PAT ME DRU MY LEON SAID,
JUST USE YOUR HAND TO SCRATCH MY HEAD;
FOR TWICE A DAY AT THE VERY LEAST,
YOU NEED TO SCRATCH TO TAME THIS BEAST.
THE MORNING SCRATCH IS NOW UPON US,
SO MAKE A LAP FOR YOUR GREY ADONIS.
DON’T USE THAT PEN, DON’T USE THAT KEYBOARD;
JUST SCRATCH MY CHIN OR I’LL TIP YOU LEEWARD.
I’M BIG ENOUGH, DON’T THINK I’M NOT;
NOW USE YOUR HAND AND SCRATCH THIS SPOT!
I FIND MANY SIMILARITIES BETWEEN MYSELF AND THAT OLD CODGER
Oh yes Horace Rumpole, he brightened my life when I found him.
I actually discovered him through Mortimer’s short stories in the 1970s, although they evidently were subsequent to the BBC series but at that time I did not “receive” the BBC and was unaware of this
“Freedom Fighter”
until the books were published.
That “Old Bailey Hack” definitely agreed with Henrik Ibsen;
“Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth”.
Rumpole and I have so much in common, our similarities are very near.
I too have occasionally been seen smoking a small cheroot
with cigar ash trailing down my waistcoat.
Oh yes, I certainly have the protruding stomach for that (or as I like to call it the shelf that carries my boobs)…again apologies but this time to Maya Angelou …but in regards to my face, I look more like Sir John C. Mortimer than Horace W. Rumpole for at least the former and I both wear or wore large crooked glasses.
I’m also positive that the consistent medicinal intake of multiple glasses of Pommeroy’s Plonk would keep me astonishingly regular…
…and sometimes I might actually be seen, rising on my hind legs, to fight against iniquity and injustice and even possibly for truth. JUST AS LONG AS I AM NOT ALWAYS FORCED TO SPEAK THE TRUTH; YOU MUST BUT I DON’T HAVE TO. 
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. Oscar Wilde
In regards to the circumstance of my life; the unknown factors that seem to pass out those horrific unforeseen sentences on it; they can easily be equated to Rumpole’s “old sweethearts” on the bench, who would go out to eat buttered muffins after passing a death sentence.
There is even a vague similarity regarding our choice of partners; for while Horace has his “She Who Must Be Obeyed” I have mine; “HE Who Will Not Obey. Though in this instance I guess I more resemble Hilda than Horace.
…….. 
copy & paste, you know the drill
@ least watch the 1st 1 minute & 45 seconds…FOR ME PLEASE.
or
One Should NEVER Make Decisions in the Middle of the Night
or
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke…”
My father was a doctor back during the time when pharmaceutical reps or detail men as we used to call them, would give out “samples” of just about anything to doctors. It didn’t really matter what your specialty was if a rep thought you might prescribe it, they’d give you samples of it. They would also pass out little gifts, like nice letter openers that looked like swords or fancy carved boxes to keep who knew what in; I had many of these as a child and thought they were exotic and special.
They would also take the doctors to all sorts of events, entertainments, and dinners and do just about anything else they could think of to get the doctors to “use” their products.
Of course now a day they are actually legally limited in what they can pass out or pass on (yah right) and their budgets are definitely not what they used to be but back in the 1960s and 1970s my dad had boxes of this stuff and therefore so did the family.
Now I’m not talking about pain medications, diet pills, or sleeping pills and that kind of thing but allergy meds, hormones, baby mama vitamins, BC pills and other stuff like that was abundant, even antibiotics and some muscle relaxants. I don’t think I ever paid for a prescription until I was in my late 20s.
One of the medications my father always asked for was liquid Novocain. It was used extensively in dentistry at that time but my dad used it to numb the frequent canker sores he’d get in his mouth. Since I got those sores a lot as a kid too…it appeared to be from acidic food and most assuredly from walnuts…my dad gave me my very own bottle when I moved out of the nest. Whoopeee!
