• 14May 08

  So, after the heart attack

  ... there I was, sitting with the laptop on a Sunday night and working the animal care site... I felt a dull, sort of 'sick' ache in my back, just below the shoulder blades. Overall I felt nauseous and eventually started feeling like a great big guy was pressing both palms with all of his might into my chest.

  

  My son stopped by and I said, "I think I'm having a heart attack". We don't know how to handle things like that in this family. Denial is our first bandaid.

  

  He asked if I wanted to go to the emergency room and I said, "Naah, I'll just go to bed" and that's what I did. Must be gas - right?

  

  The next day was only a little better, but since there was some improvement I continued to shrug it off.

  About two weeks later I had a doctor's appointment for a physical that had been set up for, well, TEN years. I had been cancelling it and rescheduling it for - yep - ten years. I kept it this time.

  

  When they did the EKG there was a bit of a pause. Another person came in and did it again. Another pause. Another person (funny, each person that came in was older than the last one) and finally a kind 'older' doctor tells me I had a myocardial infarction, also known as a M I or, heart attack.

  My reaction? "I KNEW it!" I was strangely happy to not have been wrong. Then I tended to announce it to everyone I met over the next week or so. Clerks? "I had a heart attack". People I never saw before in my life sitting in the doctor's office? "I had a heart attack".

  

  I've stopped announcing it lately, but that might be just because I ran out of people to announce it to.

  I'm getting used to living with it (beats the alternative), but for sure, when I'm working in the yard or something and start to get out of breath, I hear those words "heart attack" in my head. I don't like that. I don't like feeling limited.

  The myriad of tests show that I'm the healthiest heart attack victim there can be. Perfect cholesterol, all the other results are great and I'm the most conscientious eater (no red meat in more than a decade), fruit'aholic there is. So why a heart attack? Ehh, it's just giving out. Weak, degenerating muscle. The tests showed a couple other things sort of wasting away too (no, not my mind! Not yet anyway).

  

  My thought is that if they can't fix it, don't talk about it. My next doctor's visit is supposed to be next week. They'll see me in about ten years.

  

  Y'uh, I have every intention of being here. I've got a couple birds who have a good 60 years left to live and they think I'm going to live to be well over 100. Shhhhh.... what they don't know won't hurt me!

  So how is everyone? Is it summer where you are yet?

  • Posted May 14, 2008 11:29 pm PT
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• 29Mar 08

  Getting On Deal or No Deal

  Just in case you're wondering about how this process goes, at least in some instances, let me tell you what I really wished someone had told me.

  

  An auto-mall sponsored the Deal or No Deal auditions in my area from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on a Saturday. No one was allowed to camp out, though I heard that many people were there from 3 or 4 a.m.. Since the doors didn't open until 10 I'm not sure about their common sense. I arrived shortly before 10 a.m. and had a spot not far behind those 3 a.m.'ers. At best they got in an hour sooner than I did, maybe two?

  

  About 2 ½ hours into the line there was a weed out point where you could take a slip of paper and use it to submit a video application from the comfort of your own home. Not like 'everyone' else of course, with this slip of paper somehow included in the video it would get seen by evaluators ahead of 'everyone' else. If you took the slip of paper you had to get out of line and go home. My son's girlfriend (the three of us were there) took the paper and went home with the offer to photocopy it for us so we could quit at anytime and go home too. At about 3 ½ hours into it we agreed that we were in it for the duration. Another 5 hours of it.

  

  It probably wouldn't have been so bad if the two people in front of us didn't have such horrific breath and a crazy need to keep chatting with us. It's been hours since the whole thing ended for me and I swear I can still smell their breath. It's stuck in my nose.

  

  There were no prizes as promised in all the ads that promoted this, there were no food vendors as promised. There was a 'deal' to get straight through and guaranteed seen by the producers if you bought a car before 1:00 pm. I don't think there were any takers, but who knows, chatty trench mouths were blowing at me and I wasn't paying attention to much else. I suppose the $2.00 can of Pepsi and $1.50 Snickers bar I bought from the kid walking by with a cooler could have been a vendor, but other than that the nearest anything was out of line and a mile away.

  

  About 1 ½ hours before getting into the dealership building where the promised land of evaluators manned a dozen card tables in a big, otherwise empty room, a loudspeaker warning told people their cars were being towed if they were parked in (insert static and stinky- motor mouths noise here).

  Though we were lucky enough to have found a lot about a half mile from the line, others were parked more than a mile away. There was spectacularly poor planning for this, but then again, we are talking about car salesmen.

  

  My son volunteered to run with his good knee to save our car, losing his spot in line, but I didn't see the point since chances were I was towed already. I told him just make sure his girlfriend is able to pick us up afterward and find out where our car ended up.

  I think he really wanted to just escape the toxic talkers who got worse under pressure.

  Finally we're just minutes away from going inside and it's unbelievable that this moment has arrived. Suddenly it's a rush and people are putting us in this line or that line and bam! Go-go-go!!! The next thing I know I'm at a card table with someone who didn't look like anyone telling us, all 8 of us, to put our applications on the table in front of us and that when she points to us we have 15 seconds to sell ourselves. Go! I heard one lady describe her sign language work as she also signed what she was saying. Her husband did the same. One person gave a 15 second resume' and another cried poverty and woe is me. My son and I were #'s 5 and 6 so there were two others at the table, but for the life of me, they were so unremarkable I don't recall anything about them.

  The sign language people got picked right there to go to a second level; the rest of us were told our applications would be reviewed and thanks for waiting all day, bye!

  We were ushered out the door and so many of us just stood there, stunned. That was it??? It took a couple minutes to get my bearings and realize it was over, no more line, head for the car - heck, hope for the car!

  

  As I started off I took a look back and felt better to see people still three deep in a line that had another 4 or more hours to go. Hobbling toward the car, my son launched into the worst temper tantrum I'd seen since he was 4 (he's 34). The lack of food, drink, pressure and stress of the day culminating in such a short, uneventful 'interview' was too much for him.

  I have a huge respect for anyone who gets on these shows. Not just this one, but any show. American Idol, Deal or No Deal, doesn't matter. If they go to a live audition, chances are they're not getting any more line comforts than I found in this one and it's a really tough try out.

  What do you want to bet that my son's girlfriend throws together a video as an afterthought and ends up on the show? Ohhhh, that is so NO deal!

  • Posted Mar 29, 2008 9:36 pm PT
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• 18Jan 08

  It's the law

  

  There are some strange laws still on the books from 200 years ago, but have no doubt that more are added every day.

  One law in California (in Belvedere) restricts dogs from being in public without their owners on a leash. Yep - that's how it reads. So once Fluffy gets your collar on, you'd better take to the leash as well or stay off the streets.

  In Indianapolis you can only throw rocks at a bird if it's attacking you. Self-defense, you know? I'm not aware of any bird pressing charges, although I'm likely to take the bird's word over the human that it was just sitting there in that tree, over the car... not pooping or anything.

  Hey, any talking bird wins in my opinion (if you don't know me, see me at http://www.4animalcare.org/ )

  Now, for legal rock throwing - Michigan pays people to kill starlings and crows (3 cents a starling; 10 cents a crow). I'm not a fan of Michigan lawmakers and yes, I encourage those birds' good aim!

  
  • Posted Jan 18, 2008 4:44 pm PT
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