SUNDAY CONTEMPLATIONS

  Frequent bloggers are annoying. I'm talking about myself, of course. When you're miserably ensconced in a hospital bed, there's plenty of time to ponder. I write to keep what's left of my sanity. And for your entertainment.

My arm bled (again) this morning. Not much. Seeping through the (massive) bandages. They are (still) giving me blood thinners, which I believe cause the bleeding. The "experts" know best.

I never trust experts.

My "new" room isn't bad, except there's less privacy than my "old" room. Too many people coming and going....

Do I use too many "quotes"?

My ancient roommate is quiet. He's partially senile. They're giving him oxygen. The little oxygen "thingie" (technical term) goes in your nose. He keeps removing it and putting it in his ear!

Unintentional humor abounds.

The view from my window

Sunday Afternoon

The first part of this was written in the morning. Now is the afternoon continuation.

Not as pleasant as it was this morning. There's a feeble curtain that divides my roommate and me. One of the nurses propped Willie up in a wheelchair and took him out for a stroll.

I quickly got out my electric shaver......and shaved. I no longer do it at night, because I don't want to disturb Willie.

I'm slowly learning to be congenial - - which isn't my forte.

Okay, when they wheeled Willie back I got a (an unpleasant) surprise. Instead of putting him into bed, the nurse left him in his wheelchair - - five feet from my bed, facing me.

I'm a private person. I'm not exactly social - - especially when I'm half dead in a hospital bed. I'm not exactly delighted having a strange 95 yr. old man staring at me within the distance of five feet.

I smiled (sort of), said "hello", then.......pretended I fell asleep.

Are you ready for this?

SUDDENLY

A loud emergency BUZZ jolted me. I heard a Swoosh. There was (another) power outage. My air mattress was deflating (again)!

Willie was watching me sink.

I was going down like the Lusitania. Within a minute I was on the metal bed frame.....looking up at astonished Willie and the shoddy ceiling.

Dear God, do the humiliations never end??

This is about the fifth time my mattress deflated. I managed to reach up and press the Call Button.

One of the nurse's aides came.....about twenty minutes later. She reflated me.

Then - -

Lunch was served!

The last thing I want to do is eat in front of Willie. Mercifully, he fell asleep.

Lunch was a concoction called Turkey Surprise. It was massively shredded turkey with a thick horrifying gravy.

I was indeed surprised.

Dessert was Summer Fruit Jubilee.

What the hell is a jubilee?

Jon, 💚  continually deflated

PAGEANTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST

 

Note:
I wrote this several years ago and have been inflicting it upon my readers every holiday season since.
                                                               Jon


I never look back on those events with undiluted fondness. Through the long distance of years I still regard them with a twinge of humiliating disdain. I'm talking about the obligatory school Christmas pageants. Where innocent children are compelled to make fools of themselves on stage in front of parents, classmates, and faculty.

The only positive aspect I can ascertain is that those childhood days were simple, uncomplicated days - - when no one was offended by Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and front yard nativities were proudly displayed without any concern about being confiscated by the Neighborhood Manger Police.
It seemed to be a Norman Rockwell America.

Scene One:
Glendora, California. The Gordon Elementary School. Second Grade. I was six years old.

My teacher Mrs. Eisendise (whom I called Ice and Dice) came up with the grandiose idea of staging several scenes from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet. I wasn't in the least smitten by her plan, but I did fall in love with the music. In fact, I forced my mother to buy a recording of it. A double LP album in those primitive days.

For reasons unbeknownst to me, I was chosen to be one of the waltzing flowers in (of course) the Waltz of the Flowers. My humiliation was lessened only by the fact that numerous other boys were also sentenced to being flowers in Eisendise's delusional bouquet.

 Four boys who became unwilling participants in Mrs. Eisendise's flower bouquet. I'm the one in the striped shirt.

The stage scenery was quite elaborate for a less than minor production. A serene rural backdrop with cardboard trees and shrubs. I can't exactly remember the flower costume that I wore, which - from a Freudian point of view - is probably a good thing. I can't attribute it to any pansy complexes I might have acquired twenty years later.

It's a fleeting thought. Don't ponder it for too long.

