Wendi Pope Rank is an advanced practice nurse from the Philadelphia area. She holds a master's degree from Lasalle University.
Wendi has written for medical journals since 1998. Her first piece, External Ventriculostomy: A Practical for the Acute Care Nurse was published in the Journal of Neuroscience Nursing in 1998. You can find the article here.
Wendi has also written numerous article for the journal Nursing2020, including Cerebral Vessel Repair with Coils and Glue in 2002 and Using Nimodipine for Patients with Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage in 2014. You can find a complete list here and here.
Wendi has since expanded her writing. She wrote a piece for Conserve the Wild, which can be found here. This year, she wrote a piece for Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, which can be found here.
Wendi is slated to have two articles appear in Nursing2020 in 2020.
You can contact Wendi at wendi.rank@gmail.com.
Thursday, April 16, 2020
Thursday, January 26, 2017
To All The Cats I've Loved Before...
"I know it's not," I retorted. "But I'm still going to do it."
Wait. I just read that. That exchange sounds like a sex thing. It's not. It's not a sex thing.
And if you think still think this is going to be a sex thing, you are what Annie Wilkes would call a dirty birdie.
Let's make this less Misery and more Sound of Music-y - let's start at the very beginning.
I adopted a cat. Oh, I love her so much. Her name is Ladybug and if you think I'm damaged for having two cats named Ladybug during my lifetime, you should remember opinions are like asses. Everyone has one.
I did not name either cat.
This particular cat was named by her elderly former owner. She hoarded cats. Mine was one of eleven she accumulated.
But now Ladybug is an only (fur) child and she is wonderful. Wonderful except for one thing.
She insists on drinking from my water glass at night.
When Husband and I retire for the evening, we each bring a glass of water to the bedroom to keep on the nightstand for the duration of our evening repose. Once Kitty had grown comfortable in the Pope-pourri household, she felt free to loudly slurp from our water glasses in the middle of the night.
Look, I love her, but I'm not swapping spit with my cat. It took me years to get comfortable slugging mouthwash from the same bottle as Husband - and I exchange DNA with him.
So Husband and I began covering our water glasses with a book. Problem solved.
Except Kitty doesn't like to commute down three flights of steps to get to her water bowl at four in the morning. Unable to negotiate removing the book from the water glass, Kitty decided she needed to alert us to her impediment.
So, at all hours of the night, she calmly stands behind me, yowling and stroking my hair with her claws. Factoring Son's nightly attempts to get in bed with us - it's a toss up as to whether he's sleep walking or attempting some sort of Oedipal intervention between me and Husband - I am rapidly losing hours of sleep.
To solve my problem, I looked no further than my parents, who notoriously maintained a glass of water in their family room for their now-deceased cat. I could do the same thing for my cat, couldn't I? It wouldn't be hypocritical - I know it's not normal to do that. Further, my parents kept a glass of water on the family room table all the time for their cat. My intent was to only have Kitty's water glass out at night, and only to save me some sleep.
The first night I set my plan in motion, Husband was flummoxed. The day I discovered that my parents perpetually kept a glass of water on their family room table for their cat to enjoy at his leisure, I had expressed to him how absolutely bananas I thought they were to do something like that. I also expressed to him how bananas my parents were to not realize how bananas they were being by keeping that glass out. Now, here I was, doing the same thing?
But I explained the difference to him. The difference, I pointed out, was that I recognize I'm bananas for bringing a glass of water to bed for the cat. I just need my sleep.
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| My parents' cat's water glass. |
 |
| My cat's water glass. See? Totally different. |
"We could close the door," Husband suggested. This, he said, would have the added benefit of thwarting Son from his nocturnal sojourns.
Wait, lock out my kids and my cat? Not happening.
"She's just a cat," Husband sighed.
Umm...has he just met me? Just a cat? Is he just my husband? Is Sherlock just a character? Is Starbucks just a beverage?
The only answer to all of that is "no."
I'm not freezing my cat out at night. She gets her own glass of water. I get some sleep. Everyone is happy.
