I Am Being Productive…Honest.

WELL, HERE WE GO AGAIN. It is 6:30 AM. I have my coffee in front of me and my pen is in my hand…and I haven’t the foggiest idea of what comes next. I know that I should have glowing prose spilling from my brain onto the page. But, as I stare at the empty paper in front of me all I can think of is, “I’d rather be back in bed.”

It took me only five minutes to turn on my phone and check my overnight mail. Most of it was junk. There was one very nice note from a new reader praising a post from last week. That’s always a nice way to start the day. It is certainly better than having some disgruntled insomniac telling me how wrong I am about everything and that my writing style sucks like a ten year old Hoover.

Take a number and get in line. Our Complaint Dept. opens at 9 AM – after my coffee and meds.

Why Am I Awake?

 

NOW THAT WE ARE ALL BACK ON OUR FAMILIAR SOD the next trick is to get reacclimated to the Eastern Standard Time Zone. Five hours is a lot of time to readjust to – at least for this old geezer.

It didn’t take long to get comfortable going the other way. That part of the journey took only a day or two because on the flight over I slept most of the way. I wasn’t the pilot so I felt fine with dropping off to sleep even before the wheels left the ground.

I Got It! I Got It!…I Ain’t Got It.

I’LL ADMIT IT – I’M EASILY CONFUSED. If it involves mathematics of some sort I am almost assuredly baffled. It doesn’t have to be Inter-Galactic Hypersomnambulistic Digital Train Schedules or anything. Grocery store coupons tie me in a knot. Going from Metric to Whatever it is we use might as well be done in a dark room wearing a blindfold while listening to chalk on a blackboard, naked.

And then there is Daylight Savings Time. Uhhhhh. OK.

Digging My Way Out Of Kolaches

 

I’M GETTING INTO A RUT. SOME PEOPLE MIGHT SAY, “KRAFTY, YOU ARE GETTING TO BE AS DULL AS DIRT.”

They’re probably right.

It was just yesterday (if you actually read yesterday’s blog) that I highlighted (highlit?) my day with safari into deepest, darkest Dollar General in search of the Wild Parmesan Cheese. How could anything be less exciting than that?

Quite easily if you are me.

This morning, after dream-filled night fraught with images of me walking in circles and the more I walked the farther away I got from everything, At a couple of minutes after 6 AM I popped into semi-consciousness. With only one lobe plugged in and operating I dressed myself, staggered down the stairs and made a pot of tea…all without any injury or embarrassing fashion faux pas. That gave me hope that things might be on the upswing.

I should have known better.

As I sat there slumped over my mug of tea like an early-morning barstool cowboy my wandering (read: unfocusing) eyes lit upon a shopping list note propped up within my field of vision.

Small Bottle of Bleach

Pepto Bismol

I don’t care what fad diet you may be following in your pursuit of skinny jeans, there is no way in Rochester, Minnesota that mixing Bleach and Pepto Bismol can be a good thing. Just seeing that list at that hour made my tummy-tum-tum do a triple back flip. I tried to ignore it as I submerged myself into my tea. It didn’t work

Throwback Thursday from April 2016 – “I’ll Need To Sleep On It”

Throwback Thursday from April 2016 – “I’ll Need To Sleep On It”

SLEEP – I’M IN FAVOR OF IT. I’ve had years of practice doing it. I can do almost anyplace.

Whenever I sleep witnesses have sworn that I do it with my eyes closed. Not everyone does it that way. I know someone who sleeps with their eyes wide open. Talk about Spooky. This person was not a sleepwalker with his eyes open. Nope, this fellow could be in bed, tucked in, snoring like a locomotive, with his eyes open. I’m sure there is a scientific explanation as to how and why he does that. My five cent answer is that he was possessed by demons that never sleep and stay up all night watching infomercials. Yup, spooky.

There Has To Be A Better Way

WELL, IT IS TIME TO STRAP ON OUR WINGS AND FLY. We are heading down to Texas for a family visit. We are both very happy to be doing this for several reasons.

1. We are looking forward to seeing everyone.
2. Dawn’s Mother has better Wi-Fi than we do.
3. It is warmer there than Indiana and we need to feel some heat.

Those three factors alone make this trip worthwhile. Actually, they would make any trip worthwhile.

When we make these excursions to Texas the snags that appear are all part of the “getting there” that we have to go through. Whoever came up with that “Getting there is half the fun” line must have been drinking the entire time.

It’s About Time.

