Crenellated Flotsam

Although someone very clever (Mark Twain?) noted that, while everyone talks about the weather, no one does anything about it, I’m going against the grain here and doing much more than that. Me? I’m panicking.

Here in So Cal we’re at the beginning of a week of rain and storms and true to the quote, it’s pretty much what everyone here is talking about. Neighbors are covering things in their yards with tarps (the blue ones that grow on trees on that Lost island), everyone’s pretty much put their trash out a day early (to avoid getting unnecessarily wet), and there was a flurry of dog walking earlier this morning.

Right now, the drizzle has begun and I can imagine the ants don’t yet know that their homes will be flooded.

I like the rain, at least when I’m inside and don’t have to drive anywhere. I wouldn’t even mind that so much if it weren’t for my convertible top not fastening when it’s closed, which means I have to drive around with the top down and look like an idiot.

Or, to be generous, a devil-may-care sort of guy, enhanced by new goatee.

One nice thing about the rain is how well it soaks the ground, costing me nothing. The wet ground that will result is much easier for me to do the drastic weed pulling that I favor, ripping everything up by the roots, but it also encourages growth and that gives me more to do. Still, it will be easy enough next week, say, when the rain’s stopped, to go out and pick the largest growths, yank them from the ground, and safely sequester their carbon away from those who would wish to add it to the atmosphere.

In the meantime, I have (I hope!) everything I need to survive. Well, everything except the makings for chili.

According to a local news channel, nine is the second luckiest number in Asian cultures, something I don’t think we have in the West. As far as I know, we have seven as a lucky number, and that’s it.

Anyway, today’s one of those “special” days (9-9-9) that rarely show up and it seems to me we’ve had quite a few of them lately. Between that and ones involving time, it feels like we get at least one of them a year, but I think a lot of that is lucky chance involving the end of the millenium.

Some people, I guess, make a fuss out of these things. 9-9-99, 8-8-88, and the like were all mentioned, briefly, then passed. I would give these special days a lot more credit if they were memorable, but sad to say I honestly don’t remember anything about any of them now that they’re gone.

Which is to say, I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what I did or what heppened on any of them. I think I was aware of them all and maybe even honored them with a tiny celebration, but nothing of any lasting value.

It’s my fault, I guess, since I should have had some wonderful, noteworthy celebration for them all. The days, themselves, aren’t memorable: it’s what we do with them.

I suspect I’m like many people when it comes to following the 80-20 law, at least as I understand it and keeping in mind that many refers to twenty or so. This law prevents me, of course, from accomplishing very much because it’s much easier for me to live in the future than it is to see most things all the way through to completion.

Take now, for instance.

On my projects list, which never gets all the attention it needs, by the way, I have some shelving ready to go up, some fence repair stuff, and various and assorted cleaning and organizing projects. Instead of working on any of those when I catch a minute or hour of time, I’m planning, wondering about, and researching mortar to build an elevated brick planting area. It wasn’t my idea, but my sister took my plan, expanded and changed it, and this is what she came up with.

I’d love to have such a thing. Earlier attempts at growing rosemary and the like pretty much ended in disaster when the dogs discovered the fragrant herbs growing in the yard. The smell, naturally, draws them in and they proceed to do what dogs do on things they find noteworthy, rendering the herbs pretty much useless for human consumption. Those that weren’t chewed up, dug out, or otherwise thrashed beyond recognition smell like nothing more than dog piss.

So, an elevated bed might help. Since I’m thinking of only a foot or so high, it’s not like they couldn’t get to the plants, but maybe they’d give them a pass because there’s easier places to go, ones that don’t involve jumping.

While I have brackets, two screw guns, assorted levels and hardware components ready to put up the shelves, that project no longer interests me. That isn’t to say it’s no longer a necessity, just that I’ve grown bored with it now that it’s reached the hairier final step: completion.

The replacement boards for the fence are all freshly painted and ready to go, but plugging in a saw or two and trimming the various pieces to fit must be a herculean task because I’m putting it off. Part of that may be, of course, because cutting the pieces might be inexact or even ruin the perfect plans that I hold in my head. I’m frequently hesitant to pull the trigger and see what the reality is.

So, while things pile up that are almost done, I avoid doing them and concentrate, instead, on what’s next.

It’s been over six weeks now since my last cigarette, and I only have myself to blame.

About nine hours into this process my breathing improved. And, while the passageways to my lungs got better, I still don’t have any more lung capacity than one of those premature octuplets, so it’s not like I can be any more active than when I smoked like a wildfire and looked way cool every waking moment.

