LUMBERJACK
SUDDENLY THE OLD URGE TO BE A LUMBERJACK CAME UPON THE MILD MANNERED COMPUTER PROGRAMMER AGAIN.
(Originally posted on the website Heron Flight)
IT ONLY TOOK FIVE HOURS
(Originally posted on the website Heron Flight)
Joel wrecked his knee. He was playing tackle football, got plowed to the ground, and his right leg was forced straight out and over extended. Most likely he has torn ligaments in the back of his knee.
We had an appointment with the doctor at 6:30 PM. We left home at 5:30, picked up Joel and headed to the doctor’s office. Joel and I were only with the doctor a few minutes. He basically told us that we needed to go to the emergency room and sort of laughed at us for not doing so in the first place. I told him that our insurance has changed and it costs much more for an emergency room visit. I asked if he could just give us an order for an x-ray and then he could treat Joel. He laughed again and said, “No!” You can bet your sweet bippies that we won’t be going back to that guy ever.
We drove from the doctor’s office to the hospital near our house. The place was packed with sick and dying folk. So we had to wait a little bit. But once taken into a room, the staff took care of Joel fairly quickly.
The worst part of tonight’s ordeal was that Joel was experiencing considerable pain. Every bump in the car caused him to wince. Every jostle of the wheel chair going into the hospital made him moan. Getting him out of the wheel chair and onto the x-ray table was torturous to him.
To make matters even worse, we had a nurse named Enrique who had no patience whatsoever. He was grumpy and extremely hard to understand when he spoke. It sounded like he had a three-day-old piece of rubberized sausage shoved down under his bottom lip. I just about pummeled the guy when he impatiently and roughly pulled Joel up further in the bed when the poor kid was painfully doing his best to move. Lucky for Enrique that a very patient female nurse came in to assist Joel.
The doctor on duty was cool. He took his time with Joel and explained things clearly to us. He was thorough. He saw a mysterious line just below Joel’s knee on the x-ray. So he sent Joel back to have his good knee x-rayed for comparison. That was a good call. There was no line on the good knee. That line turned out to be a small fracture.
Yes, Joel hurt himself pretty good this time! Tomorrow we need to have an MRI done on his knee. Then we have to see the specialist. Hopefully he won’t need surgery.
NEITHER RAIN, NOR SLEET, NOR THE LACK OF A STAGE
(Originally posted on the website Heron Flight)
Thunderstorms plus electric guitars and amps sounds like a mighty dangerous combination! Wasn’t it Jimmy Page who was nearly electrocuted at a rainy outdoor concert back in the 70s? All the sparks and high voltage might make for a great stage show. But only once! If the mighty Led Zeppelin cancelled the show, should we take the chance?
We were scheduled to play in Princeton, NJ at 12:15 PM on Saturday. I woke at 6 AM and could not lay still. I was too excited. So I decided to beat the weather and load the drums in the car early. It was drizzling by 6:30. By 7:00 it was pouring! According to weather.com, there was a 90% chance of rain and thunderstorms for the Princeton area on Saturday afternoon. Most of the week prior had been perfectly sunny. It was disappointing that it was raining on Saturday.
However, I said that if there was a 90% chance of rain then that meant that there was a 10% chance of sunshine! 10% is a significant margin of possibility! It is ten times more than 1%. If we focused on the 10% we just might have a 100% good day!
And so we did!
My friends Landon McDonald and Oran Minikus had the opportunity of playing with Angela Clerico for this show in Princeton. The three of us had been playing together at the beginning of the year. I worked with Angela on some of her original music last summer. She recently got in touch to ask if I had any interest of doing studio drumming for her. I said, “Sure!” and told her of Landon and Oran. At the beginning of April, Angela told me that she was invited to play at Princeton’s “Communiversity Day.” She asked if the guys would be interested in playing several songs as a band with her. I said, “Universal Commie Day? Sure!”
All social agendas aside, we were able to pull together six songs for the show. We did “Moondance” by Van Morrison, “Hard Day’s Night” by the Beatles, “You Wreck Me” by Tom Petty, and three of Angela’s original songs (which are damn friggin’ good!). We received good applause after each song, applause that was almost loud enough to drown out the shouts of the guy hawking his kettlecorn nearby.
Here’s a video of Angela’s song “Hit the Road.”
It did not rain at all while we were in Princeton. That is a good thing because we were forced to set up directly on the pavement on Witherspoon Street. We arrived early and waited for nearly two hours for the stage guys to come and set up the stage. Instead, at noon, 15 minutes before show time, the canopy guys hopped out of a truck and set up… no, not a stage… a canopy, of course. They anchored that sucker down and told us to go ahead and set up. If you look closely at the picture above, you will see that just to the right of the guitar case in front of my drum set is something that closely resembles a manhole cover. Funny thing! It IS a manhole cover! What a great disappearing trick that would make for a stage show if Angela suddenly dropped down into that thing! But that could be a risk worse than the possibility of electrocution. Only God knows what lurks in the sewer ways beneath the streets of New Jersey!