Except a month on and Kitty has become the monster to my Dr. Frankenstein. When Husband and I settle in for the night, she jumps on the bed - I got in a lot of trouble when she did that while we were trying to swap DNA - and walks right over to her glass of water. She loudly laps water from her glass, unabashed, as though she's the one that did us a huge favor by coming to live with us. As though we should consider ourselves privileged to listen to her guzzle.
Even worse, a few nights ago she turned her nose up at the water I set out for her. I knew immediately what problem she was trying to communicate with her loud mewling.
She's like the monster, catching up with Dr. Frankenstein in the cold Arctic. Dr. Frankenstein thinks it's enough for the monster that he caught up with him. But the monster wants more.
What my little monster wanted was colder water. The water I'd delivered was too warm for her taste.
And in that brief moment - when I went to refresh Ladybug's water - I lost any faith Husband had in my sanity. In my normalcy. What would come next? he demanded to know. Would I hold the glass so as to ease her drinking burden?
Over breakfast one morning, I shared my situation with my mom. She, of all people, would understand what I was doing.
I was wrong.
"Why a glass?" she asked. "Doesn't that spill? Wouldn't a bowl be better?"
I'm pretty sure if I brought one of the cat's bowls to bed, Husband would take up permanent residency at the cabin.
As Husband and I lay in bed one night, listening to our cat swill water from her glass, Husband commented on how loud she was for such a little animal. Husband pointed out how very insane his gulping makes me. The fact that I take no issue with the cat's loud guzzle? Well, that kind of offended him.
Hmm...doesn't feel so good, does it? Maybe you'll remember how it feels. Maybe you won't be so quick to lock my kids and cat out of the bedroom.
A few mornings ago - early, still dark out - Son curled up in bed with us. His movement disturbed Kitty's rest, so she loped over to her water, greedily slurping away as the three of us listened.
"Mommy?" Son whispered. "I think it's cute that you give Kitty her own water glass."
Of course he does. He's my other monster.
The Binge
So I forgot to add things to read and watch at the cabin with last week's post. We'll just post it here and pretend like I posted it last week because it's my blog and I say I can.
Svengoolie (MeTV) A peculiar gent shows really bad old sci-fi and horror films. A cold beer and a couple of grade schoolers just enhance the viewing experience.
Dr. Mutter's Marvels. The Mutter Museum's founder was a medical visionary with a fascinating story of his own. His biography focuses largely on his medical career - including complex surgeries performed without anesthesia.
In Cold Blood. Truman Capote's novelized nonfiction account of a notorious crime, the victims, and the perpetrators is a knife's edge of suspense.
Jason Priestley: A Memoir. Yep. That Jason Priestley. Because - let's face it - we all want to know who was banging whom on that set.
A Wilderness of Error. Documentarian Errol Morris' fresh look at the four decade old Fatal Vision case will leave you wondering: Did he do it?
Fatal Strike. Click on the link. That's the only way to understand how funny it is that I leave this book on Husband's nightstand at the cabin. Plus Shannon McKenna likes to write some dirty stuff.
Friday, January 13, 2017
Just A Natural Fact
I stared as the goldfish swam weakly around the toilet bowl. Suddenly Husband's words, once dismissed, now surged back into my head.
I was brought to the toilet bowl that fateful night because of Son. Son, who had been on an epic run of goldfish deaths. No matter what I did, every goldfish I brought home died in a matter of weeks.
Once upon time we had goldfish that thrived. It was the heyday of aquatic grooming for the Pope-pourris. But one brutal day a goldfish died and we have been unable to recapture a little of the glory. To quote Bruce.
I have consulted our local pet store. Lord above, have I consulted them. No, Son isn't overfeeding. He's not underfeeding, either. In that case, they said, a bigger tank would fix my woes. Then a filter. Chemicals. Less frequent water changes. Change less of the water (that's different from less frequent water changes, trust me). Finally, vitamins. Vitamins, they proclaimed, were the one thing standing between my goldfish and a long life.