I’ve been using these patches and am now down to the final step of the three step process. The patches, which began nearly the size of baseballs, are now about as big as a nickle, though they cost about the same. These last step patches, which deliver a whopping seven mg of nicotine a day, are the equivalent of smoking four or five cigarettes a day, a number I used to easily knock off before waking up in the morning.

Whenever I go to the next step in this process, I’ve learned to expect a couple things. One, of course, are nasty headaches, but continual annoyance with the world around me is nearly as certain. I can also expect to spend a few days thinking a great deal about smoking, and I guess it’s good news that the last time I’ll need to go through this is the end of next week. That last step, being patch and cigarette free, should theoretically last a lifetime.

Because of these nicotine patches, most of the info I find on the Internet is wrong. All of the health benefits of living without nicotine are, of course, lost on me because even though I’m not smoking, I’m still getting more nicotine than anyone in the world who isn’t a smoker. Then again, no one who isn’t a smoker ever gets any nicotine anyway, so that’s not saying much.

All of that blood pressure or heart or circulation stuff to the extremities is still at least a month away, so I’ll need to be patient. One disappointment I have is not hacking up large chunks of lung. In fact, I haven’t really coughed at all, and I’ve spent years looking forward to bringing up black chunks like my friends talked about when they quit. It may be that my time is coming, or they may have been lying about it, but if it comes I’ll be both ready and happy.

Still, it may be to my benefit not to be doing that yet. While those around me are catching the flu or coming down with colds, bronchitis, or allergic reactions to land, sea, and air, the thick, protective covering of tar I’ve built on my lungs is performing as advertised and keeping all the bad things from infecting me.

Still, I gotta admit I’m still uncertain about never having another cigarette, and I can see it going either way. I know the only way to quit is to consider oneself a non-smoker, but I’m still fascinated by the prospect of not smoking. I know I can avoid smoking, but I’m still not sure that I never want to.

It’s been over two weeks now since I last smoked a cigarette, and that’s not very long at all. Normal people, of course, can go a couple weeks without smoking or drinking and not even notice it. Their lives are filled with exasperations, delights, and pleasures, just like mine, but lack the drama I slather on every human condition.

Even after this admittedly short time without cigarettes, I’m noticing some differences.

Not smoking pros:

Breathing is easier and quieter than it used to be. I don’t need to breathe through my mouth, and I can make my way up 100 stairs without having to stop and catch my breath. I’ve also saved a little bit of money, but that isn’t the same as getting any more.

Not smoking cons:

It’s actually possible to spend well over three-fourths of every day thinking about cigarettes and smoking. That’s not to say that I’m frequently wishing I had a cigarette, only that I think about them quite a bit. I have a new respect for those who can go months and even years without smoking.
Boy, am I getting fat. I haven’t owned a scale in decades, but I think I’m gaining weight, mostly an unexpected result of continually eating. I rarely want a cigarette when I’m eating, so I’m doing nothing but that now to make it easier on me.
I have the attention span of an annoyed gnat. I cannot sit, watch TV, write, read, or damn near anything for longer than ten or fifteen minutes without having to find a new amusement. I cannot imagine how anyone who doesn’t smoke ever accomplishes anything. I’m also just on the verge of losing it in a fit of rage at every waking moment, but I think that’s due to nicotine withdrawal. I can only imagine how much worse I’d feel if I wasn’t wearing a patch that constantly dumped nicotine into my bloodstream.

I’ve hardly smoked at all this whole month, but I keep interrupting my stream of days. I know I’ll never make it to one month without smoking if I can’t make it through, say, day fifteen, but I’m driving myself nuts. The good thing is, it’s only me that’s being driven mad, but it won’t be much longer before I snap at my innocent dog and make him wonder why he didn’t bite me years ago.

Taking deep, satisfying breaths isn’t very satisfying, but the novelty of it may keep smoke free for a little longer. It’s also supposedly a way to calm down, but I think I need to learn how normal people react and deal with life. A life without cigarettes, drinks, or drugs is normal, and it’s about time I learned that.

After a couple hours of looking around the Internet and sending greetings to Croatia, I settled in front of the TV to watch the Tournament of Roses Parade. The first thing I saw was the Wells Fargo logo, and things have gone downhill ever since.

Maybe I’m getting old, but I’d be content to die this year. The way things are going isn’t to my liking and I’m convinced it’s unstoppable. Even the Rose Bowl game, which held out against commercialization, is now “presented by Citi,” which is the same thing as renaming it.

Anyway, back to the parade. I’ll see if I can update this as things appear…

Hydrogen car — I wonder how the total energy to build, fuel, and run this car over its life compares to others.

