More What's Happening With Me

Ah.

The doctor recommends I not leave on a plane. Can't believe I made it out here on a plane, but that's beside the point. I was stuck, without having the chance even to say goodbye to my friends in the Chicago area or even my job.

I was, to put it mildly, pissed.

I was convinced that this had been the plan all along, to get me out to my mother's so she could take care of me, to transfer my care to Stanford.

When I had calmed down a little bit, a cooler head told me that yes, I was in a far better place than I had been so far as recovery went, and no one had planned this, but by heaven I should just go with the flow and enjoy the time spent with the family.

I'm out in the pool house, along with my caregiver (I need someone with me 24 hours a day). It's pretty nice, especialy on those days that coincide a good day out and a day where I feel good (which doesn't happen too often).

My stuff has been put into storage by my sister and her sons, who drove up from Atlanta, bless them. My apartment had been surrendered, my car sold... I'm basically living out of the pool house.

I have had good days and bad days - mostly having to do with extreme nausea in my stomach. Some days I think I've never felt such pain. And when I, pardon the expression, throw up, somehow a lot more comes out than went in.

I have been getting chemo once every two weeks, having to wear the darn pump for 72 hours each time. I have a port, sort of a reclosable entrance into my heart, which reduces the number of pin-sticks I have to get.

I have another medicine injected, sub Q, into my stomach morning and night, and seven or eight others morning noon and night, but at least it's not as much as I've seen my father has to take.

So, in summary, I think I'm doing OK.

At least, OK as can be given the circumstances.

Where I've Been, Recently

Hi everyone. Just got my computer this past weekend and boy, did I miss having online access!

So you know what's been going on here...

I have cancer. The big C. Fourth stage. In my rectum, my liver, and my stomach - it's spread too far to operate on, according to doctors.

I found this out in Chicago. Went to Northwestern Hospital's Cancer Center and was the only one without gray hair. Had a couple of MRIs that confirmed the cancer, then they found I had a "mild" stroke and kept me aound until Easter night.

Then my grandmother passed away - 97 years old. Or was it 98? Anyway, she was out in California and the rest of my family was going and Sean had an airline ticket for me (which he announced at one in the morning of the day we'd have to leave - thanks Sean). I decided I'd have to go, to say goodbye to Clair (my grandmother) and perhaps see the family over a quick two day visit.

It was only when we were on the plane that Sean revealed the return ticket wasn't until Sunday night - and it was only Tuesday.

Sigh.

I had only brought clothes and such for two days.

It was a nice service, though, with a lot of our priest-friends in attendance, including the Bishop of San Jose and Father Ken, who came from retirement in Florida. I could barely stand the pain, though, and went home to sleep it off.

See, the stroke had left me unable to use the right side of my body - thank heavens that's over! And I had grown weaker with the chemotherapy I had been given. Actually, I felt just plain lousy - but happy knowing I'd be heading home to Chicago.

This is what's been happening!

Anyway...

i've moved into my brother's house for now, and at Maggie's in a few days.

I'm taking 13 different medicines at all times of the day or night.

Mom and sister Shannon flew out on the weekend to see me, which was immensely fun.

Well, as fun as you can get, I guess.

I have recently been able to move, going on two walks in my Chicago Cubs sweats.

Sean has been taking very good care of me.

So many friends have phoned and written, I'm sorry for the lack of personal reply.

But writing this much has been exhausting.

So. Just thought I;d play catch up.

Anyone wants to write me,

444 S Lincoln
Arlington Heights IL 60004

And thanks for your prayers! Much appreciated, not to say needed.

KC

so! What's been going on?

Very simply, I have evidently missed it while my body developed cancer.
Some weeks ago, I went to the doctor for some stomach pain. He felt around and said my liver was inflamed and sent me for an MRI. I went and he had me come back in the next Wednesday to tell me I likely had cancer and needed additionalMRIs to comfirm.

I then went downtown to the cancer center at Northwestern Hospital, mainly because they are the best in the business but also because my brother sean was already familiar with the Center, his wife having had her colon cancer cured there last year.

Well, they put me in the hospital that night, with nary a chance to go home for clothes or anything, and started dripping chemo into me immediately. This was the first clue as to how bad it was.

