Sunday, October 29, 2006

"Just when you think you're out,...they drag you back in...."

( Quote from Michael Corleone, Godfather III)
I hate to share this with you, it fucks up my faith in mankind,...and scares the shit out of me!!!
I've blogged about my mate "Mikie", and his tragic death a week ago. I've shared my memories and my thoughts as well as my comments on "Mikie" telling me he's ok. But what I say now is beyond my comprehension, beyond my understanding of human nature, and beyond my sense of human dignity!
As I related to you, last Saturday I had asked Mikie to go to the Florida State/Boston College football game with me, and took my wife and spent the day remembering Mikie, and the last two seconds of "success" from an "arm that came out of the pile" and secured the Boston College victory.
While I was at the game remembering Mikie more than watching the "game" , several 'friends' were going through his belongings, supposedly "looking for informnation" which we could use to trace Mikie's background and next of kin. Supposedly they found nothing except his birth certificate.
Yesterday his old roommate ( a woman who had been beaten by her boyfriend, that Mikie took in for ten months) called me to tell me they were "cleaning out his stuff".
His most prized possession, his computer, was removed by a person I know Mikie would not even walk across the street for, amd in fact had called a "scumbag". And today find out the same person took all of his tools out of his vehicle to "sort them out and clean them up". BULLSHIT!!!!!
I guess as a human being I'm schocked that another human being could not wait the two or three weeks it takes for "no next of kin" to be declared to "pick the bones". I am totally disgusted!!!!
I had offered that individual the "jobs" that Mikie had open to comlete through the end of the year!!
Guess what? Tomorrow all bets are off! I'll get someone else to finish up "Mikies" jobs, to complete them with a sense of "honor" (look it up, it's something that meant something to those of us who knew it's meaning!).
Mikie, I'm sorry death is more painfuthan life, but you were dead on right,....the same folks you never trusted when you were alive, are those who you would never trust when you're dead!
I'm doing my best man, and those who know you know it!
(Thanks for the big play last week at the FSU/BC game,...I know it was you. Rest in peace. We damn well will make sure you go out with dignity, ..trust me on this!
-30-

Life in the fast lane,....sort of!

Well another weekend is winding down, it's Sunday afternoon, I'm just popping off a blog before I go to the pub and watch a bit of football with my mates.
Here I am 62 years old and I'm becoming a "clothes whore"! I think I've spent more on clothes this year than in the last twenty combined!! All of a sudden, (and don't tell my wife or I'll have to kill you!), I decided I wanted to look better,...at 62,..for what, to wow the government clerk when I go apply for social security next year?
You're talking to a "basic dude"here. By that I mean the ultimate in male simplicity in terms of dress. I don't like jeans, Levi's, Wranglers, or anyone elses name, sewn across my butt. I'm your basic "tan pants" kind of guy. Call them Khaki's, Dockers, I don't care, just light tan slacks. They work in every circumstance (ok, not in "formal", but you would not want to invite me to one of those things anyhow, I'd be the guy asking for the Guinness, not the "perky little Chardonnay"). Now given the fact that I have at least ten pair of tan pants, oops my mind is beating the inside of my head to say something "pithy", I can't hold it back,...it's forcing it's power into my arms, down my fingers to the ,...agrrr....,
(ATTENTION: Deep philosophical questions here: Why do they refer to pants as a "pair", and it ain't because it has two legs, and then why are they called "slacks"? Twelve "kudo's" to anyone with a good answer. Later we'll deal with the "Why" when men and women can both wear "slacks", but men can only wear "pants" while women call them "Capri's", "Toreadors", and a number of other things besides "pants"!)
OK, I re-gained control from that little wise-ass. Now moving on to the rest of the wardrobe. Fifty "kudo's" for anyone that can name a single above the waist garment that will not go with tan pants! Male or female everything goes with Tan pants! A formal tuxedo shirt, a ratty old tee, a designer golf or polo shirt, an old football uniform jersey, even the old "wife-beater" shirts work! So there you have it. Tan pants and whatever has the least amount of wrinkles on top, "voila", and a guy is "good to go".
Ok, at the risk of offending women, besides a ratty old set of (tennis, running, walking, etc) shoes, a pair of loafers, and some "Birkies" why would there be a need for anything else on my feet?
And to top off the "ensemble de jour" of course a baseball cap, but not necessarily of a baseball nature. A lot of guys (yup me too!) have vast collections of them. Everytime I go somewhere I gotta buy a souvenier hat to take home. I may never ever wear it again in my life, but I gotta buy it for that day, in that place, at that time. (I think there is a clause in the United States Constitution about the "inalienable right for guys to have favorite hats", or maybe it was the Bill of Rights or the Magna Carta,...hmmm, I'l have to look that up.)
OK now for Mr. Guinness's pet peeves in life, (relative to clothing that is, we'll deal with my other "peeves" another time!)
#! Girls, "birds", women, or any other term you want to use, look absolutely marvelous in anything they wear. (Alright, it's a very broad, (no pun intended), even collossal generalization, but more generally truer than falser) ANYTHING that is EXCEPT "ball caps". In my entire 62 years on this earth I can only recall about four women who actually looked good in a ball cap. (Sorry Ladies, but the truth shall set you free!) I don't know if it's the "way" you wear them, the way you adjust them, or if you were all just were born with wierd heads!! Now as I said I really appreciate the female of our species, but so far as ball caps are concerned don't do it ladies, we know how dorky they are on women! Don't believe me, then ask a few of your male acquaintances to be brutally honest with you and tell you if you look good in a "ball cap". If they move their lips, they are lying! If they say something like "Honey, I'd love to see you in just a ball cap." Slap them alongside the head and go out and ask a stranger. If they say you look great in one then tell them you're entering a contest for best looking female in a ball cap, and I'll bet they try and talk you out of it (that's true love!). And if they say they "really would rather not comment" either marry them, or send them to Lucy for they are the proverbial honest man!
(IF YOU CHOOSE TO PROVE ME WRONG SEND A PIX (with the Ballcap in place) IN YOUR "COMMENTS" AND I"LL LET THE READERS MAKE THAT DECISION.

