Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Heavy is the heart

I am back. I am saddened to report that FIL has died. He slipped off his mortal coil early this morning. Funeral arrangements have been made for tomorrow at 2pm. Again, you cannot have a funeral without "fun".

At last he is at peace and the Wife can grieve his loss, and more importantly, grieve the loss of MIL, her mother, without having to worry about FIL and witnessing his declining health (I would add mental state, but I am not sure about his baseline for that, so I am not sure if it was a steep decline or rather shallow--I am not nice, just honest, and does not change the fondness I had for the man).

He could not, or perhaps I would not allow him to, be a father figure to me. I had only one of those and refused to "replace" him. He did not offer much in the way of guidance and that was okay. I am not sure that I could have accepted his guidance, being that he never appeared to be quite "here" (or "there" as the case may be). That was who he was and how he was raised.

He was a man of simple tastes. Actually, in some way he lacked taste. He was not garish or tacky, he just could not pass up the lure of quantity. He liked The Sizzler, it was crap food but you got a lot of it. That made it good value. Good value of crap, but still good value.

I will miss the man and the man disappeared long before MIL passed away. He was a very sociable man, though. He loved to have people he knew around him. He would revel in their presence and conversation. At the lunch, after the unveiling for MIL, though he obviously did not recognize everybody or even know why they were there, his face beamed with joy. Joy of the moment and being with those he knew. It was the social-him.

He was not a brooder, unlike me. That was a good thing. Unfortunately, as his disease progressed and the kidneys were in failure, the heart in failure....fuck all his organs were failing, of course not in any coordinated manner, which was par for the course.

He had decided he had enough and stopped eating. He made a choice, or something that seemed to be a choice. Good for him on that one.

Harry, this post is for you. Perhaps, I will delve deeper into the man (which does not sound good, so deal with it) at a later date. Suffice to say, he will be missed, though he was already missed due to the dementia.

Ciao!

Monday, October 27, 2008

Why should he suffer?

I am back. This is another sad post. I am living with a sad woman. She is right to be sad. FIL is slowly shuffling off his mortal coil, as it were. Today, they will remove the IV and move him from the hospital, where he has been for the past two plus weeks, back to his room with palliative care.

My sister in law came in for the weekend, her second trip in during the month of October, but she leaves later today, after they move FIL back to his room. The leaves the Wife and her brother, which really leave just the Wife, to witness the continued physical decline, the mental decline really cannot go any further to tell the truth.

She is upset that she is "killing" her father and that she has to go through this "alone" again. It is different from MIL as with FIL there is no shock. This is the inevitable course of his disease. Removing the IV, which irritates him and stopping the blood work, so taking him off his blood thinning medication, will have repercussions. They are just unknown.

The real fact is this, to what end are they continuing to do what is necessary to keep him alive. That is the true question. He will not get "better". He will not be able to function physically, as he has not walked since December. The legs have atrophied and become rigid. This will not improve. His kidneys continue to shut down as will his other organs. Again, to keep him alive, is just keeping a "blob" alive, there is no spark of life in there anymore.

That is the sad thing. The Wife does not want to let him go, or at least if he is pain. He cannot tell you if he is in pain. That leaves her assuming everything. Not necessarily a problem, unless, and here is the reality, you take your assumptions for fact and leave things at that. The Wife does that, so that her assumptions are held as true despite the loads of objective evidence to the contrary.

I am thinking that today is the beginning of the end, or the beginning of the beginning. I do not want FIL to die or suffer, neither does the Wife. I am willing to let nature run its course. I understand her conflict as it is her father and her last real connection to her past/youth. I really do try to be understanding and supportive and she really has to stop trying to fight that which she cannot control and the inevitable outcome. FIL is dying and there is nothing that can be done to stop that. Why should he suffer?

Ciao!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Arggghh!!

I am back. As we end the holiday season, a shout out to my Tribal friends. Shana Tova, bitches!