Then, the MRIs (I had four) came back and confirmed the first doctor'ss diagnosis, cancer. It had spread from my rectum to my liver to my lymph nodes. There would be no cure, only containment.

Then I was supposed to return home after 4 days of chemo... but each day they found another reason to keep me. A stroke I had recently. A possible blood clot. And on and on.

I have no call to complain. They treated me very well in the hospital, which was only 2 years old (that section) and had a very nice room. Even the foo was good - you could order off a menu up to 4 grams of carbs.

Next post

Let it...

Ahh.

Finally, the first snowfall of the season.

Coating trees and bushes and lampposts as well as the ground, sidewalks and streets the same as automobiles.

Everything is beautiful, at least for a while.

And best of all, Christmas is coming!

Not for the presents and all the packages, boxes and bags - but for the gathering together of friends and families in joviality. That's what I look forward to.

Just saying.

Things are Different in Wisconsin

This past weekend I spent the weekend in the Milwaukee area, first at Irish Fest and then at the Wisconsin State Fair.

Irish Fest, I have been to several times. It's held at this HUGE waterfront park that has something like eleven stages from one end to the other, a large number of permanent souvenir and tchotke stands, and beer.

LOTS of beer.

Beer sponsors three of the largest stages, with big signs and bigger bars. I suppose it's no more than one would expect at a festival grounds, where there is one Fest after the other... oh, and the fourth huge stage? Sponsored by Harley Davidson. Motorcycles suspended from the ceiling, that sort of thing. Harleys and beer.

And music, of course. Lots and lots of music. I saw several good bands - Whiskey of the Damned, Reilly, Red Hot Chili Pipers and even Tommy Sands. All in all, a great day.

Stayed overnight in a HECK of a deal via Hotwire. Man, what a nice room and a nice hotel and free breakfast and - OK, so it was seven miles away. You can't have everything. :)

Next day I went to the Wisconsin State Fair.

This... was different.

I've been to the California (not so good) and New York (great!) State Fairs several times. I have been to the Erie County fair a few times, too, and several others. I htought I had pretty much seen anything in fairs.

Not. Close.

The Wisconsin Fair has a TON of restaurant/pubs, pretty much all at one end of the fair, serving virtually anything you can think of for fair food and plenty of stuff you probably never considered. Some of these operations are huge - Cousins Subs has an entire section, as do Budweiser and Miller Lite and Leinenkugel (great, more beer).

I mean, HUGE sections. Seating perhaps a thousand or more? At pretty nice wooden bars and tables?

Oh, yeah, besides the beer - which was being offered EVERYWHERE (hey, look at this stand - Popcorn, Corn Dogs, beer!) ...

An aside, here - I LIKE beer. Really. And they had some of my favorites - Red Hook, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale - that you really don't find too often in the Chicago area. nothing like a cold frosty beer on a really hot day at the ballpark.

But good grief - there were bars that were blocks long - several of them! Beer signs everywhere. It was just a bit much.

OK, so we've established that Wisconsinites really like their beer. What's the second thing?

Music!

Each of these bars/restaurants seemed to have its own band playing songs ranging from a smaller joint's 70s disco songs to the huge Budweiser place's rock-ola. I mean, you couldn't sit down or walk around without hearing a band. I counted thirteen bands before I just gave up and said the hell with it.

Music and beer. There are a lot of worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon, let me tell you.

Oh, they had the usual stuff as well... pig races and sham-wow demos and roast corn (yumm, I had three ears during the course of the day!). They had animals galore (okay, I admit it, I am one of those guys who goes and looks at the ducks and chickens and bunnies and cows and horses and goats and... enjoys it). They had mini-donuts and camel rides and these barrel-shaped rootbeer stands.

And they had rides, of course. I didn't go on anything, but I wandered around to see what was new. They had things there that I had never seen and would never go up in if I was paid to. Besides the usual Kamikaze and Tornado and all, they had a ride which you started standing up, then rotate around. Pretty standard. But then the arm to which this wheel is attached starts to move around in a circle! Wild! THEN the ARM ITSELF rotates and turns the whole contraption UPSIDE DOWN. Picture it - you're standing with your feet pointing toward the sky, rotating around sideways, while the whole contraption moves around in a circle and the arm moves in its own rotation! In-freaking-credible.

