Author: bdharrellauthor

A retired bellyacher, sometimes writer and guardian of the dog Filbrix.

Don’t laugh, you’re next!

It has been one hell of a week, after a hell of a time since November 5th.

Events of the past week have reminded me of the joke about the man who comes home to find his wife in bed with another man. The jilted man pulls a pistol out of his pocket, puts it up to his head, and before he can fire, the man in bed starts laughing. The man with the pistol angrily declares, “Don’t laugh, you’re next!”

And so it goes.

As I am writing this, the big news is that the newly-minted Emperor has put a hold on government spending for 90 days on a variety of programs including such items as SNAP (formerly Food Stamps), WIC (Nutrition for Women, Infants, and Children), Medicaid, and Educational Subsidies like Student Loans. This is in addition to previously announced measures like putting the kibosh on medical research, pulling us out of WHO (World Health Organization), and the Paris Climate Accords.

Don’t laugh, you’re next!

And all this comes after a clown parade of Cabinet Appointees who have no business being in charge of the local dog pound, much less being in charge of multi-billion dollar agencies funded by our tax dollars. You know, the dollars most of us will be paying more next year so that billionaires can have yet another tax cut.

Don’t laugh, you’re next!

Cuts to food programs for those on the edge and children in school are unfortunate, especially considering a push to oust migrants, you know, people who go out into the fields to pick crops before they go bad, which will likely increase food prices.

Cutting Medicaid will mean that people will be more susceptible to diseases doctors will have no clue about because his worship has declared that there is to be no publication of data doctors use to detect and discover the next communicable disease outbreak.

Don’t laugh, you’re next!

Then there’s the education thing. We’re already having a problem keeping up with professionals in some fields because our educational systems have become so expensive that potential leaders in any number of fields don’t have the money to learn the skills needed to compete with skills learned by people where their governments value teaching world-class skills. How can America be great again if people can’t learn what they need to learn?

Don’t laugh, you’re next!

I have just mentioned what will likely be the tip of the iceberg over the next few months and/or years as a megalomaniacal “leader” bent on revenge (and keeping out of jail) has his way thanks to willing accomplices in Congress and the court system. I’m certain that there will be some backlash to this little essay from people who are ardent supporters of the man who would be King. To them, I’ll say…

DON’T LAUGH, YOU’RE NEXT!

The Perfect Santa

Cruising through Facebook on the last day of November, I ran across a woman’s plea to find a Santa. She did not want any old Santa, but a particular Santa, who, for at least three years, had captivated her daughters’ hearts. As far as that woman was concerned, she had found the perfect Santa. No one else would do.

Many of us want to believe in the “Jolly Old Elf” residing at the North Pole, even knowing that Santa is a myth. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands people out there willing to put on a red suit and a fake beard to keep the myth alive.

I quit believing in Santa when I was quite young. A combination of being growled at by one of a legion of imitation Clauses in the Men’s room of the Brookpark (Ohio) Civic Center at the end of a party, and discovering my Dad stuffing my stocking by my bedside in the middle of the night. After telling my parents of my discoveries, I kept my disbelief to myself as a courtesy to my younger siblings.

I began to believe again twenty-five or so years later when I owned and operated a combination balloon delivery business and costume shop in Chillicothe Ohio.

It was mid-November when I met Tim. The previous owner of the shop had used him to play Santa for the previous two Holiday seasons. We talked, I liked him. We came to an arrangement where I would arrange dates and he would show up, collect the fee, and cut me in for 10% just for making those arrangements.

I didn’t realize that Tim had a following until just after Thanksgiving. The phone in the shop was ringing almost constantly by people more than willing to put cash on the barrelhead for his services.

Tim Lived in Circleville, working at the box plant driving a loader all day. He wasn’t a burley man – to look at him he was probably the last person one would believe as being Santa. But he worked around his physical self, creating an illusion that he was the real deal. Even adults believed the illusion he created.

Tim and I were quite pleased with our take that first Christmas Season and agreed to do it again the following year.

That second year went on as well as the first. Unfortunately, Tim as Santa was one of only three bright spots in my first year in business. I ended up throwing in the towel the following Summer, barely able to pay my outstanding debts and feeling sorry for myself.

Six years after losing the business (and losing touch with Tim), I ran into another “Real Santa” working in the Santa House in Central Center.