Marine marching band — Leaving aside the military aspect, I’m impressed. The other bands in the parade always look sloppy compared to these guys, who know how to march in step!

Weather — The hosts on TV always mention our weather, and I always picture people in Michigan packing up and moving here.

“See the floats after the parade!” — I couldn’t help noticing that there’s a $7 charge to see the floats when they’re parked. Making money is the defining characteristic of life.

Honda Asimo — Hooray for corporations!! (commercial sponsors are everywhere) Crowds cheer!

“Hats off to entertainment!” — The theme for this year’s parade is as controversial as ever. I predict a massive backlash from the anti-entertainment crowd, always huge fans of parades.

There’s a veterinarian riding along with the skateboard-riding dogs, just to ease PETA’s expected outrage and calm everyone’s concerns.

National Assn of Realtors float — “Celebrating home ownership.” In today’s economic climate, using the broadest possible definition, I suppose you could say owning a home is entertaining.

Kaiser-Permanente Float — Proving that repairing members of your species is economically rewarding!

…I should probably check to see what percent of the floats win some sort of award…

…I wonder about Lou Dobbs’ reaction to the Mexican marching band…

…I hope it wasn’t too hard for the Broken Horn Ropers to find a black guy to twirl a rope and dress up like a cowboy…

Big cheers for firemen and police. No comment.

Thanks to this year’s parade, I’ve been able to see the world’s tallest horse. After it walked by, it sounds like the American’s Horses Network drops the parade coverage.

…and the parade’s over. Seeing the dancing girls sleeveless is much more rewarding than last year, when it was rainy. Still, I prefer flowers over big balloons (sorry, Macys).

It’s looking a lot like … those who love me may have to dig deep into built-up reserves of affection this season. I’m not sure me or my car is up to fighting the holiday crowds and, if the rest of this week is as filled with rain as the stores are now with holiday shoppers, I may not be going anywhere.

Hmmm.

Now, first off, it may strike you as odd that someone who’s decided to live in a county of some ten million people would have any reason to gripe about crowds, but there you have it. Sure, plenty of them are attractive women, which makes going among them a treat, but many are not, and even the best view gets tiring after waiting in line behind them for a cashier for fifteen minutes. It’s not the shopping I mind so much, or even the cost, it’s that I’m not happy with anything I’m buying.

To make matters even more challenging, all of my sister’s family (excepting husbands, boy friends, in-laws, and baby daddies) is in town this year. That’s all three nieces and their children I have to get things for, and I’m not sure I’m up to the task. Sure, it’s only six people over the usual, but those three grand-nephews better not have their hopes for anything they want.

I don’t, really, know them at all. I’m fuzzy on their ages but know their names, I have no idea what size anything they wear, no clue about their likes and dislikes, their hobbies and hatreds, and am very much out of touch with the younger generation. The good news for me is, I’m not sure there’s much expectation on their part. I mean, really, there can’t be all that much for precedent in gifts from great-uncles. I know for a fact no great-uncle ever got me anything, and I couldn’t even tell you any of their names.

What I do know is that they’re all boys, ranging between high school and elementary school and tall and lanky to short and stout, respectively. I also know that no boy has ever hoped for clothes or, in spite of the their thanks, very satisfied with any sweater. I have no idea what they already have or need and, as teenagers, about the only thing I know for sure is they’d like porn.

My only hope is that they have such low expectations for a great-uncle present that anything will do. I just hope I can guess who likes German scat.

Tuesday, before I slit my fingertip open in a careless, regrettable accident, I bought a hard drive for one of my computers. I haven’t installed it yet and can’t remember why I thought I needed it, but it was a good price.

Maybe I can use it to resurrect my old e-mail.

When I got back from the store I saw that they had a special on notebook computers, and ever since seeing that I’ve been looking them up online. I have a laptop now, but it’s old and can’t run these latest whiz-bang operating systems. It can connect (slowly and laboriously) to the Internet and my other computers through a wire, but it’s gotten to that age where the battery can’t keep a charge and needs to constantly be plugged in.

Those are all excuses, mind you, because it does what I insist a laptop do, which is record my typings so I can transfer them to a “real” computer.

Then again, with this injured finger, typing anything right now is a painful reminder of my idiocy.

Anyway, back to the laptop. The day I saw that ad, after returning from the store where it was on sale, was also the last day of the special price, which was a great one. Since then I’ve been trying to locate a comparable or better deal, but with no luck. As the days have passed, I’ve once again been reminded of a funny feeling, that of impending purchase.

