I’m not particularly great at taking pictures on the first try, either.
I used to be a pretty manly man (and by that, I mean reasonably, not attractive). Even back when I was a scrawny little kid, I did a lot of hard physical labor on our tree farm. My brother David and I started out hoeing weeds and picking up rocks all day in the hot summer sun before we were 10. There’s a picture of the two of us pulling a hand plow with a rope; and not just along the ground, but with my dad driving the tines into the ground to break up this damned hard Indiana clay. As we grew, we progressed to harder and harder work – digging trees, carrying them, planting them, landscaping, etc., pretty much all by hand.
In high school, I proved I could take a beating by joining the football team as a 4’11”, 98-pound freshman. My coach was so offended by this, that he enjoyed putting me in tackling drills with the seniors. I ate a lot of dirt (a LOT), but I always got back up – if for no other reason than to piss him off. Fortunately, the next summer, I had a growth spurt, and ended up a respectable size.
In the Air Force, especially in the first 10 years, there was a lot of heavy lifting and carrying: 30- pound parachutes (always at least two at a time, but my record was nine, if I recall correctly – and if I don’t, just let me have this one OKAY? – carried up two flights of stairs – there were a bunch of us young guys, all trying to outdo each other), survival kits, 200-pound liferafts, etc.
Me and some other manly Air Force friends, tent city, Incirlik AB, Turkey, circa 1994? I’m the good-looking one.
After I retired from the Air Force, I spent some time working at a local sporting goods store, where I was pretty much the heavy-shit mover: big gun safes, exercise equipment, free-weight sets, etc. Of course, even that was 10 or 15 years ago, and I did it a lot slower, and had to take a lot more breaks.
Anyway, I realize that may all sound like bragging (and yeah, there is a bit of that), but the point is that I might not have been the biggest, or the best, the meanest, or even the strongest, but when it came to basic toughness and manly-man-ness, I could at least hold my own.
Naturally, as I got older (and fatter), I’m not able to do nearly as much physically – it happens. I blame some of that on the fact that I basically abused my back, arms, legs, and joints (I find that, when referring to self-abuse, it pays to be specific) so badly that I kind of burnt out the warranty (Oddly enough, my brain doesn’t seem to be nearly as worn out – you can draw your own conclusions about that).
Anyway, the point of all this is that, although I’m not nearly as strong or tough or manly as I used to be, I still felt reasonably confident in my status as an at least mildly, manly man. At least I felt my man card was still valid. Until today . . .
A week or two ago, I noticed that one of the tires on my truck was low, so I filled it up with my air compressor (a manly man just has stuff like that). A few days ago, that same tire was low again, so I decided I’d go ahead and change it soon.
I should mention, at this point, that my wife, the lovely, talented, and much (MUCH!!!) wiser Jess, had suggested I just take it in to a shop to have it done: a suggestion that I frankly found unkind and offensive. What kind of manly man worthy of the title does that?
I didn’t have much to do today, so this morning, I put my big-boy pants on and went out to tackle the job. I will admit that I’ve never been particularly quick at changing tires (my dad, who was the manliest manly man I’ve ever known could have shown the dad in A Christmas Story a thing or two about changing a tire quickly), but I’ve certainly changed my share of tires over the years.
I got off to a good start: I knew exactly where the jack was, all the pieces were there, I managed to get it placed, and got the truck jacked up within a few minutes. I got the lug nuts off without difficulty, and then reality just sucker-punched me right between the eyes.
I couldn’t get the damned tire off. It’s like it was welded to the drum (or hub, or whatever. I’m not a car guy). I beat on it, kicked it, cursed it, got a heavy mallet and block of wood, crawled under the truck and beat the tar out of it, cursed it vehemently, lowered it off the jack, drove it back and forth a bit, popping the clutch, jacked it back up, and it still wouldn’t come off. I even sank so low as to rap a heavy-duty ratchet strap (what other kind would a manly man have?) around the wheel, hooked it to my front porch, and tried to winch it off, along with more kicking, hammering, and cursing, all to no avail. I even sank so low as to search YouTube for videos on how to unstick it. I found some, but they weren’t anything I hadn’t already tried. That mother was stuck.
Finally, I realized I’d wasted two hours on a job that should have taken about 30 minutes, tops, and it was time to concede defeat. I swallowed my pride, put half the lug nuts back on, and drove it to All Around Auto, in Fountain City, where I explained my plight to the two young fellas working there.
Incredibly, they listened to me without a single smile or smirk (a level of professionalism I respect!). Out they came with a huge rubber mallet, jacked up the truck, and knocked that stupid wheel off with one stinking blow. Then they popped the new one on and had me on my way in under 10 minutes total. Honestly, I can’t recommend All Around Auto in Fountain City enough. They’ve always bent over backwards to keep my much-abused vehicles rode-worthy. If you’re in the Richmond, IN area, you should give them a try.
Anyway, I drove home considerably humbled. I tried telling myself I was still a manly man, but I just couldn’t sell it. I told myself that at least I was still a man, but I’ve gotta say, I’m not so sure anymore. Think I’m gonna have to give up my man card. I’m hoping I qualify for an old-man card (for those wise enough to realize when they’re in over their heads, no matter what they used to be able to do, and ask for help).
How I felt when it was over.
Think I’ll have to check with some of my older friends at church to see if I qualify (and to find out if it comes with any discounts). ‘Til then, I guess I’ll just have to make do with the lovely and talented Jess’ sympathy and reassurance (which, honestly, would be a lot easier if if weren’t so obvious she’s doing it ironically – in addition to being lovely, talented, wise, and loving, she also has a propensity for hilarious cruelty). I’m a lucky guy.
Anyway, enjoy this clip from the Red Green Show about how Red (an unarguably manly man) changes a tire:
Those of you keeping score at home know that lately I’ve been having even more trouble with technology since I had to get a new phone. It hasn’t really gotten any better.
This time however, I’m not whining about how I can’t answer my phone, or how I can’t do this or that with my phone, I’m whining because I frequently refuse to carry my phone, and it turns out that’s not great either.
Every Sunday, I leave my phone at home when we go to church. I consider it my one day of freedom from the electronic leash (plus, my ringer is set really loud, and I don’t think that a robocaller triggering “Slaughter on 10th Avenue in the middle of church would go over particularly well). Also, don’t even get me started on trying to figure out how to turn the volume down. I’ve got enough trouble.
Anyway, a couple Sundays ago, the lovely and talented Jess and I, along with our normal Sunday lunch buddies, Steve and Dot Bickerson, went to our customary Sunday lunch spot, a local diner (not to name names, but it’s got a large, wavy-haired, fat kid in front) where I proceeded to order my customary Sunday lunch – the pork tenderloin, no tomato, with fries and coleslaw. I can’t remember what anyone else had, but honestly it’s not really all that important.
It is commonly known in our small circle of friends (and after this story, our circle may contract even more), that although we really enjoy eating there, the fat boy’s food doesn’t always agree with either of us. It’s not his fault really, nothing we eat agrees with us. We both live in a constant state of digestive crisis. Fortunately, we do like to live dangerously.
On this particular occasion, the food hit me even faster and harder than normal. With no time to even excuse myself, I got up and walked as quickly as it’s possible to walk with your entire body clenched from the jaw down, praying the whole while that the bathroom would be empty.
A dramatic recreation of this traumatic incident.
My luck was in and the bathroom was deserted. I closed myself in the stall, and took care of business (and let me take a moment to mention my gratitude to the laws that mandate those safety bars in public bathrooms. Sometimes it’s good to be able to brace yourself). After the accompanying sigh/groan of relief and a moment of self-congratulation about having the fortitude and kung fu grip needed to make it to the facilities, I’ve got to say, I was feeling pretty good about things. Sadly, that good feeling was too good to last.
