"You gonna get another job?"...

[Volpone]

OK. Today. Beautiful day. Got an early start and can actually get some stuff done before lunch. BUT! Then I got a letter related to my (shitty) insurance, telling me I meet the qualifications for the screening I'm getting in 6 days HOWEVER now I need to "call the number on my insurance card" (which has not worked to this day) to validate "eligibility...benefits and provisions" and that has just sucked all the energy out of me for the day.

On an unrelated note: poor people. I don't understand them. House on one of my dog walks has had a bedroom window covered with cardboard for as long as I can remember. Today I see the junker car parked in the driveway must've rear-ended someone--it ran into something and buckled the hood at any rate. People that don't have a lot seem to manage to lose the little they have. I've got a friend. Lives in an expensive city. Works in the service industry or something. Yet her Facebook feed is constantly full of monthlong vacations to places like Mexico, Greece, and Italy. I don't know how she manages it. But I guess it isn't just poor people. I read a factoid the other day that something like 30% of people that make over $100,000 a year live paycheck to paycheck. That blows my mind. You've got to spend more in a week than I spend in a month to be in that boat.

Well, I guess I should go. God has given me nice weather. Be a shame to waste it.

 

[Volpone]

I wound up retiring at the end of September. I hadn't planned to yet, but they changed hours around at work and made the job more demanding so I decided to give a shot at not having a job. It's been just about working out--more or less. But--and I type this at 11:30am in a bathrobe and jammies--it looks like I need to go get a job. One of my renters finally paid her February rent on the 15th. So yay, she paid. But now she's got 2 weeks to get together March rent. She's been in trouble since November. And once you start to dig yourself into a hole, it's hard to dig out. Meanwhile I haven't found another property to buy at a price that works for me. Half my storage space is vacant and unrented and the other half, the renter just texted me that he got laid off so he's going to be moving out soon. Next week they scope me to find out why I have increasing trouble swallowing food. Who knows what that will cost--or what they find out will cost. So yeah. In a bit of a funk. Add to that, everything I've attempted of late seems to fall through and that it is cold and grey and shitty out and I'm not a happy camper.

[EDIT: Oh, and even if you believe there's someone out there for everyone, I can't help but wonder if I met her back in my early 20s and missed the opportunity. ]

 

[Volpone]

It is officially groundhog season. Also, it is amazing, the interesting ways the simplest plans can go horribly sideways.

Went to a Thing the other night. 2 hours away. And easily the biggest disappointment in recent memory. So I slept in today and, peeved, deliberately managed to miss church. When I finally got around to walking The Dog, the other guy who walks his dog was in the field where she likes to hunt assorted rodents. So we had to take an alternate patrol but I allowed enough time to go romp around the field on the way back. Except he was still there. So I took her down to the creek, where we could romp along the grassy banks in the sunlight. Instead she, of course, headed for the hobo camp under the bridge to root around in the dirty needles. After that she wanted me to fish a bag of garbage out of the creek for her.

By the time we went home the other guy and his dog were gone so I decided to give her 15 minutes in her field. Of course she immediately wanted to go to the one yard on the boundary that she implicitly cannot go to. I got her off that and we poked around for a bit and then around the time to go home, she jumped a groundhog in the open. After the typical unpleasant struggle, she finished him off and had to celebrate her victory for a bit. Meanwhile I'm hoping the little kids playing within sight in a backyard bounding the field on a nice Sunday don't notice what's going on (they didn't, of course) and making plans for what to do with the body.

There was a nice big hole a few feet away. It was a burrow that she'd enlarged following a sent some time back. It would be perfect. There was even a bit of cord nearby that I could loop around the groundhog's feet to drag him into the hole. So of course at that point she picked him up and carried him quite aways away, right next to the access road. Next I went to a little brush pile and gathered some brush to put over him. Then I could easily throw some grass on top of that and make a decent way to hide the body from more delicate eyes. So of course at that point she started carrying him back to the house. She sat down to rest so I decided to go back for the branches but while I was doing this she continued on. I ditched the branches and started jogging briskly and caught up to her as she was getting close to the road. She, of course, intended to bring him home, at which point I'd have to either throw him in the trash (which doesn't get picked up until Friday and it is supposed to be fairly warm this week) or find a place to bury him (and bury him deep enough that she couldn't dig him up). I managed to stop her before she got to the road and...fuck it, Plan K, nudge him into a little drainage ditch and throw some leaves over him while holding the leash in the other hand. Luckily, she seemed OK with that. Now she just keeps being clingy and wanting attention while I try to type this and I'm an hour behind on a day that was already shot to shit.

