Confessions

I have never disclosed this before to anyone, but since one can get a lot of unwarranted attention, free food and air travel by admitting to old unsolved crimes, I want to be the first to admit that I was the real Boston Strangler. BTW, I thought Tony Curtis did a great job in the role, although I am much better looking. Of course I am long since retired from such shenanigans.

My last slaying was a fat chipmunk about two weeks ago who went for my tomato-baited rat trap. I was hoping to exterminate the marauding squirrels but they are too quick for the traps. I felt bad about the chipmunk, so I put the traps away.

I may have found a new solution: at the take-and-leave section of the dump I found a discarded (never opened) motion sensor alarm. It was one of those electronic gimmicks from Sharper Image that plays the sound of a dog barking and growling when it senses movement nearby.

I'm sure there is an interesting story behind it: eg, Somebody probably bought it for their poor widowed mother to make her feel safe living alone in that run-down apartment in a bad section of the city, rather than having her moving-in with the family in the toney suburbs, like she's been begging to. But, before she could get out to the drugstore to buy the 4 "D" cell batteries (not included) she was probably strangled by some pervert.

I loaded it up with fresh Duracells and it worked fine. The contraption seems to keep the squirrels away from the tomatoes - for now. Funny how one person's loss can be another's gain.

As I look out on the garden this morning, I realize that we are less than two weeks from Labor Day, which is considered the potential First Frost Date here in new England. And I am just now picking the Early Girls. The Jet Stars are still the size of eggs and green. Naturally, we will be in Europe when the Jet Stars ripen. Feel free to come over and pick some for your dinner salad.


The old e-mailbag has been overflowing with at least one inquiry about my health.
Thanks - you know who you are. I hope the rest of you do not feel guilty. My courageous battle against ulcers has been tough and lonely, but it has been a journey of hope and inspiration.

Ok. That was a lie. I never knew I had ulcers. I have been taking 2 Aleve on a daily basis for jillions of years (at least 5), for my arthritic and old age pains. I just noticed that there is a warning on the label on a bottle of ALEVE in the smallest typefont known to modern man, it warns that if you drink 3 or more beers a day it could result in stomach bleeding. Which leads to "pernicious anemia."

Perhaps the Aleve (Naproxen) served to dampen any ulcer pain. It should also be noted that I have a cast iron stomach and have only been sick enough to regurgitate twice in the past 40 years. Once in 1972 when I ate too many hot dogs for dinner the night before passing papers on our first house (nervous, no doubt, at the burden of amassing a staggering debt of $22,000). The other time was in 1999 when I got food poisoning. I have always associated ulcers with stress.
In recent years, I have often boasted that I had all but eliminated stress from my life - mainly by reducing my commute time and also being more proactive in avoiding toxic work venues and the assholes who dominated them. So the ulcers are a puzzle to me.
Not so much of a puzzle to my doctor who blames alcohol all of my health problems, including the psoriasis. Fuck him, what does he know?


Anyhow - just to keep the peace around here, I am not drinking (nor taking Aleve) for the foreseeable future. They consider me in a detoxification stage, and are prescribing me a nice cocktail of tranquilizers and nap-inducers. I wait until late in the day to take these; otherwise, my thought processes are like sausage.


My wife and I have discussed the very real possibility that it may be too dangerous for me to continue in retirement. Left to my own devices, I tend to thrash. I am prone to getting into trouble, hanging around bars, going to casinos and racetracks. Running with a disreputable crowd. Having impure thoughts. Lunches, beers with the gang, fishing and not catching. Not that these things are morally bad, but they seem to be bad for my health.

It seems that I need external structure, agenda and a place to go. In other words, I need a job. This is a profoundly disappointing thing to discover about oneself. But, what is one to do, but face up to the truth?