The Gentleman in question, Jim, was the proprietor of the Dairy Queen over in Bainbridge Ohio. His store was closed for the season and he decided to buy a Santa suit so he could play the “Jolly Old Elf” at his leisure. Jim had more of the Santa build, but he also had the magic.

We chatted one afternoon about a problem I had with my then pre-school daughter, Sarah. Sarah was dead set against any sort of costumed character, especially Santa Claus.

I ended up taking Sarah on a shopping trip one evening, suggesting we go visit Santa before going into the store. Somehow I managed to coax her into the Santa House. She was immediately impressed that Santa knew who I was, and just as impressed that Santa knew who she was!

Magic Managed.

My daughter believed.

I believed.

Thirty years down the road – Both of my Santas are gone. But they live on, at least in the mind of a woman in Southern Illinois who is looking for that one person to re-create that magic for her family at least one more time.

I hope she finds him.

Be Seeing You!

A Pause so I Don’t Feel Sorry For Myself

Going through my files, I came up with this little essay…

Quoting American author Kurt Vonnegut:

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

“And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

“And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

“And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”

Me:

I was struck by this quote, posted by a Facebook friend from my old haunts in Chillicothe Ohio. While no one has asked me the typical questions asked by the other archaeologist he talked with on his lunch break, I can certainly relate to Kurt Vonnegut’s response. I’ve engaged in quite a few occupations (paid and otherwise) in my 70+ years on this planet without really excelling at any of them. Vonnegut’s revelation that having wonderful experiences and developing different skills makes one a more interesting person is a personal revelation.

            Been there, done that, have the T-shirt.

            I remember writing down a list of my accomplishments when I was in my late teens to early twenties. There were certain accomplishments I had not mentioned, but I recall my list as being somewhat extensive. That list has grown over the years. I have not kept track as I did at one time, but the list has grown.

            Until I read the quote, I was down on myself. I “retired” a little over five years ago with few, if any prospects of going back into the workforce. With the economic slowdown going on at the time, my prospects were even fewer… especially when you consider that age discrimination is really a “thing”, despite being told that age discrimination is not really a “thing.”

            My real problem has had to do with where would I fit in? I looked at politics, free-lance voice work (while finding out that the market is saturated), free-lance photography (phone cameras do as good a job as the electronic SLRs), or should I continue in my attempts to be a best-selling author? My prospects as a writer were slim to none. I had been writing for the better part of five years when I was “retired”. To date, I have made a total of less than $100 after an outlay of ten times that amount over six books.

            As a self-publisher, I was luckier than most. People have spent many thousands more than I’ve spent for even less return. I kept my wits about me and limited my exposure to a host of people catering to the vanity crowd. Between editors wanting a penny a word (cheap until you realize that a 60,000 word novel would cost a would be author $600), vendors selling book covers, and other vendors selling interior formatting (just at the tip of the iceberg), one can easily rack up three to four thousand dollars to produce a single book which likely would not sell because no one knows who the hell you are.

            And that’s publishing on the cheap. There are “Vanity Publishers” out there who are selling publishing packages for $10k and up. Mostly up.

            Enough. I took pencil to paper and did an inventory of what I have done since the tender age of 14 when I took over a paper route for the Chillicothe Gazette (Not mentioning the couple of times I substituted a Cleveland Press route for the carrier two doors down from me). I may have missed something, but here goes:

  • Newspaper carrier
  • Route supervisor for Newspaper carriers (District Sales Manager)
  • Entrepreneur (Mowing lawns, washing cars)
  • Grocery stocker (Cookies and crackers for the local cookie salesman)
  • Photographer (High school yearbook/student newspaper)
  • Slide show producer/writer/narrator (Free-lance and for employer)
  • Videographer (Free-lance)
  • Television Producer/writer/presenter
  • Writer (Radio commercials, op-ed pieces, novels (6 to date), short stories
  • Radio “personality”
  • Public speaker (Motivational talks)
  • Actor/Entertainer
  • Musician
  • Clown
  • Tour Guide
  • Served on a Church Vestry (Board of Directors)
  • Plumber
  • Electrician
  • Mechanic (Auto and Bicycle)
  • Offshore oil worker
  • Licensed lifeboat operator
  • Salesman – Advertising – Automobile (new and used) – power equipment – flooring – major appliances – electronics

As I mentioned, this list may not be complete. I’ve said nothing about other skills I’ve learned on the way.