If I might digress a moment (and honestly, who’s gonna stop me?), I’d really like to know what jackass designs handicapped bathroom stalls. I mean, come on man, you’re designing this thing for people whose mobility and physical capabilities are already limited in some way. So why in the name of all that’s holy, would you put the toilet paper dispenser UNDER THE DAMNED GRAB BARS?!!!!! It’s not like the wall ABOVE the rails is so cluttered up with stuff that there’s no room for it.
Seriously, can you imagine having to lean over far enough to reach your hand up into a dispenser lower than your knees if your legs don’t work? It’s hard enough to do with more or less fully-functioning legs. It just ain’t right.
It’s also waaaaaay less right when you go through all that only to find out that there’s no toilet paper, which is what happened to me on this particular occasion. I’ve gotta say, the fat boy really lost some points with me that day.
So there I sat, my forehead still damp with a cold sweat, fruitlessly sliding the little door on the dispenser back and forth, as if a roll was hiding in there somewhere, or would magically appear if I really believed hard enough. It didn’t.
Still, I’m not one prone to panic. I know that I can’t be the only one who is adversely and drastically affected by the fat boy’s food. Sooner or later, I told myself, someone will come in whom I can ask for help, so I settled in to wait.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, somebody came in and bellied up to the urinal, just outside the stall. Being the considerate guy I am, I waited to try to get his attention until he got to that sweet spot between flushing and washing hands to say “Excuse me? Hey? Excuse me?!”
“You talking to me?”
Like there was anyone else in there. “Yeah, uh, I was wondering if you could do me a favor?”
“Maybe?” He sounded a little nervous (as one would, I suppose).
“There’s no toilet paper in here.” I waited for him to stop laughing, then said, “I was hoping you could tell one of the employees?”
“Yeah man, no problem,” and he left.
I waited. I waited some more. Then, for a change, I tried waiting. I was beginning to doubt that my new friend had actually told someone about it. As I sat there with my legs going numb, I could hear the sound of happy families enjoying their meals. I could even – and this part is absolutely true – hear the lovely and talented Jess laughing (she has a hearty laugh that really carries. It’s just one of the many things I love about her) as she and Steve and Dot visited. It sounded like they were having a really good time. It was also like she didn’t even know I was gone.
I thought that surely enough time had passed that she’d come to check on me, or at least send Steve. I was wrong. I actually started thinking about just yelling for help, but I was really hoping to get out of this with at least some dignity. I found myself wishing there were some sort of device, a personal communicator if you will, that I could carry in my pocket and would enable me to contact Jess and let her know of my predicament.
And then, I remembered – my phone! I could just call her – that is, if only it wasn’t sitting on the printer back at my house. Of course, there’s no guarantee that it would have worked anyway; the lovely and talented but frequently uncommunicative Jess is notorious for not answering her phone (at least when I call).
Still, I could at least have left a voicemail, or as a last resort, texted her. Those probably wouldn’t have worked either – She is just as technologically unsavvy as I am, and has no idea how to check either her voicemail or messages. Still, at least there would have been something with which to make her feel guilty about later (althought she doesn’t really do guilt, either).
At any rate, after sitting there for what seemed like hours, but was probably more like only 10-15 minutes, another guy came in, and I went through the previous exchange all over again. This guy however, actually went and got help, and a few minutes later, a roll of toilet paper slid into the stall. Thank God.
Ironically, as I was finally leaving the bathroom, I met Steve coming to check on me. We went back to the table where I told them about the whole ordeal. They laughed and laughed. Steve and Dot eventually stopped laughing, but Jess was still laughing all the way home.
I take some comfort in the fact that there are probably few husbands who make their wives laugh that hard or that often. She’s a lucky woman. Just the same, I’m going to start taking my phone to church from now on.
Stupid technology. Can’t live with it, and apparently can’t live without it either.
It’s no secret that I both hate and fear technology but, like most of you, I find myself forced (okay, that might be a little strong – maybe begrudgingly caving in) to use it. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I recently had to upgrade to one of those smartphones.
It was not an easy transition. It still isn’t. Still, I suppose there are some benefits to it. It’s kinda handy to have when we’re watching tv, and there’s an actor/actress that I know I’ve seen before, but can’t remember where, I can IMDB ’em and stop aggravating myself about it. And yes, I know a simpler, low-tech solution is to just stop being so obsessive-compulsive about trivial things. Like that’s gonna happen.
Another thing I do like about it is being able to have different ringtones for some people. I’ve got Mick Ronson’s “Solo on 10th Avenue (Live)” set as my default ringtone. I can’t help it, I think it’s a great instrumental, and it really freaks out the kids in the writing center when my phone rings.
Photo from thisdayinmusic.com You probably know him from his work with David Bowie, Mick Ronson, and Mott the Hoople. Great stuff.
It only took me about a week to figure out how to get it from my computer onto my phone, but I did it. I was pretty proud of myself (much like when a toddler actually learns to get a spoon into his mouth with food still on it).
I like to have a different ringtone for some people, especially the lovely and talented Jess. I thought that since she’s the source of most of the joy in my life (and yes, I AM that romantic. Sorry ladies, I’m taken), Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9* would be the most appropriate (you may be familiar with it as “Ode To Joy”).
Photo from Classicfm.com. I’m also pretty sure that Beethoven looks less grumpy here than I did trying to turn him into a ringtone.
First, I thought, there’s probably an app for that. Apparently there are about 1,000,000,000 apps for that, but after about two hours fumbling around on my phone downloading and deleting and cursing and quitting and trying again, I thought, “Screw it, I’ll just make my own. It can’t be that difficult, right?” Hahahahahahahahahahaha
The first thing (obviously) was to get the Symphony. I’ve got it on cd, but those are all in a box in the attic, and if I recall correctly, my disc got ruined, probably from a combination of beer spilled on it and being dropped on gravel too many times (it’s a long story, but I ruined a lot of cds that way back in the day).
Fortunately, I had mastered downloading music from Itunes years ago. The problem there was finding the right version (there are about 1,000 different versions on Itunes, from different orchestras, composers, etc., and did I mention I might be a little OCD?)
Finally, I settled on the 1968 London Philharmonic version (honestly, I don’t even really know why). I got it downloaded, and thought I had it in the bag.
However, since it’s about an hour-and-a-half long, I thought that might be excessive. Surely, I thought, there’s a way to get just an excerpt (of course it has to be the right excerpt).
I decided I needed an audio editor (I may have one on the computer already, but damned if I could figure it out). Fortunately, I have also mastered the Googling. I googled “free audio editor”, and got waaaaaay too many links.
After another couple hours of self-torture, I finally decided on one and successfully downloaded it. I figured out how to copy the right track into the program, and I really thought I had it whupped. I was wrong.
At roughly the same time that I realized I had no idea how to work the program, I also discovered that neither the program nor the website had any kind of instructions, FAQ’s, or anything helpful (and I picked this one because all the reviews from computer wonks said it was sooooooo easy to use. Freakin’ computer wonks).
By the way, don’t you love it when writers think that EVERY aspect of their activities are so fascinating that that they must be documented in excruciating detail? I don’t know if every writer has an inner narcissist fighting to get out, but I’m pretty sure this one does. My apologies.
Anyhoo, the remaining details are (fortunately for you) pretty fuzzy, even to me. I ended up fumbling around and ended up with about a dozen versions of the same edit, in various formats. I just couldn’t manage to move any of them onto my phone.
I finally managed to get one onto it, and my phone promptly told me it was an “unsupported” something-or-other. So, it was back to the drawing board. I continued to try and re-try every one of them, but my computer would just make a dinging noise and nothing would happen.
Eventually, I noticed that I was accessing them through something Windows File Explorer calls “quick access”. Now I don’t know what that is (and I’ll bet you don’t either!), but it turns out you can’t copy things from whatever it is, even though it shows up as an option.
