[sic]

Last week, a big black Sport Futility Vehicle passes me at speed on 6th Street just east of Fairfax veeeery much too close for comfort. I’m talking another couple inches and trouble. So I fly the middle finger and boom a fah-cue! at its ass, but the sumbitch just guns it and goes. Five or six blocks away I see a big black SUV make a right, but it does so from in front of a similarly sized and colored SUV so by the time I get to where the turn had been executed I’m looking south at the one and east at the other and I eenie-meanie-miney-mo and choose the one straight ahead… and I chose wrong. This big black monster has all its windows down, sunroof open and the driver is puffing a stogie. The offending ride was closed up tight against the 90-degree temps. I think about doubling back to catch the bastard up at Wilshire, but it’s not worth the trouble and so I head on home. Seething.

Fast forward to a pitch dark gawd-awful-thirty the next morning and I come wide awake from the vivid nightmare I had in which I confronted the SUV’s driver and then go on to basically destroy the inconsiderate jerk’s car before destroying the inconsiderate jerk. I won’t go into the gory details except to say the dude ends up medievally messy dead — and that freaks me out. Sure it’s the subconscious and all, but still. Whoa. There’s anger down in them there dark places.

Not that I’d ever commit such unspeakability outside of my dreams, but because I don’t even want to get into any ineffective verbal altercations with these dimwads anymore I’ve come up with a plan that’s going to allow me me to go proactive instead of reactive. That’s right, the next time me and my bike are encroached upon and I’m able to catch up to the encroacher. I’m a-gonna hand ‘em one of these below from a short stack I’ll be carrying with me then get the hell on with my life (click for a more readable version):

Sorry if this is gross-out material, but as to the freaking OMFG! humonstrocity of the cerumen impaction from which I had been unknowingly impaired, all I’ll say is that my doctor’s discovery of it a during a flu bout visit a few weeks ago prompted a return trip this morning so that his nurse could patiently flush the stubborn thing from its hideout in my left ear canal with some sort of medieval turkey baster suction/irrigation device.

It only took three tries over the course of several minutes, but having to suffer through the endlessly repeating and loud squish-splash-whoosh all up in my head made it seem like an eternity. The benefit of not having an indecently large globule of gunk plastered up against my tympanic membrane? Yay! I can hear like a 30-something’er again out of the left side of my command module!

To celebrate me stoically suffering the procedure and emerging from it a better hearing human being, I opted to reward myself (as if I needed an excuse) with a quick visit to Coco’s Variety Store that I previously raved about here on the Los Angeles Metblog. On that first visit with Susan I was satisfied with purchasing just one box of the notorious Hamster’s Lunch, but after discovering the wonderful hamster figurine included with the rather unpalatable snack, I’ve been wanting to collect all 12 of them!

Thankfully I limited myself to just two boxes this trip and I was pleased to find my lonely Roborovski hamster now has the company of the following two friends: a Dzungrian hamster on wheel (that spins!) and a somewhat worried and hand-wringing bipedal black-bellied hamster:

On the way out I also scored myself a couple gumball machine saints for the low-low of 5o cents each. It doesn’t get more dynamic a duo than the two the machine dispensed as if answering my prayers as to which ones I wanted: the Guardian Angel and the Virgin of Guadalupe!

Gotta admit I’m inclined to leave the guardian angel hanging because it’s tough to give five to someone who looks so unguardedly unenthusiastic. And on the subject of the lady in red, I almost hate to say this but can I also just point out that at first sinnerly wrong-way glance the virgin’s prayer hands could be misconstrued as an ample decolletage showing through a peekaboo gown.

Oh I’m so going to hell.

Nope, that’s not the number of my favorite FM radio station. That’s my temperature at the present.  In a replay of last week’s weird flash fever, I felt kinda punky achy all day at the office, but the fever didn’t really return full tilt until I was rolling home from a dentist appointment yesterday afternoon.

By the time I got inside shivering to all get out it was all I could do to get some ibuprofen into my piehole and crawl on fire under the covers. I did manage to rise later for some soup my baybee made me  and at one point my temperature had returned to normal, but this morning it’s back up — not hard into the triple digits, but it’s amazing what one-and-a-half degrees can do to muck up your outlook.

