Cat, Interrupted

My mom was less-than-satisfied with my last entry, and I’m compelled to agree with her (contrary to popular belief, I have no problem accepting viable criticism from anyone, even my mother).  The story really was a little lame, although, of course, it was science fiction.  Because of my current state of health (and the lack of hits on my site…I doubt that there is anyone out there waiting for this stuff, and I sometimes wonder why I even bother), I haven’t had the energy or the desire to move forward since then, but I’m going to attempt to now, anyhow.  The problem is that there is far too much stuff swimming around in my head, along with the swarm of bees in there, and I need to get rid of some of it.  If I include all of the other voices that inhabit my cranial cavity, as well, things are getting really crowded.  Besides, I did take a poll.  As it turns out, somebody out there is reading this crap.  All I can say is, “My condolences.”

In light of my earlier statement, I was going to write something that would contain a lot of subject matter that my mother could relate to, but I was unable to come up with a story that contained an iguana, a lawyer, an AK-47, a crazy, psychopathic redneck, and a decent bottled beer.  Goddess knows I tried, but even I couldn’t carve a path through that brand of weirdness without compromising my one remaining strand of sanity.  I’d really hate to write her biography.  Consequently, I’m just going to write about one of my cats, instead.  At least then I can rely on the fact that there won’t be much dialogue.

Yeah, I know about all of the LOLcats on the web, and I know that almost everyone has something to say about cats, and that they are literally everywhere on the Interwebz (and people keep posting about them, which is kind of inspiring, actually), but this is just a little bit different.  Before I go on, though, I should probably make it known that, while Kitty is going to be the main focus of this story, in actuality ALL of the animals in my house have been looking at me strangely, lately…even the rabbit.  I have to admit that it’s more than just a little disturbing.

Most people aren’t aware of this, or they don’t believe it (which is just fine), but cats, like many other animals, are Otherworld creatures.  They’re travelers.  They can slip in and out of the astral planes at will, and they make excellent guides, especially if you are looking for something in particular.  They appear to sleep an awful lot, with the exception of those psychotic periods when they’re bouncing off of the walls (which are quite natural), but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t busy.  Watch them closely, and you’ll see what I mean (or you won’t, if you don’t want to).  They are also fiercely protective, and have no qualms about using their fighting skills, yet they are consummate escape artists, as well.  They know when to hit the bricks, which is more than I can say for a lot of people who are or were just a little too proud.

The Ancient Egyptians had a thing for cats, going so far even as to mummify them, and they also believed that cats helped escort the souls of the dead to their appropriate place in the Underworld.  Cats DO have an obvious air of mystery, which is one of the things that makes them so interesting, and one of the reasons they have been subject to worship (and fear) so often.  Cats make excellent Familiars, but they must be dedicated to their companion (not master…bad choice of words) to be truly effective.  Cats that have mixed loyalties are much harder to communicate with, and less likely to be cooperative.  They are not burdened with a sense of responsibility, regardless of who feeds them, but they do still have a tendency to come through in the clutch, although it is difficult to explain how or why.

Kitty, my four-pawed, furry protagonist here, is a fascinating cat, to say the very least.  I still don’t really like the fact that she is named Kitty, nor do the vets (we tried to use something goofy, like Boots, when we had to take her in, although it never stuck), but it’s too late to change things.  She’s already hit middle age, and whenever I look at her, I just see Kitty.  Of course, I really see more than just Kitty, and that’s what part of this is about.

Kitty came into our lives in a strange, dramatic, and traumatic fashion.  It’s not all that pleasant of a tale, but that’s how this works.  Otherwise, there’s not that much of a story.  Derp.  Anyhow, my wife was at home one day while I was at work, and she has always had the tendency to try to do a thousand different things at one time.  On this particular day, she was going outside and into the garage quite a bit, and whenever she did, she kept hearing this strange noise.  It sounded like an eerie, animal-type squeal, but she couldn’t seem to figure out where it was coming from.  Four hours later, she was outside again and she could still hear the same noise.  It really started to bother her, so she finally went to investigate.

The family that lived across the street from us at that time had more kids than we do, and they were a bunch of little terrors.  They weren’t really bad kids, for the most part, but they were a little whacked in the head.  I’m not going to give the parents much credit, either, so it’s probably a good thing that they don’t read my blog.  In truth, I thought that they were all screwed up, but who am I to judge?  Anyhow, as she attempted to follow the sound, my wife eventually ended up wandering across the street near their house, since she seemed to be getting closer, and she decided to peek over the six-foot fence into their backyard.  Sure enough, that was exactly where the noise was coming from.  Unfortunately, though, it was an intermittent wail of pain expressed by Kitty, who was hanging upside down with one paw caught in a trampoline spring.  Based on how long she had been crying, it was fairly obvious that she had at least been hanging there all morning, too.