I tried it again, after finding the actual folder they were in and, after roughly three days of struggle, it finally worked. So now, I’ll know which calls I actually need to answer. Also, you don’t want to know what your ringtone is – you know who you are.
*by the way, this link is to the 1989 Berlin Freedom Concert, performed on Christmas day, and conducted by the great Leonard Bernstein. It was performed to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Bernstein changed the word “joy” in the singing part to “freedom”. It’s performed beautifully, and worth the time just to watch Bernstein. He conducted it completely from memory, without any sheet music. The look on his face is a thing of beauty. It was the last time he would ever conduct this symphony.
Nobody likes being rejected. Well, that may not be true, there are probably people out there who enjoy it. I, however, am not one of those. I think I deal with it pretty well – God knows I’ve had enough practice – but it’s still not something I enjoy.
However, lately, I’ve gotten the feeling that I’m being rejected by an entire century, and that’s really a tough one to take.
My old flip phone, which I did not love, but with which I had at least managed to have reached a kind of detente with (there’s that word of the day calendar kicking in!), had become obsolete, i.e., the manufacturer’s planned obsolescence was kicking in.
In short, I had to get a new phone.
The thing I liked best about my old flip phone was that it was simple: I could make and receive calls and voicemails, and, if absolutely necessary, I could text. I really hate texting, not least because with the flip phone, it took me forever to send one. I don’t think I ever sent one without ending up cursing angrily at the phone, at whoever I was having to text, and at the ghost of Alexander Graham Bell for starting all this nonsense in the first place.
However, I know that time waits for no one. I had seen first-hand how one of those smart phones could be really handy, especially in event of vehicle trouble. On one of our mission trips to S. Dakota, we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, Iowa, with a flat tire and no lug wrench that would fit it.
My buddy Kyle had a smart-phone, and just googled the nearest Walmart (turned out to be around 20 miles away, in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska). Then he used the GPS on the phone to find it, and find our way back.
We’ve had a lot of these experiences in which those phones’ capabilities have made a bad situation at least a little more manageable, so, I decided to bite the bullet, get one of those, and join the 21st century.
And that’s when all the trouble started.
The lovely and talented Jess’ phone was also dropping dead, so we decided to replace both of them. We found phones that we figured would do what we needed to do, and were satisfied.
The latest bane of my existence. The dogs look good though, don’t they?
Then, the Verizon guy mentioned this “Hum” gizmo that you could plug into your car, and it would act kind of like the Onstar system that some cars have. It would also do diagnostics and send them to my phone so I wouldn’t just be driving around like everyone else, just wondering why that “check engine” light was on.
It could call roadside assistance, and I think even automatically call for help in case of an accident. Suffice to say that it did a lot of stuff that could come in really handy on those long cross-country hauls. My truck has almost 400,000 miles on it, so I said, “what the heck,” and got it too.
The Verizon guy went on and on about how easy it was to install and set up, and said if I had any trouble, to just come back in and he’d take care of it. Famous last words.
Installing it did seem really easy, but I just couldn’t get it to work. I took it in to the Verizon store, and they couldn’t get it to work either. Turns out, it wouldn’t work on my truck’s model. Aggravating, but not a show stopper.
The phone however, was another matter. I fumbled around with it for a couple days, and thought I had it under control. Then I had to clock in at work. In order to clock in, the system calls you and you answer, hit a button (any button), and it clocks you in.
The problem was, I couldn’t figure out how to answer the damned phone. It was ringing, and I was poking the green button for all I was worth, but nothing was happening. Then the system timed out (or just gave up), and I had to try it again. Same result. I was getting really pissed now, and my sotto voce cursing was becoming a lot less sotto, which was becoming pretty distressing to my colleagues in the writing center who aren’t really used to that level of vehement profanity and obscenity.
Finally, on my third try, I gave up, held up the phone, and asked loudly, “Can someone please tell me how to answer this F%#$ing thing!”
Turns out, as my buddy Caleb quickly pointed out, you don’t poke the button, you “swipe” it. “Swiping” what the hell is that about? Everything I’d done previously was done by poking it. How in hell am I supposed to know whether to poke or swipe?
Am I the only one who feels stupid just for having to ask this question?
I know I’ve always been one to lag behind the curve when it comes to new technology: I’ve always told myself I’m waiting for “them” to work the bugs out before I commit, but I’ll get there eventually. I’m not so sure about that any more.
I kind of feel like I tried to join the 21st century, and the 21st century decided it doesn’t want anything to do with me. It’s kinda hurtful, really.
I’m beginning to think the bugs are built-in, intentionally, just to keep me in my frustrated, angry, always-a-bridesmaid place (and I don’t look good in tickle-me pink taffeta – not even metaphorically).
They keep changing things that don’t need to be changed, things that there’s no reason to change, but never fixing the things that do need to be changed.
I mean, why do they keep moving the buttons around, or changing them when they worked fine in the first place, but now I’ve got to figure out which of the new buttons I have to use to do the same damned thing I’ve been doing for years with the old button, but they won’t figure out a way to stop those damned talking ads from popping up all over the place when you’re just trying to read a news article?
Why is it that you buy a new version of something you’ve been using, it takes a week to figure out how to do the same thing you’ve been doing all along?
If these tech wonks were designing cars, I’m pretty sure that every year, they’d be saying, “Hey, where should we put the wheels this year? That whole ‘one on each corner’ thing is so 20th century. How do we make it look new and cool?”
I just want to grab them by the throats and scream, “Who cares how it looks! I just want to be able to go for a drive without having to look for the steering wheel! And why is the gas pedal in the glove box and the brake in the back seat?”
Sometimes, I think that I’m not adapting to the changing times very well. All I know is that, at this rate, by the time I’m 80 I’ll need my grand-children to come over to turn the TV on or change the channel.
I’m starting to think of rejecting the 21st century right back. That’ll show it.
Ever have one of those days when you really wish Jesus would quit fooling around and just come back already? You know what I mean; we all have days that we know going in are going to be bad, but then they turn out to be so much worse than we expected. This has been one of those days for me.
It started almost immediately: the wonderful but occasionally absent-minded and mildly careless Jess forgot to set her alarm and overslept, so I had to get up, take care of the dogs, fix her coffee and stuff. I really didn’t mind that. It happens fairly regularly, so it’s a minor hiccup–I figure, at least I get to go back to bed, she has to go to work. Then, later, when I do get up, my sister-in-law Andie is up fooling around in the kitchen.
I love Andie and look forward to her visits. However, we were expecting her today, and I figured I’d have time to clean up the house before she got here. She got here yesterday instead.
Now, neither Jess nor I are what you’d call neat freaks. We’re basically feral and, since the amazing and diligent Jess went back to work I’ve been responsible for housekeeping. Needless to say, Andie’s version of clean and mine are pretty different. She likes things to be neat, organized, and genuinely clean, while I feel pretty strongly that as long as nobody sticks to anything they lean on and I know what’s in the piles of stuff, well that’s good enough.
So the first thing I say to Andie as I’m taking the dogs out is that I’m going to take care of the dishes in a little bit. By the time I come back in, she’s already doing the dishes, she’s put away the clean dishes, “put away” some of the piles, and reorganized the remaining piles. She’s standing there waiting for me to tell her where the stuff in the remaining piles belongs. I’m like “right there.” I like to think that Jess and I aren’t the only people on the planet who don’t actually have a “place for everything.” To be honest, I don’t even know what half of that stuff is, much less where to put it.
She wanted me to do something about the recyclables, and then seemed shocked when that “something” turned out to be tying the bags shut and lobbing them down the stairs to the basement (don’t worry, next time I go downstairs, I’ll kick them over to where they belong).
Anyway, I had bigger fish to fry: I’m supposed to get my first colonoscopy (and endoscopy too! Hope they use a different tube for that one, or at least do the endoscopy first.) tomorrow, and so I had to swill down half of a giant bottle of Turbo-Lax to start my day off (gotta make sure I’m squeaky clean inside!). I get to get up at 6 tomorrow morning to drink the other half–yay.
