My wife is such a hog, she takes up all the space in our clothes closet. Every month she budgets out a certain amount of money, goes down to the Mile and shops till she drops. Literally. I haven’t seen this many dresses and pant suits since I last visited the Swap-o-Rama. (Which was only once.) There’s hardly any room for my skimpy little wardrobe. I can barely get my golf shoes and golf equipment in there! I was telling John about this at work and he said why don’t you go and buy some Rubbermaid organizers? Rubber—what’s that? You’ve never heard of Rubbermaid? he asked incredulously. No, isn’t that some company that makes plastic containers or something? Well, actually, they do, John said. I was thinking of Tupperware. But they also make closet holders that fit neatly over your closet rods, and they make laundry hampers specifically designed for different loads of clothes too. John is really up on these things. He’s at least as domesticated as Elizabeth is and he’s never, ever mentioned a girlfriend or anything—I wonder. Anyway, I mentioned this idea to Elizabeth the other night and she told me she was thinking the same thing too. In fact, she said, come on upstairs for a minute. There they were, all in place. And there was plenty of room for all my clothes! “I’m going to divorce you and marry John,” I said, kissing my wife on the lips. She broke free and stared at me a second. “Just kidding!” I laughed.
At the same time Deb and I were looking at home for a system, work asked me to examine the choices for a system for security at work. I didn't think that this was a good idea, as I had no idea, really, of what kind of business security systems were correct for any type of business. Homes I could deal with, and Deb and I had chosen what we thought would be a good system for our home, but at work, with so many things to consider, I just wasn't sure if I was qualified. The first thing I did was contact the police. They agreed to send someone out so we could go over the strong and weak points at the plant. Then I contacted our insurance company. I wanted to talk to a representative there, as I'm sure the insurance company had some recommendations on security systems. Then I wanted operations to sit in too. They know how the building runs and where its weak and strong points are. But that was only for the physical plant. I had orders to get a system in place to protect the intellectual property. This would be a different ball game. First, though, we had to take care of the physical building.
My friend Mandy must have a lot of money. Correction, her family, specifically her parents, must have a lot of money and allow her to waste it. She actually took her and her dog to another state! Yes, she took her dog to get Lasik in Florida. Lasik the eye surgery. That’s right. She paid for her dog to get Lasik eye surgery in Florida. Apparently, there’s some crazy doctor or vet down there that’s willing to perform this procedure on dogs and also I think cats. Mandy says over and over that this mad scientist of an animal doctor is a genius. In fact, her dog was getting old and losing his vision. I actually caught him walking head first into walls a few times and had to stop him. Now he’s walking around just fine and is apparently seeing really clearly. When you throw him a ball and it flies far off into the distance becoming a dot, he still jets after it and finds it whereas before he always sniffed around first. Right now, his vision might be better than ever. Even better than when he was younger. Maybe this animal doctor, whoever he is, isn’t crazy after all.
Last year, my friend Barry came to Chicago while touring with his punk rock band The Designer Drugs. So this year, I returned the favor by visiting him in Boston. Luckily, Barry knows where everything is in Boston. He even knew where to find the office of a personal injury attorney in Boston. Why did he point that out to me of all the places he could in the great northeastern American city of Boston? I have no idea. He even pointed out an accountant’s office, where to turn off to find a Wendy’s, a couple of bars, local high schools, a cheap motel, and a pawn shop. I’m pretty sure these are all places that Barry has been to or visits fairly frequently. I suppose he wanted me to know where to go if I was injured, needed my taxes done, or wanted to pawn something while I was in Boston. Yeah, we also went to Fenway Park and sat near the green monster in the outfield while the Red Sox played the New York Yankees and the crowd had attracted fans for both teams. It was crazy and hostile. I also went and visited some historical sites and even headed down into Baltimore for a day to visit Edgar Allan Poe’s grave. Still, I mostly remember hanging out with Barry from that trip.
A short while after a patient has been diagnosed with Diabetes type II they will begin to realize that there are many things that they must do now that has never been an issue before. You must make sure you keep in close contact with your physician to help you determine what course of action you must follow to keep this disease under control. The patient will need to monitor themselves on a regular basis for their blood sugar test, their diet, their exercise, and many other small but very important things. When you compound these things together it can be overwhelming. You may be stressed if you have been the one diagnosed. You may be more stressed if your loved one has been diagnosed with any stage of the disease. The diagnosis can be varied from a pre-diabetic state, to a diabetic, to one who has had a family disposition to diabetes. There can also be varied symptoms and varied strengths of symptoms. This is not Diabetes Type I, but diabetes Type II that can benefit the most from timely, cost effective, and constant blood glucose monitoring. Your diet and exercise will also go in hand with the testing. The glucose blood testing will allow you to gain control over the disease, and not let it run or ruin your life. The monitors actually will test for the free glucose that is in your blood stream and never made it into the cells. But, there are some things that can be done to alleviate some of this new stress.
Sue was funny. She walked into the kitchen and announced that she had no hair treatment plans for the weekend, so we could go boating. I laughed and told Tom that we were on. I'm kind of excited. We got both Saturday and Sunday this time. No rushing over to the lake and rushing back. We can stay overnight. We're not sure where yet that we want to stay, though I don't think we will be staying with Tom and his wife. It might get a little crowded with Tom's daughter and her boyfriend staying as well. They have a nice place on the lake, and if it were just going to be us two it would be great. But both Sue and I do not want to impose. Or put out the daughter and the boyfriend. Sue wants to do some fishing. Me? I guess I do too, but I don't care if I catch anything. It will just be a nice day or two with some sun and food and friends. We haven't done that for a long time, with getting the business up and running. Tom suggested that we look for a place to buy on the lake. I think he is forgetting that we have every last dime tied up in this business, and that kind of expense is just out of the question.