            The silver lining to my various experiences are the various anecdotes coming out of those experiences and the people I’ve met on the way. I’ve included pieces of those anecdotes in some of my writing… as author Vonnegut has incorporated his experiences into his own writing.

            Anyhoo, now that I’m through with my little diatribe, it’s time for me to get off my soapbox and see what else I can cook up.

Be Seeing You!

Lemonaid

Back to the old saw, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”

Yes, I realize that I misspelled lemonade in the title, but that was deliberate as it has to do with my previous post.

I left you, the reader, with the better half and me poised to head up to southern Illinois to look at homes where we could retire.

Thursday evening of the weekend before Labor Day weekend, the dog Filbrix was due at “Doggie Camp” the next morning, our hotel room was booked, and we were nearly packed for our trip when my daughter called in a panic. It appears that at the last possible moment, she and her significant other were told to vacate their premises because they were “Out of Control.” It sounded to the better half and me that my daughter and her significant other were deemed “Out of Control” because they were in a same-sex relationship.

Relationships aside, they needed a place to go. I didn’t hesitate, nor did my better half. Life had handed my daughter a lemon. I was going to aid them by offering our hospitality… hence, the term “Lemonaid” in the title.

A few back and forths later, it was determined that my daughter would make her way from Georgia to Texas at the same time the better half and I were on our way to house-hunt in Illinois. Since she would arrive in Texas in our absence, we arranged for a key to be held by a mutual friend so my daughter could gain access to the house.

Crisis averted, for her. More lemons to come for us.

When we went to Illinois, we had a specific house in mind to look at and/or to make an offer for. In-town, close to a dog park (one of the dog Filbrix’s favorite things), nicely done back yard, and solar panels already installed and running. The better half was sold when she saw the solar panels. Two-thirds of the way to our destination, our Realtor called and told us that the house had been taken off the market. Sold. Dang!

Fortunately, we were forearmed of the possibility that the house we wanted would be unavailable, so, we had three other places we would look at.

The first was an older grey stucco in an historic district with a detached garage which looked like there would be a Studebaker hidden inside once the garage door was opened. It looked lovely until we went inside. Apparently, the previous owner had passed on to his reward and the house was being sold as part of his estate. There was trash (neatly bagged) in the living room and other indications that nothing had been done to make the house more saleable. Not only that, but the garage was empty. No Studebaker.

We then moved on to a newer place, a ranch house, with what could charitably be called a pie-shaped backyard. There were signs that the neighbors were potentially noisy and the house had a weird layout. We passed.

The third place was perfect. Large, fenced-in yard, fantastic master suite, well laid out, and a sunroom where we could install a hot tub!

We made an offer, but someone beat us to it.

Back to the drawing board.

We had a chat with the finance guy and a chat with the Realtor. The upshot was that while our credit was swell and we could pull the money together for a down payment and closing costs, we needed to sell our house in Texas before we could buy a house in Illinois.

Now, our trip wasn’t a total wash… we did manage to connect with the other half’s children (and the grandchild) while we were there. We also found a decent place to get barbecue. The trip back was scenic (although it involved a few more hours of travel than we would have liked), and we got a few ideas of places we’d like to visit once we relocated.

Once we got back, though, we knew what needed to be done. We were determined to make the move, but now we had a clearer vision of what needed to be done and in what order. And then there was the task of getting the house in order with two more humans to either help or hinder.

But that’s a tale for another time.

Be Seeing You!

Who Needs a Gym Membership When They Have a Dog?

This morning, I took the dog Filbrix out for an extended walk on the Chaparral Trail from the Farmersville trailhead while strangers came to look at my house.

The strangers were there for a good reason. The better half and I have put the house up for sale so we can move ourselves and the dog Filbrix to southern Illinois. Our hope is that the strangers who came to look at our house will find it at least tolerable and will want to move in straight away.

Or at least after the fifth of November.

Why the move is because of several factors… among them being two stepchildren and one and two-thirds of a grandchild already living in southern Illinois. After making several trips up there over the past few years, we have found less expensive housing (some of that actually “cheaper” as you will find out as you continue to read this essay), the people are generally friendly, and there are actual hills and forested areas nearby.