So already the day is not great. When that Turbo-Lax kicks in, it’s not fooling around. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be taking my colon to the hospital in a bucket tomorrow. It’s also kind of tough discovering that I am literally as full of shit as people have always told me (well, not any more, so there!).
Then, Molly, our golden retriever that was my mom’s dog, collapsed on the porch. She hasn’t been doing well for a while, and apparently today was the day. I called Jess and asked her to make an appointment for Molly at the vet, so she did that and then took off early to go with us. While I waited for Jess, I alternated between sitting next to Molly, petting and talking to her, and running to the bathroom.
We got her to the vet, and it was as bad as we had feared: we had to make the call that nobody ever wants to make. They gave us a little more time with her and we both sat on the floor with her petting her and telling her she was a good girl while we both bawled like babies. I told her to go kick Harry’s (another one of our former dogs, who was kind of a jerk) ass, and Jess laughed and then said Molly’d be too busy looking for mom. That really set off the waterworks. I never could look at Molly without thinking of Mom. Molly was the last thing that Mom really recognized. Mom couldn’t remember her name, but she’d cup Molly’s head in her hands, lean forward and say “You’re my dog. Yes you are, you’re my dog.” Then she’d kiss the top of Molly’s head.
Anyway, we’re bawling our eyes out, and the girl came in and gave Molly THE SHOT. She was gone in just a few seconds. She was such a good girl. One of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever known.
Then we come home, and Andie’s cooking chili. The air is thick with the smell of frying hamburger, venison, and bacon. BACON! Who the hell puts BACON in chili? And what kind of monster does it on a day when one of the world’s great bacon lovers and chili lovers is on a clear liquid diet? The sister-in-law kind of monster, that’s what kind.
So my eyes hurt from crying, my ass hurts from . . . well you can imagine, although I recommend you don’t try too hard . . . and I’ve got to take even more laxatives, while smelling all that good food. Food that I CAN’T HAVE!!!!!
I go outside to have a smoke, and there’s a good breeze blowing. I turn my back to the wind, and all of a sudden, there’s a sound . . . a weird sound . . . a sound like somebody blowing across the top of a giant, empty, coke bottle. Halfway through the cigarette, I had to rush back inside, and the sound stopped. I’m pretty sure that, after today, the doctor won’t have to worry about using the micro-camera equipment–he’ll be able to just grab a camcorder and shove his arm up there. I think there’ll be plenty of room.
Needless to say, I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. Maybe I’ll get lucky and Jesus’ll come back tonight.
Some days, you just know going in, that it’s going to be a shitty day. Take the other day for example; I woke up when the alarm went off – my least favorite way to wake up, or at least least favorite normal way to wake up (waking up to being swallowed alive by a giant anaconda for example, would be worse, but extremely abnormal). Anyway, I get up, stagger through the canine obstacle course that is our bedroom, and head to the bathroom to find the lid on the toilet down (almost always a harbinger of impending doom).
“Huh,” I thought, with my cloudy, morning-brain, “I wonder why Jess put that down?” I figured it was to keep the dogs from drinking out of the toilet.
It wasn’t.
It turned out that my wife, the lovely-but-tragically-digestively-challenged Jess was running late for work when the previous night’s meatloaf hit her. I blame myself of course, after all, it was me who made it, and me who got careless with the garlic powder (I like garlic, sometimes a little too much). It was a new container, and instead of opening the shaker side of the lid, I accidentally opened the spoon side of the lid and gave it a hearty shake. I estimate that I dumped at least a quarter to half-cup of garlic powder into the meatloaf, hence the ensuing (and ongoing) digestive tragedy.
At any rate, not to be too indelicate, our pipes were apparently not up to the challenge, and since the diligent, and extremely time-conscious Jess was (conveniently?) running late, she simply had no choice but to leave me a fabulous parting gift. It was a disappointing and unpleasant start to the day.
Well, I got that taken care of, as well as my own ablutions (oh, don’t act so grossed out, you do the same thing), and got all the dogs outside to do their thing, had my morning smoke, got all the dogs back inside, managed to survive the three-ring-circus that is feeding time at Casa del Moon, and headed for the den to do some writing. My entry to the den was blocked, however, by the dog gate (Molly the old Golden Retriever sleeps loose in the den, and Mattie the young, crazy Jack Russel/Beagle mix sleeps in a kennel in there). Normally, the gate is only shut at night, to keep Molly from wandering.
“Huh,” I thought, “I wonder why Jess latched that gate?” I figured it was just an accident, one of those things you just do without thinking, because you’re busy thinking about other things.
It wasn’t.
It turned out that Molly had experienced a tragic digestive crisis of her own overnight. Three times (apparently what the lovely and resourceful Jess was thinking about was how glad she was that she was running late for work). For more info on why Jess latched the gate, see my post, My Dog Eats Poo: A Disgusting Allegorical Tale. ‘Nuff said on that.
So, my morning was pretty much eaten up by cleaning . . . well, let’s just leave it at that.
To top it all off, I had to go to work.
I don’t like going to work. I’ve been doing it all my life, and I’ve never liked it. That’s why I want to be a writer-it’s so much more fun. Sadly-so far at least-it’s also far less lucrative, so I get the dogs all squared away, saddle up, and head to work.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like this job better than any other job I’ve ever had. I like helping people to improve their writing skills, especially when they really want to improve. Unfortunately, this particular day’s students didn’t really seem to want to improve, they just wanted me to tell them what to write so they could pass their classes. This always puts me in a bad mood.
Then a kid comes in. While one of my colleagues is reading his paper, this kid is blathering on about one of his classes which focused (in part) on the Civil War, and he didn’t feel that the other side (the side he identified with) was fairly represented. Then, he made the mistake of asking me what I thought.
I knew where he was coming from: when I was a kid, most of my heroes were Confederates (my family also has southern roots). Let’s face it-the South had all the cool guys: Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Mosby’s Rangers, etc. What did the Union have? A bunch of incompetents, an alcoholic, and a couple of deeply devoted arsonists. But then, I told him, I read some books, a whole bunch of books, in fact, and had come to the conclusion that better men never fought and/or died for worse cause, i.e. the right to own another human being as property.
He seemed to take offense to that, pointing out that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, it was about state’s rights.
I pointed out to him that the only state’s right the South was specifically interested in, the only one that couldn’t have been settled peaceably was the right to own slaves. If you doubt me, and I’m sure some of you do, here’s a link to the Declarations of Secession of Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. As far as I can tell, the other nine states never really mentioned any specific reasons (other than hating Lincoln, and/or perceived unfair treatment) for seceding. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
He, of course, countered with that old chestnut, “But most confederates didn’t even own slaves!” True enough, but, those guys were talked into war by the guys who did own slaves.
He then asked if I thought all people who fly the Confederate Flag now are racists. I told him no, I didn’t think that, but, I asked him, what would you think of me if I was flying a Nazi flag over my house, not because I was a racist, but because I was proud of my German heritage and had ancestors that fought for Germany? He didn’t seem to have an answer for this.
All this time, I was getting more and more aggravated. I have a pretty low tolerance for stupidity, and virtually no tolerance at all for willful stupidity, and this kid was pretty much the poster child for it.
It got quiet for a while, and then he asked me what I thought about the cool kids club. I didn’t know what that was, until he said it’s spelled with all K’s. I told him I wasn’t a fan.
He didn’t say anything, so I waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, I asked him what he thought about the KKK. He was really quick to point out that he wasn’t in favor of hurting anybody, and he really liked black people, in fact, he had a lot of black friends, but there were some things that he did like about the KKK. I asked him what those were, and he hemmed and hawed around for quite a while, just um-ing, and well-ing, etc.
