I am: always waiting, endlessly hoping
I think: the world is going to hell in a hand basket . . .
I know: I’m not the only one that thinks so
I want: just enough
I have: a sad heart . . .
I wish: it weren’t so
I hate: Winter . . . (it’s coming)
I miss: Summer
I fear: things I have no control over
I feel: tired, like always
I hear: conversation, the rustle of a newspaper, a train on the tracks
I smell: like a fine cigar . . . (that nobody likes)
I crave: anything but
I search: for ‘the’ words . . .
I wonder: exactly what they mean
I regret: so very many things, so many mistakes, wrong turns and unfulfilled dreams
I ache: daily
I care: deeply
I always: keep ‘hope’ somewhere very close
I am not: a brain surgeon, but I’m pretty freekin’ smart
I believe: in my three wonderful daughters (my 3 hopes)
I dance: like an epileptic underneath a manic strobe light
I sing: rarely these days, which is sad
I cry: behind locked doors (not often enough)
I don’t always: shave my head
I fight: for what I truly believe in
I write: to simply stay sane
I never: feel that life is fair
I stole: a nice four-wheel dolly from a ritzy Hotel in Boston many years ago
(actually, I just ‘forgot’ to return it)
I listen: to those that truly need to be heard
I need: something
I am happy about: the fact that the dung-slinging elections are almost over.
And I could give two sweet shits about them.
Politics suck. Period. Amen.

Feel free to tag yourself on this.
No tagging here.
I borrowed this from Moe.
Great Meme . . .
Maybe too much information?
Ah, well, it had to come out sooner or later . . .

This was too funny not to share.
Once again, not sure of the authenticity but damn, these are funny.

Medical Stories

1. A man comes into the ER and yells, ‘My wife’s
going to have her baby in the cab!’ I grabbed my stuff, rushed out
to the cab, lifted the lady’s dress, and began to take off her
Underwear. Suddenly I noticed that there were several
cabs —and I was in the wrong one.

Submitted by Dr. Mark MacDonald, San Francisco

2. At the beginning of my shift, I placed a stethoscope
on an elderly and slightly deaf female patient’s chest wall.
‘Big breaths’, I instructed.
‘Yes, they used to be,’ replied the patient.

Submitted by Dr. Richard Byrnes, Seattle , WA

3. One day I told a wife that her husband had died of a
massive myocardial infarct. Not more than five minutes later, I
heard her reporting to the rest of the family that he had died of
a ‘massive internal fart.’

Submitted by Dr. Susan Steinberg

4. During a patient’s two week follow-up appointment
with his cardiologist, he informed me, his doctor, that he was
having trouble with one of his medications.
‘Which one?’ I asked. ‘The patch. The
nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours and now
I’m running out of places to put it!’
I had him quickly undress and discovered what I hoped I
wouldn’t see. Yes, the man had over fifty patches on his
body! Now, the instructions include removal of the old patch before
applying a new one.

Submitted by Dr. Rebecca St. Clair, Norfolk , VA

5. While acquainting myself with a new elderly patient,
I asked, ‘How long have you been
bedridden?’
After a look of complete confusion she
answered. ‘Why, not for about twenty years – when my
husband was alive.’

Submitted by Dr. Steven Swanson, Corvallis , OR

6. I was performing rounds at the hospital one morning
and while checking up on a woman I asked, ‘So how’s
your breakfast this morning?’ ‘It’s very
good, except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can’t seem to
get used to the taste,’ the patient replied.
I then
asked to see the jelly and the woman produced a
foil packet labeled ‘KY Jelly.’

Submitted by Dr. Leonard Kransdorf, Detroit

7. A nurse was on duty in the emergency room when a
Young woman with purple hair styled into a punk rocker mohawk,
sporting a variety of tattoos, and wearing strange
clothing, entered. It was quickly determined that the
patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for
immediate surgery. When she was completely disrobed on
the operating table, the staff noticed that her pubic hair
had been dyed green, and above it there was a tattoo that
read, ‘Keep off the grass.’ Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient’s dressing, which said, ‘Sorry, had
to mow the lawn.’

