In which we lose a bet

 

Well that was stupid.

As I mentioned in the last post, I high-tailed it off to Houston for my high school reunion. I got there, checked into the most hilariously glamorous room I've ever seen in a hotel, and settled down to the very demanding task of visiting with my family.

I love them, I do, but they are very high maintenance.  This trait I have for long meandering stories apparently is genetic because all of my nieces and nephews have it too.  Plus they're much louder than me.  You get all of this around one table and it sounds like urban warfare. My niece Willow and her son came in from Phoenix and my other niece Amber came down from the far northern reaches of Texas. Plus I have yet another niece and a nephew living in Houston along with my older brother.  It was quite a gang.

Everything was going swimmingly.  Diane von Austinburg blew in and was an immensely welcomed respite from my lunatic blood relatives.  I've mentioned before I take pain medicine every day.  Instead of pills, it is a small piece of tape that I cut into eighths, tiny, tiny little bits. I take one of the little bits twice a day.  I had been taking them regularly and then Friday morning I opened up the medicine minder box I carry and discovered five of the pieces were gone.  I only had two doses in the box, enough for Friday and that was it.

I have no idea what happened to those goddamn itsy bitsy pieces of tape which are all that keeps me from being crippled.  I flailed around all day Friday trying to replace them.  My pain doctor turns out to not be able to prescribe controlled substances outside of California.  Great. My regular doctor was out of the office for the weekend.  Great.  I went to the very nice emergency room a couple of blocks from the hotel and discovered ERs cannot prescribed opiates either.  Again, great. I appreciate how all the pharmacies and doctors and nurses I spoke to never took the position that maybe I was a junkie trying to just cage extra meds off of them.  

And so yesterday afternoon I just surrendered and decided to come home early, this morning in fact.  Perhaps you remember in the earlier post how I sniffed at Diane's joke that she was taking bets that I wouldn't make the reunion.  How very galling to now have to admit that I lost that fucking bet.

On the other hand the flight back this morning had those seats that recline fully into beds and so I was able to sleep most of the way here.  It is the only way to fly.

Naked men welcome me home:

I'm too tired from traveling to make up snappy lines about these guys; you get the idea.

So glad to be home.

In Which We Reunite

 

See, if you graduate from a high school (and I did, despite evidence to the contrary.  I really did.) and then subsequently you don't die, you run into the inevitable high school reunion.  Thus, my 50th one is coming up this weekend so I am returning to the swamps of my youth to celebrate it.

I have mixed emotions about the entire affair.  Diane von Austinburg knows me so well she is already making book that I will duck out and just not go.  If you want in on that action you'll have to take it up with her.  Another old friend warned me the reunion has all the ear markings of a hostage situation.  Her advice?  "Keep the motor running."

Pooh, I say.  I escaped the grimy little town I grew up in once, I can do it again.  Plus I'll be able to visit with my family while I'm there, including my niece Amber, who's always good for a laugh.  If that's not enough high times, I'm planning to visit the cemetery where my great-grandparents, grandparents, and sundry other relatives are enjoying being dead. 

Lastly there are the twin pillars of the real delight of visiting Houston, really good Mexican food and really good barbecue.  Now we're talking.

Guys with whom I wish I was reuniting:

The entirely too flexible Trevor Adams.

Do you remember the guy last week with the extreme farmer's tan?  Here he is with his suntan more under control.

Diego Reyes is also good for a laff.

Some joke about arrows, I don't know, fill in the blank.

Paulo Victor Melo and his Ass of Death

So serious.  Lighten up, baby.

The hotel where I'll be staying closes their pool at sundown.  Fatheads.  I love swimming at night.

And in conclusion, Letterio Amadeo

 

In Which We Err on the Side of Bad Air

 

Monday night I made hummus for dinner, and it was fabulous, let me tell you.  Hummus is a paste made from chickpeas (which I don't like cause they are chalky as licking a dirty blackboard so I use cannellini beans instead) with lemon juice (I substituted lime juice because that's what I had) and tahini which is like peanut butter, but made with sesame seeds.  I did not substitute for that because I'm very fond of tahini.  Still I suppose it was basically a dish inspired by hummus.

Anyway then you dump all that in a food processor and let her rip.  You wind up with something smooth and beige, sort of a bean pudding.  I slather it on multigrain bread and wolf it down. Mmmmm.  Problem is shortly after shoveling it in my pie hole, my other hole chimes in.  Yes, the social grief of flatulence.  My digestion seems to be working like a steam engine since it doesn't take any time for the gales to start blowing.  One minute I'm lying quietly in bed and the next thing I know the sheets are rippling in the breeze.  Oh dear.

It's bad enough when I can keep all this gassy tempest to myself, but I had an appointment with my chiropractor the next day.  Chiropractic adjustments take place with you face down, with your cheese trumpet pointing up directly towards the good doctor.  I couldn't risk tooting right in his face, so I rescheduled, barely able to shout over the typhoon to leave him a voicemail.

