Tear Down The Walls

Tear Down The Walls                        2292

Wednesday, November 16, 2005-3:24 P.M.

Well, another day older and deeper in debt...

Yesterday was my 39th birthday, which I celebrated by going out and running errands all day.  I started out by visiting the Sleep Center of Rochester for the results of the sleep study I took last month.  Come to find out, I have mild sleep apnea, which means I stop breathing for periodic episodes as I sleep.  Sleep apnea occurs when the soft tissues in the windpipe and the back of the throat relax during REM level sleep, causing a stoppage of the airflow.  During the study, I had about 6.8 such stoppages per hour, with the longest stoppage being about 20 seconds.  No wonder I wake up groggy some times!  The other night, I had a dream that I went back in time and tried to save Elvis Presley by warning him that he would die of a drug overdose.  I was with a friend of mine in the dream, and he was yelling at me because by preventing Elvis' death, I would destroy the space-time continuum, causing irrevocable damage to the universe.  Then I was in a restaurant with a bunch of servers who were standing around waiting for their boss to cash their checks, and he wouldn't cash them, and made the servers wait outside in the rain.  Then I woke up.  If that doesn't make a case for my need for treatment, I don't know what does.

Next stop was back home to sit with my daughter while Pamela visited her grandmother.  I brought home some french fries for Harmony, which she calls "fwies."  She enjoyed them, as most children do.

Later, upon Pamela's return, I headed out to pick up a check for the TV commercial I did last month.  After six weeks, I got tired of waiting for payment, so I just waltzed into their office and demanded my money.  Actually, I called ahead and asked them nice, and they said "C'mon down."  I hit the bank, and walked out with my clams, my tomatoes, my lettuce, my dead presidents....but no money.  Just kidding.  I cashed the check, paid some bills, and then treated myself to some modest birthday presents.  The Record Archive, a big Rochester music store, is condensing it's inventory to one of it's two stores, so the one that's closing was having a 70% off sale.  I purchased a Lenny Bruce album I didn't have, marked down to three bucks.  I also bought some tapes for the car, mostly metal stuff, Sacred Reich, Mind Over Four, Rollins Band, King's X, Brad Gillis, and then two personal favorites, The Bears featuring King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew, and Canadian folk-rocker Bruce Cockburn.

The evening culminated in a nice birthday meal at Friendly's, with Pam, Harmony, Pam's mother and her Aunt.  I had a nice Buffalo chicken salad, and a nice conversation, and then headed back home.  When I got home, I decided to do some housekeeping.  I was taking some clothing down to the basement to wash, and somewhere along the line, I lost my footing on the stairs, and fell into the wall.  I collapsed the drywall in the stairwell....put a big football-shaped hole in the drywall.  Happy birthday to me.

So today I get to see how my home improvement skills measure up.  I'm starting to turn into Bob Vila, only without the tools or expertise.

Have a nice day.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY