Enemies' Enemies - Irish Blessing

 

My Dear Cousin - Utilities

21st June 2021

My Dear Cousin,

The day after my brother left I lost my job. I was having trouble staying awake because of my injury and to be honest my boss wanted me gone to limit liability. The injury had happened at work.

This was the height of the pandemic and the unemployment benefits were good money. I took the time I spent sheltering in place cleaning the house with nothing better to do trying to make the place better for  (Pickle) and me. I thought (Pickle) would come home. I was even using headphones when on the computer.

I went out and replaced his punching bag with a larger one. Years ago, my old man had gone out and gotten a punching bag stand fit for a professional boxer but a punching bag made for a child. It shook the roof when we used that bag.  I got the biggest bag I could find and it meant that Paul or I could take out our anger on the bag next time things came up.

I was even going to install padded flooring in the garage where we keep the bag. The house was all cleaned up and I was feeling rather good about the whole thing when I got a notification letting me know that the utilities  (Pickle) had been paying were now being shut off.

That’s right, without warning my internet stopped and I found out that the water was getting shut off. I had to scramble to get things right before I found myself without something major and I lost the phone number I had for thirty years.

This pushed me into a great depression. I finally had to admit that family was over for me. I mean, to be honest I don’t miss the man. I have nightmares about him coming home. I was always afraid of him coming after me in my sleep anyway.

One of the great facts of life is that no one is coming to save you. Well, no one ever came to save me. The Lawsuit is still pending and my life is much as it always has been.

Stay safe,

 

Richard Leland Neal

My Dear Cousin - A Car Hit Me

18^th June 2021

My Dear Cousin,

At some point I was hit by a car. This may feel off topic given my last letter, but it fits into the overall narrative to my life. You see, I was changing a tire when the car shifted and fell. It wasn’t my car and the owner had forgotten the parking brake.

So the car fell and clipped me. The car clipped me on the side and left a five percent bend in my spine. This placed me in the worst health of my life. I ballooned up to four hundred and fifteen pounds and I had trouble cleaning myself. It made me a diabetic.

The chair in my work room couldn’t take the weight, and it bent causing me to get another one. The only thing was that my work room was so much a mess that I had trouble getting the old chair out and the new chair in. I couldn’t stand for more than fifteen minutes at a time without major pain.

I came home one night and one of my cats was missing. I asked (Pickle) where he was as the cat was never supposed to leave the house. (Pickle) said he let him out and didn’t feel like chasing him to get him back in.

 Well, a few days after that, it could have been a week or two now that I think of it, I was still trying to get my chair back in my work room and I sat down on the couch and was watching something on my phone. I had my laptop set up in the living room at the time which was something I take to work every day.

(Pickle) freaked out and started screaming. He thought I was transferring things to the living room from the work room I think, but he never talked to me about it. He called (Pony Girl) and started complaining. You have to understand that (Pickle) has sensitive ears. He kind of needs to live in a quiet house.

I was furious; I ran up to him and said “Give me the damn phone.” I told (Pony Girl) I was upset over (Pickle) letting the cat out and him never returning. I felt he had gotten the old cat killed and that looks to be true. (Pickle) winced when he heard that, he knew he was in trouble.

(Pony Girl) said “are you saying you want to sell the house” and I said no. The details of the argument are a little fuzzy at the moment but I believe (Pony Girl) came and picked him up. I never saw him again.

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal

My Dear Cousin - Walking Pony Girl

22^nd  May 2021

My Dear Cousin,

Every time I write you now I go over the letters that I wrote and now and then a memory comes up of an interesting anecdote. Back around the tenth and eleventh I talked about losing my job. One of the windfalls of that was that I started walking with (Pony Girl).

(Pony Girl) had been diagnosed with hemorrhoids and walking got her business moving. Every now and then she would need to take off running to use the restroom. It’s a thing I can laugh at now, but it made a positive impact on her health.

I do recall that people were telling her that she looked thinner, but that she didn’t lose weight. In truth, had I followed this up with good diet I would have changed her life, but I was still ill myself and knew little about health.

We took the same walk we used to when going to grade school. The school is about a half mile from the house, and there are two ways of getting there from where I live. One way you walk up and down a hill and the other is flat land. We would go there on the flat way and come back by the hill. One night we did this ten times. (Pony Girl) even tried to get her girlfriend walking but she wasn’t much of a walking partner.

The telling event that came from this is when I talked about changing jobs. I didn’t want to go back to security. The only thing that really brought me joy back in high school was theater and I mentioned that I wanted to go into acting.

This really pissed off (Pony Girl) and she started by screaming at me that I wouldn’t get any overtime working as an actor. This is actually not true, but you normally don’t work at night as an actor. I could have done it for extra money but not as a job.

(Pony Girl), however, demanded we stop talking about it she was so mad. Mind you I had just put her up for two years as she finished college and she was refusing to pay me back.