 

I MUST BE GETTING OLD. If I don’t get my sleep I am no better than a caged squirrel.

When they (not me) start adding and subtracting hours in the day they are toying with my very existence. If I want to sleep until 7 AM don’t tell me all of a sudden that it is 8 AM or, even worse, 6 AM. My body just can’t take that without putting up an argument. Get me up too early and I am nothing more than a reasonable facsimile.

Let Me Know If You Plan To Drive Tonight

WHOOP DI DOO! YIPPEE KAI YAY! Happy New Year and all that. 2019 begins shortly or not, depending on when you read this. Or – possibly taking into account the amount of alcohol you’ve already consumed – 2019 began some time ago. If you are an NBA Basketball player – welcome to 2027! You are coming out of your coma!

It has been a long time since I have been awake at midnight on New Year’s Eve. I just cannot stay conscious that late any more. I guess that makes me a true Geezer. Not being able to stay awake until midnight is one of the official symptoms and qualifications for Geezerhood.

Run That Past Me Again

I DON’T MIND IT WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME QUESTIONS. I don’t even mind tough questions – not at all. But what constitutes a tough question often depends on the time of day.

You can ask me for the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything after lunch and I can give you the answer (42). However, if you ask me that before my first coffee of the day and I’d be stumped. Actually, almost any question before coffee is likely to be answered with nothing more than a grunt.

This morning that is what happened to me.

Somedays…

 

“HELLO, MY NAME IS JOHN AND I’M A LUMP”

“HI, JOHN.”

That’s how I would introduce myself at a meeting of “Lumps Anonymous.” Some days are like that. Yesterday was one.

I don’t want to say that I had a lack of energy, but I felt the need to put a mirror up to my own mouth just to be sure that I was still breathing. Rolling out of bed was easy. It was the getting up off of the floor that took a while.

Throwback Thursday from July 2015 – “My Butt Is Dragging”

Throwback Thursday from July 2015 – “My Butt Is Dragging”

My Butt Is Dragging

GOING UP AND DOWN STAIRS is difficult today because my butt is dragging and it makes a disturbing sound as it bounces on each step.

SHH-Thump, SHH-Thump, SHH-Thump

I’m in recovery from our vacation that covered 1600+ miles in one week, more walking/hiking than I’ve done in years and that, as of yesterday, I am one year older.

No wonder my butt is dragging. It may take a week of intense sleeping for me to get my sedentary mojo back.

Last night when I plopped down in my favorite chair I could swear I heard it whisper, “You’re home!” I was touched that it remembered me. The Rip Van Winkle Memorial Chair and I go back a few years. It knows that when my cheeks hit the upholstery that, while I may say I’m there to watch some TV, I’m really there to sleep.

Another reason that my butt is dragging today is the fallout from the feeding frenzy at the Red Lobster last evening. I think I might have inadvertently tricked my body into thinking that I was a bear loading up for hibernation. I ate more than enough to keep an 800 pound Kodiak bear alive through a long Arctic winter.

I mentioned our trip to the Red Lobster in yesterday’s blog and I have already gotten a number of comments suggesting various diets to help me get rid of this excess weight. I think the best way is for me to be selective about what I eat and to stay away from that evil Red Lobster. No offense to Red Lobster, but…

I guess that, now that I am no longer a “mere yute,” to borrow a phrase from the movie “My Cousin Vinnie,” I think that my recovery time is slower – considerably slower- than when I was in my twenties. Back then, in the Dark Ages, I could be out until the Clubs closed at 2:30 AM then go out with a few of the other comedians to some all-night cafes to let the adrenaline come down before heading home to sleep. The sleep was never more than two or three hours until I had to get up and shuffle off to “the day job.”

Nowadays, I find myself cuddling into the Arms of Morpheus before the 11 o’clock news begins. I have gone from being the hip dude about town into the old dude in the easy chair.

My plans for the 4th of July Weekend do not involve fireworks – unless the yutz who lives down the block decides to spend all night re-enacting the Battle of Tarawa in his driveway. I did see him parked outside of the big temporary fireworks store next to the Kroger’s.

“Buy One – Get 7000 FREE!”

Indiana and Terre Haute (That’s French for “Let’s watch the kid blow off his thumbs.”) have very lax laws and regulations about fireworks. Any idiot can buy “fireworks” that the detonation of would be an act of war in most countries. Every July 4^th and for a few days afterward this town sounds like the War of 1812. Francis Scott Key would have felt right at home inner-tubing on the Wabash River and seeing the “bombs bursting in air.”