Naturally, upon sighting the dangling kitten, my wife kind of lost it a little (or a lot), and she immediately went and pounded on the front door of the house.  The mom finally answered, and my wife simply barged past her into the house and went straight out into the backyard to release the cat.  She also discovered that, in addition to having a squashed paw, someone had cut all of the whiskers off one side of Kitty’s face.  Needless to say, Kitty was not a happy camper, even after she was released.  At this time, she was probably just a few months old, and she was displaying some visible signs of suffering from the trauma (and Goddess knows what other mishandling).

After grabbing Kitty, my wife told the mom straight up that they “didn’t deserve to have the cat” and that she was taking it away from them.  Following that, she simply marched back out of the house and brought the cat over to ours.  At that time, we already had several cats, so there was the obvious confusion that occurs when introducing a new one to the household, but there were no real incidents.  My cat, Princess, was still alive at the time, and she was the alpha female of the household.  Once Kitty figured that out, things seemed to be okay, although Kitty quickly proved that she was not exactly a social butterfly.

We kept Kitty for a month or so (this temporary arrangement was part of the reason that she never ended up with a real name), and then the neighbors negotiated her return, which we agreed to on a probationary basis.  My wife reluctantly handed the cat back over to the mom (there were a lot of promises regarding her well-being), although even then it was clear that the cat (which was still very much a kitten) was also reluctant to submit to the exchange.  Regardless, we returned her, and Kitty stayed the night at the neighbor’s house.

I guess the neighbors did NOT have a good night.  The next day, the mom came back over to our house with the cat, and when my wife went outside to meet her, Kitty was literally trying to claw her way back over to my wife.  I watched it all, and it was quite the spectacle.  I’d never seen a cat do that before.  Apparently, the cat had caused a fair amount of carnage during the night, and had also managed to take a shit in every room of their house.  She clearly did not want to be there.  I guess she knew a good thing when she had it.  Needless to say, we took her back, and Kitty became a standard addition to our household.  However, her personality was still unchanged, and she was very standoffish and unsociable.  It took a lot of work just to pet her, and she did not submit to it willingly.  Obviously, she had suffered through enough trauma that she had some serious trust issues.

Kitty’s personality never really changed much the entire time that we lived in that house, which was for several more years following her acquisition.  In fact, I don’t remember hardly ever seeing her, although she may have endeared herself to one of the kids.  I can’t quite remember.  It’s not all that strange for a cat to pick a particular person in a household and adopt him/her.  I have a Siamese right now that is attached to my son, and only my son.  I can barely touch the damned cat, but he can pick her up and flop her around like a rag doll, and she will tolerate every minute of it.  She also sleeps almost exclusively in his room, although she will hang around my other son on the occasions when my older one is not around.  She still won’t have anything to do with me, though, and I know I never did anything to hurt her feelings.  She’s just a snob.  Stupid Siamese.

As we moved forward, we were eventually forced to sell our house due to mold issues and our involvement in a Class Action lawsuit, and we moved into a rental until we could find a new one.  We had been in the house for over a decade (it was built for us), and this was only the second time we had to move since we had come to Arizona.  Consequently, we located a decent, single-level rental in a good price range, which we then inhabited for about seven months until we found a house in a neighborhood in which we actually wanted to live and raise children (this is not easy…people don’t realize exactly how big…how sprawling…Phoenix really is).  Before we located the new house, though, and very shortly after we moved into the rental, something went very wrong with Kitty, who was now a full-grown cat.

With five kids and a bunch of pets, it isn’t always easy to keep track of all the animals.  However, Kitty seemed to, sort of…well…disappear.  She didn’t come out for days, and when we found her, she refused to eat or drink.  She still used the box, but it appeared as though she had gone on a hunger strike.  She would hardly even eat canned food, which is actually a treat for our cats.  She just regressed into this weird state of being until she suddenly started looking almost skeletal, and the day came when she essentially just curled up into a ball and stayed there, which is when we took her to the vet (yeah, this happened a lot faster than you think, so quit with your, “Why didn’t you take her to the vet sooner?”  I can hear you, y’know.).

I had her on the metal table in one of the examination rooms when the vet came in, and Kitty was still curled up into a ball.  I noticed that I could count the vertebrae on her spine.  My wife and I started explaining what was going on, and I finally said, “Look.”  I took my finger and I pushed Kitty all the way across the table.  She never even moved; she just remained all balled up.  Upon examination, the vet told us that the cat had developed a condition called fatty liver, which occurred when the cat stopped eating and drinking properly, likely due to stress, and which would continue to exacerbate the situation once it fully asserted itself.  Based on the condition of the cat, we could either put her to sleep, or we could attempt to save her.  We told the vet that if she thought she could save her, we would prefer to have Kitty back alive, and so she went to work.

Several days and about $1000.00 later, we got our Kitty back.  We were still in the rental, and we had to watch her closely for a while, but she did just fine.  There was, however, one monumental change that had taken place during this time.  Kitty’s cold personality had apparently been exchanged for one that seemed to compel her to seek out whatever ministrations she could wherever she could find them.  In short, she had suddenly become an attention whore.  It was bizarre, to say the least.  Instead of making herself scarce, Kitty was now everywhere.  She was mostly attached to my daughters, and regularly slept in their room, but she would take whatever she could get.  Just witnessing the sudden change was like some strange marvel in animal psychology.  Did she know?  Was she grateful?  What was the deal?

We eventually moved into our current house, and we made certain to monitor Kitty very carefully following the move.  This time, however, she made the transition with ease.  There was no hiding, no hunger strike, and no apparent trauma.  My daughters all wound up in separate rooms, and Kitty divided her time between the three of them for the most part.  If none of the girls were around, then I was the last resort.  Kitty does have this habit of nursing on the bed linen, and she also tends to drool a bit (and puke sometimes), so my wife is not fond of having her on our bed.  However, when my wife wasn’t around, and I was kicking back in bed alone, I would let her accompany me whenever possible, which really wasn’t all that often.  Kitty still slept in the girls’ rooms every night.  Eventually, we ended up with another kitten (who has her own painful biography) who began to sleep on our bed, both of the older girls went off to college, and Kitty just continued to sleep in their room (which we combined after my first daughter left).  Because of our dogs (all saved from horrible fates, as well), Kitty can’t sleep downstairs with my youngest daughter, which was formerly one of her hangouts.

Although the new cat, Harlequin (Harlee, for short) hangs around me, she is nothing like the affection hound that Kitty tends to be.  In fact, sometimes I think that I annoy Harlee when I give her any affection at all.  Even so, she will still sleep with me, but it’s usually somewhere just out of reach.  Given that I have insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea, I have a tendency to wake up in the middle of the night, after which I will seek Harlee out and pet her.  This is also the only time that she seems okay with it, too.

So, here’s the part that strikes me just a little strange.  If you’ve been paying any attention at all, you know I just got out of the hospital earlier this month after having a stroke (and another bout of pneumonia).  Well, ever since I’ve returned home, Kitty has practically been stuck to me like glue.  No matter what time of day (or night) it is, if I’m lying in bed and dinking around on the laptop (or reading, or doing nothing), she will park herself directly between me and the computer (or whatever else I’m concentrating on).  She has this really annoying habit of sitting right on my mouse, too, even while it’s in my hand, so I can’t move it, and I hate the stupid trackpad.  In addition, even though one of my daughters is home from college for the summer, Kitty has been sleeping with me almost exclusively…and practically all night long.  At this very moment, she’s curled up in a ball right beside me.

Kitty doesn’t seem to be asking for much, either.  Of course, I will pet her and scratch her in all the right places until my arm gets tired, and then she’ll sometimes head-butt my hands to see if she’s going to get any more attention, but even if she doesn’t get any at all, she will still plop herself down right by my side.  She hasn’t really been practicing any of her bad habits, either, which is weird, as well.  She’s just there with me…every chance she gets.  I’ve never seen her act like this before, and it’s only been since I came home from the hospital.

So, what does she know that I don’t?  I could ask all of the philosophical questions right now, but that would be a waste of space.  Still, I can’t help but think that she has more information than she’s letting on, and she’s….what?  Not telling me?  Dropping subtle hints that I’m too stupid to pick up on?  I just don’t know.  Of course, it could be purely coincidence, although this is not a good time for her to be screwing with my sensibilities.  Silly cat.  Still, she’s soft and warm and furry and irresistible, so I’m not going to complain, especially since there isn’t enough space.  Besides, my arm is sore from petting her all of the time, and I can’t seem to move my mouse hand.

