Confirmation of the Suspected

It's unsettling when you get a dreaded announcement from a family member.  The announcement that a loved one's life is not only finite (which we all know anyway), but actually has an expiration date penciled in.

Very unsettling.

We've known that Jackie's husband, Gary, was not well.  He's had a series of unfortunate things that have happened to him in a short amount of time.  There was a heart attack one time, and most recently his spleen ruptured.  Who knows what kind of things have taken place in between.  Our family members have never been very forthcoming when it comes to that sort of thing.  We're not one of those 'news travels like wildfire' families.  We all know that he's been gaunt and losing weight for some time now.  The news of stage 4 lung cancer was no surprise, but the news that it had spread to other areas was not good news.  Brain lesions too.  I don't know much about the significance of that sort of thing, but I know our brains are encased in a hard shell for a reason.  They must be kept in perfect condition for us to function.

The outlook?  Not good.  If everything goes perfect he'll see next Christmas.  That's not very damn perfect.

When Jackie first sent me the email yesterday morning, I read it and sat in stunned silence while I absorbed it.  I was at work.  I re-read it a few times.  When you read something like that, it's 'hard news'.  It's not just talk.  When you stare at the words, it's fact.  I had to work pretty hard at sticking to my job after that.  I tried to push it out of my mind but it kept creeping back.  All day long it was orbiting around my brain--sometimes doing a pretty close pass.

Very unsettling.

I think what's going through my head the most is just an overwhelming feeling of helplessness.  It's like I'm on the outside of a room with my face against a window.  Even if I could get in I don't know what I would do once I was inside.  I stand outside with a false bravado, nodding and smiling and hoping that it helps.

What else can you do?

Sarah asked me last night if I was going to go visit them.  I told her, "No, the last thing they need is a bunch of people descending on them."  We saw them recently--maybe a month ago or so.  We'll go when we feel it's a good time.  The trouble is, Jackie and Gary live in a pretty isolated place.  Out in a rural area near Port Orchard is not someplace you just 'drop in and visit' like you do when someone is located nearby.  I'm pretty sure they moved there for that exact reason:  To gain some privacy.  That doesn't make things any easier on anybody on the outside of their household during times like this, but it may be exactly what they need.  They'll have physical privacy, but we're still all connected via email and phones.

I feel bad for Jackie.  I'm glad that she's a go-getter.  She's an active lady that's always doing stuff.  That sort of person generally has a better time at holding all the loose, frazzled ends together--no matter how overwhelming they may seem.  The bad thing is that neither of them are working, and their monetary worth is pretty much non-liquid.  They need to sell things--things that they have lovingly accumulated or created for their enjoyment during their lives together.  That's sad because it has to happen, and frustrating when it doesn't happen at the speed you need it to.

When you know somebody's time is short, it's almost worse than a sudden surprise exit.  The only advantage is that they have time to sign papers, tell stories, and sort things out.  Time to write the memoirs.

Personal Dignity

Dignity. We think about it very seldom as we're growing up. The word dignity just isn't something that is a part of our regular day to day world. When we try to define dignity, we think of it as being synonymous with something like pride or leadership. Something like a captain on his ship--chin jutting outward, poised in a somehow stoic manner, and eyes focused on the distance to what might lie ahead. But like I said, thinking about dignity is not usually part of our day.

But, the lack of dignity is a whole 'nuther thing. I think the lack of dignity is the reason for the word dignity. It's a form of measure. It's a good/evil or healthy/sick sort of thing. It's a relationship measure. You may not recognize it when you have it, but you sure realize it's absence if you're suddenly without it.

I thought about that yesterday as I leaned forward on my elbows over an exam table with my pants down. You can guess where the doctor's fingers were (I'm just assuming there were more than one--I didn't ask). Yes, I was getting an overdue physical. As most people know, men are bad about going to the doctor. We're raised with, "You're okay--quit crying" whereas women are raised with the general spirit of nurturing. Females seem to all have the knowledge and cool that they need to monitor their many bodily systems regularly. They seem to learn to do it regularly, starting at a young age, and are probably usually taught by example. Men: Not so much. We have to practically be dragged to the doctor. I would bet that any doctor probably has two different ways of speaking to patients: one for females and one for males. Anyway, back to me leaning on his table in a vulnerable manner. To add insult to injury, he provided the following dialogue (and I'm not making this up):

"Whoa, your prostate's enormous!" he exclaimed. "Do you have any trouble peeing?"

"Uh, a little slow to starting is all. Okay once I get going." I answered. I was concerned but not surprised.

"How many times a night do you get up to go?" he continued.

"None usually." I said.

"Oh, well, that's okay then. I guess we can't improve on that." he replied, finally turning and leaving me to put myself in order.

Trying to make light of the situation, I continued, "It's been quite a few years since I could pee a hole through a rock. The days of good velocity are well behind me. Anything I can do or take that can turn it around? A drug? Change of diet maybe?"

He shook his head as he continued to enter data into his computer. "With the cholesterol numbers as good as yours you'd be hard-pressed to change anything."

The potential loss of dignity sounds ominous. I'm only going to get older and things are only going to get worse. I thought about failures of body parts, functions, and systems. Any one of them could trigger the potential for massive mental anguish. It's no wonder that an old man might suddenly turn nasty and lash out at his loved ones. He's probably just been handed news from a doctor that is the inevitable human mortality call that we all hope never happened to us.  He may have just been handed the loss of personal dignity.

When Roger Daltry and Pete Townshend penned the words for My Generation maybe they had recently experienced someone going through that very thing.

"...hope I die before I get old..."

Fortunately, I'm still fine. Blood pressure could be better, and prostate is enlarged, but those are almost a given at my age. Aside from that, the heart: good. Lungs: good. Cholesterol: way good.

My personal dignity is still intact. I hope it stays that way.

Suddenly, Mom and Dad are OLD

It's hard to see parents aging.  Growing up, our parents were our providers, our nurturers, and our safety net.  They were our rock.  We could look to them for anything we needed help with.