Ok, stop seething and wanting to pull my tonsils out through your computer moniter, guys also PISS ME OFF when they don't "work the bill"(Brim) of a ball cap. Have you ever seen anything more dumb than a ball cap with a perfectly flat "brim"? It looks like you just got popped off the latest assembly line for a Plutonian impression of a "humanoid". Roll them brims guys, it's your trademark!
I was going to stop here and go watch the game and have a couple pints, but the "backwards thing" on ball caps just clicked on in my head, and I can't stop, I gotta throw my two cents worth in. The ONLY human beings on this earth who have a God given right to wear ball caps backwards are farmers and field hands, (or "rednecks", a now derogatory term relative to the crude, rude, neanderthal, primary number of braincells collectively held by the family, folks of this world. BUT, it didn't used to be that way! "Redneck was a good term used for those hard-working people who worked in the fields every day and the "sunburn" on the back of thier neck. DUH!, I guess that's why there are no "rednecks" in the big cities, or other bastions of "highly evolved social behavior and grace". Or are they simply better educated and politically correct?) And of course there is the group who must be "different" and rather than 180 degrees turned, opt for the 30 to 45 degree angle. Now how dumb is that?
How did I get here? Damn, I must be ranting!
Anyone got a drop dead, killer, beef stew recipe? Let me know. And have a great week, back at you mid-week for sure!
-30-

Friday, October 27, 2006

Sometimes I wanna' go home

This should be a good blog, I'm sitting here with a glass of my favorite Shiraz/Merlot blend, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake pumped up on my speakers, in my "comfies"and ready to talk to you, my real friends! I say that because you are there for me, not the mortal "capsule" my spirit is enclosed within, not for an "erudite" prose or comment, but because I tell you who I am from the heart, whenever this damn keyboard gets in the way of my fingers.
No morose comments tonight. No flashbacks to the past week. But let's look ahead!
The sun comes up each day, and it shines with brilliance. What the hell more could one ask for!
Ahh! But I've thought of something!
I wish there was a web site that we could all share that after, and I stress after, only 100 "blogs", you could click into and see "who your friends are".
The past week has been tough, but the past several months have been great!
How so you ask!
Easy, I've connected with human beings all over this planet. My mind boggles at the thought of being able to "hit a few keys" and chat with "Lucy", and Jezzy" in Australia, "Suvvy" in Nebraska, "Allie" about ten miles away from me in Florida. Do you realize how connected we are?????
(Rant coming on, please tune out if you are that offended!)
As a kid (I know, before automobiles, planes, tv, and ipods) it never dawned on me how big our world was! Sure I studied geography, and all that stuff, but that was "book-learning". I never knew a girl in Australia, actually two of them, would touch me as deeply just pounding on these keys.
I never even concieved of even knowing someone in Nebraska, USA, let alone someone ten miles away ready to put her life on the line for a way of life!
So what am I "rambling about"? It's about you , me, and the whole damn world! Are we really that different? Sure some of us (sorry Lucy!) may talk funny, some of us (Jezzy, I apologize!) are looking to the sky's and wondering "why me?", and some of us,(Sorry Suvvy!) just look at the world and say" imprefect is a norm, but I'll live with it!".
And then there are the places I "lurk". I won't list them, but they are indeed "life".
So I guess I'll tag everyone who stumbles on this blog and reads it.


As the who said, "WHO are you?, WHOOO, are you?, Who , who , who!"
Why do you write? Why do you care? Do you think we make a difference, or are we all "spinning our wheels"?
Do I care about United States policy, or the reality of this world, or that there are poor people and rich people, and kind people and cruel people. Do I care that as I write this how many people are dying because they have no food to eat, no food for thier children? Do I care if Lucy, Suvvy, Miss Devilish, Jezzy, GBE, or anyone else live thier live's and make a difference? Couldone of them find the cure for Cancer, diabetes, or any other factor of this world? Or could any one of them bring into this world the child that will? OK, maybe I'm off target, but these are my friends, and I know they care. Sure we each ahve our own life to be concerned about, but in these folks I sense a difference. May the force of life be with us!
-30-

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

"One step over the line sweet Jesus, one foot over the line"

"....waitin' on the train to go home sweet Jesus, one foot over the line."