Shades of southern Ohio!

After having suffered through Chemotherapy in the past twelve months, both the better half and I decided it was time for a change. Except for one stepdaughter, we no longer have a good reason to stay here in what I have called, “My own little corner of the DFW Metromess.” The strongest tie we had was my Mother-in-Law, until recently, living in San Antonio. My wife drove there once a month or so over most of the past year while the M-I-L wasted away due to Parkinson’s. She passed in May. Her ashes, as well as the ashes of her late husband, are in what the better half calls our “Conservatory.”

One other reason for us to “Head for the Hills” is that the better half’s job will come to an end in early November. She is a day nurse for a juvenile with physical “issues”. Her patient will age out of the system, meaning he will turn 18, meaning she will no longer have a patient to attend to. So, she has decided that she will retire at about the same time the two-thirds of a grandchild will make his appearance among the living.

Two-third’s older brother can hardly wait. A brother, Nana, and The Colonel (an inside joke) will all be in Illinois along with much of the rest of the family.

The decision to move was made in early July. I started perusing Zillow and found several houses available in what I thought would be an attractive price range. That in mind, I girded my loins and made a solo trip to look at a couple of candidates in a town once known for producing washing machines.

I made an appointment with a Realtor to look at what I thought was the best candidate for the money. The appointment ended up being a total bust. The neighborhood was nice, the house looked nice from the outside, but once inside, it was a total disaster. It seems that the house had been repossessed and that the lein holder was anxious to get at least some money for the money he or she was about to lose. If someone would have left the electricity on, the basement would not have gotten wet, leading to several other problems.

One of the other homes I was half interested in viewing was a rambling place on the other side of town, again at a bargain price. I had a quick glance and that was all I needed to convince myself that I didn’t want to even think about the place. There was a four to six foot ditch in front of the house. Seriously. Evidently, it was on the wrong side of the tracks.

My trip in July wasn’t a total wash, though. I left with a favorable impression and was able to touch base with the kiddos. It became a further win-win on the way back to Texas when I concluded that there were certain stretches of road in Oklahoma I didn’t really want to drive on.

I returned with a determination that I wanted to relocate. Plans for a second trip in August, this time with the better half, started to come together. We made reservations, found a place to park the dog, worked on getting pre-approval for a mortgage, had a handful of houses we thought we might be interested in viewing, and were practically on the road when something came up.

More later. The story will get interesting, I promise.

Be Seeing You!

Past Due for an Update

This one may take a while.

For those of you who follow me solely on WordPress, I’m still here and I’m relatively healthy. Chemotherapy is now four months behind me. From the looks of it, I’m thriving. I had a CAT scan, a visit with my Oncologist’s Physician’s Assistant, and a session with the nurse in the infusion room to clear my port. The only lingering effect has been the neuropathy in my fingers and my feet. My Primary Care Physician put me on a drug that was supposed to help… two months (and $120) into the recommended therapy and I don’t feel as if there has been any difference. The PA at the Oncologist’s office told me that healing takes time. (Lord give me patience… RIGHT NOW!!!)

Part of my tardiness on this platform was due to my Mother-In-Law’s illness and eventual passing back in May. She had been having a tough time with her health, exacerbated by the death of my Father-In-Law just before Christmas last year. My wife, with my blessing, drove down to see her mother in San Antonio on average once per month. I pointed out to her that while the distance was daunting, she would appreciate having time to spend with her mother before her eventual demise. Not to pat myself on the back too hard, but I was right in my assessment. My wife returned to the house from her last trip to see her mother less than 48 hours before her mother died. My wife was grateful that she went on my insistence.

With death comes responsibility. We have spent more than a little time attending to details involving my M-I-L’s estate and planning a get-together for a memorial service in San Antonio. We were able to gather for the memorial service with little or no problem. I arranged for hotels and a couple of meals for an assortment of family from as far away as Southern Illinois. It was good to see the grands and to marvel at how much they had grown in the past two years or so since we last saw them. The service was on Saturday and some of us deliberately took time on Sunday to go down to the Riverwalk in Downtown San Antonio. It had been a while since I last went there, and it will likely be a while before I head back down there.

