Ponderings and Musings

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the United States and right on schedule, my dearest husband has begun the meal preparations 27 hours in advance. He’s one hell of a cook and I didn’t even find that out until after I fell in love with him.

Sometimes it’s just meant to be.

I sent a brief note to Kmart this morning expressing my displeasure with that fact that they’re opening all of their stores at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day. I really don’t care if people shop on Thanksgiving; if they want to be crass in that fashion they are more than welcome to do so, however, I do feel bad for all of the folks that have to work on Thanksgiving, especially if they’re working at a retail establishment that provides absolutely no essential services whatsoever. Kmart responded to me, advising that they strive to give their customers and team members a pleasant holiday experience. I still maintain that they’re choice to open so early on a U.S. holiday is indicative of desperation and that The Savings Place will be merely a memory in a year or two.

I still miss Hills.

I am working a full day both today and on Friday, though I may sneak a flight into my schedule Friday morning as I am thisclose to getting my private pilot’s license. I think once I get beyond my checkride then I’ll be able to relax and enjoy the holidays. Working from home isn’t exceedingly stressful. One of the many things I am thankful for is the fact that I have a pretty sweet gig when it comes to my career.

The folks to the East of us are freaking about because there’s six or so inches of snow predicted for their area. I ask them to head to Buffalo and see what real snow is like but they don’t like to be distracted from their drama.

It’s snowing here and I find it to be quite beautiful.

32 years ago on Thanksgiving Day I accidentally slid down a pile of chicken manure, fell through the a hole in the barn floor and whacked a tractor with my left arm before landing on the cement ground floor of the barn. I jumped up and grabbed my left elbow. My sister laughed because I looked like I was running around like one of the villains on Scooby Doo.

My mom had to make a few phone calls to get a physicians assistant to open up the nearest medical facility, which was called NOCHSI. This was in the days before 911 and associated hysteria. The nearest official emergency room was over 35 miles away. It was determined that my left elbow was either broken, sprained, dislocated or disconnected, but they put my arm in a sling and told me to go to the doctor during normal office hours.

It turns out my elbow was fractured and keeping my arm in a sling for the next six weeks would get me on the mend immediately. To this day I know when it’s going to rain because my left elbow was rewired for that sort of thing during this incident.

Thanksgiving took place 10 days ahead of the school play that year; the drama club would be presenting “Mame” (the musical version). I had a very prestigious part as one of Mame’s guests during the “It’s Today!” number. I can still creak out the bass part of the song if I put my mind to it.

My mom wanted me out of the play but I had some sort of early gay actor hissy fit and she acquiesced like she normally did. No words were necessary, just a glare followed by a look of resignation. My dad’s response was predictable, a smile followed by the word “huh”. That meant “I love you”.

When I went back to school and the subsequent after hours rehearsal for this part, I was approached by a girl a couple of years older than me. She told me that I needed to drop out of the play because Mame’s guests did not have a sling on their arm. Now, the director of the play, one of the music teachers who was a truck of a lesbian but with a heart of gold, didn’t have a problem with the sling, but this fellow cast member told me, in no uncertain terms, that it was bad enough that I was ruining the play with the way that I walk and talk but having a sling was just going to make it worse. It was going to accentuate the freak in me. She hoped I would be dead or something like that.

Ah, the days of jovial chatter amongst classmates. The teamwork of a cast and all that.

I held my ground and appeared throughout the decades the storyline called for in “Mame”, sling and all, and I just walked and talked the way I usually walked and talked on stage. There was no glitter or drag races or anything, just me being me as one of Mame’s guests and everyone survived. There was a standing ovation at each of the shows and this was before people gave standing ovations and applause for shows that achieved the basics of theatre (don’t fart into the microphone). Reviews in the two newspapers made no mention of my sling nor my walk.

For some reason I dreamed about this last night, with a particular focus on being dressed down in front of everyone for my sling and well, my general physical, mental and emotional demeanor. Curious, I found the old hag (my words, not hers) on Facebook and it confirmed what I thought, her “likes” included the likes of Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin for President, Michele Bachmann and Walmart.

It’s odd to me that my psyche would decide to bring this old topic up over three decades later in the way of a dream; I had pretty much forgotten the incident (and fixed the scars from it) but now that I’ve had the dream I can relive the incident in my head as if it was yesterday.

Whatever the reason that this was dredged up 32 years later, all I know is that I survived the ordeal just fine.