I used to think that maybe I was one of the lucky ones because my parents and I are fairly close in age (my mom was 17 and dad was 18 when I was born), but I don't think so.  If anything, our ages were too close and caused us to butt heads too often.  I don't think watching my parents get older is any easier to watch from the 'close age' perspective either.  If anything, it just means it's right around the corner for me.  I'm next.  I'll be first to tell you:  It's already well underway with me too.  I'm aging pretty quickly myself.  A lot has changed in my last 5 years.

My dad has not been the fearless leader he appeared to be when I was growing up.  He was always the opinionated disciplinarian, but mom has been making the intelligent decisions for several decades now.  He didn't always listen of course, but many times he had no choice.  She would be adamant.  In the last couple decades he has been a shell of what he once appeared to be.  His erratic thought patterns, his physical health, and almost everything about him has caused us to not be a bit surprised if he was suddenly found to be in the past tense.

Mom has a tremendous work ethic and always has.  When my dad decided that he couldn't or wouldn't work any longer about 20 years ago, it apparently didn't matter much.  We all shook our heads and rolled our eyes, but she took it in stride I guess.  She had a good job with the Auburn School District.  She retired from there with good medical coverage and that sort of thing.  In other words, the Auburn School District was a good thing to retire from (or with).  Even after retirement, she was always cleaning, painting, arranging--something.  There was always something on her list.  I think she painted their house inside and out every year or so.

Now there is a new development.

Both of my parents have had issues in the last couple of days.  With dad it was that he fell out of bed (apparently misjudged something as he was getting up) and hurt himself pretty good.  I guess he actually had to go the hospital for it.  What's irritating is that I never hear about these things from my parents themselves.  It's obvious that because they are both only children they don't understand, but when they have a health-related issue of any kind, they need to tell us.  I can count the number of times I have actually been informed of anything like that on one hand.  It just never happens.  Nowadays, I find out stuff on Facebook.  What's wrong with this picture?

But I've digressed.  Back to the newest development.

Apparently mom had a back issue that has reared it's ugly head.  She called it more of a Sciatica (I call it psychotica) thing because that's where it affected her.  When I heard (again--indirectly) that she had to go the ER the day before because of it, I stopped in on the way home from work.

What a shock to see mom using a walker.  It was a blow to be sure.  Mom is tough, and to see her like that was so strange.  Dad "slid" to his current condition slowly, but mom just got whacked upside the head with it with little or no warning.  She seemed to be in good spirits.  She was talking about how much easier it was to walk with it than the cane she was using when she went to the ER.  She had to walk with that using both hands in front of her she said.  While mom is telling me all this and navigating the clutter that is their furniture arrangement and living room lifestyle, dad just sat there, indifferently thumbing through his car magazines and other mail of the day.

Anyway, I tried to get them to understand that we're only about 10 minutes away, and if they need anything to give us a call.  Anything.  Will they call?  Probably not.  Things are going to be hard for them now.  They have a washer but have never had a dryer.  The washer is in the basement.  Translation:  Stairs.  Dad can do simple things, but she will need to give him full instructions, and I guarantee he will not do everything willingly.

You know what really sends a shudder down my spine?  Losing mom before dad.  I would have a hard time with him if that happened.  We all would.

A Week of Ups and Downs

First of all, let me backtrack to Saturday when Sarah was over for a visit. I bent down under the desk to plug her laptop power cord in and had my weight on my right arm. When I plugged it in, I pushed myself up and heard (and felt) a triple-pop come out of my right shoulder. Little by little pain started drifting into the area. I was worried how bad it would get at first, but after it got to the point of a deep, dull ache it finally stopped growing. It just sat there and throbbed at me. It didn't really give me much trouble sleeping or anything and I basically stopped worrying about it.

The next day I drove the truck to a guy's house that had firewood for sale. I made one trip home with a load of wood, moved a bunch of our existing wood (to rotate the old to the front), unloaded the truck, then went back for the rest of the load. After unloading that and putting all the other wood back in front of it I was exhausted. I mean almost drop-dead tired. I thought if I would have gotten into the hot tub I would have just fallen asleep and drowned so I didn't even do that. By early evening I was about out of it so I decided I'd go to bed--I think it was about 7 or 7:30--thinking I'd sleep like a log (cheesy firewood pun).  Wrong.  It was probably one of the worst sleeps of my life.  My shoulder screamed in agony all night causing massive tossing and turning.  Unfortunately that was a work night and I suffered the following day.  To add to the shoulder issue and lack of sleep, all that bending and lifting firewood also gave my butt cheeks and upper legs an overdose of activity.  They were hurting bad all day at work too.  I did at least manage to get a good night's sleep that night.  If memory serves me, the following night of sleep was a repeat of tossing and turning due to the shoulder pain.

The good news came Tuesday evening.  That's when I got to go to the airport and pick Suzie up!

The poor dear... She ended up working her fanny off almost the entire two weeks that she was at her folks' house in Kauai.  It was no vacation.  Meanwhile, the cold, dank Seattle summer (or lack thereof) we were having finally turned around the day after she left and we were blessed with perfect temperatures the entire two weeks right to the day.  I did a good job of keeping all of her plants alive and all that.  I didn't have any wild parties or do anything wrong.

I blew the dust off the Harley Wednesday morning and rode it to work.  That was a high point.  Okay, maybe not so much going to work, but the ride home is always good.

We're both trying to get our sleep groove back.  Between my off and on shoulder pain and her time adjustments/jet lag, we were having some trouble.  I think it's getting better though.

Yesterday at work was a nasty day because of the shoulder.  I spent about 3 hours on Thursday afternoon doing brazing, and it definitely exacerbated my shoulder pain (although it really didn't show up until later that evening).  Because I had to spend most of yesterday doing the same thing (which is not my regular job) I opted to do the whole day standing up so my right arm could operate at a more relaxing angle.  Trouble is, that's pretty hard on the back, neck, and everything else.  Let's just say that when quitting time came, I was damn glad to see it.

