feeling-old

My eye doctor just informed me I need bifocals.

I’m still struggling with whatever I have.   I feel tired, weak, achie (almost brakie).  If anything happens to my dog or my truck (not that I have a truck, just sayin’) then I’m gonna have to write me a country song.

I even went to the doctor today.  I’ll wait while you pick yourself up off the floor.  I know, a guy that goes to the doctor pre-death-bed.  Well, let me say this: at 3:00 this morning, I was trying to decide if I would rather a) end my life or b) pay the emergency room copay.  I decided for “none of the above” and waited until I could see my regular doctor this morning.

She gave me codeine, disguised as cough medicine.  She loves me.

However, my wife suggested she would be extra happy if I wouldn’t actually take any said codeine until tonite, after the kids have been wrangled (we have a soccer game and who knows what else) and then I can sleep when normal people sleep instead of all day today and then fret all night.

I thought perhaps the weak / dizzy feeling was from not eating enough Ben and Jerry’s, but alas, I remember making it through lent (which felt like about a year) without Ben and Jerry’s and never feeling like this.  Plus my wife has been cooking some awesome meals and taking care of me, so I’ve got no cause for complaint.

I just need to admit that it takes longer to get over this kind of crap now that I’m - gasp - over forty.

If anyone is trying to follow the scatterbrained soap opera that I sometimes remember to write here, um, here’s some stuff:

We are not driving to visit family this weekend. That is a relief, because after the last week or two I need a little downtime, and maybe some playtime. If you didn’t know I was driving to visit family this weekend this isn’t exactly news. Or maybe it is.

Speaking of playing (I was) Jack Ingram is in town tonite. I’m thinking of going. I want to take my wife but I know she barely slept last night and has already put in more than a full day at work (and it’s not even 2:00 yet) so we’ll see. Also if we both go then the kids will be up till all hours, too (and it’s 18 and up so I can’t take them, but I think they are bigger Ingram / Robert Earl fans than I am)

Also, I’m dying to see “Sin City” and “Hitchhikers Guide.” Not necessarily on the same day, or even in that order, but ya gotta do what you gotta do.

We met with the teacher for the alternate school where my son will start on Monday, and I feel much. better. I’m kinda kicking myself that I resisted the notion as long as I did. Some info without too many specifics: she’s a special ed teacher, there will be just about one-on-one classroom time (there are only a few kids in the program and only one other as young as my son), loads of structure, daily feedback and incentives for progress, etc. We talked for over an hour and I feel like she has a pretty good idea of what we are expecting and we have a good idea of what SHE is expecting. She supports us in our quest to get him tested for special ed and has tons of experience working with the Powers that Be with regards to that. And no, I didn’t put this bit after “Hitchhikers Guide” because it’s less important, but because I still like to deny that anything is seriously wrong.

And speaking of seriously wrong, do you ever feel like you are should be on Jerry Springer? Me niether.

We have soccer tomorrow, last week my boys dominated in a 10-1 win. I hope they aren’t too cocky.

And hey, maybe I can update some photos so you can see what the clan looks like now.

Oh, crap, I keep forgetting to tell you about the cat. (this would be the cat that was hit by a car and nearly died, not the other cat that just eats her weight in food every day and then sleeps). The cat is fine. He is back mostly to his old self. He is a little camera shy (the infrared focusing beam freaks him out, I think) but he is climbing and running and jumping just like he should be. He has a funny little limp, sometimes, but I think even that is going away as the days pass.

I knew he was going to be OK the day I found him on the top bunk in the boys room. The only way to get there is to go straight up the ladder - I mean vertical. How a cat with a broken pelvis managed I’ll never know. This was several weeks ago. See, I told you I keep forgetting to talk about him.

Autumn invited me to draw a pig today. Hers is better than mine.

That’s enough for now. I rented Sideways (haven’t seen it yet) so in addition to Sin City, Soccer, Hitchhikers, cleaning house, mowing the lawn, etc I’m gonna try and watch that. Good thing I’m basically an insomniac lately.

I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night, and strange thoughts seem to stick in my head. So here’s the bit from last night.

Over 20 years ago, my parents bought a VCR. It cost well over $1,000 (a Hitachi) and was probably as heavy as a microwave oven now. It picked up the usual 13 channels plus a couple of UHF (you set the frequency by opening the little door, flipping the switch to VHFL or VHFH and then turning the wheel).

That may seem limited, but our town didn’t have cable, and “cable ready” had not been invented yet. As far as I know. You could program it to record off the air. This involved a complicated set of button presses to confirm your programming choice. On screen programming? Ha. It didn’t even say “Play” on the screen when you hit play. It did have a remote. Which was nice since you had to adjust the tracking on every single movie.

Now the cool thing is that you could now watch movies whenever you wanted. It was fifteen miles to the nearest video rental store (down in Dallas) and you literally had to leave a deposit with them in order to rent a movie. This made sense, since a new movie (on VHS, not Beta, be careful or you’ll be embarrassed in front of your girlfriend) cost $80 or $90. I think you were allowed to keep the movies for two nights or so.

We had a friend from where my dad worked who would sell movies. He had a list of movies, and you told him what you wanted, and a week later or so you got the movie - actually, two movies on a four hour VHS tape. No, he didn’t have a web site. We didn’t have a web then, of course. (We DID have a computer, with 8″ disk drives and no hard drive and a built in monochrome screen, and a dot matrix printer. I had a modem with the rubber suction cups that you put the phone handset onto after you dialed the phone. 300 baud.)

I remember watching things like Arthur, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and yes - Airplane (this was how I met my wife, but that’s another entry). You know all the hoopla about “downloading is stealing” and all that? As far as I know all these bootleg copies of movies 20 years ago had a minimal impact on movie studio profits.

I remember watching “Last Tango in Paris” - and it wasn’t the “R” version you get now at Blockbuster. Yeah, I was a wild teen.

So why, I’m sure you are wondering, did these thoughts pop into my head at 3 in the morning? Because last night I sat and watched a DVD of a Pixar animated movie on a laptop computer with a wireless broadband connection while my wife (whom I impressed 20 something years ago with a bootleg copy of Airplane) sat in the other room and watched Harry Potter on DVD.

This is pretty high tech shit, I thought to myself. We’ve come a long way since Raiders of the Lost Ark. Now I need somebody to tell me I’m not old.

I guess if I want to keep my random thoughts on this blog I might as well start somewhere.

First off, in case it isn’t extremely obvious, this is my first blog ever.

Secondly, I want to keep it anonymous to protect friends and family from any of my rants. I don’t think I have any “deep dark secrets” but I’m pretty sure I’ll be more candid if I don’t have to worry about somebody I care about flipping over something I’ve said or left out.

Leave a comment if you like; I may set up an e-mail account to catch direct replies. We’ll just take it as it comes.

Oh, the quote at the top (under the title) is by Jack Ingram, whom I’ve just stumbled across. He’s got some cool shit.