Lost in Time and space

I originally hurt my back about 30 years ago. I was young, in college and foolish. I was working summers selling automotive parts. I’d been with the company a few years and they asked me to go down to a small town south of where I was in college, and convert this independent store that they’d bought, to a company store. I was thrilled, as they informed me that I was the assistant manager. What I found out, was that I was the only other employee besides the manager. We got to inventory the store and send back about thirty percent of it, as obsolete stock. We also got to move every part, clean and paint the place in the company colors, yellow and black. We then got to order all the new stock. All while trying to establish some customer base for the new store. The manager had two race cars, so he and I hit it off. I was still crewing for some other racers at the old Fort Worth, actually North Richland Hills, Green Valley Drag track. I also decided to purchase a 1970 Mercury Cyclone as a project car. What made the car unique was the 429 cubic inch Cobra Jet motor. The car could cruise all day, at 100 miles per hour, with the air conditioning running, and towing another car. Only problem was, it needed rebuilding. So when the Ford service manual said to use a hoist to lift certain parts on and off, being young and dumb, I’d just muscle them. By the end of the summer, my back was in constant pain from all the strains.
My parents had a pool at the time and a pool cover. Think a giant piece of bubble wrap. My dad asked me to help him pull it back on one evening. I don’t remember much besides a lot of pain. I’ve been nursing the back for 30 years.
Two weeks back, I attempted to get up for work, and could not even put on my shoes, the pain was so intense. I worked from home the day and made an appointment to see my doctor. He changed up some prescriptions and set me up for an MRI. Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
I thought I’d had an MRI about 15 years back. But I’d not. I’d had a CAT scan. On a CAT, they lay you on a table and then the table moves you back and forth through this big white donut contraption. You just lay there while the table moves once in a while.
On the MRI, you go INSIDE the machine. First, the technician eye’s you up and down and tells you that anything with metal, has to be removed. I asked him about my dental implant. No big deal. Then, he told me to go remove my jeans and put on this stylish pair of paper pants. He then helped me lay down on the table. He covered me with some blankets and gave me a little bulb to squeeze. “In case you have some issue while in the machine”. Um….OK. He asked me if I was ready and that all I had to do was breath normally and lay there. Oh, and here’s some ear plugs. Since I was “ready” into the contraption I went.
What happened next was an elevated heart rate and increase in breathing. I felt like I was being loaded into a coffin. I understood the bulb. Squeeze the thing to GET ME OUT OF HERE!!! I wondered if this thing was going to transport me, a-la Star Trek, to another spaceship someplace.


The top of this tube I was going in had some string type lights, about four inches from my face. The walls on the side, were brushing down my arms. Then, the machine stopped and the technician came over the speaker and asked me if I was OK. Yeah, I guess I was. I think I know how Jonah felt in the fish! He then said that the machine was going to start making a bunch of racket and to just relax. I shut my eyes. I understood the earplugs next! This thing started making a LOT of racket. It was the revolving magnets on take off!! I kept waiting for this thing to decide that the implant in my jaw had to come out, by magnetic force. This racket went on for 30 minutes. Occasionally, it would stop, the machine would take a coffee break or reload or something. After the first few minutes, I just did my best to relax, lie still, and breathe normally. What joy!

Some 20 minutes later, the machine took another break and the technician came on and asked if I was OK. Sure, when do we arrive at the space station? He said “we” had one more pass to make, whatever that meant.

Finally, the noise ended and the machine started backing me back out. The technician came in, tossed my ear plugs and helped me up. I was so disoriented I had to ask him where my pants were, here or were they still on Xyloton. He pointed me back to the men’s room with my pants, glasses and such. I mentioned to him, that I’d not even got to crush that bulb deal. He just grinned and wished me good luck.

And crawling on the planet's face
Some insects called the human race
Lost in time, lost in space
And meaning.

Is this a sign of getting old?

A week ago, I only had the big vitamin bottle, the small baby aspirin bottle and a Lipator bottle. What happened to cause this?
I've had that bad back for 30 years now. This week, I got up in total agony on Monday. It was all I could do to get my shoes on and tied. I gave up and stayed home. Been home on heating pads, and multiple medicines, this week. I saw my doctor late Monday and he gave me some prescriptions, cut out one prescription, put me on steroids, sleeping pills, and set up an MRI on my back. This is Wednesday, day two of the steroids. My back is in less pain, but still shots of pain down my left leg to my ankle. Tomorrow, is MRI day. They did that to give the steroids 48 hours to attempt to knock out some of the swelling.
My last MRI was about 15 years back. I seem to remember some lower back disc was "50 percent degenerated" then. I'm holding my breath this time.
I'm already ticked off. We were going to the high school football game this Friday, I was to go Orienteering on Saturday and then a car cruise Saturday evening. Looks like all or most of that, is off for me now.