With that out of the way, I really do not have much to say today. Busy, but at what? The Lad is away, and has been since Monday, on a school trip. He returns tomorrow. The house is not the same without him. It is more quiet and that is not necessarily a good thing.

FIL is not well. He is in his death throws. He, apparently, has become more combative of late (that is when he is awake, which is rare). It has taken him this long to get a pair of stones and do something for himself. He has taken to not eating. It is the only way he could end things.

The funniest part is him asking, keep in mind he has dementia and he was always pretty much clueless (as long as I had known him) to be "killed". That is the sad part. The funny part, and I guess funny is a matter of opinion here, is that he wanted his life to end, pretty much as it was lived, by having somebody else provide that for him.

His mother did his cooking, cleaning and laundry and MIL did the same. She may have provided some sex...which is an image I am trying to avoid seeing, so my eyes will stay permanently open. There is a sight I would not want to have seen. Then again, I can handle the fact that I never walked in on my parents having sex. That would have ruined me.

Which leads to the question...if you did not witness that, then what did damage you, er me? That, my friends, is a story for another day. Suffice it to say, we are back on the emotional roller coaster and the Wife is steering, with her eyes closed. What fun!

I think my sister in law is coming back again this weekend. Fuck, that will be fun.....not! She was just here, but with FIL like he is, she feels the need to make an appearance, unlike when her mother died. She seemed to avoid that one and being in for that event.

I say we have to take each day as it comes. That is my philosophy. Or not. Gotta run. Ciao!

Monday, October 20, 2008

More of my take on the economy and markets

I am back. Man, my posting frequency has been bad. Oh well. I have been watching the fun in the markets and economy. The Dow and TSX were up big time today. It seems Ben Bernanke, Helicopter Ben, is all for a stimulus package, increasing spending, out of Washington.

Now, I am left with two thoughts...where, pray tell, are they going to find the money for such a stimulus package? They have $700 billion, to be borrowed, to pay for the financial system bailout. That is on top of the $85 billion and other billions they had to put up for to bailout AIG and lest we forget the billions spent on backstopping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (I was and am in favor of that one, as their bonds were bought by foreigners because of the implied assumption that the US Government would backstop that debt).

On top of that, W decided to fight a long term war AND CUT TAXES!!!!!! That is right folks, you can go to war, or at least send YOUR troops off to war and not have to make any sacrifices at home. It can be done....or can it? If this is indeed a WAR on Terror, then shouldn't the citizens of the country that has declared this "war" be making sacrifices for a victory? It seems to me the only sacrifice is one of freedom/liberty within their nation and hours at the airport so that they can make me take off my shoes (and not even have the courtesy to give me foot massage while they are down there checking for explosives) or get rid of the toothpaste in my carry-on. I guess having to live in confined space with my "stink breath" is sacrifice enough. Whoopee, the war is won!

Now, Helicopter Ben is all for stimulus. Where is this money coming from? Oh yeah, he runs the printing press. Print more money, that must be the answer. I guess it is, if the question is "how do we create some great inflationary pressures and make the dollar worthless?" How do you beggar a nation in a few easy steps.....thank you US Congress and President Bush for fine stewardship of the economy.

It is one thing to do nothing and let the market sort things out, for better or worse. It is quite another to see the fire and add more fuel, but do nothing to stop the fucking thing. Now, the cure is far more painful than the disease. All in the name of trying to avoid the necessary pain of a recession. Pussies...all of them!

So, the easy money spigots are turned on yet again. Was this not the problem in the first place? I think that it was. All that credit, all that leverage, all that inevitable and painful de-leveraging and they are adding more credit and creating more dollars which will fuel inflation. Great planning, there.

That is the whole point. Who the fuck is the Fed to "plan" what the proper level of interest is? They are not smarter than the combined knowledge of all those in the market. This has been the fallacy in the US, especially, the Fed, or somebody will bail them out of their mistakes.

You can bail out stupidity. Eventually, you have to let the stupid lick the cold fence post, get stuck and freeze to death. It is nature's way to make sure those stupid genes are not passed on to the next generation. It could be the reason why my brother in law has never married and has no children (actually, that is more a thought on salvation than anything else).