Submitted by Doctor . . .

AND FINALLY…

8. As a new, young MD doing his residency, I was quite
embarrassed when performing female pelvic exams. To
cover my embarrassment, I had unconsciously formed a habit
of whistling softly. The middle-aged lady upon whom I
was performing this exam suddenly burst out
laughing and further embarrassing me. I looked up from
my work and sheepishly said, ‘I’m sorry, was I
tickling you?’
She replied, ‘No doctor, but the song you were whistling was, ‘I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Wiener’.

Dr. wouldn’t submit his name (Go figure)

Why not just eat an entire freekin’ cow for cripe’s sake?
Click on the MI culinary delight above for a cafe that is possibly responsible for
more saturated fat-related deaths than Mickey D’s
But hell, the waitstaff looks damn curvy and nice.
Okay, I’ll give them a bye
I guess if you’re going to have a heart attack this is the place you’d want some serious mouth-to-mouth action.
Somebody order me another triple-bypass, will ya?
Double the fries, too

My daughters occasionally suggest that I watch a particular video that they find outrageously funny.
More often than not, I usually agree.
In this case, I did.
I’m currently in the midst of dealing with a lower back molar that has decided to kick my ass back to TimBuk2.
It will be violently extracted from my jawbone by this time tomorrow night.
I should be quite happy by then.
Or not.
The sucker waited to speak up one day into my four days off, the phucker.
Needless to say, it’s currently a bit difficult to write nevermind blog.
As a veteran blogger, I hate to see my visitors suffer needlessly.
Enjoy the video.
It’s funny as hell.
So, when molar extractions and YouTube videos meet,
I wonder if they say, “Can I get your number?”
At any rate, the video is much funnier that I should be tomorrow morning at 9:30.
I think I tied that together rather nicely, don’t you?

You may ask, why aren’t you watching the Celtics/Lakers game?
This was more important.
A friend needs prayers tonight and I hope that any visitors take pause and say something.
No need for a comment, just take 2 minutes and say a prayer, your own prayer.
If you want more information regarding the situation, click on the picture above.
A prayer is all that’s needed.
I thank all of you in advance.
Prayer is powerful stuff so please take a moment . . .
Or check in with one of Kelly’ angels

I received an email a week or so ago that I almost sent to the spammer.
Something made me open it.
It was from a woman named Jody Simpson, of WEGO Health, an online resource for health related issues.
She had been reading my Memory Lane blog and was curious if I’d be interested in doing a “spotlight interview” regarding my personal experience with Alzheimer’s Disease.
I agreed and was contacted by Toni Kistner, the assigned editor for my interview.
Jody and Toni were both incredibly helpful in ultimately getting this thing down on paper.
I thank them both dearly.
Click on the picture above to learn a few things that you may not have known about me.
To leave a comment on WEGO, you may have to register.
If that doesn’t work for you, feel free to leave a comment back here.
As always, thanks so much for reading.

My sister and I have noticed some changes in our father.
Whenever we talk to him about ‘old times’ (instead of just sitting there staring vacantly out the window) his eyes fill with tears. He’s not totally crying but something is definitely going on.
We wonder what’s really going through his mind?
It was this thought and some help from the band “Tears for Fears” that are responsible for the inspiration behind this post.
I didn’t plan on posting tonight but sometimes you just have to let some of your writing go.

the Size of Sorrow

Carbon-copy days
Stain my mimeographed life
Wondering if today is some strange and future tomorrow

Time meanders away
some perpetual 36-hour day
But what is the size of sorrow?

a Fool on the hill
a sad silhouette of your absence
what remains breaks the heart of the borrow

Tomorrow is near
like an invisible tear
I’m wondering what is the size of your sorrow?

~m

Most of the time I’m able to let the daily bullshit and banter sift through the cranial grates inside my cue ball noggin but on occasion I get a difficult clinker that won’t pass through.
I have to take it out and look at it and figure out why I can’t mentally digest it.
Case in point: the other night I was surfing the net for the latest in the way of books on Alzheimer’s disease; a simple and innocent task, right?
Imagine my surprise (and horror) to find a book titled “Alzheimer’s for Dummies”.
Needless to say, my searching was over for the night.
I’d found a seriously incongruous clinker that fueled my rage against the literary machine.
I was livid.
This was a subject much too close to home for me and to see it reduced to a ‘manual for dummies’ format personally devastated me.

