Into the Weeds Part Two - I Got a Punch Card

This is part two of this piece.  I highly(no pun intended) recommend that you check out part one first.

Part One-  epluribusmarvus.blogspot.com/into-weeds
OK, now you can proceed.

Safely back in my house and away from prying eyes it was time to try out my magic potion.  I popped open the bottle and rubbed some of the stuff on my knee.  It smelled minty and good, no hint of weed.  It felt good for a few minutes but that relief didn't last.  It worked a lot better on sore muscles then it did on deep joint pain. The Apothecanna turns out to be glorified BENGAY!  I waited until the next day to try the chocolate chew infused with CBD so as not to confuse the two.  It did taste like a Tootsie Roll and seemed to offer some relief but I still felt disappointed.  I think I was expecting some sort of miracle medicine to come along and sweep me off my feet and that didn't happen.  I didn't even start saying "dude, dude" that much more then I normally do. Nor was there a craving for chips.  It was time to bring out the big guns.

Denver was in the grips of a nasty late March blizzard as I headed back to my local pot shop.  It gave me some solace knowing that less people would be out and about thus decreasing the chance I'd be labeled. It was snowing two inches an hour when I plowed up to the sidewalk and not a soul saw me get out and head for pot mart but the door was locked and covered with an iron gate.  I should have known no real cannabis connoisseur would be out in that weather.  The next time I had a chance to head back it was a busy day so I was forced to park three blocks away and walk with my green safety bag stuffed deep into the pocket of my coat.  The eyes of everyone I passed seemed to be able to see right through me.

Once inside the friendly confines with the rest of the druggies I felt at ease.  These were my people now and things were going to be OK.  And this time I remembered to wait my turn.  When it came I entered into a lengthy and informative chat with the helpful staff about upping the ante on the pain relief.  They recommended I try a capsule that is produced in-house which would give me a higher dosage of the pain relieving CBD.  The catch would be that the capsule also contained some of the psychoactive part of the plant, THC.  Did I want to go that way? I pulled the trigger on about 20 capsules for around $45, oh and since I am now a loyal customer I got a punch card with some punches on it.  Sweet! The walk back to the truck was brutal.  The pill bottle and all the info sheets they gave me made it really tough to hide my green bag.  I ended up trying to hide it with my arm by covering the pocket it was stuffed into.  

Once home I popped a couple of the pills and fell asleep.  I woke up about a half hour later and sat bolt upright to see if I felt anything.  I don't think I was high but do you know that you're high when you actually are?  I do remember feeling relaxed and pain free, and it felt like I could feel the blood rushing through my joints.  Unfortunately I made the mistake of burping which made my mouth taste like I had swallowed a hippie.   I started giggling after that but my wife swore I was trying to act weird which is a possibility.  Hey but my knee didn't hurt so scoreboard haters!

At our family brunch on Easter Sunday my father-in-law said that in five years I'll be asking for money to feed my Meth addiction.  I sure hope that's not the case but I'm pretty sure if it is it won't be because some weed capsules turned out to be a gateway drug.

Into The Weeds

The first time I ever felt the effect of the cannabis plant in my veins was in high school.  I was camping with some friends in one of those three sided trail shelters that are common in the mountains of the eastern United States.  It was a rainy night in the Adirondacks so we ended up sharing the shelter with a couple fellow hikers.  Sometime during the night a joint was lit and passed around, and just like that I was a druggy.  To be fair I was already pretty buzzed from a bottle of whiskey that our group contributed to the evening prior to the hippie lettuce hitting my lungs.  Remember that I was in high school, which was twenty years ago and that was the first and last time I sparked up.  But go ahead and judge, I know you need this.

Its been about three and a half year since the people of Colorado voted to legalize the use of ye old dizzy spinach.  Since then pot shops have sprung up all across our fair city, and the coffers of state and local governments have filled with tax dollars from weed sales.  It feels like folks who don't call our fair city home imagine that Denver is perpetually under a cloud of Mary-Jane smoke so thick that all we citizens do is watch skateboarding videos and eat a lot of Chipotle.  They are right about the Chipotle consumption, but unemployment is at around 3% and people are moving here at the rate of 100,000 a year.  In fact the legalization of marijuana has had no affect on the life of the average citizen beyond the school system's improved budget.  I recommend that you start picketing for your state to legalize as well.  Legal dope means less costing money spent on jailing pot heads and more cash, cash for kids.  Ohio recently voted against legalization which makes sense since its Ohio after all...Indiana thinks Ohio is backwards.  This piece, however wasn't intended to sell you on the positive impact that ganja can have on the economy.  It's supposed to be about yours truly experimenting with the softer side of the herb as a pain reliever.  So lets get back to that.  Sorry Ohio!