This getting a new laptop keeps nagging me, and a good reason for that is I’m convinced that I could successfully complete the purchase. I know what to do when it comes to buying laptops, so I expect I could carry the transaction off with ease, but then I keep remembering that I don’t need one. Not right this minute, anyway.

The only way I can describe it is that I have feeling, much like destiny, of having to buy a new laptop. Part of me “knows” it’s going to happen, and that part can see me eagerly opening a new one, reformatting the hard drive, and installing everything to get it working just right. If the past is any gauge, that part will win, too.

The other part of me, the less-used rational part, insists that it would be a huge expense that I can’t afford and have no need to satisfy. Today that part had a slender victory and kept me from going to Fry’s, where I know it would be doomed once I walked in the door.

So, even though I don’t need one and can’t afford it, I have a feeling that I will soon own a new laptop, and I don’t know how to get rid of that feeling except by buying one.

A couple of years ago, when Time magazine named me person of the year, I thought I’d reached my peak. I hadn’t done much that year that I recall, but evidently someone was keeping an eye on me and my doings, someone credible and responsible, and someone with pull at a major news magazine.

While they neglected to give me a free copy, which I considered the least they could do, especially considering how my election could only increase their sales, and I never bought one, I still hold that award proudly in my heart, if not on my bookshelf.

Until lately, I’ve admittedly been in a bit of a slump. My awards, and my esteem, to use a recently popular term, have cratered, but I was somewhat heartened to realize that no less a person than one of the candidates for president of the United States considers me one of the fundamentals of the nation’s economy.

That’s pretty impressive, too, by any measure. I had no idea I was so important, or, once again, even noticed by anyone who spent any time east of the Mississippi. The sad thing is, using me as a fundamental, doesn’t speak well for the economy or for the nation’s prospects.

Still, the recognition was well received by me, and the luster had only begun to fade when last night, on nationwide TV, another candidate, this time one for vice-president, looked straight at me and winked at me! More than once!

She’s mildly attractive, like some clerk at a drug store, but I’m pretty sure she’s making lots of money and, if her wink is to believed, she’s willing to share some of either of those things with me.

Maybe both.

Yesterday, during my drive home, a cop asked me to break the law. This was a first for me since, while I’m no stranger to ignoring legal boundaries when they stand between me and something I want or feel like doing, no one sworn to uphold the law had ever before asked me to break it.

So, I did, and I have to admit it was a little thrilling. Not as exciting as breaking it on my own, but not as boring as following it mindlessly, either. Then again, it was only a traffic law, so it’s not as if I was asked to assassinate some foreign dignitary or head of state or commit mayhem.

What happened is this:

I was minding my own business waiting patiently at a red light and reflecting on how cool I am or something when a siren in the distance grew increasingly louder. I was sitting on a two lane street with a left turn lane that was separated from oncoming traffic by a traffic island, and there were two cars alongside me, one who hoped to turn left and someone in the lane nearer the sidewalk. I, of course, was in the fast lane because that’s how I roll.

There were only the three of us sitting there, waiting for the light to change, when this cop pulls up behind me with his siren blaring and all his lights flashing. While he may have been in hot pursuit of some crime, it can’t be ruled out that he was heading back to the station because his shift was over or maybe he was just hungry. In any case, after appraising the situation as only a highly trained law enforcement person is capable of doing, he must have realized that he was stuck and that his girlfriend waiting at the motel for him was becoming increasingly impatient.

He switched off his siren, which pleased me, got on his loudspeaker, and said, “Pull over to the right.” Well, of course, I couldn’t do that, not without moving, and he was blocking me from behind, so I had no choice but to drive forward, through a red light, disregarding my personal safety and the laws under which we operate, all for the greater good. The woman next to me, in the slow lane, broke the law the same as I did, and the two of us drove through the intersection without incident and actually began easing over toward the curb when the cop took advantage of the opening we created and turned left.

Nothing for me to do but proceed, which I did with not a small smile on my face.

Lest you think I make a practice of this behavior, I wish to let you know that I’m among those who normally, actually, pull over when a siren approaches. I like to do it, mostly because it pisses off the other drivers, who all have to admit that I’m doing the right thing. Still, unless my car is moving, I can’t do that, but this is the first time I’ve had this particular situation.

The good news is it wasn’t a trap. The cop didn’t ask us to move through the red light only to give us a ticket, so I have to give him credit for that. I also don’t know what became of the cop, the woman, or the guy in the left turn lane who stood his ground, but I hope they all had a pleasant evening after the afternoon’s excitement.

I know I did.