Many, many thanks to all of you who write, called, or otherwise expressed your thoughts on Mikie. We still have more to do before we can finally lay him to rest, (actually scatter his ashes over the Gulf of Mexico). Being in this legal world we all live in let me tell youit's a pain in the butt!!. I've finally tracked down the attorney who handled Mikie's brother's estate about four years ago, and he is looking through the old files to get Mikie's sister's telephone number for me. She is legally the next of kin.
Mikie's roommate and three of our friends went through his "stuff" Sunday, and even in death Mikie get's the last laugh. He has succeeded in leaving no papertrail whatsoever amongst his "stuff". No bank account, no actual address (always used a post office box), if it wasn't a check it got trashed. We did find a birth certificate. He did know before they could bury you the dumb bureaucracy will indeed make absolutely sure you were born, ergo a birth certificate. Thanks Mikie.
Tracking his sister down has been an experiment in patience, and an enlightening experiance in knowing you can run, but you can't hide, on the Internet! But depite all the "bullshit" privacy rules and all that legal crap it's nice to know human beings still have compassion. And boy did I get good at working that today!
From the Police department 500 miles away that insisted they couldn't tell me anything, as the clerk sat in front of the computer screen with the complete police report on it about Mikie's brothers tragic death (Hit the back end of a parked bus at 60 mph.), back in 2003. BUT if I would send them a cashiers check for fifty cents they would be glad to mail me a copy, but they could not give out any information over the phone!
With an Academy Award performance of a whimpering fuss I was able to ply the full name of his brother from here and promised to get the check out today.
Next I went to the Registry of Records and found three documents for his brother, a death certificate, a homestead form, and a transfer deed. (Mikies brother was a special forces "he did'nt exist" dude so paperwork was also non existant. When Mikie went down to bury him in '03 and get a military burial he found his military service file and the majority of it was "blacked out" with security blocks on it. Mikie was proud of him, no matter where he had been or what he had done!) Back to the chase. As I sought each one I was confronted with a block indicating that the information was governed by the privacy act and could not be viewed on line, but that a written inquiry could be made. So again go find the humans and try and do the John Barrymore performance for them.
After a twelve button "automated menu" I got a human being. I explained my dilemma to the deaf ears of another County employee.
"Look mam, I don't want any of the information in the documents, trust me it's perfectly safe, I promise. All I want is the name of the attorney who filed them, and in advance I'm not going to sue him, simply ask him for my friends sister's telephone number."
"Well if you send us a cashiers check for one dollar and twenty-five cents we will be glad to send you a copy of the documents, sir."
"Mam, please let me explain this to you very slowly, and simply so you can understand my situation. Would you please allow me to do that, and I guarantee you it will take less than one minute of your time, in fact you can hang up on me if I'm lieing. May I?"
From the other end of the phne I heard a, "hmmph", so i continued.
"Mam, by buddy died, we didn't find him until two days after he died, the state required an autopsy to be performed, and they won;t release his body to anyone who is not next of kin. I'm trying to find his sister to let her know and if I can't get to her and let her know the probability is that his body will be thrown into "potter's field" and that's the end of it. We are his friends and we don't want that to happen, but if we can't find the attorney who has her name and number that's exactly what's oing to happen! How alone can you die, particularly when you have friends that want to take care of you, but legally have thier hands tied! Can you help?"
Another long pause and then, "The attorney who file these documents was "--------- and his telephone number is --------, I hope that helps you, it;s the best i can do."
"Thank you mam, you've been a big help,...and thank you very much from all Mikie's firends."
From there it got a little easier and after talking to the attorneys office they are now looking up the info and will get back to me tomorrow.
Now I've got to figure out how to deal with the sister and then take care of Mikie as well. I guess it's time to get an attorney involved.
Boy life was simpler in the old days!!
-30-

Sunday, October 22, 2006

To all,... a humble thanks, ...from Mikie

The other night when I sat down to write a "journal of the day", and again when I wrote about Mikie, it was for me. Being a "tough ass Irish guy", whom emotions are not a "public side" of, I was sitting in my "pit", just me , the keyboard, and my memories. My intent and indeed my deep desire was to write to Mikie,...not you. To tell him what he meant to me, personally, and to open my own feelings to an "ether-world", not to write to you.
But a strange thing happened, a number of you read my entry, and wrote me very kind notes on it. And I must say I am so pleased I can not tell you. I used to mention my "blog" to Mikie, who gave me shit about it all the time. He used to tease me about it, and shoot a zippy one-liner every time he had a chance. He used to say things like, "Yeah, like you're a Hemingway, shit probably only perv's and whacko's do that shit!", and "Who really gives a shit what you think?". Occasionally he would give me crap about using the blog for "internet sex", and I'd tell him he was nuts,...a really dumb shit if he thought I was that "kind of person". He really knew how to push my buttons in terms of getting "my Irish" up. But by the same token he really knew me and knew that was not the fact, and every once in a while he'd ask, "You still writing that stupid 'blog" shit?"
When I e-mailed our buddy "Security Guard Mike" about Mikies passing I mentioned the blog so he could read the details for himself. My wife married him and his wife a couple years ago, Mikie was thier "adopted son". I can't count the times he and "Security Guard Mike" wrestled and played like brothers, and the number of times Mikie slept on thier couch becasue he couldn't move any further. But that was Mikie.
I guess my ramblings have come down to this. Mikie is gone. We all know it. We are all trying to get all the "shit" done so we can take care of him. I've had at least twenty-five people call or write and tell me they will take a "piece of the action" for whatever it takes to give Mikie a send-off even he'd blush and be "Irish" about (self deprecating, humble, and totally overwhelmed). So here's the plan.
I talked to Vince, his roomy, today, and Mikie, true to being Mikie, left no history, no papers, not follow-up "stuff". He left this world just like he came in, quiet, and alone. So I've set the deadlines, (NO PUN INTENDED) , if I can not find his sister and talk to her by Wednesday, I'm going to have a buddy, who is an attorney, to whatever the shit has to be done to make me his "next of kin". I've already contacted the National Cremation Society and for a price, they will pick up his remains, take them and have them cremated, return the death certificate and Mikie's ashes to us (i.e. me as legally responsible for him). I will set a date in the next two weeks and ask everyone who loved him to join us at "The Whales Tail", and we will all spend a moment in silence, and then I'll ask each person to silently scatter some of Mikie's ashes into the surf, along the beach , or into the air. (The Whales Tale is a beach bar, right on the Gulf of Mexico where Mikie spent untolled hours just relaxing, talking with locals, tourists, and anyone else who happened by.) I would then ask everyone to have a shot of Samboucca and salute our friend who is now amongst the stars. End of service, end of ceremony. Go home, take your memories of Mikie, and miss him the way we all will.