Looking back I think this was very telling of how she saw me. I was a means to an end and she was basically a parasite who felt I lived to make her happy. I’ve lived a life with that woman eating me financially, and that hasn’t changed.

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal 

My Dear Cousin - My First Job

                                                9^th May 2021

My Dear Cousin,

In the world of life events that run together I have to discuss my first job. In my last letter I told you about my (Pony Girl)’s college years and two of those I spend in high school and two I spent working as a security officer.

I had a friend who graduated high school a year before I did and I had paid to have him certified as a guard by a company that no longer exists. He then gave me the recommendation that got me my first job two weeks before I got my diploma, and the day I got my last check from the government.

Now, security is a hard field. No matter who you work for they all have some kind of chip on their shoulder. Many of them don’t like you because you work for them, have different color skin, or just plain get your hands dirty. The pay is low, the hours are long, and the work can be very hard. 

When my (Pony Girl) graduated from college it was finally her turn to pay some of the bills so I took a post with less hours hoping to spend more time with my own education. This proved to be a bad idea, because I just didn’t make enough to go to school. I had thought that as my two siblings had gotten money for school I would get the same, but poor fiscal planning on the old man’s part left me high and dry.

To be honest I don’t think I’d have needed his money if he had just taken me to a psychologist in high school.  In two thousand and one I finally went to a psychologist on my own and got to see a psychiatrist. A psychologist talks to you and works through your problems with you, but is not a medical doctor. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who gives you pills to make things better.

That experience changed my life, at least in the short run, I finally felt alive and had energy. It turned out that I couldn’t sleep without the medication the doctors gave me. I had spent the last ten years as an insomniac with hardly the strength to do much of anything. 

Also, in two thousand and one I got the pinch from part time work. My medication made me feel better and my work gave me as much overtime as I wanted. I worked every day for months on end, sometimes for more than twenty four hours, and I went to school.

I was on a post with no restroom and no bush to get things done in. My weight started dropping like a stone, and I overloaded my kidneys. I fell asleep on duty and was terminated. Well, no, I was terminated because the boss had a philosophy that he was doing you a favor because he was giving you a job and that you should bend over backwards for him.

It was a big fight at work to get a job that paid more and would give me enough overtime to pay my bills. Part of the problem is that I’m really good at security work and some of the hardest accounts, where the pay is lowest, were where I was most liked by the customer.

I was out for maybe a few minutes. Other guards slept half their shift and no one cared. It didn’t matter. In two thousand and two when I should have graduated from college I was out of work. I had money in the bank, but I was two hurt from my overloaded kidneys to go back to seek further employment.

I thought my family would help me. I was wrong.

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal

Can Use the Walk

13^th November 2014

Dear Cassi,

       

It has been something of a tradition with Pickle to reward those who drive him about with food, and as his best friend is now occupied in some academic manner he has turned to my services.

       

He picks the restaurant and often the food. I feel this is proper as he is paying and I never complain of his choices, but today I swayed things some in the form of a long walk.

       

It turned out that he wanted to eat at ‘In n’ Out’ burger and, in the time of doing so, find himself a sport strap for his sunglasses. I took to parking at the sporting goods store some half mile from the eatery and insisted we walk.

This proved to be a poor idea because eating and long walks are not often good bed fellows. The feeling of a large burger in you makes the body feel slow. Keeping my lunch down wasn’t easy but that is the price you pay for good health I guess.

Find time for things, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Count Your Blessings

21^st July 2016

Hay David,

It looks like you’ve been going through some bad things lately, and it’s not all that much my business, but you put it out there for me to see. I’m a fellow struggling with health issues and I think I get something out of your videos. That makes it only right that I try to give you something out of my experience.

The internet is a cesspool of hatred and would be experts who think they know more than you because they read a book. It’s like when I drag my three bills to the gym and get some six bill chick who smells like pudding and B.O. tell me that I’m doing it wrong. The only thing is that there are a few dozen people at the gym and thousands on the net.

You gave me the advice “Stay strong, stay safe, stay focused”. Well, that’s not easy when I have a nose full of B.O. and Pudding is it? It’s just as hard when some troll gets up on me and says I shouldn’t show my fat pig face on YouTube. When people get on me like that I remember what you said, and I don’t let it get to me.

David, you got a shout out from Phil. That’s like getting knighted by the King of the internet. If he gave me a shout my problems would be over. You don’t need YouTube, you still have a job. Me, the last place I worked refuses to tell me why I got canned or even when.

Count your blessings, bro, you could be in my shoes,

Richard Leland Neal

Wounded Dog

10^th November 2013

Dear Cassi,

       

Pork Chop’s wound is a bloody mess. I woke to find that he had bled all over the garage and left stains on the concrete in the side run. I made a pressure bandage for him but he rustled it off so I went to the store and got things for another. This held, but I could see the blood coming through the gauze pads I had used.

