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From Here To Eternity
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Nov 25, 2010 11:00 am
807 Views
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Every night as the moon rises, the sound of cursing can be heard echoing from the darkest corner of my house. As I swear and grumble from within those shadows of a seriously dated 60's style bathroom that's a mere step above the less than sheik style of a stereotypical truck stop dumper, I ponder as I renovate, “Who cast this foul hex upon me?” Shoot, the only thing missing is a vending machine on the wall that sells caffeine pills, condoms, and dehydrated tuna salad sandwiches otherwise it really would be on par with a truck stop dumper.
As a result of the hex, I slave for hours to remove that evil remnant from the past – a gawd awful flower print wallpaper! And with each hour of my life that slips away as I battle the paper monkey on my back, I chant a curse with the hopes that dozens of feral cats will defile the grave of Jean-Michel Papillon by marking their territory upon his headstone.
Why would I wish hordes of mangy felines to leave Papillon's grave smelling less than mountain fresh? Well, now, it seems Jean-Michel Papillon is the fella some credit with being the inventor of “modern” wallpaper. Yes, yes, the Chinese had various forms of wallpaper eons before the Papillon family line would spawn Jean-Michel and his blasphemous legacy. But Papillon is given credit primarily because he used printing press technology such that mass production could happen. And that accursed innovation allowed the former home owners to transform the bathroom into the exact opposite of the Taj Mahal – something sorely lacking in any form of aesthetics. To use a few selective words to describe the scenic outlay, “Ouch! My freaking eyeballs!” May those dozens of cats mark Papillon's grave from now until I'm done with this crummy task which may very well be an eternity. Welcome to the bathroom of Sisyphus where the removal of wallpaper never ends.
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The Small Print
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Oct 9, 2010 3:45 pm
761 Views
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Don't ya just love life? For some of us, when we were young everything was crystal clear. We knew it all and there wasn't a thing that didn't make sense. Our wits were quick, our senses were razor sharp, and we were going to change the world. Never mind all those old fogeys around us, Those old duffers were simply bitter when they laughed and said we had illusions of grandeur. We'd show them a thing or two.
Heck, I knew so many things about life in those days I could have been an oracle. I grocked everything! Sort of like a mini-Spock. If it was something the human mind had trouble solving, I was the one who held that power to uncover its secrets. Or so I thought.
But life has a funny way of teaching us how little we grock. Soon, all that grocking I had that clued me in about the secrets of the universe came to an end along with a few other activities that sounded like grocking.
It turned out not everything was what we thought it was. Things became fuzzy - in more ways than one.
No, I'm not just talking about our thoughts on the world around us. I'm talking about the wonderful little trick life plays by slowly reminding us about the way of the world. Not only does our hair thin out, but our memories become more like those of fish. Nine seconds after we've thought of something, we've already forgotten it. And we sometimes feel like the Grinch when he had his epiphany - except it wasn't our heart that grew three times larger but our waist lines. 
But for me, one of the biggest kickers is vision. In the last couple of months, I've reached a point where I can't read a thing up close. It hit home recently when a co-worker turned his cellphone my direction to let me see a text message on its screen. You guessed it, all I could see was a serious case of the fuzzies. Sadly, I'm pretty darned familiar with the fuzzies now. I think somewhere along the line, a 27th letter was introduced to the English alphabet, but I just can't quite read what it is.
Sigh! I've become my father in ways, especially with the eye sight. I remember the old man always reaching for a cheap pair of dime-store reading glasses he had for the newspaper. Guess what I have? A cheap pair of dime-store glasses for those times I simply have to read that not-so-small print. Guess it's time for a visit to the eye doc soon.
Life - it comes full circle. We start out thinking we know everything. But eventually we learn life isn't always as crystal clear as it was when we were 19. But you know what? One thing hasn't changed - I still have my illusions of grandeur! 