 

[Volpone]

Groundhog redux: Ordinarily, when The Dog catches a groundhog, I let her fight it out with it. Because I'm human and we have the whole concept of single combat and a fair fight and all that kind of crap. Then I realized dogs are pack animals and she's probably confused and annoyed that I don't help her with her fight. Besides, according to Wiki, the top 3 predators of groundhogs are: Dogs, humans, and foxes. Since I can't do anything about foxes (unless we count my totem/Internet username) I resolved to pull my share of the human side.

Easier said than done. First of all, short of a club or other weapon, it's hard to insert yourself into the fight without maybe just getting in the way--even if you do have sturdy boots on. Second, after the fight was basically over, I decided to humanely finish the bugger off by just stepping on him so he couldn't breathe. But every time I'd do this, The Dog (because, again, dogs are pack animals) would attack him again. And it's hard to suffocate something when a dog is yanking on its leg.

Last but not least, the bugger did get in at least one good lick. Old Dog was almost entirely black, so when she got wounds--and she always did--you couldn't see them. New Dog has a substantial white chest and belly and she got tagged right in the middle of the chest, so she's got a nice bloody spot right in the center of her white chest. Doesn't seem to terribly bother her and I wouldn't know it was there if she didn't have a white chest. But because I do, I worry. But what are you gonna do? It's in her nature.

I'm pretty sure this is my last dog. I love her and I'll miss her after she's gone, but I just am getting too old for an active dog (and what's the point of a lazy worthless dog?). I probably wouldn't have needed another dog except the last one died so soon after we moved. And then the cat died 3 months later. I felt cheated by that. I still haven't made my goal of buying and renting out one more house, but I think at this point I feel confident that I gave my dog and cat good full lives and can move on to whatever's next for me and not have to worry about pets.

 

[Volpone]

Tired tonight. The Cat is Out and presently has no interest in coming In. About an hour ago I looked right at him while I stood at the door with a flashlight and he was like "What?" Haven't seen him since. Tuesday I go in for the EGD and Colostomy. So tomorrow I'm only supposed to subsist on "clear liquids." Coffee is not clear. And I don't understand how one can start the day without it. Or survive a day and a half without food. I'll still have to walk The Dog 3 times and hope I don't die during the procedure (not statistically likely, but never impossible). Meanwhile, The Dog is futilely trying to lick her groundhog wound. It's right in the center of her chest so she really can't get to it. I'd do something but I can't replicate the coagulative/healing properties of dog saliva so I'll just have to listen to her lick.

Hmm. Vodka tonic is clear. If I can't start the day with coffee, maybe I'll have a vodka tonic just for spite.

Speaking of such things, I just ate a double portion for dinner--mostly for spite--and now I feel like a bloated tick. I've got a Clif Bar sitting here and the idea is to scarf it down at 11:59pm for the calories, but I'm so full from dinner I may...nah, I'll eat it.

 

[Volpone]

So. Yeah. Loktar on colonoscopy prep FTW. There may be a more elegant, less disjointed, way to structure this post--only I'm STARVING and shitting out piss. I suspect gastroenterologists are sadistic perverts: "Buy 2 kinds of laxative. Take twice the recommended amount of the first at 10am. Mix the entire bottle of the other up with 1/2 gallon of Gatorade in a gallon jug (Gatorade doesn't come in anything divisible by 1/2 gallon and if I'd have known 64oz was a half gallon, I wouldn't have moved the remainder of my milk into an old OJ jug just so I would guestimate what 64oz was). Anywho... Let it sit at room temperature until 6pm, when you drink half of it. Shave off your pubes and paint your balls blue. Get up at 3am to drink the rest of the Gatorlax. Nothing else until after the procedure ends at or around 2:45pm." I only made up 2 things in that quote.

So tomorrow this pretty girl is going to drug me unconscious and violate my mouth and butthole. So a pretty ordinary Fat Tuesday, apart from the kinky starvation and shitting piss while starving to death.

Oh, and the whole prep thing. It's bullshit. They gave me this sheet. I'm, we'll say 5'9", 174# white male, in pretty good shape. I bet I get the same sheet that a 300# black woman that eats fast food gets. And I bet they factor in a margin for people being too stupid to follow simple instructions. So my butthole is going to look like a brand new Apple Store while I struggle not to die before this whole ordeal is over.