I went to the Florida State/Boston College football game yesterday and I took the other love of my life, my wife Barbara. Mikie was supposed to go with me.
We watched the game, and the final play of the game where a Boston College player reached up into the air, amidst a sea of other players and snagged the ball, with one hand, and tucked it in as the play clock hit "zero". One arm out of about twenty in that pile of players. The first win for Boston College, Mikies own home town, over Florida State University, bragging rights for the "guys from New England" for the next year!
If I were a supersticious dude, I'd really wonder if Mikie did not have a "hand" in it,....telling us he's ok, he's gone beyond, he misses us as we him, but the world goes on, even without him.
Thanks Mikie, we appreciate the win, we appreciate the "final word" from the other side".
God bless you , and love you, ... for he sure knows we did!
-30-

Friday, October 20, 2006

And life goes on,....

Ok I've accepted Mikie is gone, now let's clean it up! (The following can be somewhat graphic, but frankly at my age, it's mere reality, and I HAVE to accept it!)
As I told you yesterday, I think, the forensic investigator told us the entire bedroom in which Mikie was found needed to be "mitigated" by a crime scene clean-up team. He was kind enough top give me a few names and numbers.
REALITY FACT #1 - It ain't like the movies folks! Regardless of what you see on TV, when you die your muscles ALL relax. "Bodily fluids" abound! Enough said.
The fact that Mikie had been dead for two days compounded the problem. The "mitigation" people came out this morning (we were warned to simply close off the room he was in when he died, turn the Air Conditioning down to 60 degrees, and wait for the mitigation people.) At $170 dollars an hour, and four hours later, the "scene" was declared "inhabitable". Both Vince , his "roomy" and I have no desire to even enter the room until at least Sunday. The "mitigation specialist" threw out half his computer system, (keyboard, printer, connecting cables, etc.) the table and chairs it sat on, and ripped out the carpet in the room and threw it as well.
REALITY FACT # 2 - Legality is pure SHIT! I called the ME (Medicaol Examiner's) Office and asked if they could tell me anything, like what would happen top Mikie's body, was the autopsy complete, what was the cause of death, all the usual. The answers, "Yes the autopsy is complete (my stomach is queasy), but NO we can not tell you what the cause of death was unless you are next of kin. "Shit lady, he was my buddy for eight years we had beers at least three times a week, we worked together on jobs and helped each other, I hired him and gave him work for three years, if that's not "kin" what is?"
"I'm sorry sir, only a blood relative is "kin" as you say it."
REALITY FACT #3 - Friends are friends,....forever, and then some! Vince, his "roomy" fouind an uncashed check for work he had done for a friend, I found a check he hadn't picked up yet at my company, and we "conspired". The big check Vince found was from a buddy who Mikie worked for. We called him and we burned that check at the Pub this afternoon. He in turn wrote a check for the "Bio-hazard Mitigation", in full, and threww a few hundred more into "the fund".
I'll probably forge Mikie's name and cash the check from my form and it too will go into "the fund".
The "inner circle", Mikie's real friends met agian this afternoon, and we've committed to do what ever we have to to gain legal control of Mikie's remains, we've rounded up more than $1,300 to have him cremated, and we will organize, orchestrate, and have a full service for Mikie.
The plans are now to set a date, tell all his friends far and wide to come, go down to the Gulf of Mexico on the white sands Mikie loved and hung out on, say absolutely nothing, but think of the Mikie we each knew and loved so much, and then set his ashes free in the breeze to swim in the emerald waters, lounge on the sands and watch the "eye candy" (gorgeous young women in bikini's), or just become "one with the air that supports us" , it's Mikie's call.
I'm going to the Florida State/Boston College football game tomorrow, and I'm taking my wife instead of Mikie. Why? Because I can't think of anyone I love more than Mikie, than Barbara. To go anywhere with someone you love is always more better than anything else.
She misses Mikie as well. We used to invite him over for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and any other time we could. He loved her cooking, flattered her to a fare thee well everytime he was here, and never left empty-handed. I will set aplace for him this season, what else are friends for?
-30-

Thursday, October 19, 2006

I don't want to write this,...but I have too!

If you can't stand reality, click out now. You have been warned!!

