It’s been 15 months since I touched this thing.  A LOT has happened.

In early June of 2021 I got typhus and had to spend some serious hospital time (ER, ICU, and rehab home).

Since typhus comes from a flea bite we decided to have the house tented and cleaned.  We lost a lot of our belongings due to the negligence and incompetence of the cleaning company Space City Sanitation.

They didn’t lock up the house after everything was packed away so whatever didn’t get stolen was thrown away.  We have to take some of the responsibility because we didn’t supervise them.  I was in medical facilities and my wife was taking care of me.

Imagine a young married couple in their 20s moving from their respective parents’ homes into a new house . They have no furniture, plates, silverware,  or kitchenware.  They walk in with just suitcases.

My wife had to buy kitchen appliances, home electronics, and a bedroom by herself.  I couldn’t add a lot of input from my recovery bed.

In the kitchen they took out the refrigerator, dishwasher, stove, and all of the countertops.  Luckily they left the garage refrigerator alone.

We lost all ,of our family pictures and most of our books.  In your 20s that’s not a lot; in your 60s it’s like you never existed.  My family pictures were original prints of my mother’s life sent to me by now dead relatives.  I lost our family bible that births and deaths were recorded.

My computer room furniture and literature was part of the dearly departed.  I had to replace my tower and lighted keyboard with a Dell laptop.

I had bought a record player to move all my vinyl onto my computer.   The damn thing was still in the box.  I lost it and all my records.

The records had been bought in stores with money I earned from Dairy Queen.  I think the most I bought in a visit was 2.

We’re trying to celebrate V-Day in the time of COVID.  CV19 is not the only hurdle we face this year.  It’s cold in Houston.  It might rain so that would keep Brooke from driving and Uber Eats from delivering.  I know, first world problems.

The cherry on top of this fart sandwich is that our house doesn’t heat that well.  The master bedroom is the only room that gets above 70.

Otherwise it’s a triple witching hour of holidays, V-Day, Presidents Day, and Mardis Gras.  I’d like to add John Oliver coming back to the festivities.

I reached out to some friends in California that I hadn’t talked to since ’94.  I know the year because we saw Ready to Wear.  The rest of this post is about how I found them.

It was surprisingly easy since the wife is in liberal arts academia.

My California buddy finally connected so I have his email and phone number.  That’s all he has.   The phone call was great because his voice hasn’t changed.  I would expect raising a couple of kids would have added a permanent hoarseness,

Since it hadn’t changed hearing him took me back to all those Saturday night poker games and Sunday afternoon water volleyball marathons.  We’d make sure it was after noon and pick up $7 12-packs of Schlitz and then Schaefer when they bought Schlitz.

We would spike a watermelon for three day weekends.  This was  not a bunch of crazy frat guys just entering our 20s.  No we were in our late 20s with jobs and I had a mortgage.

Yesterday I bought my first bath towel.

This not to say Ive gone 51 years without a towel. I was on Amazon buying test strips and I wanted another towel in the house. They had a set of six for under $20 so added it to my cart.

I started thinking about how I got the towels I had. When I was single I lived in a one-bedroom condo with two bath towels that were gifts. They lasted me over 20 years.

Now I’m married and my wife keeps what towels we have in the linen closet on the other side of the house. I need more towels so I can keep them in sight.

The easiest decisions are the ones with the least choices.

I was invited to a rush party the summer before I started college. It was held at a Coors distributorship. I had to pick Coors or Coors Light.

When my foot was black with infection the choice was death or amputation. The jury is still out if I  chose wisely.

I don’t remember having a say whether I would learn a musical instrument. But I did take piano and violin lessons. I ended up choosing the alto saxophone because it was lighter than a tenor.

When I buy a car I usually have such a small budget that the car lot only has one in my price range.

Since I can’t drive again yet I only get to decide on a destination. The route is out of my hands.

I am a bit portly so the regular clothes stores have very few choices if they have my size. The fun part about this is I’m on the skinny side for the big and tall stores. So they have a few more but not much.