Now I could say something to the point that life returned to normal after we returned to our home base in our little corner of the DFW Metromess… but that would be less than truthful.

During the last of my Chemotherapy sessions, I started taking a look at our family’s fiscal position in anticipation of my wife’s retirement. Not long before losing her mother, my wife’s hours as a nurse for a patient in the next town over were cut to accommodate a situation with her patient’s care. Her patient was allocated so many hours of care per week. She had been working overtime – a situation not appreciated by the agency she worked for. After doing some calculations it was decided that she would continue with fewer hours with her income supplemented by Social Security. In the short term, we would be a bit better off. In the long term, we came to the realization that since her patient turned 18 in the first part of November, her job would go away. Since she turned 67 in March, she decided that enough was enough and that she would just go ahead and retire at that time.

So the question came up – “What comes next?”

Three years ago, my stepdaughter and her husband moved to Southern Illinois. Her brother, my stepson, joined her about a year later. The attraction was a lower cost of living (as compared to the DFW Metromess). Both of the stepchildren were able to purchase homes of their own for considerably less than what they would have to pay here in the Metromess. I did some prowling on the internet and found more than an ample supply of housing we could purchase, again at a reasonable price, leaving us with a considerable nest egg after selling the house we are living in now. I started prowling on the internet well before the demise of my Mother-In-Law, keeping it mostly to myself until a few weeks after the memorial service. My wife warmed up to the idea after I took a solo trip to the area to get a feel for it… well, that and the presence of a grandchild (soon-to-be grandchildren).

I’m still running the numbers, but it looks as if a move could be likely in a few months. Allow me to expand on the idea at a later date.

Be Seeing You!

This time – Gold!

A few days ago, I quit communicating with a young woman supposedly living in Los Angeles calling herself Ellie. She was one of several young women who have “accidently” gotten a hold of me on Telegram – a secure platform boasting end-to-end encryption, enabling privacy for any number of purposes.

For the most part the purposes I have encountered have included an investment scheme, usually involving Cryptocurrency. Ellie started out differently. When I asked if she was doing Crypto, she answered that she had lost in the low six-figures in Crypto.

Her investments were in gold… but it sure sounded a lot like the pitch for Crypto.

When the subject of investing in gold came up, I politely declined and we had conversations covering other areas, such as her desire to ride a horse, or her plans to visit her parents in Singapore, or another plan to visit Japan, or even telling me about the time she got mugged in Paris. France.

Eventually, though, every conversation we had (with the full knowledge of my wife) circled back to an invitation to invest in gold. I came to realize that my conversations with Ellie had only continued because I was, to her, a project, not a person.

Here’s a bulletin – I am not a project. I have more than a few friends who are much better off than I will ever be (barring an unlikely win in the lottery) and none of them has treated me as a project needing their assistance. My friends know that thanks to good money management on my part, I am in relatively good shape financially. I have what I need to thrive. I am not some poor schlub needing a fabulous investment opportunity handed to me. I am an equal. Occasionally, one of my better-off friends will buy me lunch.

And I am good with that.

The better half and I won’t be driving around in a Bentley or one of Mr. Musk’s battery-powered vehicles anytime soon nor will we jump into an airliner to visit Singapore on a whim. However, we pay our bills and usually have enough left at the end of the month to put into savings and take the occasional trip to the Hideaway Ranch where we can soak naked in a hot tub.

Now, if Ellie or anyone else REALLY wants me to take advantage of a short-term investment opportunity with a large return, I need a lot more information than a name and a vague idea where that person lives. And in the unlikely event that I agree to make an investment, I need to know a heck of a lot more about where my money will be going. I don’t care to be providing a dividend for someone further up in the food chain in some Ponzi scheme.

Some years ago, I fell in love with the movie NETWORK. William Holden’s character was in the process of breaking up an affair with Faye Dunaway’s character, delivering the line that Ms. Dunaway’s character was “… television incarnate… shallow, vapid, and lacking any sort of soul.” (I am paraphrasing, here.) I thought of that movie in my dealings with Ellie. She (and others like her) are the Internet incarnate. Shallow, vapid, and lacking any sort of soul. All I can do at this point is to say bye bye. Better luck with the next person you wish to sucker into your investment scheme.

Gold standard, indeed!