I was ecstatic as by that time I was also getting getting them if I was out in the sun too much; like when I went on beach jaunts, sunned at the hot springs, or worked weekends at amateur auto races.
Well one night, after I’d been in my own little nest for just a little while, I got a REALLY BAD cold. I had a fever and an ear ache too but I really didn’t have anything to take but aspirin to help for all this, as this was one of the first times I gotten sick on my own and I didn’t have much in the way of “remedies” around the house.
I went to bed with a heating pad on my ear and woke up several hours later with the WORSE sore throat and just wanted my Mommy.
Then I got the bestest idea!
If the Novocain would deaden my mouth with a canker sore, why wouldn’t it deaden my sore throat like Cepacol, a remedy my mother had given me often over the years.
Sooooo, I gargled with Novocain…a REALLY BAD IDEA!
My throat went so dead I couldn’t tell if I was swallowing the right way or not, in fact I couldn’t even tell if I was actually swallowing at all.
I got panicked and thought I’d pull a Jimi Hendrix in my sleep and decided I needed to stay awake. Hours later, or so it seemed, my throat was still not “awake” and neither was I, so finally I went to bed again, face down, with a wash cloth in my mouth to prop it open so I wouldn’t swallow wrong and also to catch my drool.
Sexy huh and certainly not very bright.
I did go to sleep almost immediately and I have no idea if I drooled the rest of the night away but unlike Jimi, I did wake up.
So children, the moral of this story is…..Don’t Gargle with Novocain and always think twice about an idea that occurs in the middle of the night.
The End
It is a weird thing about cats but if they lose their sense of smell, they won’t eat anything. They can be starving to death and they will sit in front of the dish and cry. I have encountered this phenomenon many times in the course of my life-long- cat-affair and I’ve come up with several ways to this circumvent this problem.
If the cats are not too sick, then you can force some water down them with a syringe and rub them all over with cod liver oil or tuna juice, and/or sardine paste. They won’t eat that because of smell, at least at first, but if they’re not too sick, they will lick themselves clean and at least get some calories. As they get better, they will lick it because of the smell too but if you sleep with them remember you smell also and are not very socially acceptable in the non-cat world. I spent one weekend reading in bed with sick Puck doing just this. He lived but my budding relationship with a new “falla” didn’t. sigh
If they are very sick, then you need to force water down them, medicine (probably antibiotics) down them and finally baby food down them or they will die. Of course you can have your vet keep them and force feed them and put them on fluids but that is pricey to say the least and they will miss you when they are not hating you.
One year in the Fall right before T.Day my little Bette Noir got a very virulent cat flu. The vet (my cousin) kept her for a couple of days but she doesn’t have an emergency practice and needed to send my sick snot nosed baby home for the “Holiday” so I took Bette and locked her in the bathroom with the heater going and forced the aforementioned trio; water, meds, and baby food, down her throat about every four hours. She HATED IT and tried to scratch my face and everything else for the first couple of days.
I persevered but I got sick too, with a sinus infection, not cat flu and it got harder and harder to care for her. “HE” did help some but only to hold her in a wrapped towel to keep her from clawing the bejesus out of me and HE didn’t hold her well. Usually about ½ way through a force she’d come shooting out of the towel, like toothpaste squeezed too hard, and go right for the jugular.
She and I finally started to get better and she DISCOVERED that she REALLY LIKED BABY FOOD. Then several other cats got that flu too, not as bad as Bette Noir but still bad and they all got the force feeding baby-food regime and they also all found out that they REALLY LIKED BABY FOOD too.
It was a nightmare as they got well, baby food costs even more than cat food (which ain’t cheap) but they would have nothing else.
I finally starting buying skinless chicken breasts, baking them with the tinniest of oil and nothing else and whizzing them up into paste. The cats liked that but I got REAL tired of doing it. I gave them tuna mixed ½ & ½ with cat food….OK…thin sliced turkey from the deli….OK…even more expensive cat food…OK but what they really wanted was BABY FOOD and NOW MEOW NOW!!!!