Anyway, the state fair has been in the same grounds since something like 1870 or so, but a few of the buildings have been rebuilt since then. It's nice, a big comfortable fair with milk for 25c a glass, and I'm glad I went.

The Doctor is In

Last night, I didn't get to sleep on time because I was up watching "Doctor Who".

For those uninitiated and those who are currently looking down their nose and sniffing, allow me to elucidate. Doctor Who is the longest running (starting the weekend Kennedy got shot), perhaps the most successful, science-fiction television program.

It has accomplished this by readily changing with the times. When it began, it was seen as a children's TV program, sort of "You are there" with some fantasy elements (it could hardly be called science fiction). Then when the actor either died or left, I'm not sure which, some genius decided to continue with a different actor - a WAY different actor.

With the explanation that a Time Lord regenerates, this unleashed a terrific wave of Doctors. From Jon Pertwee's elegant Earth-bound Doctor to Tom Baker - yes, "the guy with scarf", to the cricket-jacketed Peter Davison, all the Doctors brought their own very different takes and attitudes to the series.

For awhile, the Doctor went away. He had been cancelled, because, even though the special effects on the show were pretty laughable, it was too expensive to produce.

The show returned a few years ago, and has really taken off, with David Tennant the umpteenth Doctor providing the right blend of heroics, flappability and humor.

Last night's episode was the beginning of his third season (he did four), and I thought I'd tune in just to hear the theme music again - oh, the memories that brought back! Memories of myself, alone in my room with a tiny black and white tv, watching Dave Allen At Large and then Doctor Who for who knew how long. See, the Doctor back then starred in as many half-hour episodes as needed to tell a particular story - some were l-o-n-g. Of course, then they strted showing the edited episodes, to make them movie-lenghth - but again, they could run just an hour, or three or four, you never knew.

Oh. Edited.

More than once did I watch Doctor Who, saw the end credits, and went to bed. When I came back the next week, however, they had on an entirely different show! It seemed they ran the programs one after the other, end-credit-PBS blurb-startng credit. All night.

This trick was pointed out to me by one of my friends down at the station. You see, during pledge breaks a BIG contingent of Dr. Who fans would make our way out on the levee to the PBS station, and do pledge breaks. We had a full-sized TARDIS replica that we would all walk out from (the gag being it's bigger inside than outside) to take our seats, a real working robotic K-9 (Tom Baker's Doctor's robotic dog), great costumes for virtually everyone, and most importantly a whole helluva lot of fun.

We'd have Doctor Who quizzes on the air, see upcoming episodes, raise reading awareness, and just have a wonderful time! Ahh, good times.

Anyway, last night.

The Doctor is surprised when a bride teleports aboard the TARDIS in midflight - and she doesn't know how. Add to that robotic Santa Clauses (a vaguely Christmas-themed episodes) with weapons disguised as trumpets and trombones, a wicked spider-lady (body of a huge frickin' spider with a devilish woman's torso stuck on) villain, her husband to be in cahoots with said villain, the resurrection of spider-lady's brood, the destruction of spider-lady's brood by the Doctor, the destruction of spider-lady by the British Army (who evidently is a good deal mroe reliable than the Japanese army fighting Rodan), the Doctor chasing down the kidnapped bride's cab by FLYING the TARDIS down the highway, finding Torchwood's HQ, using the Sonic Screwdriver in several interesting ways, the Doctor ducking out on Christmas dinner...

And everything gets resolved, in an hour!

What a GREAT ride! MAG-nificent.

And boy, did that bring back great memories!

Er, of the show, not of giant spider-ladies in British secret agency HQ armed with Robots disquised as Santa.

I don't think.

To be a Den-tist! Think Steve Martin!

Hi. I'm in the dentist's office, waiting.
What for?
To have some teeth extracted. Some teeth that broke due to my diabetes.
I just can't help but think of Steve Martin's dentist in "Little Shop of Horrors".
This is actually a nice office with nice people in a nice suburb.
But I still don't have to like it.
And I really don't.

