Re-Post: Peeing in the Dark …

… in the House in the Middle of a Very Rainy Night

True story. This happened to me several weeks ago. I have told it once or twice and thought about blogging it, but thinking about blogging while you are nowhere near a computer isn’t all that useful. Well, perhaps it is useful if you are still young enough to have a memory, but I am old enough not to remember what memory is. I think of a lot of blogging topics when I am nowhere near a keyboard, or when I am near the keyboard but have seventeen other computer-related chores to implement first. I should carry around a little notebook to record my ideas, but I keep forgetting to purchase one, and if I ever did remember to get one, I’d only forget to bring it with me. If, by some miracle, I remembered the notebook, I would simply forget my pen — or lose it. BTW: have you seen my handy-dandy, pocket-size space pen lately?

What was I saying? Oh yes! I am going to relate what they call an anecdote, as opposed to an antidote. Here we go.

I am of that age and sex where one is susceptible to being summoned from one’s bed by the call of nature several times a night. Most of the time, it is not that big of an imposition; I can more-or-less somnambulate to the nearest toilet, bathroom, latrine, john, privy, or potty and get back to bed and to sleep without disturbing my sweet dreams too terribly much. On occasion, I do become more fully awake than usual and end up performing an insomniacal dance for a few hours: turn to the left; roll to the right; head down; pillow up … and on it goes. But that doesn’t happen very often (thank heaven for small mercies).

It’s even harder when I camp in our tiny tent, however. I tend to sleep more fitfully out there in the wilds and, therefore, seem to receive nature’s call more frequently — am more aware of it anyway. Our tent isn’t large, but I manage to crawl into a corner, unscrew the lid from the three-quart orange juice container and … blush … a certain amount of modesty prevents me from describing the scene any further, so feel free to supplement your imagination. I use a container inside the tent because one simply can’t be unzipping the tent six times a night in the middle of bug and bear country and hopping around outside and being bitten lord knows where by the devil knows what.

Once again, I digress. Back to the story. But as I tell it, remember that it is raining outside: raining very hard as a matter of fact.

There, I was making one of my usual middle-of-the-night visits to the loo (good for me: found one more synonym). I seemed to sense a warmish spraying sensation on my left foot. Now, certain males of a mature age do tend to spray a little — just a tad you know. We can’t help it as our streams seem to act of their own free will: stopping, starting, dripping, or clogging in some sort of unpredictable arrhythmia. Although I had never sprayed my foot before, sleepy stupor or no, it seemed reasonable to deduce that now, for the first time ever that's exactly what was happening to poor me.

So, I stopped the … well, let’s call it a piddle since stream seems too grand a description for my nocturnal efforts at the latrine. Lo and behold, I could no longer sense a spray on my foot. Although I couldn’t compute the physics of it, I seemed to have established a cause and effect, for when I resumed the flow, so did the sensation on my foot resume. Ergo: it must be that I was spraying my own foot.

But I wasn’t totally convinced, even in my somnambulant state. Tricksy me, I positioned my hand where it should block any errant spray, and I resumed my discharge. Blimey! My hand didn’t get wet, but my foot still did. So, I reasoned that I could not really be peeing on my foot. But what the heck was going on?

Aha! I have a bad back (stick with me here folks), and I experience all kinds of sensations in that leg: jumping nerves, numbness, and twitches of all description. My mind embraced the conclusion that the nerve damage had concocted (pardon the almost-naughty word) a whole new sensation for me to enjoy in future years. I was now experiencing it for the first time, but I’m sure that I would have grown to treasure this sensation in due time.

This realization, this answer of sorts, brought me some peace, but when I had completed my piddling little chore (so to speak), I had the presence of mind to reach my hand down to my foot, only to discover genuine moisture. The carpet was also wet. No nerve damage this.

As I was bent over, consumed by my musings, a trickle of water hit my shoulder. Well, this threw both the errant-pee and the nerve-damage hypotheses completely out the window. The real situation was the heavy rain had found a weak spot in the roof and that water was tricking down through the ceiling air vent as a result. The trickling was spasmodic, which explained the stopping and starting that I had experienced. Case closed, but a solution for the dripping water was still required. I mean, I couldn’t just let the rain soak into the carpet all night. Even a non-woman knows that.

Being a semi-bright fellow, I secured a small bucket to catch and contain the drip. But not being an exceptionally-bright fellow, I didn’t think to soften the resultant crescendo that falling water makes in a bucket in the middle of night after dropping the eight feet from ceiling to floor. To be truthful, it sounded a little bit like erratic machine gun fire.