Eventually we got everyone back to “normal” and the Great Cat Flu Epidemic was finally over and they were back eating the cheaper, albeit not CHEAP, cans of cat food but to this day if I open anything that is vacuum sealed, that sounds like the top of a baby food jar as it is being opened; instant pronto magic! Eight or more cats all lined up under my feet for:
The TREAT mom, The TREAT!
No PleaseZ, no Thank YouZ, No NicetieZ or
PolitetieZ….JUST FEED ME!
So I wrote a little song regarding this whole experience and here it is.
SONG FOR THE GREAT CAT FLU EPIDEMIC OF 2004
Mom please wipes the booghars from my eyes. My eyes stuck shut and that is why I crys. No don’t come at me with a cloth, no I don’t want a wash, just use your hand and wipes the booghars from my eyes.
Mom just move on over in the bed, I want to use your pillow for my head, then I’ll climb on top of you, when I’m cold that’s what I do, so mom just move on over in the bed.
Mom I won’t eat cat food any more. I want that baby food straight from the jar. Smoked turkey or tuna will do, if you don’t feed me than I’ll eat you but mom I won’t eat cat food any more. dru 
Here is a “recipe” of mine.
It comes from my newly created cookbook entitled:
“Recipes for People Who Can’t Cook”
This recipe is called:
The Dish my Father-Out-of-Law will always eat but we shouldn’t serve too often
What you need:
*Enough hard pasta to serve as many as you want to serve
*Manufactured Cream (Manufacturing cream has even more butterfat (about 33%) than whipping cream (31%)) Note VERY bad for you that is why this recipe tastes so good
* Grated Parmesan Cheese
*Butter & Garlic if you want (if you want garlic in this you will need at least some butter to saute the garlic in)
*Fresh Green Beans – lots – with ends cut off and sliced into thirds or fourths depending on length of beans…about the size of whatever pasta you’re using
*Fresh Mushrooms – lots more – of any kind you like, I like the plain old button or baby portabellas
*Black Pepper & Finely Chopped Parsley to taste
PREPAREATION:
Rinse mushrooms and cut in ½ if smallish or 3 slices per mushroom if bigish
Put a large pan of water on the stove, add some salt…much more than a pinch and less than a ½ palmful, add mushrooms and bring to a boil. Boil for a while but don’t let the mushrooms shrink to non existence. Between 5 and 15 minutes will do but if you forget it, no worries, this is a very forgiving recipe, the mushroom pieces will just be smaller. When done water should be brownish and murky and taste like mushrooms.
(Makes a GREAT vegetarian soup base if you want to save after next steps)
Add green beans to the boil and continuing boiling for about 3 minutes, less if you really like al dente beans.
Remove beans & mushrooms from water and set aside, if you really want the beans al dente place them in cold water to stop them from cooking more.
Add pasta to mushroom water and cook as the box instructs. Add a cup of cold water just before you want to strain the pasta.
DON’T rinse the pasta.
Put strained pasta, beans and mushrooms back in the large pot and add some cream, the amount depends on how much pasta you have. This is your sauce base, use your judgment. The pasta will soak up some of the sauce but if you’re not careful you’ll get it too runny. You can always add more but it is hard to “add less.”
Just use your judgment.
Add butter or not, as the cream is REALLY heavy. If you’re using garlic in this, saute it in a little butter about 2-3 minutes until garlic is almost browned and add to cream. Add lots of grated parmesan but again use your judgment based on your own taste and your dietary needs. Parmesan has LOTS of salt. Turn the heat back on low, start stirring this mess, add black pepper to taste and a small amount of finely chopped parsley (if you like it) Keep adding the “sauce” ingredients” until you’re satisfied with result but again, it is easy to add more and hard to add less.