My filter percolated away. Vitamins drifted through the water. Yet goldfish after goldfish entered a tank that had become the maritime equivalent of H.H. Holmes' Chicago hotel.
The death of each goldfish devastated me anew, and not just because I had to tell a little boy devoted to his finned friends that one of them had gone to the tank in the sky. It was because I couldn't bear the thought of any of my beloved pets suffering. I imagined them in that tank, slowly suffocating, or festering with infection, or succumbing to poison. Whatever the problem was in our tank, I was sure it caused a devastatingly painful death for our fish. I even considered that maybe, just maybe, the surviving fish warned each newcomer, a vain attempt to save each little immigrant's scaly life.
Sometimes, when a goldfish would pick an inconvenient time to die - think the first day of school, or when my mom was in the hospital -I surreptitiously replaced the fish. That just made me feel worse. I was simply sentencing another fish to the horrors of my fish tank. And this dangerous game of pesce Weekend At Bernie's eats at me. If Son learns of my deception, how can I ever expect his trust again? We have some big talks coming up in the near future. Sex. Drugs. Alcohol. How can I lie about what I did and still have him believe me?
So a few weeks ago when yet another goldfish was floating, aimlessly on his side, I had to break the news to Son once more. It has become easier, as the thrill of picking out a new fish eases his heartache. With the ground frozen, I offered a burial at sea.
"A burial at sea?" Son echoed, his blue eyes moist with unshed tears, yet curious all the same.
"All drains lead to the ocean," I sighed as he trailed me to the bathroom.
Rather than being horrified, Son was intrigued. We'd never flushed one of our gilled compatriots down the toilet. The hilarity and novelty of the proposed funeral captivated Son. He was on board - no nautical pun intended.
So I scooped the goldfish from the tank. His tail swished slightly, but as I stared, I could see no gill movement. I stared and stared and finally chalked it up to a fickle movement of the net.
But when we dumped our poor chordate brother in the toilet, he definitely, horribly, began to swim around the bowl. Just enough that I noticed. Not enough for Son to detect.
The only adult in the house for the night, I inwardly panicked. I couldn't send our cherished fish down the toilet. He'd drown! As terrible as I imagined life in our tank to be, I couldn't even fathom the savagery of a flushing death. What to do?
And that was when Husband's words echoed in my brain, a temporal lobe memory I thought I'd forgotten.
After euthanizing a cat, a dog, and a guinea pig, Husband felt it was high time to have a chat with me. Aside from the prohibitive cost of veterinary euthanasia - $39 for a guinea pig! The man's not made of money! - Husband felt there was something inherently cruel about turning an animal over to a feared figure for the purpose of hastening death. Animals dislike seeing the vet, he explained. And when the animal is sick enough, death usually occurs quickly, with just the vet present, not in the loving arms of us, the owners. In the last moments of their lives, we have, on a fundamental level, betrayed our devoted friend.
Wary, I inquired as to the alternative.
"I'll send you an article," he replied.
"You can't be serious," I said, having read the short accounting. The glint in his eye and cock of his smile told me that, no, he wasn't serious. But he didn't exactly disagree, either.
So as I stared at the dying fish in my toilet on that dreadful night, I thought of the article. I thought of how I owed this poor fish, clearly dying, more than just a flush. I thought of how many times I'd seen Alligator. And I knew I couldn't pull the trigger. As it were.
What would Husband do in this situation? I asked myself. He and I have what may seem like a contrarion coexistence. I have carte blanche to bring into our home any rescue that twinges my bleeding heart. In our time together, I have rescued two cats, a dog, a guinea pig, a crayfish, and a hamster. And while I occasionally get the odd heckle from Husband - you drove an hour and a half to the SPCA for a hamster?! Does the cat really need her own water glass in our room at night? - he largely stays silent. Even more, he foots the bill. That's no small thing.