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The Previous Play is Under Review

The only problem with blogging is that, once you get started again, you feel like you have an obligation to entertain people, which is stupid.  For one thing, I think there’s probably about six people who actually read this (if I’m lucky), and for another, I have no idea if I’m being entertaining or not, but don’t tell me.  I don’t want to break the illusion that I have regarding how awesome I am.  Besides, this is supposed to be for therapeutic reasons, so I guess that I need to get a firm grip on the selfish aspect of it.  Oh, and just to give you some scope, my titles don’t always match the content in the post.  I also do the same thing when I create emails at work.  Hmmpf.  Now that I think about it, I guess that it’s no wonder that I’m dangling at the bottom of the food chain.

I’m trying to add some didactic (there’s that word again) value to these, although I really don’t have the arsenal to support that position.  However, there is a chance that someone will find some wisdom and even entertainment in what I write.  There is also a chance that a piece of a satellite will fall out of space and hit you in the head.  Personally, I think the odds are about equal, which reminds me that this is supposed to be a little tidbit regarding marriage.  Did I segue there, or was that just an abrupt change of direction?  Ah, screw it.

One of the most important things that marriage has taught me is that honesty is the only way to go.  I don’t like to compromise my integrity, so I avoid it…unless there is some sort of cash reward, or the Feds show up at my door.  In most cases, once I start with the lies, they end up so entangled that I usually forget what it was that I was lying about in the first place.  My wife knows exactly how bad my memory is, too, and she can adeptly exploit this weakness, so it’s useless, anyhow.  Still, I make a concerted effort to stick to my value (yeah, there should be an “s” on the end of that word, but I can only think of one at the moment).  After all of the things that she and I have been through, and all of the times that my wife has held my hand through the pain and the darkness, I do owe her that much.  Consequently, as a rule, I never lie, and I almost never exaggerate.

That being said, we were at the mall one day, um, the Mall of America (yeah, that’s it), and both of the Presidential candidates were giving speeches, and the Pope was there, and so was Henry Winkler (who likely plays no role in this story), when suddenly my wife’s uterus fell out.  Now, we already had five children, largely because we both like sex and kids (but not at the same time), but the doctors had smugly predicted that we weren’t even going to have the fifth one.  After two or three miscarriages, though, we wound up with a healthy, beautiful, blue-eyed, blonde girl that had defied the odds.  So much for predictions, I guess.  Neener, neener, neener.  However, following her birth, my wife really was in no condition to take any more risks, so to be safe I went and got a vasectomy.  I didn’t mind.  It’s not like it changes the size or anything like that.  In fact, the two worst parts of getting one is the smell of them cauterizing your tubes, which are surprising long for being stored in such a small bag, while the doctor says to you, “Yeah, that burning aroma is you,” and the unconcealed excitement of my wife as she watched and went, “Oh.  Ahh.  Oooooh.”  Thank Goddess the doctor finally told her to be quiet.  He threatened to kick her out of the room if she didn’t shut up, and I knew she didn’t want to miss a thing.

Anyhow, I think we were right in front of The Gap when “plop!”  I looked down and there was her uterus. We both stopped and studied it carefully.

“Did you know that was going to happen?” I asked her.

“Not really,” she said.

“Did you feel funny?” I inquired.

“Well…sort of,” she replied rather sheepishly.  It was then I could tell that she knew more than she was letting on.

“Um, maybe you should have stuck a potato up there, like that one lady we read about,” I suggested.

My wife exclaimed, “She grew a TREE out of her vagina.”

I said, “Well, I was just saying…”

About this time, a Security officer pulled up in one of those little golf carts.

Security asked, “Ma’am, is that yours?”

My wife looked at him innocently and said, “What?”

Security replied, “That…uh…exactly what is that?”

Suddenly at a loss, my wife said, “Ummm…”

Then the uterus actually moved.  This freaked the security guard and he drew his gun.

I hollered, “Wait!  Don’t shoot!  I’ve seen this before.

My wife and the security guard both looked at me incredulously and said, in unison,

“You have?

I said, “Well, no.  But it just seems kind of weird to shoot it.”

By this time, we were really attracting a crowd, and I noticed that a pall of silence had fallen over the place.  It appeared that we now had the attention of both of the Presidential candidates, as well as the Pope’s.  Time stood still for what seemed like ages, as everyone just stared blankly, and then the Pope finally wandered over, looked at the uterus, and muttered, “Dominus Vobiscum” (that’s either “the Lord be with you” or “play dominoes in Hell”) while making the sign of the cross.  Obviously conflicted, both Presidential candidates looked at the Pope, looked at us, looked at the uterus, and then, almost simultaneously, each said uncertainly,

“Vote Republican?”

