The Emerald Rose

     No excuses, I’m bad. I haven’t had a bloody minute to myself recently, what with preparing this damn special “water” I have to make every night for this Cardiac Re-habstuff (besides it seems to be working very well. When I got home from the Coronary Bypass Operation I weighed 235 pounds, and as of this morning I’m 204 pounds. No offers to appear in PlayGirl magazine yet, but they are scouting me,…I’m sure of it!)

        Anyway now I know why I had plenty of time to write because I was into fast food, slam bang high calorie, loaded with sugar stuff (which was a good energy kick) and of course with not exercising and my three visits to the Re-hab (Cardiac, not the other one!) and Helga the Concentration Camp Cardiac Re-hab Director,…well there went my free time! But I must get back to it. I spent this morning just cruising through and reading all my blog friends blogs and realized how much I missed just catching up on their lives.

       Anyway, plus my new “It’s only a Job” philosophy means I’m doing a lot more work at home and I don’t think I hit the office once this week before noontime! (Now that I do like, but sitting at home working on e-mails, budgets and the other stuff I do without any real distractions, my favorite classical music in the background,…well actually more than background I Loooove to play classical loud. Well Time just gets away from me,…big time.

        I told you after about four days on that cardiac diet I went there and told them no way am I doing it anymore, but before I did I made sure I saw my cardiologist (who is a big cheerleader for the South Beach Diet), and told him I was going to try that instead. He said fine so I had to come home and read the whole damn South Beach Diet book, just to see what I was getting into.

       It’s sort of like “boot Camp” in the military, very, very strict the forst two weeks then it lightens up after that. They say you can lose as much as 12 – 15 pounds the first two weeks, which would take me to 190 pounds and then the last ten to get me to 180 pounds would be a piece of cake, no pun intended! I started on it this week and my wife has always been a big fan of it so she’s on it with me. The only bad news is no alcohol (and Yes I cheat there!) But I’m actually eating healthy, supposedly, I’ve consumed more salads in the last month or so than the last twenty or thirty years of my life, same for fruit. And fish? Well let’s put it this way more in that time period than I’ve ever eaten in 64 years of hanging out on this earth! (It’s not bad but thank God for Salsa and Balsamic Vinagerette  dressing! If the taste is the least bit unappealing, ….BAM it gets salsa or Balsamic Vinaigrette, and the more unappealing the taste the more salsa. Fortunately both the Salsa and the Balsamic Vinaigrette are “approved for consumption” on this diet. BUT, besides alcohol abstinence there is no sugar, no salt, no breads, no real eggs (only those little egg Beater things that come in the cardboard milk type container, and while I can’t have any “fat food” like bacon, I can have Canadian Bacon, which I like anyway)

         The result? The regular “Doc” told me throw out the Diabetes medications and cut all the rest of the blood pressure and heart stuff in half, AND said I can go back on my vitamins! YEA! Yea! yea! And NOW I feel good!

         The chest has healed up pretty well, and I workout on one of those “Coffee Grinder” machines, (like the things on racing 12 meter sailboats, hand crank winches ) That’s getting my chest built up again, and I can actually see a couple of my ribs,….damn that’s skinny!

         Let’s see, work wise I foreclosed on an owner of a $2.5 million dollar condo who was over $40,000 behind on her monthly dues of $1100 a month, and am getting that set up for immediate rental as we are just getting into the summer vacation time and since it sleeps 22 people, has it’s own three story elevator, overlooks and is on the Gulf of Mexico, and has three balconies, one of which has an 8 foot by 5 foot heated “Garden Pool” in it,….well they traditionally rent for about $6,000 a week, but because we are in kind of tough straits economically right now I’m only getting $5200 a week. In 8 weeks I’ll have recovered all the money she owned the Owners Association, and then I  will make it some profit!

        So why all this effort when it isn’t even mine and is a shit load of extra work? Easy. The $4 – $5 Million dollar lawsuit I’ve been running for them for the past two and a half years should be settled late this fall, and in the business the “Association Manager” (that’s me!) is entitled to about 3% as a Bonus, more if the Association is happy with the results I get. (I make that about a $90,000 bonus on top of everything if we only settle for $3.5 million! Come on seven,….Daddy needs a new pair of shoes!) That would put me in a position to actually back off of busting my ass for work and really “kick start” my own company, while even putting some aside and paying off all my credit cards and car loans. According to our attorneys I’ve done a super job and it’s a slam dunk, in fact some of the “defendants” have approached us to just accept a check for a million dollars each and take them off the suit. (That’s three of them so far. I’m not greedy, but neither am I a good poker player, I’d say sure let’s do it, but the lawyers are telling me to let the hand play out, don’t show any weakness. All I can say is they are lawyers and I’m not!”)

       Oh, I bought a pedometer last week, you hang it on your belt and it tells you how many steps you take a day. End of the day you can take your standard stride, multiply it by the number of steps and divide by 5280 feet (a mile) and see how much you are really walking. (Little things for little minds!)

        Well before I get a case of run on mouth I better sign off for now.

        Remember “It’s only a job and most of them suck!”

-30-

       (BTW, I’m trying to beat the “spell check”, today I only misspelled four words! Not bad for an 1107 word blog!)