in what have become my regular duties - hopefully for the better.

This is a long, dark tunnel, but I can see light at the end. I'm now a part of my parish council, a step I chose to take becasue I wanted to make a difference in something that influenced my life. My follow-up on that horrible stomach virus/infection seems to indicate that I'm back to normal and I feel better too. I don't think it's too optimistic to think that problems will magically go away once September is over. After all, they magically started once September rolled around!

We're all living in rough times and some of us are a lot worse off than others. I can take solace in knowing this month is followed by three of my favorite months - in a row! I can look forward to some of the chabges they bring both in my life and the lives of others (ah, but that's another post)!

Excuse my while I vent

*siiiighh*

Montezuma’s Revenge of the September Curse

(Part 2 of The Sicky Blog)

Once again it’s that damnable month of September. During my various shenanigans I somehow forgot that this month has been forever cursed. It’s true; I’ve written at least two years’ of blogs about this whole month is somehow possessed by Satan. Ever since September 11th, strange and unpleasant chains of events have unraveled in this month – and this year’s series began right on cue this past Tuesday, September 1st. I don’t claim this misfortune as my own; lots of others are experiencing the effects of that evil month of September – and I only want to share these experiences with a sympathetic audience.

I can’t wait for my follow-up with my doctor so he can tell me I’m fine and to stop fussing over everything. See, once you have the sensation that something crawled inside you and died, things never really seem the same. Who knows, maybe – given time – things will go back to normal. Someone said something to me that was right on the money: there are times when you get sick with something and “it feels like you’re never going to get better” – but it’s just a feeling. I think just feeling that sensation of nausea, even if just for a moment, is enough to get me going. It’s no surprise; but I tend to worry a lot about stupid things that I only regret later.

This past summer, I’ve become very acquainted with my toilet. That’s good, I suppose. My bathroom was just redone. After spending at least two weeks surrounded by bottles of pills and perched by the toilet, I was beginning to feel like a rock star! They said I was mad to stockpile so much Pepto-bismol. Well who’s mad now!

It’s been two weeks since I finished my antibiotics and things seem relatively normal. I just want to hear some good news from my physician, even if it’s the only good news I hear this month. I hope everyone out there is doing well. Based on doom-saying emails I’ve received at work, the Swine Flu scare is still going strong – so naturally, anytime I have my little “spells” (which are few and thankfully far between), I have to listen to “It’s not swine flu, is it?” – like it’s the Black Death!

In true “It’s not a tumor!” fashion, I can at least confirm that I don’t yet have swine flu and will hopefully not have to deal with it. I hope the same goes for anyone else. If nothing else, it’s worth “worrying” about that, as we in the United States will turn a corner after this wicked month and start to slump, hacking, toward flu season like General Grievous.

So, to all who read this, I hope you can avoid as many of the slings and arrows of the September Curse as possible and overcome the rest. I have great people in my life (and apparently really great benefits at work) who have seen me through dark times – certainly darker times than this. Knock on wood. Maybe some good will come out of this fussing; I’m trying to watch what I eat – especially after reading this. If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth a look. I recommend sharing such information with the people in your life.

Keep on truckin. May the Force be with you. Peace out.

The Summer of Puke

Somewhere between my last post and slipping into a coma, it became summer. Lots of things have happened, both good and bad; but there has been one constant: feeling like crap. It began with Glenn returning from Jordan with...guests. No, not concubines - intestinal parasites! He got a bacterial infection that pretty much cleansed his colon.

The entire family - including the extended family - soon came down with something disgusting that we would only later find out was totally unrelated to my brother's ailment. What caused it? We don't know. This was the beginning of June. With all the Swine Flu hysteria that was kicking up at that time, it was not a fun time to be sick.

Know what else isn't a fun time to be sick? Summer vacation. BOTH WEEKENDS of my summer vacation.

Months later, I somehow got a bacterial infection and I've spent my nights the past two weeks thrashing around on my futon like I was possessed by The Devil. My face went numb at karate one night - that should have been a signal. I spent the rest of that night shaking like Kieth Richards.

The next day I finally went to see my doctor and found out what this was all about. No, I'm not pregnant - or a werewolf. Today, I finished my prescribed antibiotics and will hopefully see the end of this intestinal soap opera. There were days when I felt like my organs wanted to crawl out and dance the maccarena like something out of Evil Dead - and horrible, screaming nights.

I've pretty much been sick for (let's be optimistic and say) half the summer. Thankfully, it's not contagious. So, everyone else I meet gets to just look at me and think, "Heh. I guess he's fine", while my bowels wail like the damned. At least, I *think* it isn't contagious. I still traveled, went to work and church, and the old folks' home, and the movies, and karate (for at least one night), and had lunch with friends one day...

Um, let me get back to you.

“Here we go again…again!”

“Who left the fridge open?”

Every few years we get one of those winters – where, after three or four years of sub-tropical Christmas, we get blitzed with a back-order of snow to make up for the minutes we didn’t have to spend shoveling.

To make things worse, it isn’t just New England that’s having a bad winter. I’ve heard temperatures in the 30's for both California and South Carolina. So, it was only a matter of time before TV news triggered my inevitable brain aneurism when a savvy viewer asked, “How can ‘they’ talk about global warming?” All evidence to the contrary, I stick by my earlier claim:

Weather does not come from magic.

I know it’s hard to crack open a book, and maybe you don’t trust wikipedia. After all, why should we believe the science of other people? We didn’t do the work ourselves. Science is a demon! The earth is flat, weather is made by gnomes (I saw it in a cartoon), and Massachusetts is the center of the universe. When something unnatural happens – like frigging cold in January – how can we support such structured beliefs in logic and reasoning?

It’s not An Inconvenient Truth, it’s just something people don’t feel like thinking about…you know, like the recession we weren’t having until six months ago. These things aren’t official unless the president himself tells us, after all. The Great Oz has spoken!

We had blizzard, after blizzard, after blizzard. Virtually every weekend from Thanksgiving to late January, we had a snow storm. Not flurries, not sleet, but a biblical plague of snow. After a while, there was no place to put it. Out of mercy, we were given a 50 degree weekend that melted most of the December snow. Then, we went straight back to being buried alive.

And the morning commute was murder!

“Say It Again, Sam”

Until I got myself an iPod, I guess I never really noticed how many artists are impossible to understand. I like Nightwish, but the lead singer sounds like she’s gargling underwater. People think it’s because they’re a foreign band; but there’s plenty of American singers who are totally unintelligible.

I was listening to Mellencamp’s Key West Intermezzo, wondering why “There’s loud Cubone bandits crucifying John Lennon”.

I'll leave this black-and-white so it's less disturbing...

Rob Zombie is all about the music; you have no idea what the hell he’s saying. He acts freaky and macabre; but for all we know, he’s slipped in some lyrics about puppies and teddy bears. Of course, Bono has to swallow the microphone when he sings, so you too may end up with something like this:

“I was unconscious, half-asleep
The Walrus watching discovered how I do”

That sounds serious! Lucky for him that walrus was there, or he might have slipped into a coma. Did it give him mouth-to-mouth? A walrus could easily crush a man, you know. What are they – like 500 pounds?

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are my favorite culprit. Their songs are like word salad. I’ve always had fun with By The Way.

“Dead little girl is singing songs to me beneath the marquee: OVERSOLD”

That’s NOT what he’s saying, right? And what is he chanting at the end of the song? It sounds like “Kenshin and a milkshake”.

“You dare refuse him a crazy straw? He is Batosai the Man-Slayer!”

One of these days, someone’s going to catch me laughing at work and I’ll have to explain about the thing in the cage that mussed up my hair and people will look at me like I’m crazy…I mean, I’ll have to explain all this – so I wrote it down. Who knows, maybe I’ll get a “That’s what I thought!” or maybe even find out those are the lyrics!

My Bologna Has A First Name...