About seven years ago I was having some health issues including chronic lethargy, stomach issues and knee pain.  I jumped through the expected medical hoops for those issues and by luck ended up talking to an arthritis specialist who sent me to a doctor at The University of Kentucky, who in turn diagnosed me with Celiacs Disease.  Getting off the gluten turned out to be God-send for me physically! However as time has gone on it's become clear that my left knee took the brunt of the gluten ravages. Basically it hurts most of the time.  I was Googling around on the web about it one day when I saw a couple posts from fellow Celiac sufferers that mentioned marijuana helped their symptoms.  It made sense.  There is a lot of chatter about the Chronic and its health benefits.  I have read several stories about cannabis oil and canna-butter as treatment for pain, seizures, cancer, etc.  The industry loves to pimp weed as a miracle drug for just about everything. If you have it, pot can make it all better.  So I figured what can I lose from giving it a try?

I must admit, it's weird walking into a storefront on a normal American street to purchase something that has been a great evil since the Reagan days.  The foyer is a narrow hallway with a round bullet proof window at one end that you slide your ID through.  Once the guy behind the glass has determined that your eligible to enter, a door buzzes open for you.  Turns out that just gets you into the waiting room where you have to wait for someone to welcome you behind a sliding glass door to the real store. Of course I blew by that slider and had to be escorted out and asked to sit and wait for someone to come out and bring me in.  Who knew.  And who knew how great the customer service was going to be at my local cannabis outlet.

I learned a lot about weed that day from the very helpful staff that's probably important to share with you at this point.  The Cannabis plant contains some 500 different compounds.  The most well known is THC, the psychoactive part of the plant that makes you high, and crave Cheetos.  Most of the health benefits (allegedly) of weed come from the CBD, or Cannabinoids part of the plant.  Or CBG, which is renowned for its relief of glaucoma symptoms.  If your 21 or older you can walk in off the street and purchase pot products that range from the actual bud, to cookies, oils, pain relief patches and gummy bears.  The state charges 26 percent sales tax on those gummy bears which translates to more then 50 million in one year alone.  

After my crash course with the friendly (and normal-looking) sales clerk I explained that I wanted something to help with pain without the high.  What I ended up walking out with in my special kid proof bag was a bottle of pain relief lotion called Apothecanna, and something that looked like a Tootsie Roll.   When I left I couldn't help wondering what people on the street thought of me as a headed for my truck with a bright green bag in my hand that screamed pot head.  

To be continued...

Jimmy- A Short Story

                                                                                                                   photo courtesy of tripadvisor 

“Is that ‘backer in your mouth?”  yelled his Grandpa from the porch as Jimmy angled across the yard toward the road.  He had come out the side door of the house, letting the screen door bang behind him in the still morning.  From where Grandpa sat on the front porch cupping his coffee against the chill he could see a bulge in Jimmy’s mouth that appeared to be tobacco. “No Gramps, its seeds“, croaked Jimmy with a full mouth as he turned back toward the house and held up the bag for approval. Grandpa snorted his reply while Grandmother, at the kitchen sink cleaning up the breakfast dishes called through the open window “have fun!”  Jimmy did not slow his hurried adolescent scramble across the grass but instead merely raised his baseball-gloved arm in farewell.  At the curb sat his Dad's idling truck, with it's rusty fenders and cracked rear window.  When he pulled open the door it emitted a sickening honk like a hoarse goose.  Inside the cab it was warm and smelled like the day-old dip juice in a pop bottle in the the cup holder.  His dad grinned and patted him on the leg as he settled into the seat; “are you ready for some fun bud?”  asked Mike as he put the truck in gear and eased away from the house. “I sure am daddy” replied Jimmy, unable yet to call his father anything but daddy, even at 13.