A TRULY perfect game

In baseball, there are those rarified events that make the game so much fun. Triple plays, shutout games. They don't occur all that frequently, which makes them more fun.
Perfect games... are very infrequent. Since the National League was founded in 1876, there have been only 18 games where a pitcher did not allow anyone on the opposing team to reach first base. Not on a wild pitch, not a walk, not a hit... nothing.
Number 18 came yesterday, when White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle hurled one for the ages against Tampa Bay.
I'm not saying no one hit the ball - that isn't true. Matter of fact, the first hitter in the ninth nearly ruined Buehrle's effort by smacking a home run - which was caught by one of the most amazing efforts I have ever seen. Dewayne Wise runs up the wall, catches the ball and pulls it back into the park, loses the ball from his glove, and catches it with his free hand! Awesome!
This from a guy who had previously run into the wall and injured himself. This from a guy who was not about to let his teammate's perfect game be spoiled in the ninth!
That's what makes baseball a team sport, after all. Buehrle's a great pitcher, but he had eight more guys behind him.
I'm not even a Sox fan.
But I am a fan of good - nay, great baseball.
And you gotta admit - that was a game for the ages.
Out of the thousands of games that have been played, there are just 18 perfect ones.
Congratulations, Mark Buehrle.

Four in a row!

Heck, it was only the Nationals, but the Cubbies won four in a row and are now in sole possession of second place.
Of course, now they have to play the Phillies for three in a row.
Worst to first.
I'm betting that they'll take only one, possibly two, from Philly.

A Con Game

This year, it seems, the hype about the San Diego Comic Con is in full swing no matter where you ook. TV, magazines, the Internet - especially the Internet!
And this year I really, really wish I was going.
I know the Con is sold out, even if I wanted to go, and I really hate - well, maybe that's too strong - how about truly do not enjoy? - what's turned into Hollywood South, with the movies and the wrestling and the Crapanimation and furverts and a . My friends are skipping this year, so I wou1dn't even get to see them. There are no big comic events I am remote1y interested in, no persona1ities I want to see (perhaps no one a1ive).
What, then, is the big attraction? Why go?
I think it's basica11y that I get to wander around for a few days in some superhero T-shirts and just enjoy being a fan of comics.
I just turned 47 a week ago. Forty. Seven.
Seems a little bit old to be reading comic books.
And I don't so much anymore. Reading very few of them now... I went into the store Wednesday And they had nothing in my saver save the weekly Wednesday Comics.
But the ones I do get? I read them probab1y five times, at east, before they get fi1ed away.
I enjoy a 1ot of obscure comics. Knights of the Dinner Tab1e a1ways has me ro11ing. Frank1in Richards, Son of a Genius? Darn funny. There's a Comic Book History comic I like, infrequent as it is.
I just enjoy comics. War comics like Sgt Rock and B1ackhawk. Superhero comics 1ike Batman and Robin. Oddba11 comics that can't be c1assified, 1ike the aforementioned Comic Book History. Comedy comics 1ike Knights of the Dinner Table and Franklinl Richards and Ambush Bug.
and I like the opportunity to wander around a city and see 120,000 other dorks who don't mind letting the world know they like comics too.
I SO want to go.
Next year, though, my friends will be there, and that's the best part of a11. Can't wait!
And by that time maybe I'll have my L key fixed.

The Perfect Game

You know, it's really amazing when I think about it, but the modern ballfield is the most perfect setup one could devise.
Ninety feet between the bases, and the throws usually arrive about the same time the runner does. If it was farther, say, 100 feet, the batter would be out much more often than not. If it was eighty, he'd get to first base almost a the time. But ninety? Perfect.
Similarly, the distance from the pitcher to the hitter. That pitcher is throwing a ball that sometimes reaches 100 mph! That doesn't give the batter much time to see where the ball is going and to try to take a swing at it (This also explains why curve balls and sliders and the ike are so effective - the batter has to commit to swing long before the ball actually arrives, and if the ball's not where he thought it was gonna be he's outta luck.).
The pitcher is just far enough to make things interesting. Farther out, and he'd lose speed and more importantly, the batter would gain time. Any closer and no batter other than the Flash would have enough time to decide whether to swing.
The nine players on defense are spread out around the diamond just enough so that it's possible to catch nearly every hit, and it's also possible to hit into areas where the fielder can't make the play. Again, any change in the number of fielders and you wouldn't have this balance.
On any day, any team stands a chance to beat another team - or be beaten.
It's truly the perfect summer game.

