Adventures in Dog Ownership

Larry and I had to rush Rocket to the emergency vet this morning. He had grabbed a pair of my rolled up socks and was playing with them, chewing on them and shaking them. Absolutely would not give them up. Usually, he can be bribed, so I went into the kitchen to get a Milk Bone, which worked, but there was only one sock! I looked all around (we have a small living room) and no sock! So, I called the emergency vet who said to bring him in, woke Larry up and off we went. Of course, we are all under a shelter in place, so we had to wait out in the car for a phone call while the vet tech came out and took him in to see the vet. They induced vomiting, but no sock! We conferred with the vet and decided to do an x-ray to see if they can spot anything in his stomach ("Are you SURE that he swallowed the sock?", she asked). While waiting, we decided to run home and search for the sock. Miraculously, Larry found it! Somehow it had gotten behind an end table. I have no idea how it got back there. I probably wouldn't have found it until I pulled out the table to vacuum (we won't talk about how long it will actually be until that happens😀). So, $540 later, all is well that ends well. Time for my nap!

Mid-April response

OK, so I posted a while ago and it wouldn't publish it. Anywho, we - like everyone else - are mostly stuck in the house. I run errands a couple of times a week, but that's it.

When the grocery store panic started, I bought a bag of red potatoes (couldn't get gold ones) and didn't put them in the refrigerator. So naturally, they sprouted, and we had to use them up quickly. Nena made potato soup with some of them (helped by some leftover smoked pork tenderloin we had in the freezer) and it was delicious! She then made Oh-Boy-Mom's potato salad with the rest of them!   Chicken thighs on the grill tonight to go with that.

We are interviewing some students to help out with the weeding and other gardening chores this summer; I think they're going to work out just fine.

Mid-April

It seems as if this blog thing hasn't been too much of a hit lately. Fred says he would just like to see the posts in his e-mail. On the other hand, although he is on that computer almost all day every day, when I ask if he has read his e-mail, he says "in a minute".

I think tonight might be the last freeze of the year. Pretty late this year. Nevertheless, blue bells are blooming, peonies are up and the hosta are starting. Daffodils about gone, but iris are about to bloom.
I have two students helping with the weeding and will have more for the summer. We are distancing. They take pictures of plants they are not sure whether to weed or not and text the picture to me. Weed or not?

Fred says he will till the vegetable garden mid-May. Meanwhile, I anxiously await weather suitable for all these starter veggies to get put onto the porch. I have already  repotted a lot of them. They are lining my kitchen counter and the counter over the wine rack. My parsley has come back outside and that cilantro someone gave me last year decided to try another round (sorry, I can't stand cilantro).

You all get that check signed by the King yet? Some of ours is going to the house that keeps battered women away from their husbands. Seems to be overflowing these days. Some to the woman running against McConnell in Kentucky and maybe the rest to the Natural Resources Defense Council which is fighting all of this deregulation in the courts.

I do think this virus is something that will keep us apart for this year. Hope next year will be better with a proper president in place and travel restrictions lifted. Meanwhile, keep safe.

Easter come and gone

It's been a week since I last posted, nothing much has changed with me, nor I expect with my fellow expats.  I think we had one nice day but it was snowing this morning.

Good Friday I had a meeting with that friend of mine I used to see every other week at the Corner Bakery but a couple weeks ago the only place where you could sit inside was Union Station, and last Friday we were going to walk around in his neighborhood.  We met at an el stop and got on a bus.  I offered him an extra mask, but he said he had his own, but then he wouldn't put it on.  I didn't mind so much when we were outside in the cool breeze waiting for the bus, but when we were on it in that stagnant air he still didn't put it on.  Put it on I said, and he said well he wasn't facing me when he was talking.  We were sitting together in one of those side seats facing parallel, and that wasn't good enough for me.  I'm getting more and more stringent as this thing goes on.  I'm not going to quarantine myself for five weeks and then catch it because somebody is uncomfortable wearing a mask.

I got off the bus and caught a train back downtown and rode the Orange Line, the one that goes out to Midway passing within a mile and a half of the bungalow where I grew up, to the end of the line and back.  It was chilly but it was one of those super clear days, actually days are much clearer under the corona. and the city looked just beautiful in an eerie ascetic way.  I was the only one in my car on the way out, and on the way back there were maybe five, still plenty of room between us all.

I have a niece in El Sobronte and together with her and her hubby and my nephew who lives downtown and my sister who lives on the north shore we had a duo Easter,  Kind of a skype like thing, where you can see everybody's face on your phone.  A lot of people think these things are the berries but I thought it was kind of stoopid, but you know I am kind of a grumpy old man.

Tuesday I went out and got more finch food and now my balcony is alive with the sound of the finches, two couples, Lucy and Desi, and Fred and Ethel,  It's not a bird paradise like Fred and Nena have in their bosky dell, but it is pretty good for a downtown tower.  Here they are and here is Sweetie looking out unfazed at them.  Can you see the tiger?