The dance started out splendidly but rapidly deteriorated. The music somehow seemed to be going faster than our twirls and leaps. In time, it completely resisted our efforts. Disharmony and vertigo ensued and soon it was every flower for himself. We had completely abandoned the music and were simply fighting to stay alive. I'm not sure which flower knocked down a cardboard tree, but trees suddenly began toppling like dominoes. Petals were crushed and the curtain was mercifully pulled. We waltzing flowers were far from a success.

If nothing else, the entire ugly ordeal robbed me of any future desire to have a career on the stage.

Scene Two:

Covina, California. The Charter Oak School. Third Grade. I was seven years old.  

My teacher Mrs. Rollins was unusually weird. She had heavily dyed black hair - parted severely in the middle - thick tortoise shell glasses, a generous  application of rouge, and more red lipstick than Bette Davis wore on a bad day.

Mrs. Rollins also had a very strange habit. At the end of every school day, she had the class line up by her desk and would kiss each of us goodbye. Sometimes I was able to duck out and avoid being branded by her crimson lips.

Fortunately this caused no known ill effects on my future psyche - - although to this day I still become completely impotent at the sight of tortoise shell rimmed glasses. 

Mrs. Rollin's Christmas pageant was no less unnerving than Eisendise's waltzing flowers had been. I and two other boys were chosen to sing We Three Kings (I never figured out whether we were technically kings or wise men).

Rollins handed us the lyrics and demanded that we learn them within a week. I still don't know where the hell she got those lyrics, but I'd never seen so many pages for one Christmas song in my entire life. There were at least ten choruses.

We three boys wore cardboard crowns, makeshift capes, and had to carry empty gift boxes wrapped in Christmas paper. The pageant went off without a hitch, until we began singing....

We three kings of Orient are, bearing gifts we traverse afar...

we sang....and sang....one excruciatingly long chorus after another.....over and over.....and....over....

The audience would begin to applaud - hoping it was finally the end - and we'd suddenly sing another chorus.

It was the longest frickin' song in Christmas pageant history. I was seven years old when we started. I think I was pushing thirty by the time we finally finished.

Despite trying for years to expunge the event from my mind, I can still remember every chorus and every word from that ghastly song.

 

 

ALL ABOUT THANKSGIVING

I originally wrote this post at least a dozen years ago on my old Texas blog Lone Star Concerto. That was a time when blogging used to be fun and people still had a sense of humor. 

During the past few years the blogging world has  drastically changed - - tainted with far too much sensitivity, malice, and lack of humor.

People can no longer tolerate opinions that differ from their own - - especially if those opinions resonate with smidgens of truth.  

Well, hell, I still like this post a lot and think it's worth a rerun.

Put on your Pilgrim hats and take a deep breath, boys and girls. Here's my take on Thanksgiving.

                                                            Jon

No matter what opinion you have about Thanksgiving, I think we can all agree that the concept of the holiday is based on varying degrees of legend and hokum.

When we were innocent and gullible kids in school (at least I was innocent and gullible), we were spoon-fed the sanitized Hallmark Card version of Thanksgiving:

The kind, generous, ultra-religious Pilgrims - - out of the goodness of their hearts - - spent days preparing a sumptuous Thanksgiving feast and invited the neighboring Indians over to share the unforgettable banquet. They dined on succulent turkey, sweet potatoes, French's original green bean casserole, dinner rolls with cranberry jam, and pumpkin pie topped with Cool Whip.

They exchanged gifts and recipes. The Indians taught the Pilgrims about the limitless wonders of maize. They prayed together and then joined hands and sang a rousing rendition of Kumbaya.

And they all lived happily ever after in absolute unity among purple mountain majesties and amber waves of grain.

 


In more recent years, the liberal historical revisionists have given us a grim and harrowing Thanksgiving tale of raw realism:

The Pilgrims - - an uncouth, bloodthirsty band of European white supremacist men and their skanky white women - - arrived in America with ill-intent. They invaded the peaceful domain of Indian Territory - plundered the  villages, trampled the teepees, chopped down the trees, polluted the water, claimed the Indian's land, imprisoned the Indian braves, raped the squaws, and gave everyone syphilis and inferiority complexes.

Within a few short generations, the pitifully few remaining Indian tribes were confined to squalid Arizona reservations - - living in unairconditioned Airstream trailers and using their meager government subsidies to buy cheap whiskey and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

 

Take your pick, comrades.  Believe whatever version you like. But while you're chowing down that delectable Thanksgiving meal this week, just remember that  without the white man's aggression and ingenuity - you'd be wearing buffalo robes and living in teepees. And eating maize, whatever the heck that is.