“Vote Democrat?”

That’s when the uterus twitched again.  I turned back to the security guard and said,

“Quick!  Shoot it…before it makes a decision.”

Suddenly, Henry Winkler said, “Aaaayyyyyyy,” gave two thumbs up, and then he wandered away.  I guess he needed the cameo.

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And Now for Something a Little Less Serious – Grace on the Road

As I was babbling incessantly to the Nothing-Short-of-Adorable Miss Molly earlier, this story (true) came out, probably as a side-effect of my weirded-out brain.  As I thought about it afterward, though, it seemed like something I should embrace for some reason.  Consequently, I did, and this is the result:

Two things that I’ve found out that I sucked at in life were staying in one place, and giving people the benefit of the doubt.  For the sake of my children, I’ve managed to fix the first one, but the second one seems to get worse every day.  It’s like emotional syphilis.  Don’t trust anyone…ever.  Even my therapists have never seemed to have a socket that size.

Even so, there’s nothing like someone saving your ass to make you go, “Hmmm.”  In reality, that’s sometimes all I have from a theological standpoint.  At least the choir will be able to transition with a certain amount of ease.  They’ll just have to get used to using a Hmmmnal (okay…sorry about that).

A certain set of circumstances found me, at age 20, hitchhiking on a deserted mountain road in the middle of nowhere in Washington state at 1:30 a.m.  Not knowing the current whereabouts of the party I was with prior to this particular eventuality, I am loath to discuss the cause of how I arrived there.  Let’s just say that, somehow, I did.  I was carrying a shoulder bag containing a couple of changes of clothes, a six-inch, black steel, lock blade tucked in my waistline at the small of my back (that I could typically flick, twist, and swipe before you could blink), and about $1000.00 that I had “borrowed” from the aforementioned party.

What I didn’t have, however, was a plan beyond where I currently was, or any type of ride to help me execute that non-existent plan.  As a result, I walked for some time and stuck my thumb out when the opportunity arose, which was almost never.  In fact, it took an hour for the first car to appear, which amazed me altogether, and it was about the size of a ’71 Thunderbird and was full of migrant farm workers.  No one fired any shots, but I did eventually look up some of the things they hollered as they went by.  Of course, I never told my mother what they said about her.  That would be wrong.  Following that brief flicker of excitement, though, there was another long, empty silence.

The closest town was about 11 miles away.  I figured I could walk that far and pick up a motel room in the morning.  I wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere in particular; I was just working towards away.  Now, I’d always considered myself a person of very little fear, which really was laughable at that time.  Even so, the way I saw it, as I child, I had been indestructible, so as a young adult, I was still carefree and careless.  Of course, as a 43-year-old stroke victim, I’d give insult to the Devil, because now I don’t give a shit, but at least I’m insured.  For shame, though.  I digress.

I was walking along the road and, as luck would have it, I noticed I had “chosen” a night when the moon was almost full.  I thought that worked for me, because there are absolutely no lights on a mountain road.  However, I was walking by a cornfield (yes, in the mountains…a cornfield…don’t ask stupid questions) when I suddenly noticed someone out of the corner of my eye to my right.  I have to say that it was at that point I could finally see where Stephen King was coming from, as cornfields really are just plain, fucking, freaky in the middle of the night.  This person was moving fast, too, as he/she paced me for a second or two, and as I came to the end of the field, came straight at me.  My heart jumped into my throat, and my hand shot down to my knife, but it was too late…I was successfully attacked by my own shadow.  Respawn.

When there is nobody around to see what an ass you just made out of yourself, you may find that you can easily laugh at your own stupidity.  I know I did.  I was a crazy man laughing at myself in the middle of nowhere, but it did help me to gain some perspective.

I started walking again, and I probably made it another mile before I heard another car coming.  I didn’t really much care at this point, so I just stuck out my thumb as I walked.  I thought to myself, “What kind of people are out on the road at this time of night, anyhow?”  Surprisingly, I found out, as this car actually pulled over.  It was a slightly battered hatchback of an unremarkable make, and there was a young woman in the front seat with a beer between her legs.  I don’t recall the conversation that got me into the car, but I do know that I must have dropped my flannel jacket on the street when I got in.  Traveling in such a manner becomes a series of small losses, so I was used to it.