It was a good Friday evening with my wife finally.  Out to eat at our local joint, and a nice, relaxing soak in the hot tub.

Okay, that's enough whining about my tired and abused body.  Tomorrow I'll whine about the predicted steady rain... Yep, it's back.

Rick the Car

I have never been a Corvette.

There has never been anything even remotely racy about my design.  I have never been fast, powerful, or particularly notable in any category.  I'm not a durable 4x4 because I can't take much abuse. I'm not a station wagon or a pickup truck because I can't carry much.  I don't know what model I am but being American-made I'm sure I was assembled from a mishmash of stuff that originated in many other countries.   It's a wonder I work at all sometimes.  Many of my individual parts are pretty substandard.  As a whole I seem to function without too much maintenance.  I go in for a tuneup once a year or so.

I am, however, starting to wear out.

My windshield is distorted and hard to see through without squinting.  There are bugs all over it, and it seems like they move around on it all by themselves... Like they're alive.  The wipers don't help.

My engine is not very powerful.  It doesn't seem to leak anywhere, but that's about its only positive point.  It has multiple issues, but at least it's still running.  The accelerator seems to have a mind of its own: Sometimes it idles when it should be racing, and other times I can't even get it started.  Every now and then it misses badly and other times it purrs.  I can't trust my sensors any longer.  They are giving me all kinds of erratic readings.  I hope it keeps working for a while longer because I can't afford a mechanic to fix it, and that's assuming I can even find replacement parts.

I'm a little worried about my cooling system.  Usually I have no issues with overheating, but sometimes I can jump to the boiling point instantly.  I usually have no warning that it's about to happen.  Oddly enough it usually happens when I'm asleep in the garage.  All I can do is flip my doors open to let some fresh air in until I cool back down.

I don't run too well in cold weather.   If it's cold out I prefer to stay inside a nice heated garage instead of venturing out.  Yes, I prefer hot weather.   I like the top down, my windows down--Heck, I'd even take my doors and everything else off if I could.

My alignment has been out of whack since I can remember.   I seem to track fairly straight down the road though considering that my front wheels are toed-out way out of allowable specifications.

My suspension is pretty tired.  It can't take the heavy-duty bumps and jostling like it could when I was newer.  There are lots of squeaks and pops--especially when I start moving in the morning.  Sometimes I bend a spring or something doing something I shouldn't be doing.  That hurts.  I think all my joints are badly in need of grease, but the fittings have long since stopped taking grease.  The only option is replacement and I don't feel like going through that.  I'm not worth the expense.

My finish is pretty bad.  I'm covered with dents and dings pretty much everywhere you look, and I'm nowhere near as smooth as I used to be.  My top is much, much lighter than the brown color it was when I was new.  Apparently it has been bleached by the sun.

Sometimes a strange sound comes out of my tailpipe, followed by a lot of horn-honking from people behind me.  They scream of smoke and a foul odor but I don't notice anything.  It smells fine to me.

When I was newer I was bad and I breathed smoke all the time. Since that doesn't happen any more I've found I don't have to worry so much about my air filter. I can breathe much easier than I used to.

Apparently I have a variable-size gas tank.   Either that or it occasionally leaks.  Sometimes I can take in and inordinate amount of fuel, and other times not so much.  The leak would explain why I run out of gas so quickly sometimes.  I think I get better mileage when I use good fuel, but I don't always like the taste of good fuel.  Sometimes the crappy fuel is just easier to deal with and more convenient.  Besides my regular fuel I like to use additives.  I've heard that some of the additives I drink are bad for my sensors and filters, but I like the added pep it gives me.  It makes me feel young and perky again--if only for a short while.

I think I'm doing pretty good for my age but I shouldn't take it for granted.  I need to start increasing the frequency of tuneups.  I guess that means I'll have to suffer the indignity of having someone look at my underside once again.

Sigh.

Spring, Shooting, and Spending

It's pathetic when you find yourself smack in the middle of May and have nothing good to write about.

We have had the worst (meaning coolest and wettest) spring I can ever recall.  We have set the record already for the coolest April on record, and it's looking like we're on our way for an equally crappy May as well.  We have had something like 4 nice (meaning only dry and sorta warmish) days all spring so far.  We inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest have become a group of morose, surly shut-ins.  Don't mess with us... We're already pissed.

The good news it that I have managed to ride my Harley to work twice already, and given the days that it was really even feasible I'd say I'm running 50%.

I have had thoughts of selling the Harley recently.  I know it will probably pass, but the reality is that I don't ride it much.  I don't think I rode it to work one single time last year.  My fickle nature once again?  Maybe. I do have a tendency to be into something 200% and then have it fall completely off the radar.  Truth is, we seem to have more fun traveling by car doing our photography thing.   Today's market is not conducive to selling a Harley though.  That doesn't surprise me really because the Harley marketplace was hugely overpriced for a long, long time.  Now that everyone is in dire financial straits, there are lots of them for sale--Most of them nicer, newer, and cheaper than mine.  Given that, I'll probably just die with it whether I use it much or not.  Time will tell.  My fickle nature also covers the desire to sell it--meaning that too will pass.

Photography.  I miss it.  I know I've mentioned this before, but I find myself craving it, and yet being frustrated by it at the same time.  I would be happy to wander city streets for hours on end (weather permitting of course) looking for candid shots of people or whatever.  Since my 365 photo blog ended I have nothing forcing me to take shots, but I still feel the need.  It's probably just as well the 365 ended because I have little imagination, and I was running out of inspiration and ideas.  The factor of having little imagination is probably why I'll never be a good photographer.  I lack the creative gene.  Still, I enjoy it. I have been perusing Craigslist and other places for several months now, looking for someone selling a Canon 50D.  They don't make them any longer (having replaced them with the 60D), but I wanted one anyway.  They are highly regarded by photographers and have lots of great features.  Then recently I decided a 60D (which is on Sue's shopping list) would be just fine.  It has several new upgrades over the 50D, but is also short an item or two from the feature list of the 50D.  The plus is that they can still be bought new unlike the 50D.  Then a few days ago I had a realization:  I have no reason to upgrade my camera body.  My photography just isn't that good.  Sure, everyone likes buying something newer and better no matter what the category is, and I think I was caught up in that.  Realistically, I may buy a lens or something, but no new camera body is going to make me a better photographer.  I would just be a cool upgrade.  It would also be costly.