I finally asked him if he was having trouble thinking of something good to say about them that wouldn’t make him sound like a racist, and he just laughed, and said something about racism being pretty much over in the good ol’ USA.
By this time, my head was about to explode, and of course, my mouth started moving faster than my brain. I told him that, of course, he could say that, he was safe. He asked me what I meant by that.
It’s important to understand, at this point, that we were not alone. There were several others present, all young white men, including one gay kid.
I said, “I mean you’re safe. I’m the safest person in this room. I’m white, middle-aged, at least marginally middle-class, and married. At this point, I am pretty much my only natural predator. You guys are less safe than me, because you’re younger, and more likely to get yourself into stupid, potentially life-threatening situations, a stage I’ve already survived. You guys are safer than Xxxxx.”
Xxxxx asked why they were safer than him, and I said, “Because you’re gay.”
This came as a complete surprise to Xxxxx, who pointed out that no, as a matter of fact, he was not gay.
Talk about derailing your own argument. Here I was, trying to point out that there are segments of our society that live their lives at considerably more risk than others, and that for those who are at virtually no risk to deny the evils of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, etc., that plague large portions of our society is, quite simply, deluded and disingenuous bullshit, and instead of making my point, I merely succeeded in making myself look (or at least feel) like the biggest asshole in the room.
Xxxxx wanted to know why I thought he was gay, and all I could think of was that I just thought he was. I had of course launched into that compulsively and diarrheatically vocal apology mode which usually only makes things worse, and makes you look like an even bigger asshole than if you’d just said, “I’m sorry” and shut the hell up.
I make no defense for myself. Xxxxx is a really nice kid. He’s very soft- and well-spoken, and speaks proper english, is always neatly and tidily dressed, doesn’t curse, doesn’t talk about women, and has good posture. Apparently, to my hunched, slouching, profane, vulgar, only conditionally showered, torn-T-shirt and worn-out jeans and shoes-wearing mind, that all adds up to gay. I made assumptions about him, based on purely circumstantial evidence, and, in a twisted kind of way, I supposed I proved my point, just not the way I expected to.
Hell, for all I know, that other kid, the stupid one, probably does have a lot of black friends.
All I know for sure is that I should have stayed in bed.
And, of course, that I, and most likely most of you too, have a lot farther to go on a personal level toward fixing the problems our society faces.
Life is weird, uncertain, and, more often than not, annoying. We all expect a certain amount of troubles, trials, and travails, but we generally expect to get through them and, we also expect a certain amount of calm after the storm ends. Not a lot, but at least enough time to catch our breath. Sometimes (usually) though, the universe and powers that be have other plans.
Take Tucker for example: Tucker is the name we’ve given to the newest addition to our apparently-endlessly-growing furry family. He’s a little beagle who turned up at our house last week; rail-thin from hunger, with claws so long they’d turned sideways, and with a pretty unbearable stench. He’d clearly been on his own for a while, and was equally clearly not good at it.
Now, both I and my wife, the lovely and compassionate Jess, both immediately realized, and verbally agreed that the last thing we needed was another dog. We’ve already got four dogs, five if you count Ralph the compound dog, and two of them were strays who were dumped. We’ve done our bit for the homeless dog population of Wayne county.
We both stated this emphatically, and with great conviction, and then I opened the gate and let him in, and Jess took him downstairs and gave him a bath and clipped his nails, and I fixed him a bowl of food. What can I say? We’re both soft touches when it comes to sad strays (I’m not complaining, that’s actually how I got Jess to take me in).
We both agreed however, that we weren’t keeping him. I got on the computer to put an ad in the paper, something that the local paper used to do for free. Guess what? Not any more! So, we called the animal shelter to see if anyone had called about a missing beagle.
Finally, we found a guy willing to take Tucker, and after a couple days with us, Tucker went to his new home. At the new home, he wasn’t allowed in the house, and was on a chain, which, apparently, he didn’t care for. This last Saturday, Tucker returned to us, just as smelly as before, but with a serious case of the runs added on.
Since the guy who had taken him never came looking for him, we figured he probably wasn’t all that attached to Tucker anyway, so we’ve sort of adopted Tucker (theoretically temporarily) while we look for a better permanent home for him.
Tucker was thrilled. He’s a timid little guy, and spent most of the first couple of days he was with us crying and panicking anytime Jess or I got up and moved around. Fortunately, Jess and I lead a fairly sedentary lifestyle, so he settled in pretty well. He learned the hard way to stay away from Elsie when she’s eating (his nose is healing nicely, by the way), and was actually starting to want to play with Mattie and Dude (who are kind of over-enthusiastic and scared the crap out of Tucker initially).
Yep, Tucker really thought he’d landed on his feet. The storm had passed, and he was safe. He’d found people to take care of him, other kids to play with, plenty of food, and a comfortable, warm home. Life was looking up. It was going to be nothing but kibble and fun forever!
Until yesterday. Yesterday, Tucker got no breakfast, new dad took him for a ride in the truck and left him with new friends. He wasn’t really thrilled about all this, and his trepidation proved to be justified when his new friends stuck him with a needle and he dozed off to wake up with no balls!
Talk about the universe yanking the rug out from under you. Actually it wouldn’t have been so bad if it had only been a rug. Then, to add insult to injury, new dad brought him home, and put this stupid cone on him so he couldn’t even kiss his own boo-boo (although frankly, “boo-boo” doesn’t really suit that sort of soul-crushing injury, does it? It’s not a skinned knee, or even a nipped nose).
Tucker is clearly less than thrilled with life’s current vicissitudes.
He spent most of yesterday afternoon just standing in one place for a while, looking sad. Then, he’d walk around a little bit, until the cone hit something, and he’d just stand there for a while. He spent about 30 minutes with his cone pressed up against my leg.
He seemed to think that the cone was a punishment for something. Think about that. He’s already had his balls cut off – through no fault of his own – and now he has to wear this embarrassing thing. He is one bummed little guy. The final blow came last night. He fell asleep standing up and fell over, which apparently brought an instant, and painful reminder of just how bad his day had been.
Does this cone make me look stupid? This was Tucker’s main activity yesterday.
He seems to be doing a little better today. His tail is wagging a little bit, but he’s clearly still not digging the cone.
Which brings me back to us (you and me, that is). We’ve all had similar experiences, when things are terrible, everything is going wrong, and there’s just no way things can get any worse. Then, just when we think we see a light at the end of the tunnel, it turns out to be an oncoming train. It’s sometimes even worse, when we think we’ve made it, and turn around to assess the past, to try to glean some meaning from our suffering, so we never even see the train coming.
I got some bad news from a friend of mine today, and I didn’t know what to tell him, other than I was sorry to hear it, and some lame comment about how I’ve found life to be largely just an ongoing source of failures, embarrassments, and humiliations, punctuated sporadically by minor personal triumphs, whiskey, and sex (which actually counts as a personal triumph in my book), and that sometimes the best you can do is to learn to embrace the awkward stupidity that is life (this may be why very few people ever ask me for advice, counsel, or comfort).
I know that usually, in my experience anyway, that feeling that I’ve stuck the landing on something is almost immediately followed by a usually very public faceplant. It just seems inevitable. However, I take comfort in the fact that, just like (no matter how much he fails to understand it, for very understandable reasons)Tucker has the extremely humane and compassionate Jess (and also me) looking out for him, I myself have, not only Jess, but an even more infinitely compassionate owner (not to get all spiritually/religiousy on you, but it’s what I believe)looking out for me.
No matter who you are, life is going to throw a lot of crap at you. Some of it happens for a reason, and some of it’s just bad luck. The trick, I think, is to learn to laugh at it (as much as possible), to be grateful for the good things, and to remember that, no matter how bad it gets, at least you’ve still got your balls (hey, listen, if you haven’t learned by now that you shouldn’t look to me for life-advice or general wisdom/philosophy of any kind, then it’s high time you did).
