Back in Action
2007-11-26, 3:38 p.m.

Day 1191

Yes, I�m back from the dead. Had a very interesting 5 days off, starting out in the dermatology surgery clinic with Bob and wrapping up with FINALLY getting the last of this years leaves out to the curb. Before I get into the gory details, here�s this weeks free association list from

Filthy : animal
Therapist : Annette
Duck : avoid
Slant : twist
Artist : painter
Lease : to own
Wish : list
Doormat : codependant
Global : universal
Apartment : pad

That�s not very revealing at all, is it? Oh well.

How about a quick rundown of the weekends major events, starting with Wednesday?

Wednesday morning bright & early found me at spin class. Got home in time to gather up Cindy and head to her Dad�s swinging widowers pad. We had to take him to a schedyuled surgery date to get some cancerous lesions excised from his scalp. Squamous cell stuff, no nasty carcinoma�s. After the surgery, he was to stay with us for a few days so we could see to his post-surgical care. Bob, of course, wasn�t packed. He�s just so scattered lately. He functions well enough with his day to day things, but anything out of the ordinary throws him all off kilter.

Anyhow. Surgery went fine. He got some work done around his right temple on a couple of problem spots. We get the instructions for the post surgical care. Ice for 20, give it a rest for a couple hours, ice again, repeat. Keep it dry for 2 days. No bending over. OK to get wet Friday � soap it up, no scrubbing, pat dry. Apply polysporin to the stitches & cover with dressings. Keep it up till Wednesday. Simple enough if you have your wits about you.

Thursday morning, Cindy & I are having our morning coffee, reading the paper. Bob comes downstairs and asks what the hell happened to him yesterday. He had no clue that he was in for surgery and was wondering what the bandages on his face were for. At least he didn�t take them off. We caught Bob up on current events and kinda muddled through our day.

Smoked a nice turkey for dinner. Tossed in some stuffed jalapeno�s (chorizo, cream cheese, onion, garlic) and smoked them for a bit too. Had all the usual T-day trappings for dinner. Cooked too much, ate too much, enjoyed it all just about enough.

Friday. Had to talk Bob into taking a shower and getting his stitches wet. The ones he forgot about, again. Explained to him that it was ok to get them wet & soaped up. Even suggested that maybe just letting the shampoo run down over them might be a good idea. His response? �Oh, I don�t use shampoo, I just let the water run over my hair. I don�t want to shampoo it, I�ll lose what I have left!� Ummmm � ok. Yuch. That explains a few things. Cindy took the dressings off in the hopes that at least the stitches would get wet accidentally.

Bob comes down after his shower and did not, in fact, get the stitches soapy at all. They didn�t look bad, no signs of infection, so they got polysporined up & covered. Now he was itching to get home. Back to his element I guess. We�ve got a nurse scheduled to come in a few times a week, so we relent and take him home. Ask the front desk gal to make sure the nurse gets up to see him at least once over the weekend. The nurse was already filled in on the surgerry & treatment details. Sounded easy, plus it got us out of baby sitting duty for the remainder of the weekend. Bob is either snoozing, following you around like a puppy or standing right in the doorway you need to get through. He�s also developed this curious aversion to sitting at a table (or setting a table) all nice and orthogonal. He can�t seem to remember how the silverware goes (like it matters), placemats NEVER get put in front of the existing chairs, squarely or not, things are � well, the tabel ends up looking like a Salvador Dali painting when he�s done. That�s how he sits at it too. Half on, half out, sideways, sidesaddle, never knowing quite where to put his feet. It was a relief that he wanted to go back to his apartment.

Friday evening we took Eric to the Dinosaur to celebrate his birthday. Number 22 for our youngest. Had the opportunity to try a Brooklyn Monster Ale.

I have 2 words for it: Holy Shit!! First, it�s a very tasty, sorta dark beer. Very tasty, though. Did I mention that? Also took note of the alcohol content. 10.1%!?! Easily double (or more) most brews. Limited myself to one because I still had to drive out of downtown and I�ve become a rather cheap date sdrinking wise lately. Anymore, I can feel the effects of one normal beer � one of the Monsters might be detectable with a breathalyzer and I don�t need that!

Dinosaur food? Great as always. The wait for great food? Pushing 90 minutes, and we got there at 5pm on a Friday. Ridiculous. The place is getting so popular that no one is going to go there anymore. (I hope)

Saturdy morning I went out hunting. Didn�t stay out long. Thought I was dressed ok, but 18 degrees kinda sucks the joy out of stand hunting. I caved after 3 hours, didn�t see a durn thing. Good for the deer I guess. Maybe next week. Zach and I are going to try out a jerky recipe with some of the front shoulder meat. Should come out looking vaguely like slim jims, we hope.

Saturday afternoon started the great xmas decoration massacree. Hauled box after box, tote after tote up from the basement. I got them all up into the dining room, the rest id Cindy�s. Except for putting all the houses up on the kitchen cabinets and doing the flippin garlands & stuff. I hate the damn job, but Cindy is too short and the kids aren�t home . . .

That�s the dining room, sans table, but plus 8 or so totes of decorations, plus something like 18 of those damn ceramic house things. All this crap gets put out for display, collects dust for 6 weeks or so, then gets stufed back in totes for another 10.5 months. Why?

Saturday night was my high school class reunion. I won�t mention which one, but there�s a batch of cookies waiting (oatmeal/chocolate/raspberry cookie bars) for the person that can guess which one. (Hint: It wasn�t the 50th!!) I gotta say, for the most part, people in my class are holding up pretty well. At least the ones that showed up are. I like the way this one was put together too. Had it at the Legion Hall in town, dress was casual. No fancy suite, no gowns, just like a night out on the town with your buddies. Cindy was in the class right after me, so she knew everybody there. Could have made for a fun evening, but Cindy, not drinking, was doing the foot tapping, I wanna go home dealie as soon as dinner was over. Managed to stall for another couple of hours before I finally caved and left. She�d have left sooner, but couldn�t get hold or Eric to come haul her off. So we ended up leaving insanely early (9:30ish) and Cindy played the part of the bitch for eth remainder of the weekend. At least it was only a day.

Sunday we ran Eric back to school so he could finish up his fall semester. We got to meet his girlfriend about 1/3 of the way to school and had brunch with her and her parents. They were on their way back from relatives over towards Buffalo. We met up, exchanged hostages, bought the kids their last decent meal for a month and sent them on their way.

At home, I had about a half acre of fallen leaves to contend with. Moved maybe a third of them to the curb last week. The town hadn�t managed to come by and vacuum those up yet, so we had to pile the remaining 2/3 of them at the neighbors, across the street, up in the woods, anyplace we could fit them. At least it got warm enough for the snow to melt so I didn�t have to rake/blow them out of the snow & ice. What sucked was my big blower stalling and never re-starting after getting only 1/3 of the way completed. Then I had to manually rake all those leaves. My back is complaining about it today.

Leaves done, xmas decorations started, and not one lick of Christmas shopping done yet. Gotta get the mouse warmed up, he�s going to be a busy little critter. Click & ship, click & ship. Cindy & I will take our traditional 1st Friday of December for some shopping, but we hope to have the bulk of it done (clicked at least) by then. At least I hope so. I�d really prefer to spend the afternoon lounging, at home, with no kids around. I really missed a quiet house.

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