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| Wouldn't you drive hours for that little face? |
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| Surely you can't make this cutie travel three flights of steps for her water?! |
Husband, on the other hand, has carte blanche to bring any dead animal, procured with his own hands, his own skill, and his own time, into our house. So while I occasionally give him the odd heckle - do you really have to discuss squirrel recipes in front of everyone at swim team? Are you really going to hang a dead deer in the yard if the butcher is closed?- I largely stay silent. Even more, I stay silent when pheasant blood cascades over my kitchen cabinets. That is no small thing.
I reserve the right to photograph it, though.
On the surface, a hunter is an odd choice for someone like me - a fourth generation animal lover, four generations of family that has rescued anything with a tail or gills or whiskers. But living with a hunter, one can't help but see the humanity in the act. When you have invested time, money, and effort into procuring your meal, you use every part. You thank your quarry for all he has provided you. And you have likely saved him from a far less humane death. You see the damage done to the hunted's environment - pollution, climate failure, food disparity, loss of natural predators.
I mean, you can't grab a Naked Juice and some tampons while you're hunting your deer like you can when you get your bacon at the supermarket, but that's exactly the point.
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| I'll bet you didn't know there's all sorts of products that remove human scent. Detergent. Shower gel. Deodorant. Dryer sheets. |
Daughter, I believe, is the very embodiment of our marriage of ideals. A born hunter who tirelessly campaigns for endangered cheetahs and homeless golden retrievers, her dream is to open a business that is a restaurant in the front and an animal shelter in the back.
Just, you know, be cautious with the daily special if there's an animal in the shelter that has overstayed its welcome. She's never said anything, but I'd still think twice.
So all of this swam through my head, much more aggressively than the fish in the toilet bowl. I decided I would hustle Son off to bed, scoop the fish from the tank, and euthanize him much more humanely than a flush down the toilet. With the added benefit that he would never become the size of a tractor trailer and start eating Public Works employees.
But Son was married to the porcelain funeral. Flush, yelped my little H.H. Holmes in the making.
So with a silent apology, I flushed. And didn't use that toilet again until Husband was home.
Later that night, the sole person awake (oh God. Sole. Another fish. Will it never end?), I moved through my house, tidying before sleep took me - however temporarily - from the horror of my deed. And that was when I noticed the water on my kitchen table.
A huge, wet slick that was, quite frankly, unexplainable. I had wiped the table after bedtime snack hours ago. No leak dripped from the ceiling. A chill settled in my stomach as I realized the implications of the ghastly puddle on my table.
The goldfish had died in the toilet, a grisly death, at my hands. And he knew. And now he was going to haunt me. Haunt me in punishment for my foul acts.
Well, my grandfather used to say that there's always room for more. Just don't tell Husband. I don't think he'd agree with me rescuing ghost animals.
The Binge
Your viewing until the television "winter break" has ended:
Designated Survivor (ABC). Sure, a lot of the characters are pretty stock. But the unanswered whodunit and Kiefer's grace as a reluctant President Kirkman makes for some fine viewing.
Leah Remini:Scientology and the Aftermath (A&E). Leah Remini's docuseries on defectors from the famous (infamous?) church is compelling and curious.
The Exorcist (Fox). Not the movie, but the new show that is just as much about the exorcist as the exorcised. Is there something familiar, secretive, nagging about Geena Davis' Angela Rance? Watch and find out.
Black Mirror (Netflix). The Twilight Zone-esque series is eerie and full of warnings for the social media age in which we now live. The ep with Jon Hamm is great, and "Playtest" in Season 3 is downright freaky.
Weiner. The documentary follows the former NY Congressman as he tries to recover from his sexting scandal. If you think Scientology is compelling and curious, just wait until you dig into this.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Lt. Rack Hunter
I am married to an outdoorsman. On paper, being married to an outdoorsman isn't so bad. On paper, you always have someone designated to outdoor activities an indoorsy person - like me - would rather skip. Children's camping trips. Grilling. Walking to the pool.