And my elbow says it’s going to snow today.

Earl and I took the day off from work yesterday because we were in the mood to do so. As we approach the end of the year we find ourselves with some extra PTO time that needs to be burned off before 2015 and we like to burn the days off in small doses, so we’ll probably enjoy a long weekend a couple of times before the end of the year.

We are meandering through the central portion of the Keystone State. Earl used to live here in Williamsport, Pa., so after supper we walked through the downtown area (do they call this “Center City” or is that only a Philadelphia thing?) and he showed me where his old apartment is located.

We are relaxed. We are content. Things are good.

I usually my days by going for a walk or bike ride. Yesterday was such a lovely day for a walk but this morning it was cold, with the thermometer showing that it was 40ºF. As I get older, the idea of riding my bike when it’s that cold grows less appealing. So I bundled up and went for a walk.
 
 While I wasn’t stopped by motorists looking for directions to a Pop Warner game this morning, I did have a pleasant yet brief chat with a man getting to spend the day working in the woods behind the cornfield at the top of the hill shown in the picture below. He was getting ready to join others and do some logging. They’ve been working the woods back there for a couple of days. He was very pleasant and asked how far I walk each morning.
 
 It’s good to enjoy a brief conversation with a complete stranger without having to do it in 140 characters or less. Many seem to have forgotten how to communicate or are afraid that their neighbor is a terrorists spitting out Ebola all over the place. It was nice to have speak with someone who wasn’t afraid to speak to a passerby on the street.
 

I’m just back from an hour long walk in the neighborhood. I walked around our block. Because we live in a somewhat rural area, walking around the block is nearly five miles. I feel great after the exercise. 

I’ve mentioned before that power lines criss-cross our area. We are near the geographical center of the state and many of the higher voltage power lines come together here to a couple of large switching stations. Power from Niagara Falls, southern Québec and a number of local power plants of various shapes and sizes gets distributed to other parts of the region from here. 

These guys bring power in from Niagara Falls.

There are spacers along the lines. When you walk under the lines you can hear snapping, crackling and popping noises coming from the spacers.

Not too far from our property is the railroad line that goes from Utica to just south of Old Forge in the Adirondacks. The Adirondack Scenic Railroad is a popular tourist attraction, especially at this time of year. Leaf peepers love to peep at the brilliant autumn colors one finds in the Adirondacks.

During my walk I was stopped by six different vehicles. Apparently there is a big Pop Warner football game at the local town park but folks didn’t know where the park was located. I gave them directions that would be easy to remember. I hope they have a good time up there at the game.

During my work day at home I often go for a 15-20 minute walk in the morning and again in the afternoon. My walk involves walking along the shoulder of our fairly busy road because we don’t live in an area with sidewalks. I’m not sure that I would want to live in an area with sidewalks, what with being a farm boy at heart and all that.

Traditionally, not having a sidewalk hasn’t really been an issue; folks would simply move over a little bit to give the pedestrian a little bit of breathing space. However, I have noticed that over the past year or so, people haven’t been driving in as friendly a manner down the road and they’re driving a lot faster. I need to leave the shoulder of the road and take refuge in the adjacent lawn at least three or four times a week. This makes my walk less enjoyable than it is intended to be.

The county Department of Works must have noticed that tendency of motorists speeding down the hill as well, because a week ago they added an electronic speed indicating sign. Random observations during my walk have confirmed my suspicions. People are driving faster than the posted 45 MPH speed limit.

I’ve noticed that quite a few drivers are slamming on their brakes when they see that they’re exceeding the speed limit by 10 or 15 MPH. I fully believe that they’re afraid that the display has some sort of camera embedded in it, but I don’t believe that it does. I think it’s just a velocity indicator and nothing more.

Nevertheless, I wish people would use some common sense and slow down just a little bit to keep our quasi-rural area somewhat enjoyable. Actually, I wish people would just start using common sense, period. But I doubt that’s going to happen anytime soon.

So earlier this year my primary physician awarded me a year’s supply of Norvasc, a medication used to treat high blood pressure. As my luck would have it, he has the pharmacy dish this out on a monthly basis, however, as I mentioned, I did win a year’s supply. Earl likes to call this my distemper medication.

Shortly after starting the Norvasc, I received a letter from the administrator of the company prescription plan, advising me that I needed to get routine and regular medications in 90 day increments by mail. I was discouraged from using the local pharmacy, because apparently that’s a more expensive proposition. I was told to go online, use the provided credentials to register with the mail-order company, and then I would reap the savings in medical costs.

