Tag: Ricky

Snoring From Under the Desk

At this rate I may plow through several centuries of classical literature and gobble down the tastiest titles served on the front table at Barnes and Noble. Yet I’m also dedicating a few hours each day to watching classic movies on Criterion and more than a few video series on Amazon or Netflix or even HBO Max. Finally, although I’m not sure if it’s a sign of health or sickness, I’m enjoying an inordinate number of hours of deep, dream-filled sleep.

Strange. It’s like being in the Good Place Upside-Down.

Ricky sleeps under my desk most of the day and despite my complaints, he’s only a whining pest a couple of hours each day. He’s too old for romping in the yard or tossing toys around but has developed a keen sense of perpetual food-lust that I, being a very old soft-touch, tend to honor with a small treat or two, just to take the edge off the histrionics of starvation.

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Here Comes Michael

Back in the fifties and sixties Michael was a very popular name for boys. Generally the very unscientific analysis of boys named Michael suggested either boys that were always getting into trouble or, later on, boys that whined a lot. My own experience with boys named Michael is a boy who grew up somewhat uneventful and now demonstrates his rebelliousness quietly reading Ezra Pound and Allen Ginsberg.

But almost without warning a new Michael is rapidly growing in the Gulf and heading right for my house.

So, in deference to heavy flooding and lack of electricity, the Tallahassee homestead with be packing up and headed north to Atlanta. I think Ricky will stay behind this time, safe and happy in a veritable bunker of a kennel and for medical reasons (and stairs) I am targeted for a hotel or motel not far from where the kids and grandkids will be crashing.

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I’ve gotten all my meds together, enough for two weeks, just in case. Unfortunately I just stocked up on refrigerator items: hope they last at least a week (we intend to return home Sunday). 

I’ve only lived here two years but we have evacuated twice, been without power for over a week, watched some very large trees twist and bend in high winds, tried to get across town through minor flooding without benefit of working traffic lights, and spent many a late summer evening without lights or air conditioning.

Hopefully I get a family discount on this one: one Michael to another .

My Friend Irma

I’ve been collecting important papers for a trek north to Atlanta. I’m not sure this is necessary and it sure isn’t going to be fun, but my Son-In-Law says we’re headed for safety. In this area the power might go out in a stiff breeze so there’s a better chance to have lights to read a book, power to toast a burrito, and that glorious and addicting air-conditioning.

Let see: Passport, Last Will and Testament, Pink Slip, Dog Inoculation Record, iPhone, two-weeks worth of medicine, ten cans of dog food, The Collected Poems of Allen Ginsberg, sleep mask, C-Pap, … and the dog, of course.