Then today, just after all the gassy trauma had settled down, wildfire smoke blew into San Francisco.  We have had an amazing summer with no smoke at all which is almost unprecedented.  I just last week was telling someone what a relief it was to not choke on the air.  I suppose this is my payback for being for presumptuous.

Every breath today has been just a little more difficult than the one before with the breezes having a distinctly barbecue-y smell to them. My eyes itch and my throat feels like I've been gargling with charcoal.  I shut the windows and broke out my air purifier (which I should have used earlier after setting it on "cheese cutting".) It didn't seem terribly effective; I mentioned last year that its indicator is a little light show that shifts from red through purple to blue to show the quality of the air it's putting out, sort of like a mood ring. All afternoon it's been a sullen red, and once it finally turned blue (which is what you want) I went out into the kitchen and noticed the air there was not in the least bit worse.  Bamboozled by technology again.

Men whose beauty is like a cool breeze:

The charming Francisco Dominguez, co-starring his big, fat cock.

A farewell to summer.  We have featured this youth before, but I always find his ridiculous tan so amusing.

What a balancing feat.

Thomas Salek.  I think he's dreamy.

Ready for action.

I just have a weakness for guys with glasses and muscles.

Meaty, beaty, big, and bouncy.

I forget this guy's name.  Sorry.

It's almost fall, time to say adieu to tanlines.

In Which We Aargh

Compare and contrast.

 One of my favorite holidays of the year is coming up, Talk Like a Pirate Day is Tuesday, Sept. 19.  So haul up your mizzenmast, bitches, and prepare to be boarded.   The day is the brainchild of two scurvy dogs who freely admit it is nothing but a bucket of hornswoggle. I think every long time group of friends probably has some inside joke that helps bond the scallywags together and this has all the markings of being one.  Sadly, their website that originated the madness is no longer.  One assumes it now rests in Davy Jones locker.

There's a number of helpful sites that will get even the lamest of landlubbers in ship shape.  I have to say the quality of the pirate name generators (here's one that's OK) has declined.  Diane von Austinburg was in town for the festivities a couple of years ago and we spent an amusing evening crafting pirate names for ourselves.  Mine is Deadman McStubby and my ship is the feared Barnacle Bucket.  Cast your peepers on our sails and weep, you yellow-bellied cur.

So greet your fellow hearties by shouting "avast!" and tell the humpy barista to surrender his booty because it's Talk Like a Pirate Day. Aargh.

Buccaneers with whom I wouldn't mind sharing the poop deck.

Nappy time is happy time.

Men who can cock their eyebrow like that fascinate me.

I tried looking for naked pirates, but the selection was mediocre, so maybe I'll just post guys who look like they could be buccaneers.

Very pirate-ish.

Booty

The terror of below decks.

Avast

Captain Hook

Unburied treasure.

I love that snazzy little jacket or bolero or whatever it is.  Smart, very smart.

This photo is an old favorite here at Captain mrpeenee and I think it is rather pirate-y, somehow.

In Which We Take a Walk

 

Because I have AIDS, I go to the doctor every 6 months just to check to see if the meds I take are working (spoiler alert: they always work.) Since my treatment is not going to provide any drama, I have to make my own and to do that, I turn to burning off the sun damage on my skin. My childhood as a fair-skinned idiot in the subtropical hothouse that is the Gulf Coast of Texas, means that I got plenty of damage to work with.

The damage has resulted in actinic keratosis, a fancy name for bumps.  My doctor daubs liquid nitrogen on them and that burns them off.  It is exactly as much fun as it sounds.  Slightly more amusing is the doctor's preparation which consists of her saying "okay this is going to hurt.  This is going to hurt terribly much.  It's going to be agonizing." until I finally tell her to shut up and just get on with it.

I was walking over for my most recent torture session and decided I would take at least one picture every block.  Herein mrpeenee Goes to the Doctor:

The world's most gigantic bougainvillea.

Noe Street has charming community areas where the sidewalk widens out and which the neighborhood fills with potted plants and flowers.

I don't know what's going on here. This was everybody's favorite Japanese restaurant but it burned years ago and is still just sitting charred and empty.

I appreciate the work that goes into keeping a flower bed so tidy.

I love the architecture in my neighborhood.  Someone once described all the bay windows that are such an important feature of it as looking like the buildings are corrugated.

I love this color of bougainvillea

The view from my doctor's office.

And one last look down the quiet treelined charm of Noe Street.

Before we move on to the nekkid mens (and don't think that I am unaware that's why all of you come here.  Pervs.) I want to ask my fellow bloggers if you know a way for me to alert my readers on the odd occasion I get around to putting up a new post.  My last blog host, which shall remain unnamed, automatically sent out an email letting everybody know my deathless prose was once again available and I would like to  return to that.

Anyway, on with the nekkid mens I have found lately

I like guys having a good time

Peek-a-boo

What a lug.

Who puts the Ass in Massive?

Sunny delight.

My long time fascination, Marbys Negretti.

In the weeds.

Finis.