Saturday, November 17, 2018

A letter to Madel Paddle

Hey there, Madel Paddle -- what's cookin', good lookin'?

I used that phrase on a shapely brunette that just moved into our apartment building two weeks ago, named Marilyn, from Cleveland. She has a little pointy nose, cute as a bug's ear, and she towers over me by about four inches. I met her the other morning over at Fresh Market while I was picking up my morning bagel. Unlike all the other old fossils that inhabit these wrinkled halls she still looks to be in the prime of life and ready for a little action. I wouldn't mind obliging her; squiring her around to dinner and a movie and maybe a little canoodling afterwards. But she is continually flanked by a phalanx of termagants and harpies who claim to be 'showing her the ropes' but in reality are keeping her away from amorous old geezers like me. Curse their rhinoceros hides!

Oh well, I'll chat her up tomorrow during the Potluck. I'm making Hungarian Goulash and she has told me she just loves Hungarian Goulash, so I'm gonna elbow my way into the seat next to her for a little tete-a-tete and offer to share my recipe with her if she wants. We'll see where that gambit gets me. Probably nowhere fast. Just when I start getting romantic notions my body betrays me by starting to fall asleep before my brain does. I went to the doc yesterday for a skin biopsy and he tells me I now have Hypercalcemia, whatever the heck that is, and will probably have a recurrence of kidney stones and may start suffering from narcolepsy. The endocrinologist I'm supposed to see to get this fixed, by the name of Soubhi Nizim, is in Mumbai visiting his parents for a month. Drat!  

I find myself in a horrid mood today, Saturday. Sarah and the kids were supposed to come over to help me go shopping for a new shower curtain, bath mat, and wooden salad bowl -- I am obsessed with obtaining all three items immediately. But she had to cancel cuz of some dumb refurbishing project she's working on with a wooden chest of drawers -- she can't finish it today and take me shopping at the same time. Phooey on her, I say. I was all set to enjoy their company and now I won't see them -- well, not until this coming Monday, anyway, when Sarah is doing our FHE out in the lobby on how to make krumkake. So really I shouldn't be cranky at all -- but I can't convince myself not to be owly today. (I see you just played 'leach' for 22 points on the FB WordPlay game we've been doing for the past week -- and that makes me MADDER STILL.)

I have no earthly reason to be grouchy this afternoon. I just got back from shopping at Fresh Market. I love shopping for groceries, and I always buy whatever strikes my fancy, no matter what it costs. This afternoon I bought a charcuterie sampler pack that cost fourteen dollars -- just a bunch of different kinds of French salami slices. But I had to have it, and now I'm gloating over how good they'll taste on a plain buttered bagel, with a large slice of brie cheese on the side. And I found an old Bob Hope movie on YouTube that I've never seen before -- My Favorite Blonde, from 1942, when Hope was still doing good sight gags. The movie even has Jerry Colonna in it --- one of my favorite character actors. So that should make me feel good -- but it doesn't. 

Of course it's cloudy and cold here today, but I like cloudy weather; the sun and I are no longer on speaking terms. So that shouldn't make me moody.

I slept fairly well last night, so don't have a sleep deprivation headache today. When I say I slept well I mean that I fell asleep reading a book last night at 8:30, woke up at ten, put on my pajamas, went back to bed and slept until 11, then got up to pee and soak my feet in a tub of water I keep handy by my living room recliner for when my feet feel on fire (which they do about twice a day), then snuggled into my recliner with a soft blanket and pillow and slept until 2, when I had to get up to pee again, and took 2 aspirin, and then got back into bed, waking up at 4:30 to pee once more and drink a glass of chocolate milk cuz I was so thirsty, and then went back to the recliner and dreamed about baobab trees until 6:30 and then got up feeling so good that I wrote a beautiful peace of humor about Jo Craven McGinty, a statistician for the Wall Street Journal who is a big fan of my verses. I posted it and sent her a copy and she replied by saying you can't have too many bezoars (you'll have to read the post to understand what she meant by that.)

So I can't use lack of sleep as an excuse for my bile. In fact, it's two in the afternoon right now and I haven't had a nap yet -- that's amazing cuz usually by eleven in the morning I'm in a semi-coma and stumble back to bed for an hour or two of sawing logs. 

Perhaps it's because I didn't shave today that I'm feeling out of sorts. I feel like a bindlestiff when I don't shave -- but the growth they shaved off for a biopsy yesterday is on my right jowl and it's still oozing blood, so I didn't want to irritate it any further until it stops bleeding completely. 

The fact of the matter is that I can't think of a single thing right now that would make me feel better. Except, perhaps, to call you up for a pleasant conversation. But that would mean this letter has all been a waste of time. No, I'll send this as an email and won't call you, and so continue to feel crummy for the rest of the day. 

Typical male thinking.

Take care, my little jacamar.  

Ever thine, Dad.  

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