Place in serving dish and serve with additional grated parmesan to top.
enjoy
I once had a cat named Simon, a very tall short haired grey and black striped and spotted male that adopted me when he was about nine months old. He just showed up one evening while we were eating a Bar-B-Q’ed dinner on my portion of a big wrap-around-porch on the 100 year old Victorian home where I rented an apartment and he never left. Partly that was because he had a propensity for getting hit by cars, a “skill” he demonstrated that evening and twice thereafter. The 3rd time was the “charm.” 
He lived thru that night’s episode with one leg broken but fixable. The 2nd time the same leg had to be pinned, he broke his pelvis and had a “tailectomy” but again lived. As I said, the 3rd time was the charm.
However to get to the 3rd time, he moved with me three times, grew to be a mature, large almost monster size cat and had everyone calling him a bobcat because of his tail…or lack thereof.
I called him Simon, of course, and also “The Trashman” because he would bring his “kills” for my inspection and he felt his biggest scores were McDonald’s Hamburger Bags and Large Empty Coffee Cups. He’d “bag” one of these babies and start yowling and howling and running for home to show it to me. How he could jump a 4 ½ foot chain-link fence, with something in his mouth that would completely cover his face and eyes, I could never fathom but he did. He’d also bring home parts of newspaper…he liked the color ad page inserts the best…, receipts, pictures…he brought home a picture of a casket at a funeral once…, the odd business card, and much much more. I tried to get him to play with paper money hoping he’d like the smell of it too but that little trick never took. …WHAT I never said I was a REALLY good person, I’m just one who strives to be good; most of the time. So lock your windows!
Anyway he was a favorite of mine (I love all my Catz, each one better than the Rest) and he was great free entertainment at my Bar-B-Ques; my guests really enjoyed him. Between his dog chasing & trash antics and my baby chickens falling out of the tree when trying to roost, we had our own little 3-ring circus with beer.
He was also “The Watch Cat.” He would circle the house every evening to check everything out. He chase off dogs if they were trying to get into the yard. He’d come and demand food but when I put it out, he sit back and let the others eat it first; the oldies, the youngies, the wildies, and the infirm always had first dibs when he demanded food. Very odd for a cat, sometimes a shy or old one will leave off eating because of a more aggressive one but usually the aggressive cats just bogey the dish after they demand a feeding. 
His last car incident was on my birthday several years ago and I still miss him at times or use the wrong name for Colton, who looks a lot like him, but with tail and is much dumber…although I guess you could call a cat that is hit by a car three times dumb too.
Anyway, in remembrance of my Simon, I’m posting the two cat songs I wrote for him.
**********************************************************************
SONG FOR SIMON
Simple Simon would go real far…if he didn’t always get hit by a car. He walks kind o’ funny cuz his leg’s twice broken and as for his tail, well it’s just a token!
ODE TO THE TRASH MAN-SIMON
Put the pennies on my eyes and stickz my tongue back in, for you no longer haz to criez ‘bout what this cat dragz in.
**********************************************************************
This is actually a post for a very special friend of mine on a subject that is very near to her.
She publishes here at WordPress too but in a much more erudite and substantial manner on an esoteric subject that I once followed avidly, as a hobbyist, but now that I’m a broke, depressed, isolationist; I know nothing about.
She writes on the sport that Toady might have called
And Jackie Stewart most assuredly did call “Motor Car Racing”
http://anneotheropinion.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/a-captains-rudderless-ship/
A misnomer if ever, as the only motor under the “hood” might just be the starter motor.
An engine is an internal combustion machine and a motor is the electrical machine that turns.
From Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
Engine:
4: a machine for converting any of various forms of energy into mechanical force and motion; also : a mechanism or object that serves as an energy source <black holes may be the engines for quasars>
Motor:
1: one that imparts motion; specifically : prime mover
2: any of various power units that develop energy or impart motion: as a: a small compact engine b: internal combustion engine; especially : a gasoline engine c: a rotating machine that transforms electrical energy into mechanical energy
***for my theory I’m not to fond of parts of 2:”*** seems like a little “lizard chasing his own tail***but what the ‘ell? I still don’t think they’re interchangable but stand alone entities however I can be amicable and agree to disagree.