This morning Thursday October 19th, was like every other morning for me, I got up, showered, shaved. got dressed and headed out to one of my accounts where we were beginning a $500,000 renovation project. I drove the thirty two miles to the site thinking about my other accounts and other business. My mind drifted a bit, and I thought about the Florida State University football game against my favorite team Boston College this coming Saturday, and the fun I was going to have. I had invited my friend and "buddy" Mikie Riordan to go with me. We'd have to leave at 8 a.m. to get there by game time and be in the stands. I'd scored two tickets at mid-field halfway up, the best seats in the stadium of 100,000 from a business contact. FSU is really bad this year and B.C. is good. I was relishing the two guys from "Bean town" swaggering out at the end of the game knowing how good Boston College was, and being glad our team won. Mikie and I are both from Boston, and when I scored the tickets I couldn't think of anyone who I'd enjoy going to the game more with, and who would enjoy "bragging rights"...and then my cell phone rang.
"Tom here, who's this?"
"Tom, it's Vince (My friend Mikie's room-mate). Mikie's dead."
" Hey Vince, you're shitting me, right?"
" No,...I hadn't heard from in two days and it bothered me, so I knocked on his door and he did'nt answer, so I went in and he was slumped over his computer. I shook him but he didn't respond and he was as cold as a rock,...so I just called the Sheriff. Can you come over?"
"I'm about a half an hour away Vince, but I'm on my way."
About thirty minutes later I go there, and was painfully aware o fht etwo ploice cruisers and the obviously unmarked police car pulled up in front of Mikie's apartment.
"Oh Shit, this can't be happening!" I remember thinking, as Mikie and I were sharing beers at our local Pub, Buster's on Sunday afternoon.
I had tried to call him Monday and thought he might be doing some work for a mutual friend about forty miles away in an area where cell phone contact was "scetchy". I had given his cell phone number to another tradesman to call on Tuesday to see about some work Mikie had been willing to show him about. I tried to call him yesterday to see if they had "hooked up", but again no answer.
For those of you who have followed my blog I've introduced you to Mikie. The last of the original "hippies" from the 60's. My "bud", or mate, a guy who would go anywhere and do anything for you even if you never asked.
As I got out of my car Mikie's old room mate Janey ran over to me, sobbing her eyes out and threw her arms around me, sobbing. I knew at that moment, Mikie was not "of this earth" anymore.
Everything moved to second place at that instant,...Mikie became number one!

The Sheriff's department investigator came out and saw me holding and comforting Janey and asked if I knew "the deceased". I answered "Yeah, he's my buddy,...is it true?"
He nodded his head, and said, "I'm sorry."

I won't fill the next umty-ump pages with memories and such, ...but suffice it to say it was a BITCH of a day from there on out.
Everyone looked to me as "the strong one", and I guess I am. I talked to the Sheriff's investigators, the Medical examiner, the Sheriff's deputy assigned, I consoled the girl's who lived next door and knew Mikie, I hugged his "roomy", I gathered info, and I "hung in there".
Mikie loved hanging out at our local Pub, Buster's, as did I. My cell phone started ringing as word got around, "What can we do?, What happened? Is it true?" All for "my buddy",...I'm in schock!
A voice "popped" into my mind, and I begin telling everyone, "Look, It's still unfolding, and I'm doing what I can, but I'll be at Buster's this afternoon at four p.m. and I'll share whatever we know with any of you, thanks for calling.
The day wore on, Mikie was slumped over his computer, his bottle of nitroglygerin two inches from his hand and untouched, no sign of struggle, extreme pain, etc. According to the investigator, "he went quick and painless". For that I'm thankful.
I stayed until the Medical Examiner came and pronounced him dead, and then the van came and they took his body away in a plastic bag to the coroner's office.
The 'investigator" told me he appeared to have passed away at least two days ago. And under Florida law an unattended death would require an autopsy.
Time blurs!!! Sure I've seen CSI, Grey's Anatomy, House, etc., but this was Mikie, my buddy, my friend, my alter-ego in life! DEAD!

At four o'clock I went to the pub, ordered a Guinness, and sat, thinking of Mikie. By 4:10 there were over forty people there. All friends of Mikie!! We talked, we drank, we hugged, we shared stories of Mikie. We laughed, we teared up, and we remembered.

Mikie we miss you, and we all loved you, and we will take care of you.
I'm trying to find your sister from the internet as I write. We love you, and we miss you, but I will vow that you will be remembered by all of us, and we will see that you end up at "The Whale's Tail" to watch all the eye candy on the beach.

Miss you already!

-30-

Monday, October 16, 2006

Feets don't fail me now!!

It's Monday evening, on the one hand my last night of "freedom" (Miss Barbara, truly my better half, is coming home tomorrow after almost two weeks away on business!). I went to the Pub, had three pints, ran into an old friend from Nashville who wrote "Tequila makes your clothes fall off!", had a good time, called our friend Doug in North Carolina and told him this guy came all the way here to see him, and he had the "cajones" to move to North Carolina and this guy was strangling me!! (All in good fun!)
Anyhow, came home finished the Chinese from Saturday night, killed the last glass of Shiraz in the bottle ("Would you care for another bottle sir?" Twenty seconds of thoughtful meditation, and "Does a bear shit in the woods?")
Checked my favorite blogs, all my "blogger buddies"are in good shape, wrote a couple of quick replies, and now it's my turn to comment.
Questions for the "blog world":
Is there really a God?
For being faithful to my true love for forty years, will I be happy when I have to "check out"?
How can I ever explain the magnitude of true love to anyone?