The really odd thing is that I don’t have any other symptoms. No cough, no runny nose, no sneezing. Just this heat and these aches — oh yeah and for some reason it feels like I got punched in the ribs.

The really cool thing is that work beckons so staying home and resting isn’t really an option.

Anyone else relate to these odd symptoms I experienced yesterday? I had something of a widespread low-grade ache that spread across my back, shoulders, neck and head throughout the day that worsened into the evening hours. Shortly after I got home I felt the onset of a fever that partnered with the aching to leave me feeling craptastic and also worsened to the point of teeth-chattering chills by the time I turned in.

I knocked back 800 milligrams of ibuprofen right before crawling in full shivers under the covers and silently hoped it wouldn’t either get any worse or spread to other systems.

This morning: tada! Besides a little fatigue and a shirt still damp from the fever breaking at some point in the night I’m practically  back to normal. Or at least hope I am.

Weird.

So last week I was all “gung-ho: get your flu shot on,” and subsequently walked that walk Wednesday. As is a risk of getting innoculated against such things there is the chance one might experience side effects such as a low-grade fever and such. If they manifest they usually dissipate in 24 - 48 hours.

Mine started manifesting Sunday in the form of a fever and have built up since to include congestion, fatigue, cough, sneezing and sore throat — none of it ultra-disabling but it was enough to keep me home from work today.

I actually don’t think I have the flu. Maybe I do, but if so it’s definitely a “light” version. I figure I’m more likely to have grabbed some minor cold bug on the plane rides either in and out of Orlando a couple weeks ago that my immune system kept at bay until having to open up a second front against the flu shot a week ago.

Then what do I do the day after the needle but log some 40 miles of cycling via a work commute and Thursday’s night bike ride up to the top of Elysian Park where all the wind-sucking I had to do defintely harsed my breathing pipes. And the beers and tequila later that night didn’t help either.

What I’m trying to say is that I’m still totally pro-flu shot, it’s just that one probably shouldn’t get stuck shortly after a plane trip and then immediately thereafter overtax the system with vigorous, prolonged exercise.

On top of that let’s factor in all the particulate matter I’m moving into my lungs from the massive and heartbreaking destruction wrought by the fires all over and it all works out to leave me feeling as if I been rode hard and put away wet.*

All my life I’ve naively figured I’d just tough it through flu season, rationalizing that if I didn’t go around picking up used tissues off the floors of public bathrooms or sharing lipstick, or licking my fingers after shaking someone’s hand or putting used cat toys in my mouth I could dodge the bug.

Despite adhering to those important precautions pretty much every year I got the flu, to varying degrees of asskickedness. But it was the wicked one that whacked me flat off my feet for a full phlegmy week in the wet winter of 2005 that was my wake-up call, and since then I’ve dutifully rolled up my sleeve and taken a needle. And with that simple precaution I haven’t had the flu since.

Well it’s flu shot season again, and in its incredible foresight the building’s management where I work is ultra conveniently delivering vaccinations to any and all with the brain power, $25 and a few minutes to spare.

Here’s hoping wherever you are a flu shot is similarly close by and if not that you won’t not go wherever one may be.

I joined the downtown YMCA back in 2003 primarily because as healthclubs go, it’s really one of the best — not just because of its variety of programs or state-of-the-art equipment, but also because being in the heart of downtown it attracts a much more no-nonsense clientele. It isn’t some posing parlor meatmarket like most Bally’s and 24-Hour gyms. The people who came there had meetings to get to and deadlines to meet and so there was little mixing fitness with pleasure. It was get-in, workout, get on with your life. I liked that.

The few times I actually went.

In 2005 I tacked on an additional $12 per month to my monthly dues so that I could make use of the rooftop tennis facilities situated nearby atop the World Trade Center complex just north of the Bonaventure Hotel. Those courts held a distinct nostalgia as I frequented them on occasion in my early teens when they were the independently operated Los Angeles Tennis Club with my volunteer big brother Lloyd who was a member.