But I digress.
I too have an interest in the issue that is really at hand, as my brother had serious financial trouble during his terminal bout with cancer and might have been part of this exploited work force had he lived long enough to be forcibly joined. The Social Security Department, that finally condescended to allow him his own money back, stated that in three years he would be reassessed and probably put back into the work force. Yah Right!!! Broken back, broken bones, broken will (well almost) and everything else; including a prognosis of 18 months at tops to live. Plus pain beyond belief, let me know how that works out for even the most exploitive employer…MORPHINE here we come.
Also since I am a card carrying member of the GU (The Great Unwashed) I am opposed to exploitation of any sort. Of course, should I ever obtain money, from any source, I just might rejoin the Corporate Loving, Republican Voting, Religiously Intolerant sector from which I sprang…yah right! But I probably shouldn’t shake my finger and point too much. (Sorry Bad Finger)
i mean…THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF “?GOD?” GO i…??
Be that as it may, here is the email sent to me by my friend who forwarded it on from her sister who helped me greatly during the nine months I battled to get my terminal brother the SSDI payments he deserved for the 30 plus years he toiled hard to pay into this flawed system of ours. As it was although he’d worked and deserved to draw on his SS, given the fact he was dying young, he only lived another eight months after he finally qualified for his just distributions and now the “System” gets to keep the major portion of his paid in dues…BUT…I digress again.
So without any further ado, and you have to admit I’ve ado’d all over the place…here is my friend’s email.
PLEASE READ
my nephew Alex is quite ill with cancer and has lobbied for this – passing along email from my sister… thanks for getting with the program – a
Sent to almost everyone in my address book. It’s important to spread the word: Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities | NFB
To save you time, the gist of this is that the NFB is lobbying for a repeal of the section of the ADA that says employers of disabled workers are permitted to pay them less than minimum wage, like pennies an hour.
Goodwill is fighting like mad because it will directly affect them and their 6-figure executive salaries. I’m sure there are other charities involved but the NFB has targeted Goodwill for starters.
Alex lobbied in DC last April. Notices have been sent to all members of the House and Senate. This has been a long time — too long — coming. The ADA was passed in 1974.
Please take heed. Thank you for your time.
CyAnts at a family wedding – Nam Myoho Renge Kyo sister dru
I am pondering my own mortality which is odd for this time of night since I’m usually watching “Law and Order” reruns, David Letterman (such a fine gentleman) or Craig Ferguson (not such a fine gentleman but more to my liking) at this time of night. I usually ponder this upon waking in the funk of a hangover at about 9 in the morning or when I wake around 4 am with my heart pounding in my ears. Sometimes it even creeps up on me when I think the brakes are failing because I wasn’t paying attention on the freeway.
I think I am thinking of this now because I’m taking my 93 year old “Uncle” in tomorrow for his second bladder cancer surgery in four months and I’m petrified about what will happen tomorrow. This panic is pure selfishness as I’m more worried about how I will be able to deal with a crisis myself instead of worrying about a potential crisis to him, although I do worry about him. So I’m trying to take my mind off my own shittyness and put it somewhere else.
Therefore I decided to ponder my own mortality and since I’ve done this before at various times, I’ve decided to post a little ditty that I wrote for my will. Honestly it is in my properly executed last will…etc. So here is my Requiem (apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson)
REQUIEM
No service in a chapel; no graveside mourning for me.
No announcements, no pronouncements; no fake or heartfelt sympathy.
Don’t put me in a casket, I would not even ask it.
Just burn me in a box; no shoes, no shirt, no sox.
Then put the bit that’s left of me inside my pots under my trees.
And in the dark past midnight; when the hours are wee and small,
Just think of me with fondness or if not; then not at all.
In Memoriam to PseudoCyAnts from sister dru
saywhatumean2say 