Ok, so I miss my wife. But when I called her this morning on the cell, she answered "Hi Honey, I love you to pieces!" instead of "Hello?"
Men are as strange as women, we just get all "macho" about it. Now twenty years ago I never would have even admitted I missed her. I would have been one of the guys in the pub saying, "Did you check out the rack on the one that just came in?", or "Oh baby, come to Daddy."
So what's different now, albeit thirty years later?

First of all if a "10" approached me, flashed me, groped me, and other wise "encouraged me" to move to "the next level",....I'd probably be on a respirator with umpty-ump cc's of epheneferine being pumped into me! Would a fantastic F*** with a 10+ be a "once in a life time" experiance, not to mention a HUGE thrill? Of course it would,...but the rest of my life I would have to live with it! Trading a 10+ night of great sex, every way I could imagine and some I could never even dream of, for God only knows how many nights of knowing I , no not you, but "I" betrayed my vows to you! Even I can't rationalize that!!
Ok, so I'm an old fart, but by God the woman I love is the woman I love,....forever!
I personally like the simplicity of one man, one woman...til death do you part.
Now that's just me. Could I fantasize about me and Cindy Crawford (sorry kid's,... look her up in google, she was definately a "hottie" in my time.), or me and Racquel Welch? Sure I can, but it's not the fantasy, it's the reality that makes the difference. Would I trade my love and faithfulness for it,...NEVER. And I would be sure that my "wife" would not trade "Fabio" or some such "tight butt, great pec's. rock ab's "dude" for fifteen minutes of the big "O" for cuddling up with me at three a.m., monday thru sunday, and the depth of knowing what love is all about.
As you can tell from this, there will be NO blog tomorrow evening, as I will be "otherwise occupied" until at least Thursday!
Sorry if this is "soupy" , but I'm really comfortable being "me" and loving "her"(24/7). My wish for the world would be that every single one of you could find and know the love I have for "my friend", ...my wife.
-30-

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Ready for the weekend!

Fall is coming to Florida. I was actually a little chilly this morning for a meeting I had to attend for my job. Infact the first thing I did when I went into the room was go straight to the thermostat and turn the temerature up to 72 degrees(F.)
I'm home now,(Duh!! Where else would you be if you're blogging stupid!) It's about 1 iin the afternoon and I'm fighting the temptation to go to the Pub and watch a football game (it's not a question of if I go, but when!) I've got another short meeting around three or four o'clock and I'd rather do that meeting and then go to the pub. Tomorrow is "Crash Program Day" you know, whip the house into line for the wife's homecoming tuesday, sand blast the dishes in the sink, time the washer, dryer, and vacuuming so everything gets completed at once. Drag a wastebasket into the living room and sort out the mail, oh yeah, water the plants so they will stand up again and stop floppy all over the floor around the pot. (I never notice them until it's almost too late)
I started thinking about food just now, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do for supper, in fact I don't really have much of an appetitte right now anyway, so why was I thinking about food in the first place? Maybe I'll take a ride to the mall and poke around a bit and see what's new.
OH, ok , I just remembered what I was going to write about (another example of the dreaded new disease affecting our senior population,...CRS syndrome. It is a real hard thing getting old and having your spouse see the early signs of CRS forming, and even trying to discuss it with you,...but CRS can be very dibilitating, to the point of not even wanting to talk about it.
Jezzy, don't bother with the books, and forget the medical journals, and no you didn't miss that in school. Got your attention now? My wife discovered this ailment and actually named it. The layman's translation is Can't Remember Shit,.....gotcha!
Back to a lucid moment.
On my desk when she left for Boston, my wife laid a couple of pictures off the internet of ring settings with a little "baggie" withher engagement ring in it and a note on it saying "T. Don't lose the ring! B." Being smarter than the average bear it only took a couple of days for me to figure out she wanted her ring reset into something like in the pictures. (And she's like trusting ME to pick out the setting and all! ...now that is real trust!)
So off I go one morning this week when work reached the "escape valve needed" level, to the local jewelers. I explain my plight and he proceeds to dig out about a zillion catalogues of ring settings! It was at that point I did the honorable, manly thing.
"Look Mr. Jeweler, don't waste your time, or mine with these, because my taste has been surgically re-attached to my foot. You got the pictures, just get me close!"
" Well sir there are so many variations, and the size and clarity of the stone, and the need to potentially balace the setting with bagettes. (Ah, I know this one, roughly translated it means "I'm going to bagette you for another couple of hundred bucks by implying the microscopic size of the diamond you are resetting needs to be enhanced so you don't look like a cheap wanker").
Fortunately my Blackberry alerted me to an incoming e-mail, so I turned to him and said, "Look get a couple of setting things close to these pictures, I have to deal with this incoming"
I politely walked to the other end of his shop, stared intently at my Blackberry like this was a real serious thing (actually an offer for a shitty little piece of software for $19.99, as a "valued customer") after a few minutes I noticed he finally started to mark a couple of pages in one of the catalogues, so I went back over and said, "What do have?"
"Well I came across three that might do the trick so far."
"Listen that e-mail I recieved I'm really pressed for time so three is as good as it's going to get,...show me please."
"Well sir the first one is a little 'bolder' and I really...."
"That's good let's do it, here's my credit card, when can I pick it up?"
"But the other two sir,.."
"No need, I believe you go with your first instinct, and besides if you are any good in sales you are giving me your best shot, then going to show me a bunch more and be sure to comment negatively on everyone of them to circle us back around to this one, so let's just do it and be done, OK?"
"Are you sure sir, I mean perhaps your wife could come in and look at the settings to see if she..."
"No way, I'm sure you'd start her out at least $500 higher and load up on the bagettes. Nope, I'll take that one."