Ah, financial matters.  Given today's economy I'm very lucky to have my job, but the reality is that it's one job.  Suzie has a job now working part-time for the Auburn School District, but it hasn't really gone gangbusters on how many days she gets called in to substitute.  It's kind of like we are a one income family with 1.2 income's worth of expenses.  That means that little by little our savings are waning.  Now I have the news that Sarah's college scholarship ends after this semester, and that means her mom and I will have added expenses that we didn't have before.  It probably weighs on Suzie--me having marriage expenses like child support and such--but at least it was already "on the table" before we got married and therefore not a surprise.  I guess that's just the way things go.  Neither of my parents went to college, nor did any of my brothers or sisters.  I sorta did if you count my sporadic classes as Green River Community College for a few semesters (thanks to the G.I. Bill) but they didn't amount to anything.  Neither Sarah's mom or her brother went to college, nor did their parents.  Nobody in Suzie's family went to college either.  The reality is that we all came from working-class families and there just wasn't the money to go around.  Sarah is very, very lucky given our family history of being working-class blue-collar people.  I do feel good about what she has accomplished though.  While many people that go to collage are only concerned with social stuff and partying, she has done very well at holding two jobs in addition to keeping grades up.  On a related note, I told Suzie recently (I was having dreams of philanthropy) how--if I had the means--how cool it would be to send her son, Dane, to college.  He expressed and interest in going back to school.  He is a whiz at math, and Sue said he had always loved school.  I have to wonder:  How many millions of people in our country could have been "movers & shakers" if they had only had the opportunity for higher learning?

Let's talk health.  No, wait--let's talk about my lack of health.  Lately I have had itchy skin and it drives me crazy.  Small patches that itch below the skin.  At first I thought it was some sort of hives or something, but it won't go away.  Hot water seems to exacerbate it.  I have been thinking about going through the battery of allergy tests to see if anything has changed during aging.  I did it a few decades ago and wasn't allergic to anything then, but time changes people so who knows.  I keep putting it to the back of my mind because it was very painful and uncomfortable.  Also, I have been plagued with headaches for quite some time.  I've grown accustomed to that.  Although they are obviously a nuisance, I can usually alleviate the pain quickly with two Excedrin.  I keep wondering (and I've shared this with others) why those giant CAT-scan thingies or whatever they are still cost so much.  There is little or anything that anyone has to do unless you are going through a dye-injection/tracing procedure.  You lie down on the table and it rolls you into the machine and gives you a complete body scan.  The computerized machine is doing all the work, so why do they still cost so much?  They should be FREE for all of us just based on the amount of things they might detect before they might become a real life-threatening problem.  That's our health-care system for you.  Money talks.

Oh, my computer just reminded me:  Child support due today.  Sigh.

Ignorance and Mortality

What will I be remembered for when I'm gone?  How will I go?

Recent events been a kind of wake up call on my own mortality.  All around me are reminders that we are not as young as we used to be, and reminders that our health should not to be taken for granted.  Friends and relatives of mine are being cursed with failing bodies.

My dad is being treated for prostate cancer.  Will I get it?  Only time will tell.  My brother-in-law, Gary, just got out of the hospital after a heart attack.  Maybe he had a lifetime of making 'less than stellar' health choices, or maybe it was just that fact that he's always been a heavy smoker that reared its ugly head. I haven't done the best with my health either, but at least I quit smoking back in 1980.  Will I have a heart attack?  Who knows.  My mother's side of the family has had a few strokes in it's history.  Will that be my fate?  Recently, there have been more instances of friends from school dropping... The most recently last week.

I don't like where I'm at with my health, but yet I have trouble motivating myself.  You'd think that anything you could do to prolong your health (and ultimately your life) would be sufficient motivation wouldn't you?  Apparently not.  People hate to alter their routines.  We hate to change anything that might inconvenience us.  We all want to exercise because we know we're supposed to, but it's just so much work!

I had an issue with the vision in my left eye last weekend.  I started to see a little "halo" effect in that eye (kind of like when you look at a bright light and then see a spot afterward) and lost some of my peripheral vision.  Does it have anything to do with the headaches I always get behind my left eye?  Maybe, maybe not.  I certainly need to get it checked out.  I don't think I'd like to go through the rest of my life with an eye patch because of my ignorance. 

I have done things in excess a lot during my life.  It's a small streak of obsessive/compulsive behavior that I have.  I have always had times when I did things too much--be it too often, too long, or too intensely.  I've eaten myself sick, I've driven until I've fallen asleep, and I've worked myself way past when I should stop.  One time I went on an exercise regimen and physically hurt myself because I worked out 5 days in a row, each time to the point of muscle failure and collapsing with exhaustion.  There have been several times in my life when I have found it hard to stop doing something because I was "in the moment".

There have been lots of times in my life that I could have cared less whether I lived or died.  I think I just had a "what for?" attitude and didn't really care for where I was in my life.  Like I had taken the wrong road somewhere but the road I was was one way only.  Back at the end of my previous marriage I would go on rides on the Harley and would repeatedly find myself going way faster on it than I should have been.  Fast enough in highway curves that inertia would send it bottoming out in just the slightest dip.  I'm sure, based on the sound it made, that it sent a nice shower of sparks off whatever contacted the asphalt.  Not just once either.  For those not familiar with inertia, it takes a lot of speed to cause that.  All it would have taken was one little pebble or one misjudged curve.  I apparently had a lot of trust in my tires or was just ignorant.  I think I was just in a place in my life where I just flat didn't care.  That's not the case now.