The website is wonky at best.

The provided credentials don’t work.

I lost interest.

Squirrel!

I decided to ignore the directive from the company prescription drug program and stick with the local pharmacy. The cost varies from month to month and I end up paying anywhere from $6.00 to $9.95. The name of the mail-order prescription drug company is emblazoned across the label from the local pharmacy, so this tells me that somehow the local pharmacy and the mail-order provider are in cahoots.

Despite the cahoots, I continue to receive letters from the company insurance provider, reminding me that effective the next refill, my prescription price will skyrocket unless I use the mail-order plan. This has been going on for months. Tonight I refilled my prescription at the local pharmacy and it went from $9.50 to $4.75.

Somehow, somewhere, the cahoots are on my side.

I don’t know how people with crappy medical plans, well crappier medical plans than what we have at work, and multiple medications, keep all of this rigamarole straight. It’s bad enough that I have a deductible on my body, like I’m made up of front fenders and rear quarter panels, but I’m sorry, I’m not going to rely on the US Postal Service to deliver my medications in a timely manner. They can’t even get a package from 75 miles away to my house in less than a week, and even then the tracking information indicates that it’s been routed through Bogalusa, Louisiana on it’s way from one Upstate New York city to another, why on earth would I trust them to get my medication on time.

Once upon a time we relied on our friendly neighborhood pharmacist. I refuse to give and I will continue to do so.

Yesterday Earl and I raised $185 for the Ali Forney Center in New York, an organization that helps provide housing for homeless LGBT youth. A couple of years ago I raised money by shaving off my awesome ‘stache, this year Earl and I had a garage sale and donated all the proceeds to a worthy cause.

Having a garage sale is weird to me, because it strikes me odd that people would want stuff that we are trying to get rid of. Nevertheless, several friends came over and perused through our wares and took home some stuff and we had some folks just stop by after seeing the sign we had out on the front lawn. We didn’t have any prices on the items for sale, we just asked that folks donate what they thought was a fair price. It would seem that folks were quite generous.

We still have quite a bit of stuff out in the garage so I think we are going to have another garage sale next weekend. If you’re in Central New York and interested in stopping by, feel free to drop me a line so I can give you the coordinates of our location.

I have always been intrigued by kissing. There are so many variations on the pleasure of kissing; a kiss can be a quick peck, it can be a way of saying hello or goodbye, it can be a long, passionate affair that says “I love you”. Even the thought of a kiss brings a smile to my face.

Since I learned in my early teens how awesome kissing can be, I have always wished that social norms allowed us the luxury of kissing one another with no strings attached. I once read a story about Elizabeth Montgomery enjoying herself at a party, walking into the another room and giving Dean Martin a most passionate kiss, and then walking away and going back to celebrating with the other party guests. The story goes that there was nothing improper; it was just an impulse, a moment, and it was savored between Lizzie and Dean. To the best of my knowledge, it didn’t go any further than that. But I find it so cool that they were able to have that moment together. I wonder how many people in the world feel free enough to do that sort of thing.

I’m sure if people kissed more freely there would be less hostility in the world.

I have met several people in my life that I’ve just wanted to walk up to them and say, “I’d like to kiss you”, and then go ahead and do it once they have given their consent. This shouldn’t be interpreted as a dissatisfaction with my love life. When I was younger, I was at a party where a guy did just that. He liked redheads, I still had red hair at the time, and he wanted to kiss me. So we kissed. He said that was nice, I agreed with him and he went back to his friends. We didn’t take the next passionate step, we didn’t even exchanged names; we just kissed, we enjoyed the moment together and I look back on the experience with a smile. I hope he does the same.

My husband is a terrific kisser. Even though we’ve been together for over 18 years, I find myself smiling as I think about kissing him as I type this blog entry. There’s no staleness or shelf date concerns with our kissing habits. Our kisses are fueled by the always growing passion of our relationship. I wouldn’t be jealous if someone walked up to him and wanted to kiss him. We’re solid like that. Jealousy comes from lack of confidence or other similar ingredient within ourselves. Jealousy is a projection. I hope that he would enjoy a random kiss and much as I would.

A few months ago, this video made its rounds on the Internet. It documented 20 strangers kissing for the first time. The chemistry between some is electric. I love the vibe of this video. The innocence. The smiles. The shyness. The intensity. It’s all so very awesome to me.