an ophthalmological adventure

 I thought I had shown it before..  Yes I left off the the part where Jenn was cooking in the kitchen.  Test audiences were confused by how they got from the kitchen to the bar.  And you do have to simplify things going from something for the reader to something you are going to read aloud.  It makes me sad to leave behind a finely wrought phrase, but in compensation I get to use voices and make faces. 

There are some errors in it I discovered when practicing it, I corrected them on the hardcopy.

I don't know if I have written about my cataract surgery three years ago.  I had thought that I had pretty good vision with my glasses, but then I noticed that when riding in a car looking for a street I was no longer the first to read the street sign, and at the ballbark I couldn't read the balls and strikes on the little mini scoreboards.  I went to the doc and he said cataracts which is kind of unpleasant and costly surgery, but at the end you can see better so I was all for it.

They put bandages on your eye afterwards and you leave them on until you see the doc the next day like plastic surgery on the hopefully beautiful woman, and you see how it all came out, only instead of being looked at you do the looking.

I was in one of those little lab rooms and across from me was one of those eyecharts showing this one tiny E and I could not believe how clearly I could see it.  Omigod, like sixty years ago when my first eyeglasses were put on my face, Can everybody else always see like this!?!

So like I said I had that surgery three years ago only on my left eye, and I have spent a lot of time just walking around looking at stuff, but the last year things weren't looking all that well.  Well likely the other eye was deteriorating and was not pulling its weight, so probably I ought to get that one fixed, though I had nagging thoughts that in addition to the right eye not pulling its weight maybe the left eye was not a supereye anymore.

So I went to see the doc and yes the right eye definitely was not pulling its weight and since you mention it, there seems to be some kind of debris in your left eye, and I pressed it against something and stared at this flickering blue light while he, er, did something. Afterwards everything was dark and blurry as he explained it all to me and I went to set up an appointment for the right eye.  But all the while things were clearing, and eventually the old supereye like just after the operation was back.  Oh gloryoski!

Walking home was a bit of an adventure with my heavily dilated eye (when the doc was talking to the nurse the subject of how well I dilated came up a few times, I wanted to reply modesty, well, I work out.) was like walking on the bright side of Mercury with heavy traffic, but I got home alive.  

Last morning I was writing my post crouched over the keyboard squinting at the screen like a little old man, but his morning I am leaning back like I was driving a Mercedes Benz like a fat old man.

Well that's all kind of indulgent.  I am not very interested in other peoples' medical adventures so I don't know why they should be interested in mine.  But it was a big deal for me and I had to tell somebody.

Open mic on the roof tonight when I will be reading that story about Jenn.  I will tell you how it goes.

Good One!

 We have indeed heard this one before, but one never gets tired of these old classics.  I seem to remember that there was more to it, kind of an introduction that begins at home, where the guy is patiently waiting for his wife fix supper.  That was also good, but I suppose not necessary if you are working with a time limit for your presentation.  If you had to shorten the story, that was a reasonable part to cut.  I caught one error that I don't remember from the last time.  In paragraph eight he mentions that the beers he has been drinking were priced at six dollars apiece.  Then in paragraph 21, he needs four dollars for the last one and only has three.  He mentions that his first nine beers were pints, but doesn't specify the size of this last one, which might explain the discrepancy in price, but this was not made clear.  

Uncle Ken's balcony garden looks really good this year.  Just think of what he could do if he had 88 acres of prime swamp land to work with.  I haven't planted anything in years, it's all I can do anymore just to keep my driveway and trails open.  

jenn

 This is a little piece that I plan on reading at open mic on the roof tomorrow.  I don't know if I have posted it before, but hoping to get some comment or criticism from the dawgs.

So I’m sitting there at the Ten Cat having a most pleasant time, the beer in front of me is almost empty, and once I finish that I will be ordering my tenth, the keystone beer, the acme of the evening, only a wave of the finger away.  

 

What an inopportune time for Jenn to say, "I'd like to go home now." 

 

Why the hell should she want to go home?  The bar is full.  Her man is brilliantly holding forth with amazing tales of his triumphs punctuated with rapier like thrusts of wit here and there.  Everybody is clearly enthralled. 