I told her I was heading to a motel in the next town, which was exactly where she was heading, except for the motel part, but she was kind enough to drive me to one.  That was one time when I should have been more specific as to my requirements, since we ultimately ended up in the parking lot of that town’s version of the Bates Motel, complete with the creepy, leafless trees that merged it into Poltergeist.  The motel looked completely deserted, there were leaves scattered all over the parking lot, and even now I still think that they had actually built it over a graveyard.  I could hear the chains rattling.  I was going to get out of the car, though.  It wasn’t as if I’d never seen worse, and she had more than done her share.  Fortunately for me, though, the creepiness wasn’t lost on her, and she popped a question.

She asked me, “How well can you be trusted?”

I had already gotten a vibe on her situation from the ride into town, so I quickly saw where this was going.  She needed money, and I had some.  She was willing to stake me room and board, and chances were that I wouldn’t get hit with a shovel and dressed up in women’s clothes.  However, for all she knew, she had just picked up the banjo player from Deliverance.

I replied, “Well, I’m not going to rape or kill you, if that’s what you mean.” (Don’t all psychos say that?)

                She asked, “How much will you pay me to stay at my place?

I looked at her inquiringly, “Thirty bucks?”

She smiled and said, “No, that’s more than a motel.  I’ll take twenty.”

I was really beginning to like her.  Anyone who had the decency to negotiate down was okay in my book.

She drove me to her trailer, and I paid her in advance to make sure we had an understanding.  This was about room and board, and not about anything else.  She was just a decent human being (a dying breed, to say the least) keeping a wayward traveler from being buried in a motel basement after he is brutally stabbed in the shower.  She also drove around with a beer between her legs, which helped to push her over to my side of the table, as well (yeah, I know…this was 1989, okay?).  As it happened, I had about six joints in my bag that I had brought back from Hawaii (so much for all the drug treatment, eh, Mom?).  Back then, I could still get away with balling up a bag of dope and tucking it under my testicles when flying, and I wasn’t about to leave without some of that stuff.  It was from Maui, and it practically glowed in the dark, and it came in sealed packaging like Otter Pops™, and no, I’m not trying to glorify it, but it sure sounds that way, doesn’t it?  Okay, I was glorifying it.  I admit it.  Sue me.

We smoked, stayed up until 4:30 a.m. talking about everything and nothing, and I slept on the couch.  In the morning, she made me eggs with Canadian bacon and V8™ juice, and I was also able to take a nice, hot shower.  I even had a plan now as to where I was going, too, as apparently Karma sometimes looks after terminal stoners.  It seems that she and a friend were going to recycle some cans, and then they were driving 180 miles to the next city to pick up her boyfriend.  As it happened, that was now exactly the same direction I was going.

We picked up her friend, did the thing with the cans, I bought a case of beer, and we headed east.  It was a party in the car.  Of course, if you try this now, they throw your ass in jail for a while, and deservedly so.  Too many people die because of this kind of idiotic behavior [end lecture here].  They dropped me off at a Motel 6, and I gave them a little taste of Maui in return.  Then, I bid them farewell, rented a room, went upstairs, got a splitting headache from all the cheap beer, stuck my knife under the pillow, and went to sleep.

The next morning I caught a cab to the bus station.  Actually, I caught a cab to a place near the bus station, so I could get something to eat.  In the cab, I belatedly realized that I had left my knife under the pillow in the motel.  Do you remember what I said about those small losses?  That one really bothered me.  Okay, I’m over it.  No, I’m not.  I’ve never found another one like it, so you’ll have to excuse my pathological sentiment for a weapon of destruction.  My bad…but, man, it was beautiful.  Sigh.  Anyhow, I’d always heard that bus stations are in the worst part of town, and I would say that’s an urban myth, but it is so not.  They are indeed always in the worst part of town.  Conversely, I’ve also learned that the worst part of town is what you make of it.

At my request, the cab driver dropped me off at a restaurant, which was really more of a diner, near the bus station.  It had a sign in front that only had three letters left in the name where there should have been eleven.  There were also a whole lot of people out in front of it that were missing body parts.  Being the son of one, I have a special affinity for ‘Nam vets, so I passed out some cigarettes before I went in, but I was unwilling to part with much cash due to my uncertain future.  The diner itself looked unexceptional, and my seat partner at the counter had only one eye.  The woman behind the counter, however, was like someone straight out of a 50’s movie.  She called me “honey” with an air of affection, and moved with the grace of a jungle cat, and I couldn’t help but be charmed.  I ordered minced ham & eggs, and I received a $3.00 breakfast that really could have fed three of me.  I guess I was as skinny as I looked, and the counter woman had something to do with it, as well.  In addition, the food was incredible.