The Break

It's the All-Star break in baseball, a time midway through the season when everyone stops battling each other for a while and takes some time off for the All-Star game.

I like the All-Star break. Sometimes it falls on my birthday, sometimes not, but it's a good place to stop and look at your life.

I also like the All-Star game, where baseball's favorites (I hate to say best in this case!) get together and the American League wins. (Heh - only half-kidding). I thinkit's fun to watch all these guys play in a game together.

Independence!

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Fly the flag proudly, pay attention where you light those fireworks, and have a wonderful day!

KC

More than meets the ears

I "met" someone on Facebook who said he had six tickets left for the midnight showing of Transformers 2: Assault on Your Ears... and in IMAX at Navy Pier's six-story tall screen!
In a moment of weakness, I decided to go.

Now, the IMAX at Navy Pier is definitely Chicago's hottest showplace. The tickets all come with your seat number already assigned (hmm, not sure if I like that or not) and you sit in fron tof what has to be the tallest screen (so much bigger than the local theater's IMAX - sure, it's a big screen, but it really isn't IMAX, you know?).

Navy Pier was, surprise! closed.
All of it.
Dark, closed. All the restaurants, all the stores, the stages. Closed.
Weird. I mean, I was there at 10:30, and kind of expected some restaurants or something to be open. It is summer, after all.

So I waited around for about an hour, (from the popcorn girl I learned the last Batman movie played for 72 hours straight, every three hours -who needs popcorn at three in the morning?!)
and then...

The movie began.

Now, I've read some reviews that suggest it was kind of like watching a bag of rocks in a dryer. I will admit, it was LOUD. NOISY loud!
Robots slugging each other, robots blasting each other, things exploding all over!
And that's just in the first five minutes.

They seemed to crank up the noise factor on this film every time a robot appeared - LOUD!

And, well, the robots did appear a lot.

Nominally, the story features Shai laBeef heading off to college (after robots destroy his home, natch). whose name I did not catch because of all the NOISE! Whatever school it was, it was very nice looking, and filled with pouty supermodels (at least, those are no school girls I ever saw in real life) who dress provocatively and snigger at Shia's mom, who ingested some marijuana and is now acting goofy. As opposed to po'd, which she was just minutes ago.

One such pouty aggressive supermodel type is actually a robot in disguise (that's some robot!) who attacks Le Beef and starts the whole two hour chase scene of kids versus robots going.

Actually, Megan Fox, who's introduced in the most blatantly sexy (?) way of having her short-shorted butt up in the air (yeah, it takes work to do that, I know), spends all her time in this picture running from the robots, too.

So LeBeef and LesBoobs run around the country trying to stop the evil robots from extinguishing the sun. Uh, by saving Optimus Prime, the only robot who can possibly stand a skinny rat's ass chance of stopping the Fallen (boo!) (seems to me the US Military and a few dozen Transformers could blow him up just fine, but hey...) by taking a semi-mystic doohickey that's since turned to sand (hey, magic fairy dust!) and sticking in Optimus' chest cavity.

Oh, what's wrong with Optimus? He got the crap kicked out of him by the Fallen (I think, in battle all these robots look alike, you know?) while saving LeBoef (ibid!) from being attacked by a whole bunch of robots because they wanted (snicker) his brains!

Oh, there's a whole bunch more crap in this movie. There's LeBeefcake's college roommate, who runs an Internet site claiming there are aliens among us (ree-diculous!). There's a leering astronomy professor (can't tell this movie's made for teen boys, can you?). There's a US Military Strike Team named the NEST (E-i-Oooo!) that's coopted the good guy Transformers, put upon by an Obama-admininstration pain-in-the-ass guy who's out to get the robots to leave! Yeah, that'll show 'em!

There's that NEST team that instinctively trusts the kid LeBiftecetdesfrites and flies the dead Megatron around (you have any idea how much fuel it would take to carry a giant robot halfway around the world!!?) to the Middle East, because they TRUST him!