Jimmy's Grandpa Geno was a New Yorker.  The 1970's had not been kind to The City and Geno had joined the white flight from every borough as families fled to the suburbs for quiet leafy streets and long commutes.  Geno's escape took him way beyond the growing towns of northern Jersey, to Greene County, almost three hours from his boyhood in Queens.  He took with him his wife and baby daughter and started a new life in the village of Lexington, deep in the heart of the Catskill Mountains.  He got a job on the county road crew, plowing snow in the winter, and fixing potholes in summer.  They settled into a white two story home with a front porch and wood heat along the banks of Schoharie Creek. Gina, Jimmy's mom grew up, went off to Tannersville High  and fell head-over-heels for a skinny kid with a greasy mullet and a love of baseball.  Gina and Mike were both juniors the year Jimmy was conceived, probably in the bed of Mike's truck in the parking lot at North Lake.  Gina brought Jimmy home from the hospital to the house on the creek and got her GED at night while her Mama watched the baby.  Mike finished school and signed up for the Navy but a fleet week brawl afforded him a one way ticket back to Greene County, were he eventually got a job doing maintenance at nearby Hunter Mountain Resort.  Once Jimmy was ready for Kindergarten, Gina took a job as at the nursing home and took night classes at SUNY Oneonta. The funny thing about high school love is that sometimes it grows up and stops being lovely.  That's what happened to Mike and Gina.

Mike maneuvered the truck across the metal bridge over the Schoharie and turned left on the two lane road that followed the creek.  Snow had, for the most part been a no show that winter so mid-March meant naked hardwoods and brown undergrowth along the highway.  Here and there a southern facing lawn  showed glimpses of green as the season's first signs of Spring. Jimmy loved ridding with his daddy.  Mike drove a lot faster than anyone else he ever rode with and the jacked-up truck offered a commanding view and an air of invincibility.  The boundaries of Mike's musical sphere at not stretched much from his high school days.  He still listen to old tapes of Nirvana, Bush  and The Beastie Boys and since son still worshiped Dad, they both sang along to "No Sleep 'till Brooklyn" as the miles slid away.

Both men in Jimmy's life loved baseball.  In Geno's home, summer evenings were spent on the front porch with the radio tuned to WFAN, the home of his beloved Mets.  Those evenings listening to Howie Rose call the game while the creek gurgled and fire flies danced across the yard became imprinted in Jimmy's DNA.  His Dad in-turn introduced Jimmy to the game, reliving the glory days on the metal bleachers of the high school field, and hung around his little league team as a volunteer assistant coach.  Both men took a turn adding a part of the rich tradition to Jimmy's development.  Baseball Tonight filled in the rest.

It had been Gina's idea.  A chance she hoped to bring the two men in Jimmy's life together.  The thought came to her one evening while sitting at the kitchen table with her dad after a call to Mike to plan Jimmy's upcoming thirteenth birthday.  "You know the Jewish have Bar Mitzvah's to welcome their sons into manhood " she offered, "but we pagans have nothing, so why not some sort of baseball Mitzvah for Jimmy?"  Geno looked up from his slice of pie, eyes brightening.  "We could take him to Cooperstown."

An hour and a half of time with your Dad can fly by.  The sun was starting to warm the air as Mike eased the truck into a diagonal spot on main street.  If Cooperstown was just home to The Baseball Hall of Fame that would be enough but it doubles down with postcard-worthy homes and a thriving downtown wrapped around the southern tip of Otsego Lake.  More then half the establishments on Main Street are devoted to the sale of all things baseball.   Father and son's first order of business are plates of pancakes and sausage at the Cooperstown Dinner.  Next comes souvenir t-shirts and a Mets licence plate frame to take home to Geno.  Two hours of bats, balls and busts at The Hall and Jimmy's cup overflowed.

He didn't notice the orange county dump truck parked across the street as Mike slowed to a stop in front of a house on Elm Street.  When the door opened Jimmy was taken aback to see his Grandpa smiling at him from a chair in the living room.  "Hey bud", said Geno, "I had to get a load of gravel from over in Hartwick and thought I'd surprise you." I've been friends with the Larranaga's here since we were your age."  Wait till you see what they have over their back fence."  It was one of the holy places in baseball, Doubleday Field.  The field was closed still for the season, but like the faithful chopping a hole in the ice for a baptism, this moment couldn't wait.

Jimmy fell asleep on the way home, his head resting against the window as the sun disappeared behind the mountains that crowded the road.  With the help of Mr. Larranaga's step ladder, the two men whom he loved had lead him onto that slowly greening grass of the outfield for the blessing. Three grinning devotees playing catch in the afternoon sun.  The sweet music of the ball thwacking into each glove.  Three gloved hands coming together in a celebratory cheer.  Three men climbing back over the fence.  Manhood.

An Idle Mind...

Today on E Pluribus Marvus I would like to take the opportunity to ease my troubled mind by unleashing a string of random thoughts that is sure to make you sit up and go hmm.  Watch out Malcom Gladwell, I am am coming for you!