After stuffing my face, I left a sizeable tip and wandered down to the bus station. I was delighted to discover that everybody on the street was actually very friendly.  Even though I was always somewhat guarded, I realized that, for a change, I never felt threatened, even without my pokey tool, the loss of which I was still mourning.  In fact, I’d missed the first bus by the 20 minutes it had taken me to eat, so I had to spend another eight hours hanging around the bus station.  I had some fun, and I made a lot of new friends, even if the relationships were extremely short-term.  Eventually, though…I mean, finally…I was able to get on a bus that would deliver me to the same town where I would meet my future wife of almost 22 years.

Grace?  Karma?  Does it matter?

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And Now for Something a Little More Serious

I wrote the following (in fact, it inspired me to revive my blog…that, and a few comments from Molly) because of my wife. So, please, I implore you…listen up:

Just because I present myself the way that I do, and because it seems that it’s almost always Howdy-fucking-Doody Time inside my head, doesn’t mean everything in life is peachy keen. I’m good at this game, and I know it, and I usually enjoy it. Showing real weakness is not one of the things I really LIKE to do, y’know, so I laugh my way through it. Seriously, life really is funny to me (that was…er…kind of an oxymoron).  Besides, I have to laugh to make up for the areas that aren’t covered by psychiatric medication.

In this particular case, though, I just want people to understand what other folks have to go through, and I don’t mean me (worse things have happened to better people).  I want folks to know that a front is not always a strong one, it’s just that: a front. That’s why the term carries the connotations that it does. It’s a FRONT (not to be confused with affront, of which I am also quite capable). I use Facebook as a playground. In the past, I’ve never cried about bloody noses on the playground, but I’ve also never given credit to the people who helped me through them, so it’s about damned time that I did.  Consequently, here’s the story (and there ain’t a single Brady in it):

I went to bed last Saturday in the same manner I often do.  I ate some ice cream early in the evening.  I watched a little TV.  I dinked around on the laptop for a while after my wife fell asleep because of our marathon sex session (that part is fiction, sorry), I watched some stuff on NetFlix, and then I put the PC away and went to sleep. Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep. I ended up coughing all night long, and it got progressively worse as the dawn drew near.  Eventually, I dozed for a bit, but when I woke up I had a blood-oxygen saturation that was headed down into the 50’s (this is NOT good), and I was panting like an overweight basset hound. Fortunately (for me, anyhow), my wife has been through this far too many times in the last year, so she already knew what her options were (imagine waking up to this shit, like, 14 times).  I have to say that, up until now, at least she has never used Option 3 (that’s the one where she just lets me die), which would be quite understandable.  I’m worth much more that way, so it’s clear that she’s not in this for the money (actually, that was clear when she married me…I owned a guitar and a toilet brush…and that was pretty much it).

So, she said to me, “Either get in the car and I’ll drive you to Mayo, or I need to call the paramedics (this is tough to do, especially since she knows I never want to go back to the hospital).”
I said, “Just let me lie here.” She refused, many times, because she knows I am irrational. Finally, I violently puked up a bunch of black stuff into a garbage can, and then her and my son managed to drag me to the car. I don’t remember the ride to Mayo. I don’t remember much of anything, which is typical due to hypoxia. This has happened at least eight times in almost as many months, so I’m really surprised that my brain still works at all. [By the way, the hospitals on this side of town REALLY suck; we’re not snobs, we just like decent health care. Even so, the paramedics have dragged me to all of them several times because they only go as far as they have to when you're "not stable."]

The only thing that was different this time was that I actually remember a doctor looking down at me and saying, “Mr. Boone, we’re going to move you because we think you just had a stroke.”  That’s my version.

Conversely, the way my wife described the incident to me, I was in the ER on the table, she asked me something, and I said, “Brgglthhprrp.” Apparently, that’s not English, which is a bad sign. Then she asked me to grab her hand and I couldn’t lift my left arm.  She also said my pupils turned into little, tiny dots.  She looked up at the doctors and inquired, “This isn’t right. Did he just have a stroke or something?” The doctors all got that weird, doctor-look on their faces and went silent. Then one of them finally said, “Yes, I think he did.”