So, on the days that I need the most rest I will have to contend with neighborhood noise levels comparable to the jet wash of a B-52.

I’ll be fine. I know that. I just might be a little grumpier than usual and more likely to nod off in mid sentence than I normally do, but I’ll be OK.

So, if you will now excuse me I am going to walk around in a circle a few times and curl up on the carpet for a little nap.

I Been Sick. Play Ball!

I HAVE BEEN SICK FOR THE LAST TEN DAYS with some low grade bug that has had me coughing like an out of tune Pontiac. I’m better today than I was last week and I am confident that I will be completely well by this coming Monday. Why so confident? Because that is when I have a scheduled Doctor appointment.

That’s just the way things work out. It’s like when your car is making that funny noise that hints at demonic possession. When you finally get it into the shop the engine is purring like a kitten.

Time After Time

TOO EARLY THE OTHER MORNING I was up and scampering about, unable to sleep. I had the TV tuned to TCM and watched a movie made back in 1979 – “Time After Time.”

“Time After Time” came out shortly after I’d moved to San Francisco. The movie was filmed there and it was fun to see places in town that I knew.

The storyline was about H.G. Wells, the author of “The Time Machine,” using his invention to chase after Jack the Ripper who had used Wells’ Time Machine to leap ahead in Time to modern day (1979) San Francisco. It was a fun little thriller of a movie, but I bring it up today because it got me to thinking – a dangerous activity even on a good and well rested day for me.

It’s Uphill Both Ways

I SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE IT. I’m paying for it now and it may take some time for me to catch up. Why did I do that?

Yesterday, for some reason, I ended up really tired. I certainly didn’t overwork myself at anything. I’ll just blame it on the curvature of the Earth that made me spend the whole day going uphill. The end result was that this morning I slept in an extra 90 minutes. That means that the whole world has a 90 minute headstart on me this morning.

When my toes hit the ground I was immediately playing catch-up. I’m not good at that.

To Quote Cary Grant, “Jedi, Jedi, Jedi.”

 

WE HAVE FALLEN INTO LOCKSTEP with millions of other people and there was nothing I could do about it. We went and saw the new Star Wars movie…Episode MDCXXVII of a planned IX Episode saga. I might be wrong on that number, but not by much.

In this latest picture most of the cast is either dead or looking like they just came out of their XXIII attempt at Detox. In my opinion the Special Effects are not so special looking anymore, but then again, I have cataracts and my glasses were dirty.

It Does Rain In California

FROM HAVING WORKED IN NIGHTCLUBS AND THEATERS all those years I became a real Night Person. It was not at all unusual for me to be out and about at 3 AM after the clubs had closed for the night.

With the Adrenaline still pumping it just wasn’t possible to go straight home and hit the hay. A bunch of us would stop at some all-night cafe for a bite and to talk shop.

That was then, this is now.

I can’t do that anymore. Both my mind and my body want to shut down long before those late hours.

Nothing. I Got Nothing.

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT. At least that was how it felt to me. While it was comfortably warm and calm outside inside my body it was “Batten down the hatches, and furl your sails!”

I was sick.

On Friday I felt relatively well and spry for a man of my age, but by Friday night I was feeling a bit off kilter. I was sneezing and had no appetite. For me that is a rare occurrence. I began to fear that something ugly was afoot.

Throwback Thursday -June 2015 “The Difference Between Jet Lag And Death”

Throwback Thursday – From June 2015

 

QUESTION OF THE DAY – What is the difference between Jet Lag and death?

I’m going to have to think about that for a while – as soon as I am able to think again.

(Musical Interlude while brain cells attempt to realign themselves. This could take awhile.)

Sunrise Monday Morning

IT’S 6:45 AM AND I AM IN MY USUAL WRITING POSITION – a corner table at Starbucks – with coffee and a pen. Like most other mornings I start off by checking the online news to see what mischief the world has been up to overnight, and then I look at my mail and lastly, Facebook.

What I see on Facebook is usually enough to launch my day and give me something to write about – but not today. All of my friends and acquaintances are either still asleep or busy monitoring their blood pressure.

A Pain In The Neck

THE LAST PERSON WHO HAD A STIFF NECK like mine was back in 1873 and hanging from a tree in Arizona for being a “Hoss Thief.”

I woke up this morning when a lightning bolt of pain shot through my neck when I rolled over in bed. I did a quick check – no rope, no pair of gnarled hands around my throat, and my head was still attached to the rest of my body.

The Verdict: I slept funny.