- I have road rage, there I said it.  That wont be a surprise to any of you that have cris-crossed America's highways and byways with me.  I am working on it folks so bear with me. This is not confession time on the blog.

I prefer the term offensive driver  I'ts true that when you learned to drive you probably learned to be a defensive driver.  And while it's fine for most of you to be in the fetal position on the road, some of us have to be on offense.  Think of it like a football game; you can have a great defense, but if you don't score you're still going to lose.  Which means some of us have to be aggressive to lead the rest of you to victory; or wherever you are heading. What does that look like on the road you may ask.  Well for one, if I come up behind you in the fast lane kindly move to the right and let me pass.  Or if I am at a light that has two turn lanes and one line is shorter that's the one I you will find me in.  And if that means I have to cut in front of you after we turn to get into Costco then so be it.  Do you want us all to use one lane when two are provided?  I do understand that profiling people isn't "PC" anymore, but please understand that if you're driving a "granny" car like Buick or a Taurus I will probably pick you out of the herd to take advantage of.  Please don't be upset, think of it as me leading you.

Some exciting news is that I am proud to announce that I have introduced a bill in the Senate to require employers to excuse any and all absences by those of you that are unable to drive in the snow.  Just think, no longer will you have to clog the roads with your white-knuckle, sphincter-gripping attempts to get to work.  You will be able to stay home in your PJs and watch Netflix while the rest of us can function properly on the highways.  Please understand however that part of the bill authorizes the police to issue you a citation if you venture out and cause an accident or slow the rest of us down because you're from Texas and never learned to drive in the snow.


-It's unconfirmed at this point but I am beginning to think that high-waters are slowly gaining acceptance in this great nation.  Understandably that statement probably causes a physical reaction in you.  If you grew up in the 70's 80's or 90's then I am sure you understand why that comes as such a shock.  As a kid during that area it was unthinkable to leave the house without the top of your shoes covered by your jeans.  Most would chose death rather then face the ridicule of one's peers for the sin of high-waters.

Well in the last month or two I have seen three different examples of kids in public rocking high waters. And not little kids that grow an inch a month mind you, high school kids.  When I brought this up to my wife she tried grilling me to see if I had mistook this social moray for carpri's.  I assured her that since I was not at Home Depot in Boulder that there was no way I was mistaken.  She then went with the whole "well everything comes back in style eventually" routine. To which I was quick to respond that high waters had never been in style so they were not eligible for a comeback a la parachute pants.  

Before you panic about this development please understand that these could have just been anomalies that I observed so this might not be a real trend.  We can only hope!


-Over the last couple weeks I have been working along a golf course.  I'ts been covered with snow most of the time as you can imagine however lately we have been enjoying lovely weather and the course is being played.  What I can't figure out is how so many people can play golf on a Monday.  Sure old guys can always play, and Fridays are fair game for everyone to play hooky, but Monday?  What kind of job or lack thereof do dudes my age have that allows them to play golf?  Sure I am jealous working my ass off on a deck while people play through.  I don't know whether to go Donald on these guys and call them soft/losers, or to channel Bernie and assume they are bankers that are stealing from the rest of us.  It has to be part of the fraying of our nation for guys under 65 to be golfing on a Monday.  Oh and one almost hit me with a ball during lunch!


- Stephen Curry is a robot that somehow snuck into the NBA and is now ripping the hearts out of every American city.  And to think that my Knickerbockers missed him by one pick in the draft and took a scrub that isn't even in the league still.  #pain


-Mr Money Mustache is well...  I don't know.  Read the piece on him in the latest New Yorker (newyorker.com/mr-money-mustache-the-frugal-guru) and like me you may struggle to define him.  I can't tell if he is really cool or a complete douche.  I do know I will never be able to pull off his lifestyle, I have a thing for shoes that would complicate matters.


- Speaking of the Knicks, lets end this on a good note: Kristaps Porzingis.  Yes I have a man crush on the Knicks' rookie forward! Yes the plan is to take the nephews to their first NBA game when my team invades our fair city. And yes The Zinger has a funny name.  So here are my attempts at nicknames for the big fella that I plan to prod two kids into yelling at the game.

The Latvian Longballer,  Bloc Party, Albino Ewing, Lights out Latvia, Euromazing, Stick 6, Kristmas, Porzin(Poison)

Yeah I know they're lame.

Thanks I feel Better now!