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Hamburger 'Helper' Hill
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Sep 25, 2010 7:48 pm
814 Views
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There's a war being waged on the hill - a war against entropy! Let's take a look at Hamburger Helper Hill:
Less than six months ago, an unused greenhouse sat idle on this spot. Not having sufficient sun to make effective use of a greenhouse, I decided to make better use of the space. So over the course of two weekends, I demolished the greenhouse and brought in seven cubic yards of compost, one wheelbarrow load at a time. With a freshly contoured hillside springing up in my backyard like a volcano, it was time to plant a few signs of life on the desolate landscape. So off to the nursery I did go. See D!ck run! See D!ck run to the plant nursery! Oh wait, wrong story. 
So I planted a few colorful choices of plants at strategic locations throughout the landscape. Now it was time to sit back and care for my new mini-garden within the garden. That's when nature decided to declare war on the hill.
First, nature decided to attack using the elements. The first attack wave was a heat wave. The summer heat baked the still barren soil while rains were few and far between. No watering can exists that's large enough to handle keeping this soil moist like the buttery leg of roasted Thanksgiving turkey. But even through the occasional 24-consecutive-hour shifts I at work that plagued me, I managed to keep the bulk of the plants alive. That's when the second wave hit.
Now the second wave announced it's arrival with the smell of “Mountain Pew!” What's that you ask? Why it's the “byproduct” of canned cat food. Yes, I'm talking about my yard becoming the neighborhood litter-box for all the cats. Let me tell ya, these cat's wield weapons of @ss destruction!
Of course, to get to the litter-box, the cats take a trip down scenic route 666. Anyone remember the cat superhighway? Or even more specifically, “Satan”? I bet Waitlisted remembers Satan because she coined the name.  Well, the superhighway still exists and is going strong. In fact a new exit ramp exists and it cuts right through Hamburger Helper Hill. I'm almost considering some natural barbed wire fencing like blackberry thickets were it not that they're nearly impossible to eradicate.
Still, throughout all that, I've managed to keep Hamburger Helper Hill alive. And if the winter isn't too brutal, I may have some spectacular pictures to post next year.
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10
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I'm Hot Baby! Smoking Hot!
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Sep 19, 2010 6:36 pm
940 Views
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I've heard of people having sponge baths, birds giving themselves dust baths, and even guys taking cold showers before, but this is a new one on me.
It's a shower... a shower of sparks that is!
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8
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It's Cold - Throw Some Chicken on the Fire!
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Sep 5, 2010 10:05 am
714 Views
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When it comes to things that burn brightly, it ain't just the sun that puts out some serious heat as I discovered once again last night.
Call it what you like, yardbird is one of the more delicious things I typically throw onto the barbecue grill. Leastwise if it isn't the excessively fatty budget-priced chicken that is.
Needless to say, I had a serious hunger for chicken last night so I made a trip to grab some yardbird. After all, it's Labor Day weekend and firing up the barbeque grill is second nature for me on a holiday.
Ah, but I'm a cheap-skate at times. While perusing the assortment of chicken at the store, most of it was moderately high in cost. Let's see, $2.38 a pound for Washington grown chicken... too pricey. Frozen chicken at $1.28 a pound is reasonable but would take too long to thaw. Oh my, what do I spy? Something I should steer clear of - some southern grown chicken at $0.88 a pound. My mind says no but my stomach says yes. Stomach wins! So with only a moment of hesitation, I grab that pack of oh-so affordable chicken and make a bee-line for the checkout register.
Less than an hour later, I'm firing up the grill to toss on my recently acquired chicken quarters. As I work on other things around the house, I periodically wander out to the deck to check the grill. At one point, I see excessive billows of smoke rising up from my soon to be evening meal. Lifting the lid of the barbeque grill, I back away quickly as I'm greeted by face full of flames. I snatch the chicken off the what seems more like a funeral pyre than a barbecue. Higher and higher the flames burn as large quantities of chicken fat that drizzled over the coals continue to provide fuel. I contemplate grabbing a fire extinguisher but the flames eventually stablize after a few minutes. When the chicken fat that has pooled was finally consumed by the blaze, I'm left with stainless steel barbecue which a bit more heat discolored than it was before.
 Did I learn my lesson? Heck no. I'll continue to buy that cheap chicken and will probably singe more hair off my arm like I did the previous time I had another grease fire. Doomed to repeat my past, I'm addicted to barbequed chicken, plain and simple.
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