There's the sun-eating device that's hidden in one of the pyramids (like no one would notice THAT huge thing there before!). There's flashbacks to the first time the Transformers came to earth, looking for Energon (makes Exxon-Mobil look green and sane!)

And you know what?

Maybe it was because I was seeing in in IMAX, at midnight, in a theater packed with geeks (come on - who else is going to be watching Transformers at midnight?) --

I rather enjoyed it.

Yes, it was too LOUD. Yes, I could hardly tell who was fighting whom. Yes, parts of the movie were totally stupid(the public doesn't believe the alien threat is real - haven't they seen all those robots walking all over in the last movie?). Some of the characters, such as they are, are mind-blowingly stupid and/or insulting (an old robot that acts like a grumpy old man, complete with cane; little Suzuki-cars that transform into two gangsta-talking robots).

But it was also highly entertaining in parts. Mainly in those parts where robots were either chasing someone or blowing stuff up. In other words, about two hours of the two-and-a-half-hour movie.

Heaven help me, I actually enjoyed this picture. Despite the goofy plot, despite LesBoobs and LeBeef, despite marijauna Mom and a too-trusting US Military - I actually enjoyed seeing big ol' robots smack other big ol' robots around.

I am still trying to figure out why, though.

Heaven Can Wait

This is a series of real life church signs. There is a Catholic and a Presbyterian one. I get the feeling that the Catholics have a sense of humor.

Up yers!

Actually, UP mine, too!
I went to see UP last night, a delightful movie that, despite what some might perceive as flaws, really shines as a HINLAMW movie (that's "hey, I never looked at my watch!" - a sure sign of a movie's ability to engross me!)
I apologize if there are some SPOILERS in here, but it's rather hard to discuss the movie without spoiling SOMEthing.
There's a pretty long sequence where we see Mr. F and Elly living their lives together. I know some critics maintain that it slows the movie a bit or is too realiztic for kids or some such, but it does a nice job of showing two people deeply in love - and explaining just why Mr. F. would go to such lengths as flying his house to South America.
There are some bits involving talking dogs that are a little much, and having Mr. F and a Wilderness Scout haul his house around, even attached to balloons, beggars belief. But by and large it's one enjoyable road trip.
I own't spoil it by telling you about it more - just go see it. You'll enjoy it, AT WORST, and love it at best. It's a very neat summer movie.

l'm not bad..

I'm just badly drawn.

I was thinking the other day, about how much appearance can affect one's likeability,

especially if you're a cartoon character.

I mean, certain styles of art I just can't get by. I'm sure Flapjack, Chowder, and the X-men are all fine cartoons, but I just don't like the way they look, you know? They don't appeal to me.

Even Spider-Man, until the recent "Spectacular" version, was drawn far too realisticly and with far too muted a color pallette for my tastes. Spectacular, while still a little stiff, and with some unnatural movements to the characters, is by far my favorite version of Spidey yet.

I guess I am drawn to "Classic" interpretations of the characters. Batman TAS, Superman's most recent foray, Ben 10. Not that I actually watch Ben 10, mind you, but I do like the style in which the characters are drawn.

There are some series out there that just jump out at me, I love the character designs so much. Note I haven't actually seen more than one or two of the shows in question (excepting TDI) but I do love their character design and would gladly watch them sitting around playing pinochle.

First up is: Bionic Six.

Look at those guys! So clean, so boldly designed!

Believe it or don't, they're supposed to be a family (guess adoption's taken place) who've been given bionic superpowers! Woo - the eighties were just bursting with good ideas, weren't they?

That's Rock-One, Bionic-One, IQ the smart one, Karate-One, Mother-One, and Sport-One.

Okay, so the names are pretty lame. And as for powers... umm, I guess they're all bionic, strong and fast. Mother-One is sort-of telepathic and Bionic One has super-senses... Sport-One carries a baseball bat...

Okay, so they're not exactly well-designed as heroes, but man, they are good looking!

Next up we have one of my favorite cartoons, Total Drama Island (think Survivor).

TDI is so crazy, mixed-up and occasionally rude-but-funny that they're coming out with a sequel next week, Total Drama Action.

I just like the way the characters look. Simply designed, you get an idea of what each is like just by looking at them, and the show is consistently funny besides.