Warning: the following post contains innuendo, double entendre, tasteless humor, and disco music references. Proceed at your own risk.
I often wonder how I got so lucky with my wife, the exceptional and clearly-out-of-my-league Jess. Not so much about how I got her (I really believe that was God’s doing, with an assist from alcohol), but how we’ve managed to stay so happy 22 years into it. I mean, let’s face it: I was no prize when we got married, and now, I’m even less so, and even though the still lovely and long-suffering Jess remains my dream girl, the years of living with me have taken a toll on her.
We no longer do nearly as much of the things that we used to do constantly. We don’t drink much anymore, although really that’s no great loss. We don’t travel much due to a lack of funds and abundance of dogs, as well as the fact that we both really like it right here. What we used to refer to as the “carnal Olympics” has slowly shifted from a daily occurrence to a weekly to a “Hey, we oughta do that again before we forget how” basis (although we both spend a lot of time reflecting fondly on all of the gold and silver medals we’ve accrued over the years). It kind of hurts to have to admit that we’ve become boring, middle-aged adults.
Still the most beautiful woman in the world
Correction: we’ve become happy, boring, middle-aged adults, and I think the key is laughter. We laugh a lot. We laugh when times are good, but we also laugh also as much when times are bad. I’ve always been able to make her laugh (and yes, laughing at me counts), and I’ve always thought she is one of the most genuinely funny women on earth. It also helps that the one aspect of our lives and personalities that hasn’t matured at all is our senses of humor.
I’ll give you an example: A couple of weeks ago, we were getting mom’s house ready for a renter. Now this is the house that we all grew up in, and it was killing me to think of renting it, but I couldn’t afford to leave it empty. So there we were, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and I was getting more and more depressed the whole time. We had decided that we needed to re-caulk the tub and shower, so I was trying to get rid of the old caulking. If you’ve ever done that, you know it’s no easy task. Lots of rubbing and scraping, rubbing and scraping.
I find that often, when doing a mindlessly repetitive job, my mind tends to wander. I get into a rhythm, and my subconscious will drag some old song up out of the vaults of my memory. So it was that I found myself scrape, scrape, scraping away, with the chorus from K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s disco classic, “Shake Your Booty” running on an endless loop in my head. As if that wasn’t bad enough (have you ever noticed, when this happens, it’s never a good song, or even one you can remember completely?), my subconscious kicked into overdrive, and “shake, shake, shake . . . shake, shake, shake . . . shake your booooo-tayyyy! shake your booooo-tayyyy!” became “scrape, scrape, scrape . . . scrape, scrape, scrape . . . scrape your caulk off! scrape your caulk off!” complete with the horn part.
Not a pleasant thing to have running through your mind over and over again, but I have to admit that, while distressing, the sheer stupidity of it did kind of cheer me up. When we took a smoke break, I told Jess about it, and she thought it was pretty funny. Then we sang a couple of choruses, just trying to get it out of our heads. It didn’t work, but we laughed and laughed. That was it for the rest of the day. Every time she’d come check on me, she’d ask, “Get your caulk all scraped off yet?” and I’d stretch my aching back and say, “No, and all this caulk scraping is getting pretty painful,” and we’d laugh some more. When we’d take a break (and I’ve found that frequent breaks are a key to making a bad job last a really long time), it was because I needed a break from scraping my caulk. When it was time to go back to work, she’d tell me, “You’re not gonna get your caulk scraped off sitting here,” and we’d laugh again.
I suggested, at one point, that perhaps she’d like a turn at scraping the caulk off, but she seemed to feel quite strongly that it was my caulk, and if anybody was going to scrape it off, it was going to be me. She also reminded me that I prefer it when she sticks to caulk application. I conceded the point, and we laughed some more. It really brightened up my whole day. In fact, we got about two or three day’s worth of caulk jokes out of that. It’s a good sign, when the jokes outlast the task.
That, I think, is really the secret to our success. We make each other laugh. A lot. About everything. There is very little that is off-limits. We both recognize our individual and collective shortcomings as sources of humor, and frequently, the more embarrassing the better.
Nothing makes us laugh harder than when we’re outside, having a smoke, or playing with the dogs, and one of us gets that shocked, deer-in-the-headlights look, and full-body clench that signals a sudden, impending digestive disaster (you other middle-agers know what I’m talking about). Of course, when that happens, only one of us is laughing; the other is too busy trying to hurry to the bathroom without actually moving anything between the neck and the knees (it’s funny to them too, but, in a digestive crisis, seal integrity is the paramount concern). For that one, the laughs come later, either from relief or embarrassment.
We spend a lot of time laughing about things that happened years, or even decades, ago; like the fart-heard-round-the-world at Stonehenge, or the time I got her to zap herself with an electric fence (I told you I’m no prize), or the time she gave me a concussion “accidentally” slamming a hatch lid on my head, or the time we both fell through the floor when replacing her mom’s living room floor (it’s really kind of a wonder we’re still alive).
Trying to outrun the camera timer. That hill was a lot steeper than it looks
We laugh about the way she used to mispronounce zealot (zeelot), or the time I absent-mindedly thought a bunch of calves in a field were full-grown miniature cows (“Why would anybody bother raising those? You’re not gonna get much meat.”). Yes, we are frequently idiots, but we’re happy idiots. And that’s the important thing. Much more important than dignity, or pride, or success, or financial security (thank God, because we’re usually running pretty short on all those).
The best woman in the world, and her biggest shortcoming
I really think that, if you want a good relationship, find someone who makes you laugh, and thinks you’re funny too.
P.S. Just in case you don’t have that stupid song running through your head, here’s a link: K.C. and the Sunshine Band, “Shake Your Booty” . It’s also funny how easy it would be to make the entire song fit caulk-scraping. Also, now that would make a great video. Enjoy!
This Saturday is June 4th. It marks the 22nd anniversary of my marriage to the lovely and all-round-best-woman-on-earth, Jess, and the beginning of the 23rd year of her life sentence. Through it all, she has never complained, never whined, never asked for anything other than my love (and a new dog every once in a while). She has stood by me through thick and thin (okay, I was never really thin, but compared to now . . .). I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, if it weren’t for her, I’d either be dead or in prison by now. I honestly believe she was sent to me by God, who was apparently tired of having to spend so much time keeping my stupid ass alive.
Jess and her boy Harry
She was been there for me through years of a sort of slow-motion nervous breakdown. She’s been there for my kids. She’s been there for my family. She has supported me, advised me wisely, and never hesitated to let me know when I’ve gotten out of control. In fact, she’s the only one who’s ever been able to stop me, once I start to spin. Even though she has often joked that she has absolutely no mothering instinct at all, she’s the most nurturing person I know. She used to make fun of me for giving away pictures to sad-sack kids at baseball tournaments, when the kid didn’t have the money, but she’s just as soft a touch.
I remember the first time I saw her, it was all I could do to keep from climbing through her window to introduce myself. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Fortunately, for once, I showed some restraint, and it paid off. Of course, I pursued her relentlessly; I had to – she wasn’t playing hard-to-get, she really, really didn’t want to be got, at least not by me. She was the first woman I ever really tried to impress, and I’ve got to say, I failed miserably.
Even though I did completely fail to impress her, I did manage to make her laugh, and for once a woman was laughing with me and not at me (actually, it was, and still is, a little of both), but at least she was laughing. We’re still laughing together. We both intentionally say and do stupid things just to make the other laugh. She is my best friend, and I’m hers. I honestly believe that the two of us could live completely isolated from everyone else, and we’d be fine, as long as we had each other.
Jess and I laughing like idiots. She’s still got the most beautiful smile in the world.
She’s still the most beautiful woman in the world to me, even if 22 years of living with me have taken a toll on her. I wouldn’t trade one night, or even an afternoon, with her for a month with Scarlett Johansson (which I’m sure will be a relief to both of them), or anyone else. My biggest fear in life is letting her down.