RIP Beckert and Frey and it seems like there was another Cub that bit the dust lately too, but I can't remember who.  Had a bit of nostalgia reading about the Cubs of the Beckert period.  Getting to the bigs in those days was like working for General Motors, you found a spot like second base on a team like the Cubs and that's where you spent your career, you know, sort of like third base on the Leather Shop.  It was much easier for the fans.  Is it that much of an improvement that now the players are all filthy rich and Republicans.  I'm not one of those old grumps that go on and on about how much money the ballplayers make, but I would make them run as fast as their billion dollar legs could carry them to first base every single time, every single fucking time, they made contact with the ball or else they could spend the rest of the season using their billion dollar arms to toss peanuts in the stands.

Am I right?  Am I right???  You know Goddamn well I am.

Madden just popped into my mind.  It would have been interesting to see how he was doing in Florida was it?

I was reading a column in the Trib today and one of the columnists happened to mention the Universal Baseball Association Inc, (Coover).  Wow that took me back.  Does anybody else remember it?  Discovered it is still in my bookcase though the pages fell out like Autumn leaves, and I think I will take it for a spin this long afternoon to the sound of birdsong.

How was everybody else's holy week?

Lonely baseball in the desert.

I've commented before about how sportswriters are desperate for anything at all to write about, and maybe this is just an outgrowth of that, but there were two articles in the Tribune about an idea that has been percolating, which is to play the beginning of and maybe all of the season in Arizona in the spring training ballfields there.  Too big objections are that it it is too fucking hot, and that the teams would have to be sequestered in local hotels for like five months.  The latter seems the worse because, well guys just want to have fun.  And if they do this how much would the players get paid, which brings up the question are they getting paid now?

Anyway, if they do that, I know it would not be like regular baseball, but I'm pretty sure I would watch it.

Downtown streets are full of panhandlers, but anymore there aren't many pans to handle.  I carry a pocketful of change and hand out like fifty cents to the ones I pass.  I think there is some program to house them in empty hotels because otherwise most of them are going to die.

And I know this is not so big a deal but I have to tell you that I wonder about pigeons.  How are they getting by?  Which reminds me I need to get out and feed my finches.

Hope This is Worth the Lack of Sleep

For years I managed to awaken between 5 and 5:30 in the morning so that I could get myself to work by 7:30 or 8:00. For me, that was about 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night which seemed to be all I needed until the year before I retired. That year, I got a really bad case of the shingles. The stress of working under an incompetent, lying coward was too much for me. After that I absolutely needed 8 or 9 hours of sleep a night.
After retirement, it took awhile to start sleeping later than 5 in the morning. Now I have gone back to my normal. I am more of a night owl and go to bed between 11 and 12 and am up around 8 or 9 in the morning.
So, what has happened and why am I up this morning at the ungodly hour of 5:00 again? Senior hours in the grocery store are between 6 and 8 and we are getting dangerously low on paper towels and disinfectant wipes. I have been told that the stores have reduced hours to clean and restock, so the chances of there being these objects might be greater as they open their doors.
Please! This had better be worth it. I will got to at least two stores so I don't have to do this again for awhile.

The weather was better than 70 here. We hit 81 yesterday. Downright Hot! Should be the same today, but back in the 60's tomorrow. My two young lady gardeners were weeding on Saturday in their woolen caps and winter coats. Yesterday, they were in shorts. Ah, Spring!

Nice pictures Sadie, KJ and Nancy!

Seventy degrees!

I'm sure you all remember this fellow.  Saw him on the bridge coming back from my walk early this afternoon.  His vision is completely (ot slmost completely gone now, and I thought maybe he was unaware that the tour boats are no longer going up and down the river so I paused to tell him that, but it turned out that he had and he was just trolling the bridge for people to hit with puns and he hit me up with three of them justlikethat  before I could even say oh.  And by the way orange you glad that  I posted his photo.

Our first seventy degree day and I couldn't wait to get out in my t-shirt and shorts. and of course my mask.  These things are not going to be so much fun when things get hot and sweaty, but it was okay today, but I was missing something, and then I realized it was fresh air.  I pulled it down when there was nobody near me and pulled it back up when others neared, and I soon realized they were doing the same.  It was kind of like the 50s where people driving the same sports car waved at each other as they passed, or so I heard in Playboy, I mean or so I heard that they said in Playboy.

My sister goes to those early bird hours at the supermarket and they are crowded.  Myself I go noonish and it's not bad.  We had a big campaign to get rid of plastic bags and started charging seven cents each.  To avoid paying that outrageous fee most people got into carrying their NPR tote bag to the store, but now I've heard they don't like dealing with our germ-laden bag so now I buy their bags.

Nice photo Sadie, of that very nice park that I remember so well (I once told young Jim that there were bears in there, but I think Gumbah set him straight).