Two minutes later I'm back in the car tooling up the road with his promise to call me when it is ready, but being sure to let me know he had to order the setting, and then perhaps re-size it to fit her, and maybe have to make a few other adjustments, etc.etc.etc.
Guess what, the next day, less than 24 hours even, RING, RING.
"Your ring is ready sir"
(So where is all the ordering nonsense, and the "adjustments"?)
Made him wait another day and then dropped in to pick it up. Of course the entire staff , all three of them, had been briefed to be sure and oooh, and aaah as the jeweler showed me his handiwork, and then the obligatory comments of "Oh that is so pretty sir" and the "my wife would just love that, it's so exquisite"
Do I sound a little cynical? Naw, but guess what? My Christmas shopping is done, it's the regular usual stuff from here on out. I don't have to agonize over that "special" Christmas presentfor her.
Off to the races.
-30-

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Whoa!!! I'm doing this technical shit again!!

trying to "crossover" to the new beta blogspot so I can play with pix's, (at the same time uploading the new Microsoft Office '07 (beta) on my laptop, petting my cat (who feels particularly in need of love today), making up my list of "stuff" from the Office Supply store a little later, getting ready to shut everything down and watch my New England Patriots game at the Pub, and otherwise "relaxxing"!
Maybe I'll write again this evening.
Mr. G.

What a hurricane does!




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Friday, October 06, 2006

This has to be immoral, illegal, or fattening!!!

Friday night, the missus is about 1500 miles away in Boston (yeah, the tea party town!) on business for two weeks. My diet for the past two days has been 1 absolutely drop dead, to kill for, chocolate donut with chocolate frosting, a "fried egg sandwich" (it's a Southern U.S. thing, a fried egg (hard yolk), a slice or two of spicy breakfast sausage. a slab of cheese (above and below), two slices of regular, un-healthy white bread (grilled like a grilled cheese), you take it, tear it apart, put VERY generous slathers of Mayonaisse on it, and ....VOILA!, a breakfast meal to jump start you entire body! Listen to those artieries closing, the sound of the cholesterol cranking up there with every bite, and GOD, when you liberally apply salt to both sides of the bread before consuming,.....this is what an oral orgasm is all about!!
(Sorry, I got carried away. :( )
This afternoon I had a meeting with a client until noon, she suggested lunch at a fantastic sort of Parisean Cafe place called the "Smiling Fish". Grilled Yellowfin Tuna, an herbal mayo, with the "don't eat them or you'll die!" french fries, and then another meeting, and then my "crew" and a couple pints of Guinness at Buster's. (Ain't life grand!!)
Now I'm home, re-heated a culinary "piece d'resistance"from the other nights left-overs ,... fried spam, white American cheese, plain old white bread, God life is good!!
(Sorry again, if you are not hanging over the "porcelien god" wretching from my all to "shitty" descriptions, then you are a "soul-brother" of flat out "comfort food".
OK, so a bit over the top, but now I'm here at my keyboard,(you can tell from the mispellings) with my second "goblet" of a delicate Shiraz from "down under" called Jacob's Creek Reserve, sharing my inner soul with you!
Sure I'm going on 62, sure I've got a "Guinness prothesis" that announces my arrival and lost me the role of Fabio's "body double", but all that's in my "drug drawer" is Vitamin C, Vitamin B complex, a 200mg Milkthistle tablet(take good care of your liver, you only have 1), and a "baby aspirin" (81 mg.). Like I'm preaching to everyone, "Guinness is the second coming of penacillin"!
Ok, serious aside. Ready?
Mr. Guinness's philosophy on health and longevity:
God is definately no "Idiot", look around you, he did it all in a few days!
God is no "bad guy", what point would be in that ?
God KNEW we, the humanoids, would work extra hard to fuck up what he put out there for all of us.
God put a solution out there for everything, we just have to find it.
And on the afternoon of the seventh day God said, "Who's got the Guinness?"
(No disrespect intended, but dump the freakin' "perscription" solutions, forget the "over the counter" cures, put a stop payment on the last check fro you're personal "psychic", and go have a few pints of God's nectar, Vitamin "G", the "ultimate solution" for health,....have a pint of Guinness. (Don't believe me? A good friend saw an interview with Brooke Sheilds, and she was extolling the merits of Guinness for thier newborn child!)

Am I too far over the top?
Screw it!!!

Hope you enjoy a "happy rant".

Mr. G. (Alec to my friends, thank you Lucy!)

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

"Hump day" (or Wednesday for the wealty!)

