My midtown adventures: Part II

So I have to fill another prescription for poor Nicole who is still suffering from her tonsillectomy. Off to the 39th Street Walgreens I go. This time, I used the drive through. Very handy. Unless of course, they haven't taken the call from your doctor for the meds. It was about 2:30PM so the parking lot was fairly empty. Especially the north side lot facing Big Dude's. It was completely empty so I drove up and pulled into one of the spots where I could call the doctor's office and find out what was up with the prescription. I begin working my way through receptionists, phone nurse's voice mail, receptionist, another receptionist and finally the nurse. She explained to me that she had finally gotten through the busy signal at Walgreens and the script should be ready. About the time I'm finishing my phone call, the thundering bass alerted me to a car pulling in to the spot right next to me. "Be cool" I thought. I'm just a middle-aged white guy in a German sports sedan parked mid-day in the Walgreens parking lot. Nothing out of place. Just blending in. I'm sure there's no reason out of the dozens of empty parking spaces in every direction this person chose to park next to me. As I was completing my phone call I casually glanced over at my new neighbor. She was gathering her things and was preparing to exit the vehicle. Her "things" were a blinged out cellphone and a brown paper bag with a 40 oz sticking out of the top. She staggered around behind our cars and began yelling. "Oh crap" I thought. Fortunately I quickly realized she wasn't yelling at me, but at someone on one of the apartment porches along Central. Something about "Girrrllll I didn't know where to park!" and "You know how we do!" She staggered and weaved her way across the parking lot and disappeared through one of the many bent openings in the metal fence that surrounds Walgreens. Mid-afternoon on a Tuesday and the party in midtown was under way.

My midtown adventures: Part I

The wife had a tonsillectomy last Thursday. As anyone will tell you, this is not an operation you want to have when you're an adult. I brought her home from the surgery center about 3PM, made sure she was comfy and promptly headed out to the Walgreens at 39th & Broadway to get her pain meds prescription filled. When I dropped off the prescriptions they told me it would be at least 30 minutes. Just enough time for me to head next door to McDonald's for a quick lunch. It's funny to sit inside that McDonald's with all the normal looking people when you know there's complete craziness going on outside. You would think the place would be filled with crazoids but their clientele appeared to be businesspeople grabbing a quiet, late lunch. I finished my lunch and walked out to my car. I had parked just opposite the speaker box for the drive through. I started to back out, but a weird sound caught my attention. I know now it was the warble of a police siren being pulsed for a couple of seconds. I rechecked behind me and there were now multiple unmarked police cars surrounding an SUV. The cops had come from all directions in literally just a few seconds. In just a few more seconds there were serious looking plainclothes cops aiming serious looking assault rifles and screaming at the occupants of the SUV. The most interesting part of this was the reaction of the occupants in the SUV. Woman passenger, seemingly not surprised that she was being ordered out of the vehicle at gunpoint. Male driver, disgusted, but also obviously not surprised he was being ordered out of the vehicle at gunpoint. I can't even imagine how I would react to a bunch of serious-looking dudes aiming assault rifles at me. As the police put them both in ziptie handcuffs and moved them out of the way, all the police vehicles vanished as quickly as they had arrived. The whole thing went down in less than 30 seconds. I backed out and got the hell out of there. Will I ever go back to that McDonald's? Sure! Just another day in midtown. That's just how I roll...

My Town, My Eyes

So I've been waiting to blog about my lasik experience until I could look back objectively. I think I'm far enough removed now to describe my experience without using too many profanities. For the faint of heart, I suggest you stop reading. This post is pretty graphic. First, the surgery went fine and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Being able to live without contacts or glasses is wonderful. My eyesight gets a little wacky every once in a while and my eyes tend to get tired in the evening but I'm told that's normal for the first few weeks. The day of the surgery I was nervous. They run a bunch of you through one after the other so you're sitting in a waiting room with people who are in the same boat as you. In my case I was sitting across from a prominent TV news personality who was just in front of me on the schedule. They call you back in 20 minute intervals to a prep area where you are fitted with a surgical gown, cap and booties. They give you a half milligram of Valium and some ibuprofen to take the edge off and put you in a recliner to hang out until the drugs take effect. TV news guy gave me a nod and a "hello" in a manner that told me he was feeling pretty good. Unfortunately for me I have a very high tolerance to most sedative-type drugs so giving me a Valium did about as much good as a sugar pill. In fact, by the time the nurse came to get me I was jiggling my legs like a preschooler who just finished off a box of Cocoa Puffs. So TV news guy gets taken back to surgery and was back very quickly. He seemed none the worse for wear and gave me a sort of "it's not so bad" look as they ushered him back to his recliner. So they take me back to the operating room where they ask you to state your name and which eye(s) is being operated on. After that there's no messing around. You're on your back on the table and they're taping your eye wide open with four strips of medical tape and putting anesthetic drops in. Then comes the CLAMP. First some explanation. Your eye has to remain absolutely motionless during the laser procedure. Since a normal person is not able to keep their eye still while someone smokes it with a laser, they place a jig that literally clamps on to your eyeball. Only one problem. To your average person who is whacked out on Valium this amounts to about as much discomfort as a tap on the shoulder. To someone like me with full awareness of what was going on it felt like... Well, it felt like someone was putting a clamp on my eyeball! As I attempted to rip the cover off the operating table and refrain from using the kind of language reserved for hitting your thumb with a hammer, I felt several pairs of hands holding me still. I'm pretty sure at that point they all realized I wasn't a drugged-out Valium-type guy. After the shock of the clamp, everything else was a breeze. First Doctor Silverstein explained that I would briefly lose my vision. He didn't explain "why" but I knew from research that they were making the incision for "the flap." That only took a few seconds. Then the laser began. It was nothing more than a seeing a bunch of tiny red dots dancing around in your vision. It was almost soothing compared to the medieval torture device clamped to my eye. Of course something else they don't prepare you for is the smell. Ever get a whiff of burning eyeball? Each eye took four minutes total from clamp on to clamp off. I was much more prepared for the second eye since I knew what was coming. Tape, drops, clamp, internal swearing, temporary blindness, light show, "what's that smell?" and then done. So it's been three weeks and my eyes are doing great. I see perfectly and even my closeup vision has improved to the point where I don't have to ask Nicole to read fine print for me. I know reading glasses are still in my future but it seems I have delayed the inevitable for now. The people at Silverstein Eye Center were fantastic. Aside from the whole "not telling me about the clamp" thing which really wasn't their fault. How were they to know I need a horse tranquilizer to get me in the mood for eyeball clamps? If you want to ditch your glasses and contacts it's definitely the way to go.

So who's in?

Sorry for not posting in so long. Eyeballs getting lasered, dog getting an emergency operation... Usual stuff. Last night we had a nice visit with friends and of course the subject turned to local politics. Some nice juicy rumors were bandied about. Mostly rumors about who is running for mayor of KC in 2011. It may seem early to the average voter, but trust me I found out the hard way that testing the waters three years ahead of time makes you late to the game. As I began the lunch circuit meeting with potential supporters I kept hearing the same names of people who were already "in." If three years out is late to the game then there must already be some serious jockeying going on as potential candidates begin to assemble their teams. Word on the street is the crop of mayoral candidates this time around may be even bigger than the last. I consistently hear two names in the mayoral hunt. Albert Reiderer and Sylvester "Sly" James. Of course these are only rumors so we all know how much that is worth. I'm curious though. What have you heard?