 

"Go where?" I reply, playing for time and noticing that the barmaid is now at the far end of the bar pulling off the caps from PBRs for some newly-arrived pool players.  She won't even be in this vicinity for a couple minutes at least.  So we have time to talk this out, a couple minutes to get things straight.

 

"Home.  I’d like to go home.  Now.," she repeats, just a little sharply.  And who would've thought that little Jenn would have the strength to slam my hand to the bar, just missing, I might add, my quarter-full pint of Daisy Cutter?

 

“Very well then Jenn,” I reply smoothly.  You know what I’m thinking is that what we’ll do is, I’ll just have this tenth beer, it’s a nice round even number, don’t you think?  And then we can go straight home.” 

 

“That’s your eleventh beer that you’re finishing right now,” she says with such intensity, that I think that maybe she could be right.  But she tends to exaggerate, and I’m pretty sure it’s just been nine.

 

Anyway the important thing is that one more beer, tenth or twelfth, or whatever, is the beer that is necessary to achieve the zenith of the evening.  If you think about it I’ve already had 9 pints at 6 bucks apiece and that comes to 54 bucks so it would be foolish not to spend 6 lousy bucks more to put a shining cap on the investment.  See how well I can do the math?  There is nothing wrong with me me. 

 

But this argument is a little too complex, a little too mathematically oriented for Jenn in the snit she’s in, to understand.  So I simplify it for her. “I’ll just have one more,” I say with impeccable logic.

 

Which seems to go right over Jenn’s head, and she even ups the ante as she replies, “Call me a cab.”

 

Maybe a little humor, you know I have that rapier wit thing going so I might as well use it. “You’re a cab.” I reply with a sly look that says, I know it’s corny, so that means I’m being ironic, and should a guy who’s capable of this subtle, self-aware humor, this fine display of legerdemain forego the crowning beer of the night?

 

Legerdemain, such a fine word.  And not only is it a fine word, but due to its polysyllabic nature, it would not be an easy word for one who has had too many to pronounce without slurring, which okay, maybe I do a little bit, but it’s just to be ironic.

 

But then it occurs to me that I am not sure what exactly the word means.  I was thinking it meant kind of like fancy footwork, like tap dancing, only with words, clearly agile and not the least bit encumbered in mind or body.  But then after that only slightly slurred pronouncement, a little sour taste hits my tongue, and it occurs to me that it could also mean bullshit.

 

But Jenn apparently doesn’t notice.  “I. Am.  Not. A. Cab.”  She says, pronouncing each word slowly and precisely.  Has my irony, like all my finely carefully crafted arguments, flown right over her pretty little head? 

 

Okay this will take a little time to explain to her.  Meanwhile the barmaid has completed her transaction with the pool players and is now moving in her maddening meandering way to our end of the bar.  Decisively I down the remaining quarter of my Daisy Cutter.  While I am explaining my little ironic joke to Jenn I will surely be able to unobtrusively raise my finger to the barmaid, and the whole thing will be a fait accompli.  I will have a full beer, and we couldn’t possibly leave until I finished it.

 

“What I meant dear was-“ I commence my explanation, but she quickly cuts me off. 

 

“I know what you meant dear.  I get the lame joke dear, but maybe your timing is a little off dear.  You know how you sometimes lose track of time dear,” she begins.  Dear me, all those dears, I know where this is going, the unfortunate tuna salad incident. 

 

Women, well they can’t help it, they are the gatherers of the tribe you know.  Empty space in the fridge is something they abhor and they have to fill it up, so that when the hunter returns with two six packs of Old Milwaukee, which he was able to get at a bargain basement price because the liquor store was dumping the brand, and which is best served very well chilled, and throws open the refrigerator door, he finds a full house.

 

Compromises have to be made.  The game is already in the third inning, so three-four cans should do it.  And you know, that square blue container is just about two cans long on each side.  What could it hurt for it to sit on the kitchen table for an hour or two? 

 

Who ever expects extra innings, or a rain delay, and especially who expects both?  And who expects that when making tuna salad, something which even I know can go bad quickly, the gatherer wouldn’t use a transparent rather than an opaque blue container, so that the hunter could see what was inside and maybe choose something else to displace to make room for the Old Milwaukee?    

 

Anyway in the excitement of the thrilling extra-inning victory, and the celebratory beers that that required, and the nap that ensued, perhaps that blue container remained on the kitchen table too long, which it wouldn’t have had I known it contained tuna salad, which I would have known had it been in a proper transparent container.  