 

[Lanzman]

You're being a wimp. Colonoscopy is just not that big a deal. The super purge is annoying but not life threatening. Anyone who is reasonably healthy can easily go a couple days without eating . . . I've done it both for colonoscopy and when I was sick with the shits.
The other thing, the endoscopy down your throat, I've never had that so can't speak to it.

 

[Loktar]

Then I'm a wimp too. I bailed on my colonoscopy that was scheduled last week 2/15/23. Have yet to reschedule it, not sure I'm going to.

 

[Volpone]

Back from my thing. I don't have anything that is obviously cancer although they'll have to do the tests and the doc will need to think a bit more on it to know why it is getting harder for me to swallow food. But it doesn't look (as I understand things) like there's any horrible disease that is causing it. And I'm OK as long as I'm aware and remember to drink plenty of fluids while eating and chew thoroughly.

Of course I'm not supposed to have alcohol tonight and "Sell My House" reruns aren't on tonight, so I've got to figure out how to eat up a little time so I don't go to bed at 9pm.

 

[Mirah]

Guys and fucking doctors, man, wtf.

Women get used to being poked and prodded, you can too.

 

[Mirah]

I wonder what kind of jobs you will look at in your retirement. It is interesting to see what people do and don't do w/ thier $. I choose a comfortable, yet simple life so that I can live in a nice town where I can walk places and feel safe.
I like working better than not working.

 

[Volpone]

I love not working. Or rather picking things to work on. Right now I'm working on clearing weeds out of a gravel driveway and fixing leaks in a tin shed roof, among other things. I wouldn't have minded going back to doing supermarket resets but I never heard back from my former employer. I should send a resume off to one of the local theater companies and see if they need any technical help. That's what I minored in as an undergrad. But most likely I'll try to get part time work at one of the big box hardware stores.

The various 'oscopies aren't bad in and of themselves. And now I've got a stack of photos of my guts right up to both ends of the small intestine sitting on the desk next to me. But as I said, the prep sucked. No solid food for a day and a half; only "clear" liquids. Gobble a double dose of laxative at 10am. Crap your guts out by 1pm. Drink a quart of Gatorade laced with laxative at 6pm. By 8pm I was pooping pee--squirting out liquid. Then I had to get up at 3am to finish off the GatorLax and spend another couple hours spraying liquid out my butt. Then a morning with no coffee or breakfast (the second morning, actually, but I was allowed tea and Gatorade the first morning at least).

The actual procedure, they just knock you out for these days.

 

[Lanzman]

Yeah, that "twilight" stuff they use is pretty good. I slept the best sleep after my colonoscopy as the last of that stuff worked out of my system.

 

[Volpone]

The Dog is just a scary assassin. She got another groundhog today. Following scents near the creek when we heard something scurry in a nearby thicket. She went in. When I picked my way in, I found her crouched in front of a hole. "Great. Easy dog walk," I thought. Because she'd stay at the hole for most of our time and nothing would be stupid enough to come out. 5 minutes later there was a flash of motion and she was dragging an adult groundhog away from the hole by the neck, shaking it as she did. The fight was fairly quick and one-sided. It was cold today and I wonder if that makes them sluggish. The other thing is, I suspect the groundhog was already in bad shape. It was partially disemboweled early in the fight so I think something had already gotten a piece of it and it would've just died more slowly if The Dog hadn't got it. It was also missing a lower tooth, so I think its best days were behind it.

 

[jack]

That's quite a tale. What kind of dog is she?

 

[Volpone]

Should I have a separate thread for the Nature is cruel and horrible and disgusting posts? First off, I feel like the writers and cartoonists for those early cartoons must've been from southern states. Kentucky is the first time I've seen buzzards. I mean, really seen them the way they are in old Warner Brothers cartoons. Then there's the moles or voles or rabbits--burrowing rodents. It's like the old Bugs Bunny cartoons. My yard is spongy and has these traceries of burrows all over.

But the buzzards. Out to walk The Dog this morning and they're circling like an old cowboy movie. I'm still not sure what they were circling at first, but now that the groundhogs are out, The Dog wanted to go back along the creek banks and a bunch of them were down in the creek on a large trash bag. I don't really like finding dead bodies, but I feel like it is kind of a responsibility, so I headed down there. It turns out the bag must've been filled with the butchered remains of a deer--or maybe a calf. Something with white and brown hair and cloven hooves. But after investigating that, there were a pair crouched further along the creek that hadn't been driven off. I had a pretty good guess what they were up to. Eventually they flew off from their prize and when we got there, sure enough, it was the groundhog The Dog dispatched the day before. They'd gotten it out of the bushes and into the open and after less than 24 hours, all that was left of it was a hide, turned inside out, and a skeleton. And they might've finished that off too if we hadn't disturbed them.