It's kind of a cruel joke of life isn't it?  That when we are young and do everything wrong we survive.  We're practically invincible in our own minds.  When we made a bad decision it didn't matter too much because when we were young we healed quickly.  The cruel part is that now when we're older and start making conscious decisions to better ourselves everything starts to go wrong.  When we were young any pain, suffering, or death was 90% due to bad decisions we made and 10% due to outside circumstance beyond our control.  Now it's exactly the opposite.

I don't know if it's just me or not, but I find as I age, my physical activity/brain activity ratio as changed considerably.  It used to be I was very active and didn't ponder things or worry about things very much if at all.  Now I find myself not physically doing much, but my mind is sometimes going 1000 miles per hour.  I worry about things, ponder things, analyze things, and all sorts of other thought processes.  Maybe it's because of all that thought that I seek a sort of release by putting my words in this blog.

Worry?  Who me?  You betcha.

Too Many Thoughts

I'm sitting at a computer most of the day at work, and when thoughts occur to me I usually jot them down in a little text file using Windows Notepad.  You know how we have certain things that we load in our pockets each day when we leave for work?  When I was young I carried a pocketknife.  Things have changed: Now I carry a flash drive to work with me every day.  When I have these little epiphanies at work they end up on my flash drive so I can refer back to them.  I wrote this blog entry several months ago, but for whatever reason it fell through the cracks and I never got it posted.  I just "found" it again this morning.

Here's how it went:

I was lying in bed one morning not able to get back to sleep when the realization came to me.   (That is a time when many such troubling thoughts tend to wash over me.)  I guess you might say that my mind kind of runs away with every thought that surfaces when I'm trying to get back to sleep but cannot.

I seem to now possess a certain level of anxiety about things.  I used to pride myself on being able to resist worrying about anything.  "Relax," I'd tell myself, "it's nothing to worry about."  Over the years that became less and less accurate.  I'm sure I blogged it before, but I'm most definitely a worrier now.

But that isn't really what this is about.

I'm talking about a confusion of thoughts--Almost like multiple people talking at once. Many paths and possible outcomes of something. These are usually something that I shouldn't be concerned with in the first place.  At least not any more concerned other than just giving it passing mental glance.  I get frustrated at the swirling maelstrom of thoughts that are bombarding me and I just don't know where to start.  That's only part of the problem.  The other part of the problem is that sometimes there really isn't even a problem to address in the first place!

A good example of it was was back before Suzie and I were leaving on our vacation to Kauai back in September. (I jotted it down so I wouldn't forget it.)  As I recall it was still a few days before our departure, and there I was again--lying in bed a couple of hours before my alarm is due to go off--and my mind took off again:
What items should I take? Do I even own what I need? What luggage should I take?  Will I have enough room for all my stuff to fit in it?  What if my plane goes down in the ocean on my way home.  If I survive, I won't be able to save all my pictures or my camera or my laptop.  When I do come back by myself, what will I need to catch up on? Will Keith be there?  Will I have to feed both of us? What if he doesn't like what I make?  Does he even like me?  What if something happens to Suzie on her way home? Would I still want to stay here in this house? What would I do?  Where would I go?

See?  It just keeps escalating.

Looking at in in print makes it look ridiculous, but I assure you, it sometimes turns into a non-ending train of thought, with every worry leading to another.  The thing is, each of the questions I put down above more than likely had other questions in between them. 

I don't know what makes this come and go.  I just worry (See?  There I go again!) that it may get worse.  I'm pretty sure I won't be as bad as my dad because I'm already past the age when he got noticeably bad.  For some time now he hasn't been able to follow any real train of thought at all.  If you start talking to him he only hears a word or two in each sentence. I don't know if his mind is barely moving or going 100,000 miles an hour.  I don't want to get to that point, but like I said: I can see similarities.

I can recall one time in recent years when I really did feel helpless, and that actually was two incidents in one.  Both took place in Las Vegas when Sarah and I were on vacation a few years back. I literally cried out of frustration at one point.  I was overwhelmed with what I was facing because I couldn't come up with the answer when I needed to.  The only difference between what took place there and what could take place here in a similar situation during my day-to-day activities here was just one factor: I was in unfamiliar surroundings at the time.  I think it was that one factor that tipped my mental state over the edge.

I believe what happens in those situations is when a certain amount of things happen, my wall of anxiety goes up and blocks logical thought.  I guess you could almost call it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When that kind of stuff happens I want my mind to shut up and behave.

Weather-change Doldrums?

I feel like I'm floundering lately.  I guess it's the onset of winter, which is just on the horizon, that has me in a wishy-washy state of mind.

There is also the strange way my health rears its ugly head this time of year... Every year.  I get skin issues, strange swellings, aches & pains--You name it.  I've been having one thing after another for the last few weeks.  I'm going to attribute it to the weather change.  Our weather has been all over the map, but I don't have anything else to blame it on.  You know how it is:  When you have a lapse in the conversation you always bring up the weather.  Lately, I've been dealing with a swollen ankle and lower leg pain, and I did nothing to cause it.

It could just be age.

Before we went to Kauai I was going to order myself a new camera lens.  I had finally figured out what I wanted for my next foray into the photography world, and it was reasonably priced, but instead of buying then I opted to wait until we got back from our trip.  I only wanted to spread the bills and expenses out a little farther is all.  I'm pretty rational with money decisions.  I guess that's one of my good traits.  Anyway, I came back and was going to order the lens.  The calendar had finally put me past the billing date of my Visa card, and because I pay it in full every month it was "clean slate" time.  I went onto the website of my chosen retailer, and wouldn't you know it, they're a Jewish company.  So what?  Well, they had just shut the entire company down for a solid week to celebrate Succos apparently.  When they finally did reopen, guess what?  My lens was sold out and discontinued (it was not a recent model).  That sent me on a quest to find another source.  Everywhere I went it was the same thing:  Out of stock.  Discontinued.  I think I finally have it on the move though.  I guess I have located the last one in the world--Hopefully I'll get it.  All I can say is:  I'd better like the damn thing!