 

And you know, she’s always talking about losing weight, and just a couple days after the unpleasantness she was fit as a fiddle.  So I don’t know why she makes such a big production about it.

 

But she does.  Every time we have a little disagreement about anything the tuna salad incident comes up.  There’s no point in interrupting her, the story will be told.  And this is not so unfortunate because this will give that maddeningly slow barmaid time to make her lackadaisical way to our end of the bar.  So all in all things are going well. 

 

“I thought I would die,” she finishes, and fixes me with that piercing look.   

 

“First of all,” I begin, raising my finger to illustrate that this will be the first of many points that I will raise in my defense, but before I can even begin, the barmaid has slipped a new Mad Hatter right in front of me.

 

This is the purest serendipity.  There is no way that I would have ordered a beer at this sensitive point in our conversation, but the barmaid has clearly mistaken my enumeration of points for that very act.

 

And so there it is, the tenth beer, or the twelfth if Jenn’s probably mistaken calculations are accurate. But the point is it is the apex, the acme, the shining summit of the evening.  Oh, there will probably be some unpleasantness from Jenn, but I will be able to deal with this from the pleasantness of a comfortable barstool with my hand tightly wrapped around the cool base of the capstone beer. 

 

And actually this is the best way for this little spat to proceed.  Were I irritable from being cut short, then I might speak sharp words to Jenn, which would be unforgivable.  How much better it is for me to be ensconced and enbeered and kindly disposed to deal with the situation in a calm and patient manner.

 

Yes this is all for the best.  But then right at this point when all is going well with the world, as I am pushing my money towards the bar, I realize that I only have three dollar bills.  I am a dollar short.  Two options come immediately to mind.

 

The first is the quick nod to Jenn accompanied by a sheepish look, my eyes darting from where the dollar is missing to Jenn’s purse.  No, that had best be discarded.

 

The second is finessing the barmaid.  It’s only a lousy buck after all, and hadn’t I enlivened her evening with my enchanting conversation?  Hadn’t I enhanced my volume so that she could partake of it?  Yes, this will almost surely work.  I shove the three bills towards her with a little complicit shrug, imploring eyes, and that sheepish look which always works so well with women.

 

And yet it doesn’t work.  “That will be another dollar,” she says, and worse yet she does not relinquish her firm grip on the glass.

 

It is standing there right before me.  Right before me.  And yet for want of a buck I would be denied what fate had so clearly granted me.  I give Jenn the quick nod and sheep it up. I even extend my hand towards the steely clasps of her purse so she won’t have to reach so far to slip me that single slim bill.

 

Jenn’s a wonderful woman, a caring considerate woman.  Hardly would a woman of this nature deny her man one paper thin, almost worthless really, scrap of paper.

 

Yet she does, and worse yet she yanks the purse back off the bar and into her lap leaving my hand dangling where once the clasps had clasped, where surely behind this purely mechanical contrivance in sweet perfumed comfort resides at least one lousy buck.

 

“Jenn,” I say, and then I say her name a little more softly, a little slower, a little deeper.  Women love a deep voice.  “Jenn, may I borrow a dollar?”

 

“Borrow?” she asks.  “Borrow?  You mean in the sense that you will be paying me back?” 

 

Oh here is a sore point.  There have been times in the past when I have treated Jenn to an enchanted evening at a fine restaurant only to discover, when the bill was presented, that the previous evening when I had stopped at the bar for one quick one, but had unexpectedly met up with a lively and philosophic crowd, that in the ensuing give and take, symbolized by the buying of rounds, I had depleted my wallet, and I had required her financial assistance to pay for the meal.

 

But this is all in the past.  We are living in the present now, this little present of just one more beer which is presently sitting before me, little bubbles rising from its base like giggles. 

 

And then in a second incident of serendipity the pool players are ready for another round and are being quite vocal about it and the barmaid has released her grip and then she is gone, gone down the bar, and my glass of beer is all my own, steady in my hand.

 

I seize the beer and the moment, take a quick quaff, and the whole thing is a fait accompli, the triumph of logic accompanied by a couple small quirks of fate, a heroic ending for my quest. 

Oh the glare from Jenn’s gimlet eyes.  There is trouble ahead, and more troubling yet is the realization that, what with all this consternation, this beer will no longer be the capstone.  One more after it will certainly be required.