Where that term came from I don't know. But I suspect it originated from a war situation, in that you are "over the hump" and on the downside of a situation. (Yeah, I'll buy that!)
Anyway this will be short, it's 7:30PM my time and my wife has a 6:30 flight tomorrow morning from and airport 65 miles away! Shit , one of those 4 a.m. mornings to drive to the airport and by the time I get back it's already time to be at work! (Shit!!)
Anyway, I'll miss her a whole bunch!! (Forty years of marriage and I'm still a whimpering wuss when she has to go away on business!) One of my mates has a different theory which involves being the "party guy" for a couple weeks! Shit, I'd be worn out, dead, and in a definate state of rigor mortis if I followed his advice!
Frankly, not much will change, I'll still pop into Buster's, have my three or four "pints", head home, "nuke" something to eat, watch the tube for a couple hours,(or blog "under the influence" after a few "goblets" of merlot or cabernet) head into the bed room and cuddle up with my cat "Mr. Hiss" and drift off til morn'.
OK so I am a wuss, ok so I miss the shit out of her! I guess i'm one of those dudes who are born to be with my "soul-mate" (and frankly hope I die first because as "The Highlander" said, "There can be only one!". I guess that makes me a romantic, or a part of a very small majority.
I take my marriage seriously! I swore an oath! If the woman I loved in 1966 was good enough to love then, then what the hell has changed today?
I know the net, and "blogs" are primarily for the "younger set", tell me where I screwed up. I met my wife because a buddy threw a firewcracker at her. We were in drum & bugle corps and the man running our Corps found out about it and insisted my buddy drive the fifty mile to her house and apologize personally, as a matter of personal honor!
If he had not done that I never would have met her!!
(Sorry guys if this is to "whimpy" for you!)
I do not have a single regret for 40 years of marriage (this coming June 10th). But I must say from being "super wealthy" to "bankrupt", from eating "filet mignon and escargot" to "franks and beans" she's been at my side.
It's definately not a "physical" thing, as we are both over the "sex" as the meaning of our "love" for each other. (That's definately not saying we are "dead in the bed" as my favorite folk signer Christie Moore says!) But what it does say is that true love transends the physical. As she left for the two weeks she gave me her engagement ring as told me she would love to have it set into a nicer setting beofre Christmas. Is that an "outrageous request" after nearly 40 years?
I'll call her every day, or she'll call me, but 24 hours will never pass without "talking" to each other, unless one of us has gone for a "dirt nap" (dead, for my Aussie friends).
My local buds all wonder "How can you love someone so much, all the time, everyday?"
It's easy, "I DO", and I'm damn proud of it!
One of my Aussie friends "Jezzie" her husband has, or had cancer. Ask her how deep her love goes, ask her what's really important in her life, ask her what really matters.
Life is not about US, it's about those we love,...at all levels , and at all times,...until we no longer are there to "be there" for them!
(Sorry for reality and truth, blogs are great for being what's really inside you and who you are, and I thank all of you who share your self with all of us, and hope I am up to sharing the same for you.)
-30-

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Silly, silly,silly,...and hanging out with friends!

Friday evening is our "usual time" to all gather at the pub and get silly together. This past Friday was no different. (Side note: my cat,Mr. Hiss, loves sitting on my desk calendar and watching my fingers typing. Man if I could get that fascinated by something so simple!)
Anyway I'll start at the end of the evening after several pints of Guinness. I had to write this joke down it had gotten so convoluted. Here's the joke:
"Did you hear about the Agnostic,dysflexic,insomniac? He stayed up all noght wondering if there really was a dog!"
It can be used as a sobriety test as well for if you can remember it and say it without a slur or a missed sylable you can have another. And if you tell it and everyone around you looks at you with a blank look or a quizzical one then they are shut off, (and conversely you may assume that perhaps you are not keeping up with your share of "adult beverages" for the evening.)
That was the final result of a number of group attempts to come up with an original joke. So on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being WOW! How would you rate it?
It all starts with Mikie, every Friday evening. Now this particular night he's talking to one of our freinds Debbie, and being (or trying to be) very serious, Unfortunately if he were to ever have his arms amputated he would become a mute! He's one of those folks who MUST have all the appendages below his shoulder in animation in order to express himself, including all ten fingers! Anyway there was a lull in the overall conversations,except Mikie to Debbie, and we all sort of glanced over at him as he was oblivious to the rest of us at that moment.
Now Mikie is pushing 65, thin, single, and just the salt of the earth as a buddy. But this night he was wearing one of those Hawaiian Flower shirts,bright one at that, had his hair all pushed back (sort of that wind tunnel look) and both hands were going and his facial expression was so serious. Well, I couldn't help it, something struck me so I leaned over to "Loda" (real name Janice, but Loda was her NTN Trivia handle before the Pub went cheap and pulled out the game) and said, "Look at Mikie, doesn't he remind you of a retired Mafia hit man putting out the order for a hit?" That cracked her up and she passed it on and a few minutes later everyone was in fits, ...except Mikie, who finally looks around at everyone looking in his direction in fits of laughter. "What,...did I say something funny? What are you (expeltive deleted) 's laughing at?"
Someone told him he had to be there and that started everyone laughing even harder. From there we went downhill to the Agnostic, Dysflexic, Insomniac...you know?
Well thought I'd share that, but now I have to pop out for a second or two and find out what time my New England Patriots game is on today . Be Right back!
Nope, on second though I have a heavy week so I better get my planner up to date or I'll be coming when I should be going and saying, "Whoops! Wrong meeting!"
-30-
Thanks Lucy, as usual I love your humor, forget your friends and I'll come back to haunt you for them. :)