I also ordered myself a new camera bag the other day.  I don't know if the harrowing tumble down the freeway last summer when it fell off the Harley had anything to do with it, but it's falling apart.  The top zipper has a corner that no longer works.  Fortunately, it has a zipper at both ends so I can still zip it up from either end, stopping just short of the bad spot.  I have grown weary of the bag design anyway--It's just packed a little too tightly and I need a little more space.  We checked out a few at a store this weekend and I liked what I saw in a particular brand and style, so I let the web do the rest of the shopping research for me and chose one similar to the one we saw in person.  Same brand, different model.  WAY cheaper.

The "doomsday media" is constantly telling us here in the northwest that we're in for a winter that's colder and wetter than usual.  I don't know about the media.  Sometimes it's like it's driven by retailers.  A classic scenario is when they say something like, "...spokesmen say the price of gasoline may rise sharply in the near future because of..." then, lo & behold, it actually happens.  It's magic!  The media puppets can foresee the future!  Well, maybe this latest one is for all the sellers of firewood, tire chains, outerwear, and heating oil.  So what am I doing about it?  Well, besides the fact that I have us fairly well stocked up on firewood, nothing much.  One exception is that I am prowling around for a cheap, small Honda 3-wheeler for snow use.  I have found that they exist in relatively low demand--Partly because they're small and underpowered (they're only little 90cc or 110cc engines), and partly because the media went on a 3-wheeler "witch hunt" several years ago and actually got manufacturers to stop making them.  I know anything is dangerous in the hands of an idiot, but these little 3-wheelers I'm talking about are really, really fun in the snow, cheap to operate and practically indestructible.  I guess I should get myself fixed up with some tire chains for my car and/or truck too.  As much as I hate them, they're pretty necessary sometimes.

Well, that's enough for now.  Time to finish the coffee and get moving.

The Current State of Things

Time marches on.  Here it is--The last day of August.  In some ways it's like we've had a good summer, and in other ways we're still waiting for summer to show up.  Twisted...

Just call me the master of troubleshooting.  My car has been running crappy for a long time now.  Last night I finally fixed it.  The main problem?  Spark plugs!  I ended up replacing so many things, none of which cured it's major hesitation when you press the gas pedal.  I started thinking about it, and here's a list of the things I replaced, in order of replacement:  Air filter, both oxygen sensors (yes, it has two of them), crankshaft position sensor, throttle position sensor, fuel filter, spark plugs, and spark plug wires.  Ka-CHING!  The thing is, everything I replaced, with the exception of the throttle position sensor and air filter, improved it a little.  I'd say the sensor didn't need to be replaced at all, but pretty much everything else did.  What goaded me into action to begin with (the proverbial Straw that Broke the Camel's Back) was the fact that the car started randomly dying and misfiring.  That was the crankshaft position sensor.  When I changed the plugs last night, I was amazed at how burned they were.  The center electrode was so far gone that the gap had become wide enough that it's a wonder the spark jumped it at all.  During the changing of the plugs, two of the plug wires broke, so I had to add a set of those to the end of the list.  I've got an app on my iPod that I use to monitor everything about all the cars, including making it super easy to watch the gas consumption.  The last 3 times I've filled up have netted me 34 or 35 mpg, and that was running crappily (I love inventing words that should have existed all along)!  Now that it's running as it should, there are two mpg outcomes: Either the mileage will go up because the car needs less gas pedal and runs so much better, or I will be pressing the gas pedal and enjoying the power so much that the mileage will go down.  I'm predicting the latter scenario to begin with... Followed by the former.

My mom called the other night with news that she has a spot of cancer that was found during her gynecological exam.  She was hesitant to explain it fully, but from what I gathered it must be just inside her vaginal opening.  She's lucky she has an observant doc.  If memory serves me, she's going in specifically to have the spot checked or whatever they do today.  I'll get more information on that.  The last thing anybody needs in my family is my ill-health, crotchety, Jekyll & Hyde ol' man outliving my mother.  That would be tough to take.

Blogs, blogs, blogs.  If this one isn't enough, I went and added the 365 blog a while back.  Then I added the Leftovers blog a couple weeks ago to have a place to showcase pictures that I liked but didn't really have a place for.  Now I'm working on yet another blog!  This one will be to chronicle the ever-changing city of Auburn.  I got the idea while reading posts from fellow classmates on Facebook, many of which no longer live here.  A lot of things have changed about Auburn since we graduated in 1974, and a lot of things haven't, and my love for taking mediocre pictures is perfect for such a blog.  In my opinion, the city is being ruined by the current elected officials and their underlings, and it feels almost as if I need to get it all down while the city even exists.  I know it's not that bad, but at times it seems like it.

Now Rachyl and Tony are our new neighbors!  Tony outdid himself on his work ethic when it came down to working that house over before they moved in.  They did a huge amount of work, totally transforming the place.  It was almost as if they moved into a new house, freshly built!  This event touches many of us.  They have been living with Denny and Heather so long that little Hunter has literally had Rachyl as an in-house "parent" most the majority of his life.  Denny and Heather have never really had the house to themselves since they moved in until now.  Now they can both be regular "walk-around-the-house-in-your-underwear-if-you-want-to" folks.  Now they can rethink and revamp their whole house to suit their current needs and wants.  All the stuff that Rachyl and Tony own has been stored at Denny's house, Kevin's house, and our house (in the garage).  Now we all have our space back.  Since I've lived here the side of the garage that houses my stuff (Harley included) has been partly a storage unit.  Space was tight.  Now I can start transforming it into my space.

I'm looking forward to flying to Kauai with Suz next week!  I really need a vacation, and what better place to visit when we've had such an "iffy" summer than Hawaii right?

The Old Ol' Man

It's kind of strange when people get old.  It's happens so slightly and incrementally that in many cases we don't even notice it.  I think the "buzz word" I've mentioned before that my boss likes to use applies here so I'll mention it again:  Incrementalism.  At some time the realization hits you right in the face:  Wow, [insert scenario here] has really changed!