For most of that spring and summer I got my money’s worth out of that additional outlay, participating in instructional sessions and tournaments… even winning a couple. But after that with the exception of a brief return in the spring of 2006 I haven’t stayed in the swing of things, instead content to let the YMCA deduct close to $60 a month out of my checking account.  Sure, the little voice inside my head wondered why I should pay something for nothing and suggested I just take the money and burn it, but I didn’t listen. Even at my most cash-strapped earlier this year I stopped short of canceling in part because my Y membership was something of a last vestige of my life before it got turned upside down in November 2005. In the most telling irony, when I shed 52 pounds in the first half of 2005, did the Y play any part? Nope. Proper eating, walking and my bicycling did.

Yet still I did nothing.

Until today, when in the comment thread that strung out from a funny fitness-related Blogging.la post today by Jason Burns, Militant Angeleno finally talked some sense into me simply by restating with the aid of some ALLCAPS and exclamation points that healthclubs are a scam.

So I emailed the Y’s membership coordinator advising of my desire to cancel and I had to laugh when I got the reply telling me that the easiest way would be to physically come in and complete a “cancellation request form” because one of Militant’s points was how difficult these organizations make it to say goodbye.

I wrote back telling the person that might be an easy way for the Y, but in this day and age of the internet and or the United States Postal Service, there ought to be a more convenient way for me.

Funny. I haven’t heard back yet.

If I don’t I’ll just bike the long way home one of these days and suffer through any attempt to retain me and get it taken care of. Finally.

I never cease to be amazed at the toughness of animals. Bink dropped half his weight on his way to the threshold of death’s door last March and comes rebounding back as if it was nothing.

Jiggy basically filets himself and manages to mask the seriousness of the wound. Certainly it wasn’t deep, but it wasn’t nothing. We had no idea how large it was (click to quadruplify):

But at least he’s back home now and wobbling around and out of the post-sedation. The red wrapping you see on his back right paw is to stay on for three days (to mitigate any scratching he might do), and the stitches come out in 10. It should be no surprise that Susan and I decided to forego any visit to the San Gabriel Valley or Olvera Street .

Not so much an emergency as a veterinary visit that was certainly due. See, our youngest cat Jiggy came in on Monday night with a wound on his flank just behind the right front leg that we couldn’t really get a good luck at because he wouldn’t let us. But three things were obvious: he was tending to it very well, it wasn’t bleeding and it wasn’t infected.

And while it clearly bothered him (especially when we picked him up) and somewhat hindered his normal agility in jumping up and down on and off things, he was eating fine and not behaving out of the ordinary. So we decided it wasn’t worth the expense of an all-night emergency vet visit and that we’d keep an eye on it.

Sure enough, his agility improved as the week progressed, but we still knew we had to get him in for some medical attention and we decided to prolong it to this morning. When the doctor at Echo Park Animal Hospital examined him it looked ultra large and nasty, but thankfully was only a supericial flesh wound requiring cleaning and stitches that the doc said was probably more the result of a slip-n-fall, not a fight.

Whew.

But anyway we’re expecting he’ll be out of surgery and ready to come home in about an hour or so. Once we get him back here, then we’ll figure out if we’re still game to go to the San Gabriel Valley for our previously scheduled visits to the Huntington and the L.A. County Arboretum, or just skip all that and get margaritas at Olvera Street.

UPDATE (12:39 p.m.): Turns out the wound was larger than the vet expected and the surgery took longer. The Jig won’t be ready to go home until 2 p.m. so looks like Olvera Street will be the extent of our travels today, if that.

Today was a big day for Ranger. I took her in to the vet’s to be spayed and to get her annual shots, and while she was under the anesthetic we threw in a nail trim and a teeth cleaning. But it’s all done and she’s home safe (if a little grumpy… but can one blame her?).

Susan and I decided to do the spaying now so that she’ll have time to fully recover in the two weeks that I’ll still be home prior to starting my new job September 4.

And from the looks of her right at this moment pretty much wiped out under my desk (sporting the obligatory cone collar, of course) she may need that entire amount of time to return to her regular and rambunctious form.

Such a good girl she is.