Last in my list of cartoons I just like to look at if not neccesarily to watch, is 6teen.

Just a fun bunch to look at. You can tell what the characters are like (sort of) by glancing at the picture, the lines are clean, bright colors - just overall a nice drawing. I actually look forward to watching an episode all the way through one of these days.

Heck, I keep trying to come up with a reason I'm so drawn to these cartoons, why they strike me so right - but I really can't. They're just the sort of cartoons I'd be watching, along with Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and Ben-10. Just really well designed cartoons.

May's over.

Wow. Here we are in June, already. It's raining and 48 out (yeah, I know, all you in California).

and the Cubs are in fourth place after a disastrous May.

What's wrong? How about no one could hit the furshlugginer ball?! I mean, three hits a game?! What the heck's up with that? It's darn hard to win a game on three hits, come on!

The Cubbies are massively underperforming right now (well, for the past 101 years they've been underperforming).

Good joke the priest at Mary Seat of Wisdom said Sunday. What did Jesus tell the Cubs right before the Ascention into heaven? "Don't do anything until I get back."

Well, he had a better delivery.

The priest, not the Lord. Though I'm sure Jesus could be funny, too.

You don't think God has a sense of humor? Why start all the major religions of the world within a hundred miles of each other? Couldn't Jesus have appeared in, say, Philadelphia?

Okay, I'm really losing it. Bye.

Close, But No Cigar

Today I was driving to Taco Hell for lunch (they're cheap, and the Fresca option's pretty good) and I noticed that the hardware store behind the Bell was closing.
It's been there for many a year, certainly longer than I've been in Chicago and possibly longer than I've been alive - a True Value hardware store. You know (or maybe you don't) - the kind of store about three times as big as a 7-11 and packed to the gills with everything from key-cut machines to flowerbed materials, fishing lures and lines to barbecue grills and light fixtures, all arranged heaven-knows-how so you have to ask someone (invariably an older gentleman named Earl) who will instantly know what you're talking about, no matter how obscure.
That kind of store.
And it's closing.
The store that lasted through wars and recessions couldn't handle this one.
I liked that hardware store - was the only place that made keys that worked the first time (ever send your parents keys to your place, so they could use it when you're gone, and NOT have the keys work? I have - thanks a lot, Home frickin' Depot!).
When I needed some little plugs to hold up my stereo table... they had 'em. Monofilament fishing line? Had that, too.
Sadly, I guess I only went in when I needed something pretty obscure or pretty cheap or both. Kind of hard to make a living off of people like me, I suppose.
I noticed, yesterday, that the Cardsmart store in downtown Des Plaines closed. Something like overnight - I stopped in just a little while ago (when you have 14 nieces and nephews and four brothers and sisters you're constantly buying cards for birthdays, anniversaries, first communions, etc) and it's right across the street from where I occasionally go to lunch, so I was a bit surprised.
And today, I noticed that Kaffecino, a coffeeshop downtown across from the train station, was gone, too. As in, vanished, cleaned out, gone kaput... and I had just stopped off there in February and March! It had always been there, ever since I moved here... had great sandwiches, good coffee...
Gone.
Add in the local Boston Market store, the steakhouse I never went to, the Max and Erma's restaurant that I did and always, always regretted visiting, the furniture store and the Circuit City store just down the street...
That's quite a few places, all standing empty. And the only things that have opened in the past few years are a Goodwill Store and the Salvation Army store.
Not the best of times, I know.
It surprises me, I guess, how many places were living hand to mouth, month by month. If things are moving along, hey, fine, but the minute things go south... wham!
Some, like that Max and Erma's, should have closed long ago. But others, like Kaffecino, the furniture store where I got my kitchen table and chairs, and even the Cardsmart... what the heck? Are things that bad that they couldn't hang on a few more months?
Evidently, yes.
Yes they are.
I'm going to miss that old hardware store. I'm going to miss it whenever I have to go into the Home Depot or Menard's and find some piddly-ass little thing in those monster stores (well, Menard's just closed their store too, and built a new one several miles out. Thanks a lot, Menard's!), or try to. You know, where you have to go over 14 aisles for a door latch or something.
I know, I know... it's progress. The way of the world.
But I don't have to like it.