So why am I bringing this up?

I was over at my parents house yesterday.  I stopped in to "fix" his computer.  What I stopped in to fix was very typical of what I usually stop in for:  Something stupid.  This time it was him all upset because he couldn't figure out why his Windows toolbar was at the top of the screen instead of the bottom.  If you know anything about computers you know that it's really nothing.  All you have to do is drag it around and you can put it anywhere you want.  The trouble this time was his mouse.  He had a "garage sale" mouse (it looked like a skull) hooked to his computer, and it was a total piece of crap.  If it was anyone else I would have stopped right there and said, "WTF is this?  I can't help you until you find me a mouse that works."  Not so with my dad... He is very easily offended so I just put up with it.

So what am I talking about this time?  Dad's health.

It's no surprise that he's done nothing right with his health all his life.  Until recent times he has smoked.  That's at least 50 years of smoking--Most of those using non-filter cigarettes (which probably doesn't really matter).  In recent history he found out he has emphysema.  Funny thing--He wasn't actually diagnosed... Instead, he was in the doctor for shortness of breath (last year I think it was) and the doctor, making some sort of offhand remark, said something like, "Well, your emphysema isn't helping anything."  Say what?  Until that time no doctor had even mentioned emphysema.  In other words, he didn't even know he had it.  I'm sure he was diagnosed with it at one time because it was in his file, but apparently the doctor failed to tell him.  Nice, eh?  Anyway I think it's safe to say his health has been deteriorating.

Until yesterday, it hadn't really hit me how much though.

I had just gotten there and was in their entry hallway and mom says, "Look at your dad's face."  I looked at him in that bad light and I saw a very bad-looking, gray-skinned old man.  I was kind of shocked.  Before I could say anything, she said to him, "Move your glasses." and to me, "Look at his eye."  He raised his glasses and showed me a nice black eye.  Apparently he had fallen that morning after getting out of bed.  I mean right after getting out of bed.  He hadn't made it 6 feet.  I guess he conked himself on something because she said he bled too.  From what I could see looking at his eye it didn't surprise me. I was just glad that she added the "look at his eye" comment when she did because I might have said something about how crappy he looked.  He has aged a lot in the last couple of years.

I told Suzie last night when we were sitting in the hot tub talking about stuff that maybe it's time I started working on a eulogy for him just in case.  I'm not saying he's going anytime soon, but he just seems like the obvious "next" one to go.  History dictates however, that it's rarely the expected one... I figure that even if there's no ceremony and I never use it, I can still put it on here as a blog post.

But that's future... Let's hope it's not too soon.

Life in Slow Motion

I hate having to come to grips with the fact that my age now seems to dictate that I do everything in slow motion.  I have to act with careful and deliberate movements.

The latest thing?  I have to eat slow.  I'm already not a "wolfer" because I like to savor my food, but I do tend to do some serious power chewing (now watch it become a sport at the next summer Olympics).  At least I did.  Monday I apparently blew a mandible (like throwing a rod for you car people).  I was just eating pizza at Round Table with Suzie and something happened... I believe I dislocated my jaw or a  tendon went the wrong way.  Whatever actually happened, the result is the same:  I was frozen with a mouth full of food and eyes tearing  up.  It was very painful.  Fortunately I was almost finished with my meal, because that ended it regardless.  Even now my teeth don't mesh together right yet, but it's better.  If I eat slowly I get by, but I have to use my right side.  Now, as an act of self-preservation, I have to learn to eat differently to avoid a recurrence.

When I get up in the morning, I have to stand for a moment.  I stretch, flex, and generally give my body a moment to come to grips with being vertical instead of horizontal.  I have learned that if I don't do that I run the risk of hurting the tops of my feet (metatarsal?) if I walk immediately after getting out of bed.  It can take hours to go away if I do that.  If I stand for a bit and get blood moving the right direction I have no problem.  However, if the house ever catches fire my feet are gonna hurt because I'm going to boogie.

I've been blessed with bad cartilage.  I've dislocated both knees several times.  Fortunately, only the first time each of them blew was bad--Complete with major swelling and a week of recovery time.  Now if it happens it's more like instant pain/voltage followed soon after by a flood of warmth as the pain ebbs.  What that means is I have to move carefully when I step backwards down from things.  If my foot slips or my lower leg turns slightly wrong when the weight is going onto my knee the results can be pretty bad.  Now I get in and out of the shower slowly and deliberately.  One thing I don't want to do is slip or have a knee failure and end up taking shower doors with me as I head for the floor.  Could be messy.

I even have to brush my teeth more slowly and deliberately, but it's more because I'm reckless than losing ability.  I've actually had the brush (with my hand powering it of course) skim outta the side of my mouth and across my cheek.  It makes a mess and sometimes hurts too.  I know I've had slippage cause bleeding gums before also.  Now that I think of it, I have to shave more slowly too... Maybe I'm just careless with my personal grooming?

I keep seeing this looming in the inevitable future:

I've basically gotten to the point where I have to do all things slowly and with deliberation.  I don't like that.  I know it's good to think before you act, but it's a weird thing when you can't trust your body any more.

It seems like it will fail me at any time with no notice.

Glad it's Over

The weekend that is--I'm glad it's behind me. For one reason or another it was just a crappy weekend.

Health was the biggest part of it. I detected the impending ill health as early as Wednesday, and by Thanksgiving a sporadic cough had developed. By the time Friday arrived I had the "full meal deal" of flu. Yes, again. I spend much of the day wrapped tightly and zombielike, dozing in and out of reality in my recliner in front of a hot-burning wood fire. I had pain, fever, cough, and kind of drifted in and out of reality. Anyway, I was much better the next day and even yesterday, but still the persistent cough nags me and those around me.