Be Seeing You

Continuing the Journey – 8 Weeks Later

Eight Weeks

May 9, 2020

Taking Care of Business

Eight weeks ago today, I had the needle going into the port feeding me chemotherapy drugs removed for the last time. Today, I am in a bit of a daze, coming off anesthesia administered while I was undergoing a Colonoscopy. The good news – nothing was found in my colon. The bad news – I still have 44 weeks of being monitored by the Oncologist before she will declare me free of the dreaded cancer. In the meantime, I am taking care of business.

It was a Colonoscopy done three years ago that made me a cancer patient to begin with. It was a small mass in my rectum noted by the Gastroenterologist when I had my first Colonoscopy. For a few months, there was quite a bit of hand-wringing going on as to how much damage was done and where, and what to do about it.

I was referred to a surgeon who did a resection with the help of a robot nicknamed “Karen”. After consultation with the Oncologist, it was thought that I was out of the woods, but the Oncologist insisted on watching me for the next five years just to make sure that there was no problem.

I was scheduled for a follow-up Colonoscopy a year after the first one. Nothing was found and I was told to come back in two years.

A little past the one-year mark, or a little less than a year ago, the Rectal Cancer had popped up on my liver. Surgery, Chemotherapy (as a preventative measure) and more hand-wringing later, I found myself sitting with my laptop recalling all that had happened in the three years since my first Colonoscopy.

Quite the journey, but it’s not the last of it.

As I mentioned, I have 44 weeks, four visits with my Oncologist, at least one extra visit to have the port removed, four CAT scans, two visits with my primary care physician, and a partridge in a pear tree. There are a couple of financial details needing my attention (due to an office failing to pay attention to changes in my insurance) and other visits concerning my eyesight.

For the most part, though, I am healthy and wise. Never really wealthy, but two out of three ain’t bad.

Be Seeing You!

Continuing the Journey – Four weeks later

Continuing the Journey – Four weeks later

Four Weeks

April 12, 2024

I’ve had normal days for four weeks, now. Just a couple of minor complaints at this point in my recovery. Still some tingling in my feet and fingers – not bad enough to complain about. Yet. I still get tired somewhat easily, but not as easily as I did a couple of weeks ago. There is the occasional slight feeling of vertigo – the feeling is fleeting. Most of my other bodily functions seem to be working well. One small victory noted this evening – my sense of taste is back. It’s nice to sit down to a meal and be able to taste it. What I need to do, though, is to watch what I eat so I don’t gain back the 30+ pounds that I lost in the past six months.

The visit with the Physician’s Assistant (almost typed Apprentice) went well. I was spared an exam of the problem mentioned in my previous update. Not that I was against the exam. I’ve been probed by female doctors in my nether area enough to not let it bother me. The only inhibition came about from the fellow suspended by a rope and washing the third floor window while I was talking with the PA. We had a nice conversation about my condition and she was able to provide advice as how to alleviate the problem until the colonoscopy next month. It was intimated that there was something that could be done during the colonoscopy. I may ask later, or when I’m about to be put under.

Her hint that there might be a stitch or two involved reminded me of the story told by the boy’s health class I had in my sophomore year in high school. The teacher was a colorful character who peppered his language in relatively crude terms. Seeing as how he was teaching tenth-grade boys, he did well by using the language he did as most of our minds were in the gutter at that point in our lives. Anyhoo, the instructor told the story of going to the local VA Hospital to have his hemorrhoids surgically removed. It went well until he got home, telling us that he felt as if “A wildcat was loose in my ass!”

Naturally, his description was well-received.

Later that year, I was walking with a female upperclassman to the student parking lot where her boyfriend (and still a friend to this day) was waiting to give me a ride somewhere. As we passed the classroom where another group of tenth-grade boys were being instructed in matters of health, my escort shook her head at the open door and declared that she wondered why the man would keep the door to his classroom open, considering his language.

My visit with the PA ended with a scrip, instructions, and confirmation of my date with the person doing the colonoscopy.

More immediately, I am less than three weeks from seeing my Doctor for the first time since becoming the human chemistry set. I do look forward to seeing my Doctor. He is usually in good humor. Aside from the story I’ve passed on about one of my teachers, there’s little else to tell. I’ll probably catch up after the colonoscopy coming in May.

 Be Seeing You!