My wife started to hyperventilate, so they sat her down as they rushed me in for a CT Scan. I did, indeed, have a stroke, because I guess I failed (or passed?) all of the stroke tests. Oh, and you should know (for context) that I am a 43-year-old male (no matter what my Facebook friends try to tell you), and I’m not super fat or anything. I am probably 40 pounds overweight, although I don’t eat that much, and I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t smoke, I don’t take any drugs that are not prescribed (none of them are narcotics), and I don’t consume soda or any other caffeinated beverages (Goddess, I’m boring).  All I ever drink is water.  My biggest weakness is strawberry swirl ice cream, and it’s not like I put it in a bong and smoke it (I originally gained most of my weight on steroids, not ice cream, which I discontinued a long time ago…but fat is like luggage…you tend to keep it even when you’re not using it). No, I am NOT a Mormon, either.  I read the book.  Joseph Smith wrote terrible fiction. Anyhow, I just know when I need to give stuff up. Sometimes, it works. For me, not so much these days, but I’m stubborn that way.

As it turns out, I was in the hospital for another six days (that makes about thirty days so far this year alone), and if I didn’t pass some of their silly tests (into which I put a LOT of effort), I would still be there, albeit now in their recovery facility.  They wanted me to stay.  Needless to say, I did not want to stay, so I went home, instead.  Now, pay attention, because this is the important part:

I am NOT better. I can barely type with my left hand, and I couldn’t make it up the stairs last night without crawling. I can no longer play the guitar (which isn’t saying much, although I have been playing it for almost 30 years), and I have a ways to go before I can say that I can play it (in ANY capacity). In addition, the stroke was a complication of a condition that has been plaguing me for the last two years. The doctors usually say that it’s Aspiration Pneumonia, but they don’t know why I keep getting it. For one, I am too “young.” For another, no matter how hard they look, they can’t find a true, physical cause, so there is a lot of speculation.  I’ll spare you the details of some of the testing I was doing before I ended up in the hospital, but it wasn’t fun. While I was at the hospital, though, I had three MRIs, two CT scans, a TEE test (where they shove this giant-ass, banana thing down your throat with absolutely no finesse (way worse than an endoscopy) while ineptly trying to sedate a person that cannot be sedated), a spinal tap, three sonograms, and Goddess knows how many other tests. I also had a Foley catheter put in, as I remember both the insertion and removal, because those are the things that tend to make it into long-term memory. My urethra still feels violated. I was lonely and miserable, and there is not a person on the East Side of Phoenix who hasn’t seen my junk, now. In fact, I actually had a whole team of nurses wipe my ass for me at least once. That’s always inspiring, even when you are too sick to care. Nevertheless, the doctors still know nothing other than the fact that I had a stroke.

Right now, today, I feel like shit. Truly…both mentally and physically. I wake up that way. I can deal (although I would love to wake up at least once and think, “Man, I feel good.”). My real concern is that my poor wife has gone through this way too many times, and my youngest daughter couldn’t even attend school for a few days because she has been emotionally compromised. These are not good things. My wife already spends at least six hours a day in the car when I’m working (she drives me to work every day – an hour one way), and The Mayo Hospital is an hour-and-a-half away from my house. She came to see me every day even though she still had to deal with the children’s issues, as well. She’s also my Medical Power of Attorney, largely because I have the memory of a gerbil, so she deals with all of the bureaucratic crap, too.  She’s exhausted.  She’s a fucking saint.  No, everything is not all right. We still have to worry about work, which is stressful in itself, and she now has to worry about how to manage the damned household while I’m on disability, which pays only partial salary (and I’m grateful for THAT). For the record, companies don’t LIKE people on disability. We’re a big pain in the ass. They care about the hive, not the bee. There are lots of bees, but there is only one hive. It’s a precarious position in which to be, at best. At worst, it flat out sucks.

Look, I know about Death, and I don’t care. We’ll hang out, maybe soon, as I can’t play Chess for shit and Death doesn’t like Parcheesi.  I’m not going to lie, though, and sit here and tell you that I don’t want to see how this ends, and how wonderful my children will ultimately become, because I already know they will be strong…and they will be amazing. However, I am the consummate realist. This could be my last chance (of course, I thought that the last time I almost died, too) and that’s fine. I’m still going to keep moving forward. So will everyone else. It could happen again at any time. Goddess only knows. However, I don’t want to become a fucking vegetable that has to be spoon fed, I want to be able to wipe my own ass, and I want people to stop giving me that look. I hate that look, so quit it.

Finally, I want the best for my family, as they are my great work…my magnum opus. If I don’t accomplish another damned thing, and I do still have goals, I know that I made the world better for everyone else, even if people don’t know it, yet.  Better yet, I know I married a strong woman who will rip out your intestines if you mess with my children. Then she’ll smile, arrange them in a pile, and she’ll hop up and down on them and sing Tubthumping by Chumbawamba. I love that quality in a woman.  I love that woman.  So, if you happen to see her or talk to her, give her a fucking break.  Her life really is a bitch.

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