I first proposed to her in the middle of the night, over the phone from Italy, phenomenally drunk (me, not her). She was very understanding and told me to ask her again when I was sober. The next day, when I got up, I called her and asked her to marry me again. I think she was only surprised that I remembered I’d asked her. She told me to ask her again when I got home (she is many things, but one thing she’s never been is easy).
The third time proved to be the charm, and she said yes. We decided to get married in the base chapel, so we had to go to the Chaplain for counseling. I think it was supposed to be 5 or even 6 sessions. I was so angry after the first session (with the Chaplain, not Jess), that I was ready to just forget about a church wedding and go to the Justice of the Peace, or whatever it is they’ve got in England. Jess talked me down eventually, because she wanted a church wedding. After the second session, Jess was so angry (again, at the Chaplain, not me) she was ready to go to the J.P. Eventually I got her talked down, mostly because I was pretty sure that if we didn’t get married in a church, we’d both regret it. The third session began with the Chaplain telling us that we might as well just set a date and skip the rest of the sessions, because we were obviously determined to go through with it, no matter how big a mistake he thought we were making. That’s a confidence builder, I gotta say.
The lovely and talented Jess. The strongest woman I know.
When we went to get the marriage licence, they asked if I’d ever been married before. I said I had, so they checked the divorce box. They asked her the same thing, and she said no. They asked her age. She told them she was 25. The woman nodded and said, “Ah, spinster.” I’m not kidding. They actually checked the box for spinster. Now that I think of it, Jess’ life has really been just an unending string of indignities since she met me.
Jess and I immediately after one of those rare occasions that she was the embarrassing one
I know that no marriage is perfect, and that every couple has rough times, but I honestly don’t ever recall us being unhappy. Sure, there have been tough times, but I’ve never felt anything less than overwhelming love for her, and never felt like her love for me was in question. Everything that’s ever come up, we’ve faced together, and we’ve never let anything come between us. She’s always been there for me, and I’ve tried to always be there for her.
If it sounds like I’m bragging, it’s because I am, about her, not about myself. I’m a pain in the ass, and I know it. She has always been the rock in our relationship, the one person I can always count on, and I’ve tried to be the same for her. The good times we’ve shared are too numerous to count, and the bad times too inconsequential to remember. I love her just as much today as the day we were married. I can’t even imagine my life without her, and I thank God for her every day.
To finish off this wildly inadequate tribute to the love of my life, I’ll add an essay I wrote for my prose class:
Finding My Happy Place
There are some places, some things in the world that demand you stop; stop rushing to the next place, stop worrying about the bills, stop stressing about everything, and just be there; the north rim of the Grand Canyon, the badlands of South Dakota, the night sky over the Indian Ocean or the Arizona desert, Loch Lomond and Glen Coe in Scotland, just to name a few. They are usually lonely places, the kind of place that makes you feel alone, even with a group, and yet strangely not alone, like you’re suddenly intimately connected to something infinitely bigger, wiser, stronger, and more kind and loving than you’re really equipped to understand. They sneak up on you when you least expect them, and become a part of you, forever.
It is June, 1994, and my wife Jess and I are on our honeymoon, touring around Ireland in her little Mazda pick-up truck. We’re doing all the usual touristy things; China and crystal shopping in Waterford, taking distillery tours, exploring the beautiful gardens and ruins of Blarney Castle (as well as standing in line to kiss the Blarney Stone, and, of course, buying the pictures), and drinking gallons of Guinness and whiskey at pubs crowded with tourists just like us. It is the best time of our lives (so far, anyway). We are young, healthy, and wildly in love.
As we drive out along the Dingle Peninsula, on the west coast, I’m in a kind of photographic frenzy; it is some of the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen. I’m like a starving man at a buffet, so intent on getting it all that I can’t take the time to really appreciate any of it fully.
At every wide spot in the road, I tell her, “Ooh, ooh, pull over baby, pull over!” like a three-year-old begging his mommy for candy in a grocery store checkout line.
“We just pulled over.”
“Well pull over again! We may never see this again!”
“It’s the same thing you just took a picture of.”
“Yeah, but it looks different from here. Besides, you’re driving, you’ll never see this if I don’t get a picture.”
“Okay, fine,” and she laughs at me for being an idiot, and at herself for indulging me, and pulls over and waits for me to jump out and walk back to where I’d originally asked her to pull over. Thankfully, she is driving very slowly, so I don’t have to walk far.
I take several pictures, using several different lenses and shutter speeds, then climb back in the truck and we pull back onto the road. Of course, within a quarter-mile, “Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey pull over . . .” and the whole thing starts again. Sometimes I win, sometimes she does, but really, we both win every time.
As we stutter through the countryside and up into the mountains, the road becomes narrower and narrower, with hairpin turns that force us to slow down even more and stop rubbernecking. On the east side of Conor Pass, there is a small car park with a beautiful view of the valley below. We stop and both get out to look. We have to be careful, as there isn’t a lot of room. If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves standing in the middle of the road. Behind us is a steep, boulder-strewn slope that looks to flatten out higher up. We climb up that slope, climbing from rock to rock, until we can peek over the top, and I feel God put his hand on my shoulder and say, “Look. Look what I made for you.” I am awestruck.
The plateau is a large bowl, holding a small lake of crystal-clear water like a beautiful secret. There are no signs down below, telling of its presence. It is a surprise reserved for only those adventuresome enough to climb this slope out of curiosity, or the desire for a better view of the valley below. And what a view it is; the broad valley stretched out below, lush and green, the kind of green you only get in Ireland, crisscrossed by ancient stone walls, holding at least three lakes, and bounded by more mountains, stretching off to the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. The valley is even more gentle and pastoral in contrast to the boulder-strewn ruggedness of the highlands we stand on. We sit on a rock by that little lake for some time, not even talking, just happy to be here in this place together. Jess takes her shoes off and soaks her feet for a bit. There may be other people up here, in fact, there probably are, but, in this place, they are reduced to mere wraiths, flitting on the edge of our consciousness, barely registering to us, and I’m sure we’re the same to them. I don’t remember anything but Jess and I, and the lake, and the countryside. We have never just been anywhere, as completely as we are here. We sit here, unwilling to break the spell, time seeming to stand as still as ourselves.
Sadly, time is not standing still after all. The sky has become overcast, the clouds are lowering, and we still have to get over the top of the pass, now shrouded in the clouds. As we work our way down the slope, I pause to take a picture of the valley below. The sunlight has found a hole in the clouds, and a single beam shoots through, illuminating the lakes in the now shadowed valley. That picture hangs on the wall in our kitchen, and I pass it dozens of times a day, almost always pausing to look at it and remember that day.
On the way down the slope, we happen upon a small, actually tiny, waterfall. Jess sits down on a rock next to it, and I take her picture. I will use that picture as a bookmark for years. It’s probably still in one of my books somewhere, and I’ll find it again someday. In the picture, she looks the way I still see her, beautiful and happy, with a gorgeous Mary Tyler Moore smile that never fails to make my heart beat a little harder.
We make it over the pass without a problem, and on down the mountain to the village of Dingle, a lovely little town with live traditional Irish music in nearly every pub. The next day, we take a dolphin-watching boat ride, along with dozens of other tourists, in the harbor, and drive the tourist-burdened road around the Slea Head loop, visit prehistoric forts and miles of beautiful coastline, but after Conor Pass, they all feel a little touristy and anti-climactic. On our way out of Dingle, we stop at Conor Pass once again, and feel the same magic as before.