In any event, and not to depress anybody, but we do live in interesting times and that is something to be thankful for. Time to get back on the roller coaster.

Okay, time to go catch Prison Break and Hereos. Got to love Mondays these days. Ciao!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

It has been a while

I am back. It has been over a week, 9 days to be exact, since I last posted. I am sure the holidays played a role. To all of my "luntzmen" out there, shana tovah, bitches.

Now on to some sadder news. It appears that FIL is on the "outs". He is/has not been eating and lost about 9 pounds. He also was not drinking. His kidneys are failing, though that has been going on for well over a year. The Wife tells me that he is muttering gibberish, but he has been doing that for well over 10 years now, so that is indicative of nothing.

He has been moved to the hospital and is about to be moved to a "step down" unit from the intensive care he is in. Oh yeah, he is also having congestive heart failure, but that is nothing new as well. That was usually a spring time hospital stay with that....of course, he would come out and tell people he had ptomaine poisoning (well, it happened once and I was unfortunate enough to hear that.....had to scream WHAT THE FUCK!.....the man took NO responsibility for his own health or care. Now, we have a shell of a man, a mere infant, who cannot describe what ails him or what he feels.

It is sad and hard to find any meaning in it. It is there, at least relative to what could be and what has been, and it is still hard. Again, the siblings have not picked up the slack so the Wife bears the brunt of the physical and emotional work regarding his care. This means the Lad and myself have to deal with an overly emotional, irrational woman. Sadly, that is not much different than it was 18 months ago. Ahhh, that is my cross to bear.

Other than that, the holidays were okay. The long weekend, notwithstanding the Wife spending a lot of time with her father, was okay, too. Great weather around these parts.

I will tell you all about a great concert I saw last week. I saw Pinback. Who? They are an independent band out of Denver and now, San Diego (I think). It was in a small venue and fantastic eventhough the lead singer had a wicked cold. It was a fun time had by the 300 or so who were there. I thought I was getting too old for such things. I was wrong.

Going to run now, be back soon. Ciao!

Monday, October 06, 2008

600 leads to recession

I am back. This is post number 601 for those keeping score. By the way, if you are keeping score, then I would look in the dictionary if I were you. You picture will be filed under "loser". Of course, that is me. Even I did notice that my Saturday post was the big number 600.

600 only has some "special" meaning because we live in a base 10 world. It would have meaning in a base 12 world, it would have meaning, too. Other than that, it really is an arbitrary number. That is all that I have to say about that.

Anybody watching the stock market? Man, that is some carnage. I am itching to return. I can smell bargains. If it is good enough for Warren Buffet, it is good enough for me. General Electric....looking cheap. Goldman Sachs, too. I still think things will go down some more from here, but there are a lot of people who have never seen a bear market, let alone a "real" recession. Most of the people working Wall Street were not working the street during the Crash of '87. That was brutal.

Then again, things climbed from there until the Savings and Loan Crisis and a relatively mild recession. What you see now is the result of government intervention, read the Federal Reserve allowing easy money, to avoid a recession. It is the old story of not being able to see the cycle for what it is. Recessions, though painful, are necessary to clear the excesses of expansions. Trees do not grow straight to the sky and neither do economies (GDP) and stock prices. They grow, consolidate, grow, shrink a bit, grow some more. The law of unintended consequences is a bitch. That is what must live through, now, all because, it was thought that the Nanny State would protect us.

That is correct. You put your faith in the same entity that could not deliver the mail...and your address was on it (thank you, PJ O'Rourke for that wonderful line....read "Parliament of Whores" you will thank me). This is very funny as I just opened an email from my uncle which quotes many on the evils of government. This whole situation is another.

I mean, how the fuck to do you go to war and not have your citizens sacrifice for it, read pay for it through higher taxes? I do not get it. They, my American friends, go to war in Iraq (and Afghanistan, too) but buy the bullshit about not having to sacrifice, read higher taxes. They blow a hole in their budget, then look for somebody, other than themselves, to blame. Folks, you got yourself into this mess by sticking your heads in the sand and not asking the hard and tough questions, such as what is the cost? who will pay? when will it be paid?