"Nice speling."

I'm just *slightly* behind schedule here. This year's Oscar special was one of the best in recent times. It was budgeted, but at the same time featured an entire theater made of crystal. The awkward moments were few (like Alan Arkin saying Phillip Seymore Hoffman's name backwards). Of course, there's always that one schmuck who has to say something in their presentation.

This year, it was Bill Maher - who wouldn't let a little thing like being personally invited to one of the Academy Awards' most upbeat ceremonies stop him from plugging his movie that apparently no one wanted to see. I guess they only use that 45 second delay for when Sally Field says something unpatriotic about the war. He also kind of acted like he was doing them a favor for being there - sort of like Steve Martin, but that's part of his material.

I like how they pulled off the whole "back lot" look for most of the presentation: crates and other studio clutter filled the stage, with monitors positioned around for the trademark Oscar montages. It probably cost a lot to rig all that up, but it had the feel of "yeah we're broke; but what the hell, we're doing this anyway"! I think that's the attitude we were looking for.

In that same budget category, I've noticed a lot of recycled commercials from years ago, some of them Superbowl commercials. It was a little like watching those old videotaped holiday specials when I was a kid. For nearly a decade, we could watch the Garfield Christmas special ("HEEEYYY KIIIIIIIDS!) and that weird candy commercial/Halloween special with Rhea Pearlman with all the original commercials.

It feels like there's a whole different atmosphere because of the state of the country. Say whatever you want about Obama, he inspires people. Under Bush, we'd all be quivering jellyfish, somehow blaming al Queada for our economic crisis instead of trying to do something about it. The FCC would've censored the hell out of our award shows. Now, we can see all of Hugh Jackman's surprisingly gay (but not really) musical numbers and wish we were him for so many reasons...mostly because he got to look straight up Beyonce's bedazzled unitard!

Anyway, it was either this, or write a bunch of LOST theories.

What the McFuck!?

It's been pretty hectic at work; but I finally found release in an iPod (borrowed from Glenn).

For one glorious day I didn't overhear anything awkward or obnoxious at work. An otherwise enjoyable day went strangely askew during my lunch break. I don't always eat lunch, mind you.

I try not to go out unless I have spare change on me. Even then, I usually just get something out of the vending machine. It's just kind of a hassle to get to McDonald's - the only real fast food place near the office - grab my food, and get back in time to eat it before my break is over.

Yes; if I dragged my lazy ass out of bed before 6:30 in the morning, I'd have time to make a lunch and take it with me. I'm not gonna lie - there's no way that's happening. It's just not. Still, who wants to eat at McDonald's everyday?

So, I uncrinkled a dollar bill and grabbed a tiny little pack of donuts from the vending machine. They were powdered cinnamon thank you. That's the classy gentleman's donut. I headed to my car; and once outside, I decided I'd rather go out to eat. So, I went to McDonalds and tried very carefully to pronounce my order to the (I'm guessing Puerto Rican) folks behind the counter after they finally noticed me. I was in such high spirits I even donated a dollar to the Jimmy Fund.

Just when the warm fuzzies started, I reached for my wallet and came up - wait for it - a buck short.

DAMN YOU FRESHLY - AND YOUR DELICIOUS CINNAMON DONUTS!

I *KNOW* I had a five dollar bill on me from something else earlier this week; but all I could do was slip singles to the hostess like she was giving me a personal pole dance - you know, a way of saying "thanks for contributing to the Jimmy Fund". They should consider that - I mean, a lap dance and the possibility of curing cancer in children!? Anyhow, my frickin' cash was gone and I felt like an ass, not to mention the card scanner didn't work.

For some reason, they caved and gave me my chicken selects - and a drink with an online code for that Monopoly game that ended last week. Score! The only way this could have been more awkward was if there was a large, hairy trucker with a rusty hook behind me breathing menacingly.

In short, I don't know where my money went and I may or may not have contributed to curing cancer. For my final comment, I offer the following...

Bon apetit.