Hopefully I won't be scalped by irate readers. I meant no harm. Honest Injun.

Thankfully yours, Jon

SMILE

You know what gave me a big smile recently? All of your comments on my previous post (New Computer) which indicated that you appreciated my sense of humor.
Some of you said "I laughed 'till I cried."
That made my day.

This past year or so, I've been so severely depressed that my sense of humor seemed to abandon me. Yet it suddenly returns at the most unexpected times. And quite often it saves my life.

WARNING:
If you can't handle my complaints, please leave the room now. I wouldn't want to disturb your delicate metabolism.

For the past week I've been in agonizing pain due to my old spinal injury that never healed properly. This sometimes causes my left hip to become inflamed and the pain is almost unendurable. Every step I take is excruciating. I couldn't bend down. Laying in bed only seemed to make it worse.

You should have seen me trying to clean the two cat's litter boxes. I dropped Bosco's box on the bathroom floor . Fresh cat crap and stale litter was everywhere.
I tried to maneuver myself down to the floor. I managed to collapse completely.The pain in my hip and leg was so bad that there was no possible way I could move or get up.

So I'm helplessly trapped in the midst of fresh cat crap and piles of rancid pee-drenched litter. My cell phone was far away. If I screamed, only the coyotes would hear me.

And I'm thinking:
If there is a God, I'll bet He's laughing his ass off at me.

In a Herculean effort (not to mention piercing pain) I eventually managed to crawl on my belly - out of the bathroom and across the bedroom floor. I grasped the side of the bed and somehow pulled myself up.

No need to lament. I'm finally walking again and the bathroom floor is reasonably clean.
Truth to tell, my spine and hip are the very least of my problems.

There. That complaint wasn't so bad, was it?
If I do say so myself, I can't think of another blogger who complains with more panache than I do. It's a gift.

Is this another holiday weekend?
Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer.
Mother Nature seems confused.
Two days ago it was sunny and 85 degrees.
Today it was pouring rain. Tomorrow the daytime high is supposed to be 53. Feels kinda like autumn.

I thought my old El Cheapo digital camera was broken - because every time I took a picture the photo would come out half blurry.
Then I suddenly had a rational thought:
Jon, you haven't cleaned the lens in over ten years. That might be the trouble.

It was the trouble. I cleaned the lens. The camera is working again.

My uninteresting photos have clarity again.

Remember the nearby mountain (or hill) that is only visible during the winter?

Here it is now - completely obscured by leaves.

A glimpse of my remarkable front "yard"

 

Another view of the front yard. Over yonder is the neighboring cow meadow.

I (finally) moved the new computer into my bedroom.
 

Kitzee sleeping. Lazy afternoon.
I had this photo on a recent post, but deleted the post. So I figured I'd include it here, because I like it.
 

FORTY-FIVE

Forty-five questions that I extracted from the archives of Sunday Stealing


1. Where are you from?
I'm from the Land of Ur, comrade, and I've come to your country to help eradicate the leftists.

but seriously
I was born in New Jersey. My parents moved to Southern California when I was five and I had absolutely no regrets.

2. Is there something that you could never give up?
Yea, opium and LSD.
Don't panic. It was merely a jest.
I could never give up music or writing, or being a devout pessimist.

3. Who is your worst enemy?
Myself.

4. How much cash do you have on you?
Let's put it this way:
If somebody mugged me and saw how empty my wallet is, they'd die laughing.

5. Paul is the cute one
    John is the smart one
    George is the quiet one
    Ringo is the funny one.
    Which Beatle are you?
I'm cute, smart, quiet, and funny. It's an incredible combination.

6. What does your breakfast consist of?
I never eat breakfast and I very seldom eat lunch. Which probably explains why I'm a raving maniac by supper time.

7. What was your last big purchase?
I bought a 25 lb. sack of cat litter last week.
Actually, my last "big" purchase is the place that I'm living in, which I bought over four years ago.

8. Do you hate anyone?
"Hate" is a very strong word. I have intense loathing for many.

9. What were you doing at midnight last night?
I was watching videos on YouTube, while drinking tea, eating a sandwich, and having sporadic anxiety attacks.

10. What was the last video you watched on YouTube?
I watched a documentary about the family (descendants) of the composer Richard Wagner. They were the most dysfunctional family I ever heard of. Next to mine.