All things considered, we had a great time playing in Princeton. It was a lot of fun. I think my 10% theory paid off. The sun came out later in the afternoon. We all had lunch together. We bought bags of kettlecorn, the quality of which definitely legitimized the hawking. The booths were interesting, especially the one where you could put complaints about the president on Post-It notes and stick them to a representation of Dubbya. But that’s a song to sing at another time.
IT’S NOT A TUMOR!
(Originally posted on the website Heron Flight)
“I’ll take Annoying Lung Diseases for $500, Alex.”
“This pain in the bronchial tubes can make you out of breath while merely talking, make you cough like a dying hyena while laughing, and make you feel like your 400 pound Aunt Gertha is sitting on your chest.”
“What is ASTHMA?”
“Oh! Right you are! Choose again.”
“Could I have Less Than Exciting Experiences for $100, please?”
“This Less Than Exciting Experience involves having sensors attached to your scalp, chest, legs, and a breathing monitor around your mid-section while spending the night in a place other than your own bedroom.”
“What is a sleep study at the medical center?”
“That is correct!”
The best part of knowing for sure that my breathing ailments are due to asthma is the relief that they are not caused by something more serious. It’s not a tumor! It’s merely constricted airways.
The worst part of knowing that I have asthma is… having asthma! What a pain in the chest! It’s annoying. It’s aggravating. It’s every other negative word that starts with “A” that I can’t think of right now. At times I get out of breath while having a conversation. Other times I am huffing and puffing just from walking from one side of the office to the other. Look out if I break out in an unexpected laugh! I can start coughing and gagging fiercely enough that you would be convinced that at any second my left lung was going to launch out of my mouth and bonk you in the forehead!
However, in addition to the relief which knowledge brings, learning what triggers asthma and what I can do to avoid it is a good thing. For instance, I did not know that sulfites may cause asthma trouble. Even one glass of wine with sulfites can do it. Also, acid reflux aggravates asthma symptoms. Several months ago, I discovered that I have a minor reflux problem. Treating this and avoiding the foods that cause digestive upsets will in turn help my asthma.
In addition, the doctor believes I am suffering from sleep apnea. It’s connected with the asthma. I sometimes stop breathing in my sleep, not as long as I’m sure my ex-wife would like, but it happens once in a while. Typically, I don’t snore. Lately, with increased asthma symptoms, I have been snoring a bit. I do wake up with mild asthma attacks some nights. Because of all this, the doctor wants me to spend a night in the sleep center at the hospital. How wonderful! Geesh.
I may not be a game show champion. But at least I won knowledge, relief, and proper treatment. Those are pretty nifty consolation prizes.
OUR FAVORITE PLACE
(Originally posted on the website Heron Flight)
What a beautiful day day in New Jersey today! Just gorgeous! There wasn’t a cloud in the sky all day. It was warm enough to wear short sleeves all day. It was a perfect day to go to our favorite place, Crater Lake.
The lake is one of the most peaceful and easily accessible places. Though it is 40 miles from home, the last two of which are made of gravel and spotted with huge puddles, it is worth the drive. Driving my tiny red car through the puddles at riskily high speeds certainly makes up for the tediousness of riding an hour to get there. The lake is mere yards from the parking area and the place is never crowded.
Hannah and Maddy were asking to go to Crater Lake this week. I kept saying it wasn’t worth going because it’s not warm enough to swim yet. However, Arissa mentioned it this morning and pointed out that the weather was just right for the trip. I think she was curious to see why the girls were so eager to go there. So, off we went.
None of us were disappointed with our time at the lake. Well, Maddy might have been for a short time when we went for a walk around the lake. She became tired. Tiredness brought on whining. Whining led to crying. Slipping and scraping her leg did not help. But after I carried her on my shoulders for a while, she was chipper as ever. Then we skipped stones on the water, sang silly songs and hooted and hollered just to hear our voices echo in the hills.
Today was also the girls’ first fishing experience. We bought fishing rods for them before we went to the lake. With basic fishing tackle of hooks, bobbers, sinkers, and salmon eggs, the girls were all set to reel in some big ones. Unfortunately, they didn’t catch anything. They saw quite a few sunfish, which nibbled their bait off the hooks without so much as the slightest of bob from the bobbers. They were disappointed. But I explained that fishing requires much patience. It is great thinking time, quiet time. They didn’t want to hear it. So, after an hour of trying, they gave up and fed Doritos to the fish that came swarming for the hand-outs.
It was a peaceful day today. It reminded me that I need to go to the quiet more often.