Now, I just have a bunch of medicines to try and remember to take at the right time.

Curbs, potholes and sidewalks !!! OH MY!!!

Tonight's local news had a story about Dallas county trying to get their streets fixed on a very limited budget. The news reporter was standing in a poor side of town and noting that they had pot holes, no shoulders, no curbs and little drainage. My wife and I were laughing. We bought here when this was a middle class neighborhood, with a few upper middle class homes. In 1986, our dead-end street, had little drainage, no curbs, and pot holes in the dirt street. No pavement. The city paved it the next year. And in the last 22 years, they have paved it twice total. No curbs. No sidewalks. They have never cleaned out the silted in drainage, which is just a ditch. Oh well. We like it.



And this is now an upper middle class neighborhood, but not gated.

Paul? Is that you?

One of my many self imposed “get done” chores for Labor Day, was to touch up the paint on our daughters 1999 Corolla. I had sanded down the rusty spots, and roughed up the primer that was showing. I then just used some touch up paint on all the chips and peeling paint. On Monday morning, I decided to get the buffer out and polish out the touch up. Her car was parked under a tree, so I had shade. I got out an electrical cord and the buffer and the polish compound. I decided to use the garden hose from the front of the house. You need some water on the paint and the buffer pad, to make the compound work. I went and turned on the hose in the front and turned around to walk back to the car. That was when I noticed green movement by the back door handle of the car. Paul was back! Paul is a praying mantis. He was watching me. He has been hanging out in our front bushes for a year or two. Since I never see other mantis, maybe Paul is really Paulette. I don’t want to pry.
I’m glad our cats were asleep on the back porch. They would have died of a heart attack when the got a sight of a four inch long praying mantis. After I took Paul’s picture, I took the camera back inside. When I returned, Paul was gone again. These suckers do fly!

Our 13 year old, taught me a new word.....

I cooked one of our thirteen year old's favorite meals last night. Chicken breast, Lipton chicken rice, and cooked carrots with brown sugar. We add barbecue sauce to the chicken.

She enjoyed it with some milk with about a cup of Nestle Quick mixed into it.

Flash forward to about 9:45 PM. She's almost ready for bed, when she headed out to the garage and the refrigerator out there. We keep drinks in it. She has ICB creame soda, root beer and Canada dry ginger ales. We tell her to drink milk and not sugar drinks at bed time. She then informs me that she needed the ginger ale to settle her stomach. Seems she had just had a burp. Except she had a new term, at least it was to me. "Dad...I need the ginger ale because I just burped and it was BABY BARF"

I started chuckling. I've not heard that term before.

Next time, I just open the door

Here at work, they have us stacked like cord wood in the cubes. There is zero privacy, so everyone lurks in the stairwells to use cell phones. Or, they head outside. I prefer outside for very private conversations, but weather can present an issue. About twice a day, I head outside to walk about the parking lot. On this mornings exit, there was some person pacing fast right outside the exit doors. He was having a very, VERY animated conversation in some foreign language. There were arms waving everywhere. I went for the right hand door. Nope, he was in front of it. I went for the left door, nope he was there. I pause 1.3 seconds in hope that this ping-pong person, and I would be out-of-step and I could exit. Nope, he’s to fast for me. I finally just pop the door open an inch. He screeches to a dead halt and then GLARES at me. He then went back to yelling and waving. I guess it was the new iPhonepodcamTVtoothbrushcombtissue model and the other person must have been able to see all the gesturing.

Number Ten envelops – a new aggravation

I get home from work and tackle the mail. I do this as I’m watching the early news and changing into non-work cloths. I try and handle all mail only once. Junk mail goes straight into the trash can, which is the shredder also. Bills get reduced to just the return slip, which I then use to set up the electronic funds transfer. I shred the rest. Statements and such get stapled together for filing. Some of the junk mail solicitors seem to have started a new trend in the number ten envelops they use. Regular number tens have the fold over flap to the rear. That way, you place the stamp, return address and address on the front which has no fold on it. These new junk mail envelops, have the sealed flap on the front. I guess the mailing machine doesn’t have a problem printing the address on the front and then sealing it and running it through their automatic stamping machine. What I get annoyed at is that I’m programmed to glance at the return address to see who is sending me something, and then flip it over to tear open the flap and remove the contents. With this new junk-mail number ten, I find myself turning it over and then searching for the flap. And then turning it back over, where the flap is on the front. I might just save myself another three seconds and forget opening it. Just tear it in half and toss into the trash can.