So, my quiet trip to the bathroom had now degenerated into the equivalence of a noisy gunfight at the OK Corral. True to the script, the cavalry rode to the rescue. Sensible wife arose in consternation and quickly solved the noise problem by dropping a softening washcloth or three into the bucket. Problem solved.

Actually, I think I handled everything pretty well for a middle-aged guy who was simply trying to multitask by sleeping and peeing simultaneously. I’ll really have to worry if I ever stop bothering to get out of bed to practise this multitasking. That’s about the time that the men in the white coats will show up to take me to a place where nice nurses will wrap me in nice diapers before tucking me in for the night … with a warm glass of milk just to ensure that the diaper’s purpose gets fulfilled.

They tell us that we all need to feel fulfilled: apparently even our diapers.

Re-post: Bad Hair Life

My heart grieves (he said ironically) for poor Butterfly who had a bad hair day yesterday. The girl writes a good blog, but I have no follicular sympathy that I can afford to send her way. Yes, her hair has vexed her for most of her life. Yes, it will not usually conform to the current fads. That can be tough on a kid: tough, but hardly traumatizing. Truth of the matter is that she has gorgeous hair: hair that is uniquely hers and also uniquely her — no cheap imitation of somebody else’s fashion statement.

Me? I am not having a bad hair day. I’m just having a bad hair life.

With a bald father and bald paternal grandfather, I knew from early on that I was in trouble. In my adult years, I was not mollified to be told by the medical poohbahs that baldness in genetically inherited from the mother: not mollified because I was already well on my way to Chrome City. On my way to Chrome City with not one bald person on the matriarchal branch of the tree but with baldness nesting all over the patriarchal branch — if it’s possible for baldness and nests to go together, that is. Baldness inherited from the mother, you say? Balderdash (so to speak), say I.

You know, I don’t really mind the baldness too much. I have lots of company, after all. If I had my druthers, of course I’d choose hair, or would have when the choice may have mattered to me. Not sure if I would choose it now though. Truth be told, at the very least, I’m getting used to the guy who I have been beholding in the mirror for more than two decades. At most, maybe I’m even getting attached to him.

What tends to irk me though is the back of my head. I actually have some reverse-baldness. I am losing hair from my neck. What I mean is this. If you look at where most guys’ hairlines end, mine is inches higher. Even worse, the hairline is even higher on both sides of centre than in the centre itself. This bothers me more than the usual male pattern baldness — because it’s rarer and odder, I suppose.

My dad, bless his shiny dome, had this problem too. His saving grace, however, was that his hair was straight. He could grow it a little longer at the back and, at least partially, cover up that bare patch. However, like Butterfly, I have curly hair: unruly, curly hair. If I try to let it grow back there … well … it becomes rather ridiculous follicular quagmire in short order. I become Pumpkinhead-ish.

Back in the hippy days, everybody had long hair, and, being both young and silly, I wanted to fit in. I started to grow my hair. Unfortunately, it would just turn up into the cutest little flip at the back and sides — cute perhaps if I had been born female and was seeking that particular look — but definitely not even remotely hippy-like. Oh, how I tried! I would try to straighten it with hair driers and curling irons; I even went under an old-fashioned hair-drier — with a net on for goodness sakes — once or twice. Gave it up after a burly workman meandered into my boudoir whilst I was sitting under there: yup, my head under a ladies’ salon-style, hair drier with my wife’s hair net on — a pink hairnet if you please!

I made a simple decision. Get a haircut and be myself.

We’re rather silly about appearances, aren’t we? We try hard to follow the popular trends and to hide our supposed flaws. But that’s not who we are. We’re not curly people, or bald people, or short people, or tall people. We’re people. We’re human from the inside out, not from the outside in.

And they're off!!

Butterfly here. Dad gave me the keys to this place while he's gone. Should I wreak some havoc do you think?????

We left for the airport at 6am. Yeah, 6am. Anyway, I got the old folks to the airport with no major or minor mishaps. I think that they were a titch nervous and a whole lot excited.

Included are some pics for you. My Mom's got some crazy reflective thing happening but I'll let Dad fix that up when he gets home. :)

(See below for a re-post from Dad's "Best of" Collection.)

Re-Post: Remarkable Rose

What could be more banal than this photo of our old air conditioner? Yeah, it is old — over twenty years old. When it was installed, I decided that it was silly to have a rose bush behind it. So, as best I could, working in the narrow confines between the AC unit and the wall, I took my trusty spade and dug, poked, and hacked at the plant. I did my best to get rid of it. Hacked it off well below surface level. Thought I had succeeded in eliminating it. Now, I’m thrilled that I failed.