Thanksgiving Day went okay. Nothing really went wrong that is. It was a little fragmented though, having attended my parents' dinner without Suzie. I took Sarah, but she left after an hour or so--Picked up by her mom to attend a celebration at someone else's house. When I left my parents' house, I drove to Kevin and Shirley's house where Sue had spent hours with other members of her family. She was ready to go when I got there so basically I got there pretty much in time to leave.

As far as Thanksgiving went, we both felt pretty much the same: The events went well enough.

During one instance of drug-enhanced near-clarity on Friday I drove us into Covington so Sue could check the leftovers at a Black Friday sale. A few stops here and there netted nothing, but at least the traffic was nil. It appeared that everyone had gotten in and out early because it was almost pleasurable to drive around during mid-afternoon.

It seems fitting that I finished off the bad weekend by making a verbal misstep that put me in the doghouse with Suzie yesterday. Sometimes a slight thing said or taken the wrong way can have a huge effect, and this was a good example of that. When the damage is done, it's not easily undone. You can't just take things back and have things be all better. I can still taste my foot.

So, back to the weekend report: Although there were a few little bright spots, the overall rating is thumbs down. I might as well go to work today so I can collect my measly, 32-hour paycheck. Yes, as if being sick all day on Friday wasn't bad enough, it was also an unpaid day off.

Pain & Surprise

That's what I felt today at lunchtime. I was just sitting there as I always do--Wolfing my sandwich in my reclining easy chair upstairs while playing solitaire on my iPod. I was on the last bite of my sandwich when...

CRUNCH!!

It wasn't an ordinary crunch. It was a crunch laced with pain. It was also a very deafening crunch. I spit my last partially-chewed bite (ewww!) back into the ziplock bag and carefully examined it. I was hoping to find one of those "bits" that inadvertently make it through the manufacturing process and end up in lunch meats occasionally. While I was doing that, my tongue was gingerly running over my teeth. Nothing seemed amiss, but in my mind I somehow knew the answer to what it was, and I was right. While all my teeth seemed intact, they were most definitely not so. I had literally split one of them down the middle.

While I was lucky I wasn't in pain afterward, it was most definitely a place in my mouth to avoid touching. If my tongue hit it the wrong way it would move considerably. I was upset. It's bad enough to have to deal with bad teeth all your life, and perhaps a bad checkup (the kind where they hand you a list of things wrong). Those are things you schedule in to get them done. This was not something I could put off obviously. What made it worse (in my little bitty mind anyway) was that I was hoping to find a new dentist because I was having doubts about my old one. Well, to find a new dentist you have to look right? I never did that part... Anyway, after a few phone calls (I had a list of insurance-approved dentists) netted me nil, I sighed and went to my "old" one after work.

The bottom line? The base seems intact enough, so they measured me for a crown. Now I'm wearing a temporary. Dinner tonight was less than pain-free, but it's still kinda soon to tell. It's over two weeks before the real (read that EXPENSIVE) crown is finished. I had a very uncomfortable visit to the dentist this time. Usually I'm fine with them but not this time. I was angry, uneasy, and nervously awaiting inevitable bad news I guess. That's the emotional difference between being proactive and reactive.

So what else is new? Nothing earth-shattering. It's getting cold and we want our woodstove to be finished and operational. It's close--VERY close. We're hoping this weekend will finish it up. We're down to the dreaded "cut-a-hole-in-the-perfectly-good-roof" stage.

I would bite my fingernails in mock nervousness, but it's still too tender.

Looking Forward

Well, I've been a lot more upbeat since my last blog post. 'Course, that's not saying much--My last blog post was pretty dark.

It seems that right after I made the last post I discovered that I was getting sick with a cold. Sue and I both wondered how much that may have played into the way I was feeling. I just ended up getting a minor cold and I'm almost back up to snuff already. What's weird is that since the actual physical symptoms have manifested themselves I've been in a pretty good frame of mind.

I spent a little time off and on working a little extra into my photography page of my website since this weekend. The casual observer wouldn't notice much of a change (if any) but I spent some time doing a little thing about my photography beginnings. It was kinda fun because I got to do some digging to find out what I could about my first digital camera back in the early 90's.

Sarah is in the throes of splitting hers and her boyfriends' lives up. Not for good, but they are going to different colleges, so it's going to be pretty weird for them. She will be in Tacoma at PLU and he is going to the other side of the state, to WSU at Pullman. She has expressed an interest in going on another hike with me and Suzie too--Most likely for photography reasons. She mentioned an interesting thing to us last week about doing a photography "project" where we go out and search and photograph things that look like the letters of the alphabet. You know--Things you see, like shapes, lines, outlines, etc. No fair using actual letters. We haven't decided on whether or not to do it yet because it would be more of a long-term thing. There's no way a person will be able to go out on one photo junket and find something to represent all 26 letters of the alphabet. I predict that it will not happen anytime soon anyway because she will be starting school soon and her time will be well filled with other things. Sue and I are interested in the idea though, and thanks to Sarah for planting the seed. Time will tell.

I'm sitting here all alone in our house, and I'll sleep here alone tonight for the first time. Suz and half of her family members went camping today, and the rest of us (some of us had less flexible work schedules) will go up tomorrow. She has been touting this place for a long, long time and she is very excited to be able to go back again. My enthusiasm is less than hers though because the history is with her and her family. They had the special times and the memories. They and Lily Lake have history. Now granted--I'm sure this will be a good camping place--But for me it will probably just be a good camping place. I have been trying to "mute" it a little in my mind when she starts telling me a good anecdote of one of their previous visits. I have kind a of a little "rule" I use for such things that are highly touted, and I'm sure I've mentioned it in at least one blog post somewhere in my past. I was referring to garage sales, but it applies to a lot of things. The rule? "The flashier the sign, or the more abundant the signs, the worse the sale is." I don't want to get my hopes up... I want to just be able to form my own opinions and things. I guess it's just my skeptical nature. All I know is that I am going with an open mind and fully intend to have a great time. I like camping and it's been a long time since I've been last. I truly hope I love the place as much as they all do!