Now, it is bail out nation. How sad? Any moral suasion that they had is shot to shit. All that there is now just a big military machine, but no way to pay the bills, save for printing more money, which makes it all worth less (we call that inflation and it is a monetary phenomenon). Gold is where it is at. With a fiat currency, all roads lead to inflation (thank you, William Fleckenstein for that gem). That is where we and they are at.

It is now time to take some awful medicine. The medicine would have been bad earlier, but is much worse now. Too many people will be hurt and some are deserving and some are rather innocent. That is life.

Well, I have no where to go right now and to think all of this started with me musing about 600. Ciao!

Saturday, October 04, 2008

The Juice has a Bar Mitzvah

I am back. It is a special Saturday edition. This tidbit is so delightful in its ironic dating that I had to comment.

O.J. Simpson, I know he is so '90s, was convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping in Las Vegas. He could face life in prison, for something relatively minor considering he got away with a double homicide. The date of the conviction was 13 years to the day of the date of his acquittal for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Now, isn't that delicious.

I guess his search for the "real" killer(s) is about to get that much slower. Quite the "cold case" there.

Poor OJ, nobody to blame but himself and Lance Ito. No Johnny Cochrane to save his ass this time. I just wonder if his past, the one he has not paid for, will be a factor (it is only human) in his sentencing for his present predicament. It is all too funny for me (in an ironic way).

I mean the man ruined an evening of NBA Finals basketball for me with his stupid low speed chase. Where is Al Cowlings now? Just wondering. Then there was the non-stop coverage of his trial, lives ruined, careers made (where are prosecutors Marcia Clark and Darden (do not recall his first name) now?) but all with no justice or truth. Somehow, that was missed by that circus.

It is over now and now the Juice gets nailed, thinking himself immune from the law since he did prove that a black can kill two white folks, brutally I might add, and walk away a free man, for an armed robbery to "get his stuff" back. What a dipshit!

Have a great weekend one and all. I have broken down and put the heat on. What is this world coming to when I actually put on my heat in October? Fucking global warming?!!!!!

Ciao!

Thursday, October 02, 2008

More on the squirrels

I am back. Anybody know of anybody who has a thing for squirrels? I mean, anybody know anybody who enjoys fucking squirrels, especially to death (the death of the squirrel preferably, but I can live with the alternative)? I have a job, or is that a mission of mercy, for that person.

Yup, that is right. I am still on that anti-squirrel tirade. It is made all the worse as the fuckers have gnawed through another plastic garbage bin and the one I was using to cover it. Fuck them, is what I say. They can all go die and take their nests of garbage with them. Fucking morons.

I would fuck them myself, but as I think about it I would rather do the fat chick. You know the one, all lubed up, like a grease gun, but nobody willing to roll her in flour to find the wet spot. I would choose her over fucking a squirrel. Then again, I am sure that a squirrel could not crush me in her thighs, so there is some risk involved.

I am pretty sure that woman on top would be out of the question. The thought of being suffocated in some excess rolls of skin really does freak me out. I am fucking freaking out now, man. It is all the fault of the squirrels.

That is it, I am getting me a shot gun and going squirrel hunting. Who is with me?

Let's go get 'em! Ciao!

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

New beginnings

I am back. New year, time for new beginnings. That is what I say. So I can take this time to wipe the slate clean and begin the year fresh. I like that feeling.

It has also been 18 years since my father died. New beginning.

Life is full of those things. Where you can only see an ending, look a bit differently, and there is new beginnnig.

So it is with the stock and financial markets, things are ending and there will be a new beginning.

Sorry for the more refelctive post, but this is a time of new beginnings. I intend to take advantage of this....new beginning.

Of course, check back with me in month to see if I have actually seized the opportunity. That is a story for antother day.

Ciao!