Slowly, steadily, it grew back. Some fifteen years or so later, fifteen years of total neglect, fifteen years of struggling for life between an air conditioner and a wall, it produced a bloom — a single rose.

Every year since, it has produced a few beautiful red roses.

A few houses up, our neighbours have a full rose bush of exactly the same type. But I am moved by our scrawny little plant with its three or four flowers. I almost get sentimental about it. It does what it can, living in the circumstances in which it does: in a few inches of parched shade between a desiccating AC and a wall.

Nature can teach us lessons if we will allow it. There are probably several that this rose bush can teach, but for one, it brings to my mind the adage: “Bloom where you’re planted.” We aren’t all planted in equally fertile ground. Some are not nurtured as much as others. The circumstances that nature and nurture combine to give each person are not equal. Yet, is it not wondrous when a person manages to produce gorgeous flowers, be they few or many? Is it not even a tiny bit miraculous?

You see: there is something about this rose that I appreciate and admire more than it’s more bountiful brothers and sisters. It does what it can, and in doing so, it moves me.

Flocking

That's right! Cuppa and I are about to make like those geese; we're going to flock off for a while. We'll shortly head for Arizona and that little ditch that people talk about with such awe in their voices, and we'll be busy for the next day or two until we make like those geese. Therefore, this will be my last post for a spell, but I have made arrangements for a couple of old blogs to be re-posted in my absence. They'll be new to you, unless you have gone waaayy back in the archives.

We are finding the last-minute stuff very busy-making, especially in seeing how many hyphenated words we can fabricate (see previous clause), but we're getting there. I have five books uploaded to my iPod to keep me semi-sane in airports and airplanes. I say semi-sane because you can't realistically expect to reverse the accumulated damage of decades. Not to fear there's still enough room for about 8,000 photos — give or take a thousand or two. That's if I need any additional room because I also treated my state of dubious semi-sanity to a 2 gig memory card. Cuppa has a half-gigger, and we also have some spare quarter-giggers. Sheesh! It's a wonder that I can afford the trip after buying all dem-dare-hyphenated-giggers.

So, this Canada Goose is about to take a gander about Arizona and will be back in about a week and a half. Talk to you then.

 

Relax, Dude

You can't leave clothes lying around on the bed in this house. If you do forget, El Cat is exceptionally good at finding them and staking his territory within minutes. It's not so bad when they are worn clothes as in the picture above, but in the bottom photo, he found my freshly washed smallclothes. While one hesitates to air one's underwear in public, at least it's clean!

It's his position that humours me (yes, Matilda Frankenburger, I'm very easily amused): the arm extended as if he's most comfy and willing to have a personable chat before nodding off, maybe hear about your troubles and soothe your ruffled feathers. Cheaper than a psychiatrist, eh what?

 

Lunch With Sadie

It was so absolutely gorgeous yesterday that Cuppa and I decided to have our first picnic. I was in shirtsleeves (hooray!) for the first time this year. We didn't go far because there was a turkey stew simmering on the stove. There was a lady and a dog in the local park that we chose. The lady wasn't young; the dog was. She, the lady, was just getting onto a blanket and starting to remove some clothes. I fervently hoped that she wouldn't go too very far, and, thankfully, she didn't.

The dog, Sadie was her name, was a rather delightful young thing. She bounded about with a tremendous joie de vivre that suited the day so wonderfully well: by the water, in the water, over here, over there, by the lady, over to see us. What energy!

We set about enjoying our lunch. I had bought very fresh submarine buns that morning and a bag of chips. I love chips but try not to indulge too often as my waistline is taking a terrible beating as it is. Sigh.

As we watched Sadie cavorting about, it became apparent to us that she was on her own, that she didn't belong to the recumbent lady. In vain, we looked all about for another human, but there was no one to be seen.

We began to fret about Sadie, who was certainly not fretting at all but having the time of her life. Being a dog, she'd get into the water and then come and shake herself by our feet. No amount of hollering could avoid that. Being a friendly and exuberant pup, she kept bound up onto us, particularly Cuppa, with wet body and muddy feet.

She had a tag that was hard enough to read anyway but doubly so with her propensity to move all parts of her body at once. We finally obtained a number, and we were asked to secure her until Animal Control could come by to keep her in custody until she should be claimed. And I am sure that she would be, for a household used to a life force like Sadie would miss her indeed.