11. What are your plans for this weekend?
Watching more videos, having more panic attacks, and keeping out of the rain.

12. Would you ever consider being a vegetarian?   
Yea. When all the cattle, hogs, and other edible animals are extinct.

13. What non-alcoholic beverage do you enjoy drinking the most?
I'm a tea addict. I love it hot or iced.
It's even better spiked with Southern Comfort.

14. What's your favorite search engine?
Are you kidding?
Bing.
And I don't mean Crosby.
Think about that for awhile. It will eventually get funny.

15. What's the worst experience you've ever had with alcohol?
What? Only ONE???
Baby, I've had hundreds. I could easily write a book.
I have (in the distant past) consistently woken up in bed with people who I never remember having seen before. 

16. What is bothering you right now?
Thinking about my sordid, hedonistic past.   

17. Have you ever dated a Goth?
No, but I've screwed a vampire.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. And it's true.

18. Can you sleep in total darkness?
Only when it's night.

19. What's the first thing you did when you opened your eyes today?
Gasped in horror. My cat Bosco was staring at me, only two inches away from my face. 

20. How many people can comfortably sleep in your bed?
Come on over and we'll find out.
I presently sleep on a twin bed and it's hellishly uncomfortable. And my cat Bosco sleeps with me, which increases the hellishness.

21. Have you ever slept in the same bed with anyone that you shouldn't have?
That question is too profound to contemplate.

22. Is there anyone you want to come see you?
No.

23. Is it easier for you to go without food or without sleep?
I almost never sleep, so if I didn't have it I wouldn't miss it.
I crave food.

24. Name one thing that you love about winter.
The fact that it only comes once a year. 

25. Has anyone told you that they never want to lose you?
No, but when I was a child my father frequently told me to get lost.  

26. Could you go out in public, looking like you do now?
Probably. But I'd eventually be captured in a net and taken to Bellevue.

27. Do you think someone might be thinking poorly about you? Why might that be?
People think poorly of me all the time. I have no clue why.

28. Can a man and a woman be friends without having feelings for each other?
Sure. I've despised a lot of women whom I was friends with.   
Ask a stupid question and you'll get a sarcastic answer.

29. Do you have a friend of the opposite sex you can talk to?
Yes, I have an extremely close female friend whom I've known since grade school.


30. At what time in your life were you happiest and why?
When I was young, wild, and extremely adventurous living in Southern California. Why not?

31. Tell us about an era of your life that you really miss.
When I was living in Hollywood and burning the proverbial candle at both ends.  

32. Have you ever made love while you were in the room with another couple?
After careful consideration I deleted my answer


33. When was the last time you kissed someone and really enjoyed it?
I never kiss anyone that I don't enjoy.

34. Would you (or do you) prefer a small, intimate wedding reception, or a big-scale one?
I don't like weddings, would never endorse one, and think wedding receptions are a huge waste of money and time.
Hell, they'll probably be divorced in two years.

35. What's your earliest memory of puberty?
I have two distinct memories of puberty, neither of which I'd want to share on a public blog.

36. What's one big mistake that you did in your life, and what did you do to make it right?
If I ever listed the big mistakes that I made in my life it would be so astonishingly (and excruciatingly) long that no one would believe it.
Mistakes aren't always easy to remedy.

37. Have you ever been betrayed by someone that came as a complete surprise? Without revealing the person, tell us about it.
I was betrayed by the SOB that I was living with in the Missouri Ozarks. Without going into painful details, I'll only say that we nearly killed each other.

38. Do you trust easily?
Not any more.

39. When was the last time you were in a very good mood? What caused it?
When I graduated from high school and was finally free!

40. When and where did you meet the love of your life?
When I was 24, on a windy November night, at a concert in Santa Ana.

41. What's the longest that you've committed to one person?
About an hour and a half.
Okay, about eight years, off and on, till death did us part....

42. What blog do you think isn't getting enough notice?
Mine, of course.

43. When you walk into a room full of strangers, generally how is your confidence?
My confidence is non-existent, even when I walk into an empty room.

44. How different are you in real life compared to the online identity you have created for yourself?
I'm not quite as amusing or spontaneously adept. I'm definitely not a good conversationalist.
But my online personality isn't fabricated. What I convey on this blog is the "real" me.   

45. When life gives you lemons, what do you do with them?
Throw them at all the bastards who made me miserable.