 

But with all my legerdemain, and my current serendipitous streak, I don’t see how this will be a problem.

morning in the garden primeval

 Looks like a scene from a forest primeval does it not?  It's one of those 'pans' that you put under your pot so that if you overwater it the water goes into the pan and not over your floor.  I put it out as a bird bath for the finches and pidges but they never cottoned to it.  I wonder if she can smell or taste the birds that may be frolicking in it when I am not watching it?  Or maybe they are not frolicking in it because they can smell her hot carnivore breath in the water.

I thought birds could not smell because well, they never act as if they are smelling anything, they don't pause to put their noses in the air.  But I double-checked and Mr Google says they can.  It's always a good idea to double-check what you know.  

I wasn't that sure about the noses thing, so I dropped in on Mr G, and sure enough they do not have noses.  They have a couple nose holes, but not a nose to be seen in The House of Birds.

They do have an interesting vision thing.  You know how predators have both eyes pointing forwards so they can use 3d to capture their prey and prey have their eyes on either side of their heads to better detect their predator creeping up on them?  My finches and pidges are frequently looking at me from a perch on the railing and I have often wondered are they really looking at me when they have the side of their heads facing me, or when they are looking at me head on.

Looked that up some time ago, but haven't had a chance to slip it into a post until this morning.  Mr G sez, both.  Even though their eyes are on either side of their head they both can see a little forward and so when they are looking at you like that they are getting a 3d reading, but not so good at fine detail so then they turn sideways to get a richer gander.  That's why they are always bobbing their heads around.

Anyway last night I had to put on my long pants because Sweetie wanted on my lap while I was watching tv.  If I have my shorts on it makes the little jump from the table more precarious for her and more painful for me.  Since it was a hot and humid night to accommodate the long pants I had to turn on the air conditioning which meant I had to close the door to the balcony.  This morning as I was going through my preparations for getting up and going she was meowing in a peevish manner at the door and I had to drop everything and open the door for her so that she could drink her water from the funny round pond in the forest primeval.

When you have a cat you have to know your place. 

And speaking of the forest primeval here are my morning glories bursting out like thunder across The Balcony of Ken.

Thanks Beagles

 Well alright then Beagles.  Thank you for taking the time to explain all that.  I still think, like Liz Cheney, that the only way to deal with him is a stake through the heart, but that's just me.

I thought she went a little too heavy on that putting food on the table trope, mentioning it twice.  I mean aren't people always concerned about putting food on the table?  It's like when pundits explain some phenomenon by saying these are troubled times.  Aren't times always troubled?

I don't usually post on Saturdays, but I wanted to thank Beagles before I went out to the cool of the balcony.

A Vote for Dixon is a Vote for Dixon

 What the author is saying is that some things are more important to many of the voters than Trump.  She asserts that candidates from both parties will lose votes if they try to make the election about Trump instead of the current issues.  I thought that she made her point clearly and did not find the article to be particularly long or meandering.  While not exactly identical, I thought that her statements tended to reinforce some statements that I had made in my last few posts.  Since my statements were made so recently, I didn't see the need to restate them.

The thing is, I decided to vote for Dixon before Trump bestowed his last-minute endorsement upon her.  If I were to change my mind at that point, I would be letting Trump influence my vote, which I was not interested in doing.  Besides, there were three other candidates that Trump could have endorsed just as easily.  I figured it was at least possible that the only reason he endorsed Dixon was that she appeared to be leading the pack at the moment, which was not so apparent earlier in the campaign. 

 

waiting

 You know I don't like those links in the form of:

 Hey look at this somestupidlink.com  

And I am left to read through some long and often boring and meandering article all the time looking for what exactly in the article the guy posting it is thinking of.  Doesn't seem to me like, as the reader, that should be my job.  If the poster has something to say, let him say it in his own words and not hide behind some public scribe. Isn't the main reason we are in The Institute that we like to write?

Normally I never read these bare links, but this morning I did, and I did find it meandering, but it seemed to me, seemed to me that her main point was that the dems are not going to make much headway running against Trump.  Which may or may not be true, all she had as evidence was a few cherry-picked incidents.

Anyway I will be waiting here for Beagles to explain what in the article moved Beagles to post it.