But the day-to-day of being married to an outdoorsman can be a strain. Taxing, even. For example, let's look at the perfectly ordinary task of cleaning. When you are an indoorsman - an innie, if you will - it is reasonable to expect the most intense thing encountered while cleaning is mildew or week old Cheerios.
But as an innie married to an outdoorsman - an outie - it becomes quite common to encounter material way more exotic than shriveled Cheerios.
Do you know that feeling when you're cleaning out the refrigerator and you find a mysterious Styrofoam container that you think is maybe old Chinese takeout but when you open it is actually nightcrawlers? No? I do. Believe me, you only make that mistake once. I have spent more than a decade refusing to even touch any vessel of unknown provenance that ever lurks in the back of my fridge.
I have stumbled across animal parts in my laundry room cabinet not once but twice in fourteen years of marriage. I feel like it's reasonable to expect to never stumble across animal parts in the laundry room cabinet. Why do animal parts need to be kept in the laundry room cabinet? Don't the animal parts have millions of miles of open space outside to occupy? Do they really need to take up residence next to my Febreeze and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers?
This laundry room cabinet was a great source of discord early in Daughter's life. Apparently, it is a capital crime to keep cleaning solutions of any sort in a cabinet six feet off the ground in a house with an infant incapable of even lifting her own head. But bird wings and deer vertebrae, found on the forest floor and meant for our children to play with, are a-OK. It's like living with a 6-foot-3 human cat - he brings animal remnants home in what I call a misguided attempt to demonstrate affection to his loved ones. I'm good if you just bring me Starbucks. That's all the affectionate display I need.
Being married to an outie means any dreams of seeing Hamilton on Broadway are crazy, but the possibility of purchasing a second chest freezer because your spouse has a bear tag and the first chest freezer is full of deer meat is the opposite of crazy.
Did I lose you at "bear tag"? Apologies. When you are an innie married to an outie, the learning curve is impressive and at times overwhelming. Having a "tag" on any animal means you are legally allowed to hunt that animal. Tags are the reason I once had deer heart marinating in wine in my fridge. Tags are why my cutting board was once awash in bits of deer liver and blood. Tags are why I have eaten deer meatballs, deer tenderloin, deer heart. I have also eaten grouse, pheasant, and squirrel, which don't require tags, just a lot of salt and pepper and maybe some bacon.
I know. Me. The animal lover.
The outie life, before I married my outie, was as foreign a concept to me as Star Trek is to the United States Post Office - more on that later - and therefore required me to become steeped in the ways of an outdoorsman. To become familiarized with notions never heretofore considered. To occasionally immerse myself in outie culture.
Being married to an outie involves a lot of outdoor time. That's an unexpected side effect and is not my favorite. Aside from unwanted time in the sun, being outside means exposure to a lot of what I like to call Eww-y Things. Eww-y Things encompasses anything serpentine - snakes, worms, some sticks. Eww-y Things also includes bugs. Did you know that there are flies that bite? I didn't, until I married an outie. And arachnids. I appreciate all they do vis a vis the bugs, but do they have to look so...so...spidery?
Being outside also means getting hot. Or getting cold. There's limited WiFi outside. There's no bathrooms. Not the good kind, anyway. You know, the kind with actual plumbing and toilet paper and soap.
Being outside at night is no better. There's mosquito coils, to repel the mosquitoes. There's bat boxes, which attract - ugh - bats in case the mosquito coils fail. And when something rustles in the underbrush near your left hand - and something always rustles in the underbrush near your left hand - you don't have the benefit of (harmful) sunlight to determine if it's a bear or a snake or a leopard or what.
That, for the record, never happens inside.
You know what does happen inside? Packages arrive that I, the innie, eagerly tear into thinking it is my latest Amazon order and instead discover it is vials of doe urine.
Prior to being married to an outie, I refrained from anything as unfitting as poking a worm onto a hook or examining scat to identify the animal of origin. I couldn't even define the word scat and I really didn't care about the animal of origin.
Scat is animal poop, for you innies out there.