“Dummies” manuals cover a range of topics: Chess, Poker, MSWord, Windows Vista and Grammar, to name but a few.
But Alzheimer’s disease?
Personally, it was unthinkable.

Why not “Breast Cancer for Dummies”?
How would that go over?
Believe me, I know.
I’ve lost too many friends to the disease and I would be outraged at the total lack of compassion and sensitivity used in publishing such a book.

Never mind.
What the hell is going on here?
I must be losing my mind.

I’ve checked out the contents of the AFD book and I’ve no doubt the author’s intentions were good.
But . . .
So this is what’s it’s come to?
Christ in a sidecar, I’m almost speechless here.
File this one under “roll up that manual and insert forcefully into your keester, sideways“.
But maybe there’s a “Dummies” guide for that as well.
Hey, if ICHC can get a book deal, why the hell not these buttmonkeys?
IMHO, those suffering from this disease deserve an apology from these inconsiderate ‘Dummie’ assholes.
Do I know what I’m talking about here?
Yes, I think I do.
All too well . . .

~m

Just wanted to put up yet another “thank you” post for being so damn generous with your comments.
I wanted to make my way around the “bloghorn” but will never do it all tonight.
I’m only human.

A few notes of interest, if you look to my side bar you will see a little jpeg of Joe Jackson (musician).
If you click it, it will open Adobe Reader on your computer (assuming you have it installed), and download his essay as a .pdf file.
I don’t comment much about smoking on the blog but I feel Jackson’s essay should be read by smokers and non-smokers alike.
I think it’s absolutely brilliant.
You may feel differently.
I’m not going to address my stance on smoking right now.
Just know that I smoke.
And I enjoy it.
And I pay exorbitant and unscrupulous taxes because of my habit (which is absolute bullshit).
To the US government, tax something else for a change, for cripes sake.
Just imagine if the government started taxing Budweiser and Happy Meals the way they tax tobacco these days.
Would people be a bit angry?
Think about it.
Click on the philosopher above to visit Jackson’s website.
There’s some great stuff to be found there.

And now for something completely different;

Last week, I woke up in the middle of the night after falling asleep early and came downstairs to the sound of ‘beep-beep-beep-beep’.
My wife was laying on the couch pointing the cordless phone at the TV and pressing the “call button” on and off.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Trying to turn this friggin’ thing down,” she said.

“You can’t do that with the phone, dear, ” I said, as I took the phone out of her hand, turned off the TV and guided her upstairs to bed.
Ah, sleepyheads can be funny sometimes.
I think she may have called China a few times though.
Check out the Jackson video below.
Classic Joe.

Evyl and I have decided to offer our services to all the gentlemen types currently surfing the web looking for something interesting to read, watch or do.
We’ve started something of a manblog to be sure but it has so much more to offer than that.
At Evyl and Smoke there will be no syrupy sweet posts, no sentimentality and a no holds barred policy; a very different place than here at Smoke and Mirrors.
Oh, and absolutely ‘no bullshit’.
This is a place where I can let my hair down
(funny, so to speak, even though we’re two guys with cueball noggins)
Women, cigars, sports, beer, booze, good eats, guy gripes and chili recipes will rule the roost.
Both of us aren’t quite sure where this thing will go but it’s been a blast so far and we’ve decided to finally go public with it.
We’ll leave it up to you as far as linking to us.
We are, first and foremost, gentlemen.
BTW- We decided on an anonymous system in terms of posting and commenting thinking it might offer a bit of devious fun because you’ll never really know who is who.
I’m honored beyond belief to team up with the likes of Evyl.
He pulls no punches yet you always know where you stand.
For now, I’ll just welcome you to our new abode: Evyl and Smoke
Stop by and at least say hi.
And yes, it’s most definitely a guy thing.
And that’s alright by me . . .

~m