 

[Volpone]

There's a running bit in "How I Met Your Mother," where Barney relates to the villains in movies and I increasingly see his point. There's also a guy who posts to the FB page for my real estate group. And he's an idiot. One day he's on long term rentals. The next day he's on short term rentals. Then he goes on a storage rental jag for a bit. There'll be a sidebar to Bitcoin or stocks. Then he's on hard money lending. And he's always throwing out his little bon mots: "Life is no fun without any challenges or scares."

Bullshit. Fuck you.

Which would you rather have: Things go smoothly and work the way you expected and your plans make you money or you have to try really hard all the time, the simplest things go horribly sideways in stupid ways you could never expect, you fail most of the time and worry about if you'll lose everything? He, apparently, wants the latter. Me? I'll take fat, dumb, and happy. I'll gladly play on "God" mode. "I know this steak isn't real, but it tastes juicy and delicious." Cypher is right in "The Matrix." Why suffer and be miserable when you can have a full and comfortable (if imaginary) life in a pod? Everyone wins. The machines take care of you (like the machines do now), you live out your life, and in exchange, you keep the machines running. Works for me.

 

[Lanzman]

My yard is spongy and has these traceries of burrows all over.

Moles tunnel in search of grubs. Get rid of the grubs, the moles don't tunnel on your property.

 

[Volpone]

"Should" is the most dangerous word in your vocabulary. More on this in a bit.

The title of this thread was so perfectly chosen. Like Peter in "Office Space," I don't want another job. I don't want to do anything. I want to sit on my ass and do nothing. (And bang 1990s Jennifer Aniston.) Didn't get my weekend chores done because I was a lazy turd (and my dog was being needy and clingy but that's another story). So now I should be figuring out how to make enough money to live on. But first I'll do the weekend chores. Or at least procrastinate and avoid doing them.

"Should" is dangerous because it describes something that would be good to do, but implies a "but..." you're not going to do it. I should add in some basic calisthenics again; also maybe dial back my calories just a bit. I stayed in shape when I had an active job and an active dog. I lost the dog and got out of shape. Dieted and exercised and got back into shape. Got a new dog and was able to cut out the diet and exercise. But then I left my active job and the weight has crept up a bit. Not terrible--walking 5+ miles a day 7 days a week with a dog apparently burns more calories than working 16-30 hours a week in a physical labor job. Also, I'm realizing that part of the reason I feel like a tired lazy turd all the time is because my muscles are atrophying. The human body really sucks. You can be sore because you're keeping your muscles strong. Or you can be sore because you're letting your muscles go soft. You can be sore and look good or you can be sore without putting any effort into it, but you're going to hurt.

Then there's the money. I need to do one or more of three things: I need to get another job (simplest to do, least pleasant), I can figure out how to get my vacant storage spaces rented out (more work, but once I get it done it's just collecting the check every month), I can get another house, fix it up, and rent it out (most work, risk, and expense up front but since I have a property manager, once it's ready to rent it is completely on autopilot--apart from monthly bookkeeping).

Instead I'm sitting here on my fat ass, listening to my dog snore on the bed behind me and avoiding cleaning the tub and the toilet, which would allow me to move on to making some money and doing a little exercise. Well, I should get going. Soon it will be time to walk the dog and she won't care if I haven't cleaned the tub before it is time for her walk.

 

[Volpone]

OK. I have literally zillions of more important things to do, but I think of phones. Corded phones. (This is a "too drunk to put on Facebook" post.) I already have a corded phone that is strictly art. Retro touchtone made up to look like a dial phone. Cut off the land line when I went to the Iraq war and never reconnected it. Did this house up like a traditional farmhouse. Not the all-white monstrosities that you get from Google searches or supermarket checkout magazines. Like an old Wisconsin dairy farm. There's a phone jack next to the refrigerator. It wouldn't give you a dial tone. I don't think you can even get a landline in 2023. But I want to hang an avocado green princess phone on the jack for ambiance. Or maybe a surplus TA-1 so I can grab it upside-down and shout "LAUNCH THE ALERT VIPERS" in a raspy voice. Now I kinda want a nuBSG COC in my basement instead of a video store. (TARDIS control room and sex dungeon were on the options list before 20th century video store won out.)