       

My first try at this involved confectioner’s sugar, paper towels, and a pressure band I use for my back. The powder would dry minor bleeding and the sugar would stop infection, but there was just too much blood. The end result of this looked much worse than it was as a glob of the sugar was soaked with blood hanging from the dogs face. It looked like a chunk of skin.

       

At the vet they told me to put pressure on the wound if it bled more and so I have to no result. After fifteen hundred dollars this should have been a clean deal but no. My dog’s blood has stained the walls of my home. I have done all I can to stop the bleeding. 

       

My end result was a bandage that looked like it would hold rather well, but there was just so much bleeding. I’m spend and in hard need for sleep now, Cassi, but I know I need to take the dog to the vet shortly.

No fear, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Ask a Fat Man

9^th April 2013

Dear Cassi,

         

What is it with folks who like to make friends at the gym? On the last two occasions I have taken my exercise there a man came and talked to me for at least a half hour and asked me about health of all things. What motivates these questions is beyond me as I am no man to tell folks how to live.

         

When looking to better one’s health it would be wise to ask someone healthier than one’s self. Asking a bloated monster like me for health advice is like asking a drug addict how to quit. Then perhaps these folks just need someone to help them pass the time.

         

The fellow in question on this occasion never gave me his name but first asked me if running in the water was better than running on a treadmill. As we were both running in the pool I would think he knew my view, but I gave him my thoughts to be polite.

         

I run in the pool because it takes stress off my joints and so permits me to run longer. If I took the same time on a treadmill my back would hurt and my knees would sting. The cool of the water keeps my body from perspiring and so dehydrating. In the pool I can burn more calories than on a treadmill because I can work out so much longer without exhaustion.

         

Once I had told the man of this he then asked me what I did for a living. We spend some twenty minutes talking about the nature of the homeless and what I do at work. He told me that he came from China and that he was the only member of his family here in America. We spent some time on his religion, and I think he was hoping for a convert. To my surprise he was a Christian. This fellow did not at any length detail his religion. He only said that he prayed and that it helped.  

         

Our talk made the minutes tick by without notice and so made my workout more pleasant. It comes to me that whatever this man’s motives for reaching into my life he was not an intrusion.

Enjoy the little things,

Richard Leland Neal

Health for Wealth - Mikey

One Good Day

Yesterday’s post was one where I explained this blog but I think this was the only one I wrote. At this point work got crazy and I was pulling eighty hour work weeks.

For those who have never been healthy gaining good health will always be hard. I spent the next weeks at this job too overworked to perform my at work workouts. Then the company lost the contract.  

On the next job I didn’t have water bottles to work out with, but I did have loads of work to do so it made no difference. Security guards are always trying to get something related to their life done at work. I’ve seen guards cook on a bbq, train togs, play instruments, nit, play video games, and run printing equipment. The level of WTF is unfathomable.  

What I did was nothing abnormal. It’s just too bad I couldn’t keep it up.

16^th December 2005

Exercises: 10 3by3 sets

Given that I must start using the specific jargon of my workouts this must be the time to explain them. I have three workout forums, my work, my home, my gym. Each has its own uses, but it is the combination of all of them that in important in achieving results.

The primary use of my work for fitness is maintenance. There are exercises that I can do at work that help me to maintain my level of fitness. The exercise I have begun with is the 3by3 or three gallon workout. You start with a three-gallon jug of water full all the way to the top and caped then you do ten pullovers, ten curls, and ten “strait up” lifts each arm.

Guess I never finished this blog. Well I never checked to see if it was posted on Myspace. Not even sure I can get into my Myspcae account any longer to check 

If there is No Enemy Withing - African Proverb

Health Advice: Ask a Fat Man

31^st July of 2011

Dear Cassi,

The strangest of all things happened last week when I went to the gym. I submersed my three hundred pound bulk in the pool and began to run. An hour after I began my labors, a man struck up a conversation with me from the side of the pool.

He confessed to me that he had gained a great state of health then stopped coming to the gym and gained the weight back. He said, from his spot standing on the side of the pool, that he was committed to dropping another five pounds before working out with weights.

Far be it from a good idea for a fat man like me to give health advice, but I told him that he should pay little mind to five pounds. The man proceeded to ask me questions about health and diet until another hour of my cardio had passed. I found it hard to hear him when I walked to the other side of the pool, but he showed no inclination to walk along as I jogged or find a better spot for our conversation.

   

I found him to be devoid of understanding in the nature of health. I gave what knowledge I had on the subjects he asked about, but I see little hope for a man who is inclined to watch as others exert themselves. He took his leave of me and said he was on his way to the upper gym to get some work done.

   

This event should hold little surprise for me. I once saw a five hundred pound man selling diet products and people still took an interest.

Sometimes we see what we want to,

Richard Leland Neal