We follow that up with a visit to the Cliffs of Moher, and a drive through the Burren. The Cliffs of Moher bring much the same feeling as Conor Pass, but it is too crowded, and just too immense. Our attention is split between the cliffs, and the tourists crawling up to the edge, wondering which one is going to fall off first. The Burren, with its weird, other-worldly landscape and prehistoric dolmen, or tombs, also brings those feelings, but it is so unsettlingly strange, and almost sinister, that it is just a bit like seeing what happens when God gets angry. Impressive and wonderful, yes, but also ominous and haunting. If the Cliffs of Moher are a big, flashy gift to the world and the Burren is a warning glance from a stern parent, then Conor Pass is a gentle, warm, and loving hug from your daddy.
Jess at Pedlar’s Lake, at the top of Conor Pass, in 2013
We will return at least twice after this first trip, once around our tenth anniversary, and then again for our twentieth. Both times we have either friends or family with us, and it affects them all the same way. The last time, we find a girl skinny-dipping while her boyfriend sits on the shore watching. It’s funny and a little bit awkward, but it is also fitting; after all, what could be more appropriate in that rugged Eden than a pretty nymph unselfconsciously enjoying, and being a part of, all that beauty? At least, in my mind she is pretty; we politely keep our distance. To tell the truth, I envy them. Jess and I are too conventional, too inhibited to allow ourselves that kind of freedom, that kind of joy, and to be honest, the sight of me skinny-dipping would certainly mar the sense of wonder for any other passers-by, so it’s probably just as well.
The wonderful thing about these lonely places is that, once you’ve been there, they become a part of you. All you have to do to visit them again is think about them, and you’re there again, feeling their magic for the first time, again, and again, and again. They become your “happy place”.
On our second trip, I take a new picture of Jess by that little waterfall, to replace the bookmark one. In it, she’s ten years older, ten years heavier, but her smile is just as bright and joyful as it is on our honeymoon. Although the years of living with me have taken a visible toll on her, she is just as beautiful as the day I met her. She has a magic of her own that affects me the same way Conor Pass does. Every time I look at her, it’s as if God lays his hand on my shoulder and says, “Look. Look at what I made for you.” Conor Pass may be our happy place, but Jess is mine.
It’s Monday Morning!!!!! Yaaaaay!!!!! Okay, honestly, I feel like a lot of you are not sharing my enthusiasm. I don’t blame you, it’s not your fault. You’re probably having a regular Monday like I usually have: you wake up tired, drag yourself out of bed, stumble through your ablutions, probably cut yourself shaving, remember that you forgot to do laundry over the weekend, so now you’re sniffing your way through the pile of last week’s work clothes, trying to find the least wrinkled and most olfactorily acceptable ones (because you have just enough work clothes for 1 week). Finally ready, you stumble off, bracing yourself for the slings and arrows of outrageous stupidity that you know you’ll have to face throughout the day at your soul-crushing job.
I know your pain. That’s usually how it is for me. In fact, that’s how I thought today was going to be: just another freakishly horrible start to another run-of-the-mill week. My wife, the hard-working and sunnily optimistic Jess, woke me up at 6 a.m., in the morning! Let’s face it: That’s a terrible way to start any day, much less a Monday, and, just 6 hours into the new week, my spring was already sprung. Instead of springing out of bed, I oooooozed out, like chubby lava reluctant to leave it’s nice, warm, comfy volcano.
I was even less enthusiastic about this Monday morning than usual, because I had to take a math test. Well, technically, I didn’t have to take it until next Sunday, but I am trying to get ahead in my math class. You see, I suck at math. When I went back to school, I had to take a math placement test. The test confirmed what I had always known; I am extraordinarily mathematically incompetent. I thought, “No big deal, I’m going to school to study English.” Ah, those were the days . . . I was young(er) . . . I was naive . . . I was wrong . . . so very, very wrong. It turns out that, even if you’re studying English, you still have to take math and science classes and foreign language classes.
Now, two and a half years later, I’ve bluffed my way through all of them – Environmental Science, Geology, and not one, but two, semesters of Spanish, getting A’s in all of them (which, quite frankly, gives me cause for concern regarding the quality of the education I’m getting). And when I say bluffed, I do mean bluffed. I’m pretty sure that I now speak less Spanish than I did at the start of the first semester, all I learned from Environmental Science is that we’re killing the planet in a multitude of ways, but that’s okay, because in Geology, I learned that the planet is trying to kill us in a number of ways, most of which involve lava and rocks.
That just leaves math; my old nemesis. My dad was amazing at math. He could do stuff in his head that I still can’t do, even with a calculator. Fractions, decimals, algebra, all that stuff, he seemed to be just naturally good at it. Sadly, the math gene apparently skips a generation, at least in the males. My sister is an accountant, so she is, presumably, pretty good at it, but neither I nor my brothers could do simple addition without a calculator. What can I say? We’re word guys.
Anyway, to make a long story truly endless, I’ve been working very hard to get ahead in math because I know that I suck at it. Also, because this is no ordinary math class. It’s called “Math for the Humanities”, and, as explained to me by numerous advisers, it’s a math class designed for mathematically-deficient English and History majors like me, to give us the math credits we need to graduate without over-taxing our math-challenged little minds. THEY LIED!!!!! I’ve had to spend the last two weeks converting Babylonian numbers, Mayan numbers, even Egyptian numbers into Hindu-Arabic (which is apparently what our numbers are called) numbers, and vice-versa. Ironically, the Egyptian numbers are the easiest, and they’re not even numbers, they’re pictures. A typical Egyptian number looks like: fish fish fish squiggly thing squiggly thing curleque curleque curleque hooky thing stick stick stick, but at least they give you a chart.
There’s also multiplying, dividing, adding, and subtracting in bases other than 10. I’m not going to even try to explain what that means (to be honest, I’m not even sure what it means, much less why it’s important to know how to do it). In high school, I was one of those kids who was always asking, “Why do I have to learn this? When am I ever going to need this?”, which is fairly common, even today. However, now, I’m 50 years old, and I know, excuse me, I KNOW I’m never going to need to do any of this!!!
Why else would I be an English major? If I was any good at math or science, I’d be studying them. There’s actual money to be made in math and science. My sister asked me what I’d be qualified to do after graduating with an English degree, and I told her, quite truthfully, “Be a stripper.” Then my wife, the very funny and needlessly cruel Jess, chimed in with, “Honey, you’re not qualified to do that either.”
So anyway, I’ve been struggling with this math stuff for two weeks now. I sit here at the computer, straining my brain, cursing at the computer, and talking myself through these math problems: “Okay . . . so 8 x 6 is 42 . . . ” while the much more mathematically capable Jess sits in the living room watching Pit Bulls and Parolee’s shouting, “No it’s not!” and giggling. Finally, last week, after going through the practice exercises for four hours, I felt like I was ready to take the test. I clicked on it (the whole class is on-line), and the computer said I couldn’t open the test until February 1st.
You probably heard me screaming.
So, this morning, February 1st, I ooooozed out of bed, took care of the critters, and sat down to take the test. I thought about going through the practice exercises again, and then realized that I just don’t care enough. So I clicked the thing, and took the test . . .
. . . And kicked it’s ass! (cue fanfare) That’s right! I killed it! I beat that thing like a rented mule! I showed it who’s boss! I got . . . wait for it . . . an 86%!!!!! Okay, I’ll wait a moment for you to stop laughing.
There, finished? No?
How about now?
Okay, that’s enough. Listen, 86% might not seem like much to crow about, but for me, it’s like . . . well, it’s like me almost qualifying to be an Olympic gymnast (those of you who know me and have heard me straining to tie my shoes even back when I was thin will know how surprising that would be).
What, you thought I was kidding about how badly I suck at math? If you’re a regular follower of this blog, then you know that I am, if anything, a master of the understatement, and that my humility is outshone only by my absolute honesty.
Anyway, not only did I experience an absolute and unqualified triumph over that horrible test, I also managed to get a load of laundry done, peruse the Facebook a little bit, fold and put away the laundry, and write this little gem. Not bad for a Monday morning. Of course, it’s only 11 a.m., and I still have to go to class, but I’m feeling uncharacteristically optimistic today.