The innie/outie marriage means two very different philosophies commingle under a single roof. I become apoplectic when my cable cuts out. I head right for my cable company's app to right the injustice committed against me. Husband becomes apoplectic when open spaces are threatened. He heads right for the computer to contact our congressman and right the injustice committed against the environment.
Entertainment Weekly is my favorite periodical. When the Summer Movie Preview Issue is delivered, I methodically plot movie premieres on the family calendar, along with notations as to who plans on attending. Fair Chase is (one of) Husband's periodicals of choice. Its contents are carefully applied to planned outdoor expeditions. Its contents are also not pornographic, despite what the title may imply and I sometimes think I would almost prefer.
When it is time to give our children gifts, I hit the toy store for the comfortably familiar plastic toys, complete with formaldehyde and hormone disruptors. Husband buys our children stuffed toys - replicas of endangered animals who receive a much needed financial boost because of Husband's purchase.
I don't get it. We need more stuffed animals in our house like the world needs another Spider-Man movie.
What state has our discordant marriage left our children? Well, I'm proud to say that each has a favorite superhero and can navigate Netflix with ease. My singular failure as a parent is that both children prefer Star Wars to Star Trek. I may start a support group to help with the devastation I feel daily.
Devastation, that is, until Son asks to use his Peeing Tree (exactly what you think it is) and Daughter tells her teacher her favorite experience from the summer was shooting and eating a squirrel with her dad. Then the Trek hate doesn't seem so bad, but I think if they said and did those things while wearing their Star Wars tee shirts I would probably fall to the ground crying and vomiting like Scarlett O'Hara after the lone vegetable root destroys her composure and intestines.
If only she'd been inside.
I'm sure you are by now thinking that maybe I have some foibles that Husband must suffer, his own innie/outie battle. I do not have any foibles. Just last night I was emphasizing to Husband the many benefits of living with me.
Husband never has to worry about me usurping his role as the torchbearer on our outdoor excursions with our children. Outside cannot be controlled. Inside can be controlled, and I do an exemplary job. Living in my house means lost possessions are either put back where they belong - you're welcome - or thrown away because I deemed them no longer needed - you're welcome again.
I clear dishes the moment a meal is finished because there is no reason to linger over a completed meal - the TV is anxiously awaiting your company. I organize belongings, and I'll just bet my family never even knew their belongings needed organizing until I stepped up. Well, now their belongings are beautifully arranged and all superfluous items - identified by me - are gone.
Everything in my world sits at right angles. Right angles are glorious. Right angles are one of the sole benefits of arithmetic. Right angles make the world pretty. When Husband comes home, his mail is sitting on the dining room table, squared at a lovely right angle to the table's edge. When he is done perusing his correspondence, I stand at the ready to throw everything away. Junk mail, catalogs, subscription magazines, bills - all tidily tossed into the recycling. I'm a dream.
I don't just go places, do things. All activities - all - require careful research. I study a few books, assess culinary circumstances, pack sunscreen, plan an appropriate - and appropriately cute - outfit. Maybe attend an accredited college course or online seminar. This is equally true whether the activity is a movie - Entertainment Weekly, remember? - or a trip to California.
Oh, that the rest of the world were like me! This week, at the post office, I purchased the new Star Trek stamps. I have waited six long months for them to be issued. They're finally here. Everyone will be getting Christmas cards with communicator badges and Mr. Spock silhouettes decorating the postage corner of the envelope. Oh happy day.
Until the lady at the counter asked if I needed the stamps for a Star Wars party. A Star Wars party? A Star WARS PARTY?! Who buys Star TREK stamps for a Star WARS party? I don't see any Star Wars stamps being issued by the post office. And do you know why? DO YOU? Because Star Trek has been around for 50 years, that's why. Because every Star Trek incarnation has been awesome while some of the Star Wars incarnations have Jar Jar Binks.
I bemoaned the postal worker's statement to Husband. Hadn't she paid attention during the New Stamp Issuance Inservice? I really feel like the post office should give primers for each new stamp subject. Shouldn't the postal workers know the details of what they are selling to the American public?
Husband gently pointed out that the post office probably doesn't hold an inservice every time there's a new stamp issued. He suggested I write a letter to the Postmaster General detailing the horrors of my postal visit. Which requires a computer. And WiFi.
Definitely an indoor activity.
The Binge
Here are some of the best outdoor media and supplies. In case you - like me - are an innie married to an outie and would like to better navigate the outdoor world.
Cabela's. This outdoor outfitter has everything you need to insulate yourself when you are forced outdoors. The best item on their website is the Cabela's Multi Tool. I keep one in every purse and glove compartment. I have used it to remove tags, splinters, and self-doubt.
Anything Steven Rinella. Podcast, TV show, books, articles. Pick your poison and learn a bit more about the outdoor life. I suggest beginning with "If You Are What You Eat", "The Case For Responsible Meat Eating", and "How I Fell For My Complete Opposite."
Outside Magazine. A periodical for outdoorsy health nuts who also like beer. This periodical frequently explores outdoor disasters, just in case you need a reminder as to why outside is bad.
Room by Emma Donoghue will make you feel grateful for every moment you get to spend outdoors.
But the day-to-day of being married to an outdoorsman can be a strain. Taxing, even. For example, let's look at the perfectly ordinary task of cleaning. When you are an indoorsman - an innie, if you will - it is reasonable to expect the most intense thing encountered while cleaning is mildew or week old Cheerios.
But as an innie married to an outdoorsman - an outie - it becomes quite common to encounter material way more exotic than shriveled Cheerios.
Do you know that feeling when you're cleaning out the refrigerator and you find a mysterious Styrofoam container that you think is maybe old Chinese takeout but when you open it is actually nightcrawlers? No? I do. Believe me, you only make that mistake once. I have spent more than a decade refusing to even touch any vessel of unknown provenance that ever lurks in the back of my fridge.
I have stumbled across animal parts in my laundry room cabinet not once but twice in fourteen years of marriage. I feel like it's reasonable to expect to never stumble across animal parts in the laundry room cabinet. Why do animal parts need to be kept in the laundry room cabinet? Don't the animal parts have millions of miles of open space outside to occupy? Do they really need to take up residence next to my Febreeze and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers?
This laundry room cabinet was a great source of discord early in Daughter's life. Apparently, it is a capital crime to keep cleaning solutions of any sort in a cabinet six feet off the ground in a house with an infant incapable of even lifting her own head. But bird wings and deer vertebrae, found on the forest floor and meant for our children to play with, are a-OK. It's like living with a 6-foot-3 human cat - he brings animal remnants home in what I call a misguided attempt to demonstrate affection to his loved ones. I'm good if you just bring me Starbucks. That's all the affectionate display I need.
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| Home decor, for an outie. |
Being married to an outie means any dreams of seeing Hamilton on Broadway are crazy, but the possibility of purchasing a second chest freezer because your spouse has a bear tag and the first chest freezer is full of deer meat is the opposite of crazy.
Did I lose you at "bear tag"? Apologies. When you are an innie married to an outie, the learning curve is impressive and at times overwhelming. Having a "tag" on any animal means you are legally allowed to hunt that animal. Tags are the reason I once had deer heart marinating in wine in my fridge. Tags are why my cutting board was once awash in bits of deer liver and blood. Tags are why I have eaten deer meatballs, deer tenderloin, deer heart. I have also eaten grouse, pheasant, and squirrel, which don't require tags, just a lot of salt and pepper and maybe some bacon.
I know. Me. The animal lover.
 |
| Deer vertebral bone. In my house. |
The outie life, before I married my outie, was as foreign a concept to me as Star Trek is to the United States Post Office - more on that later - and therefore required me to become steeped in the ways of an outdoorsman. To become familiarized with notions never heretofore considered. To occasionally immerse myself in outie culture.
 |
| I feel dirty just looking at it. |
Being married to an outie involves a lot of outdoor time. That's an unexpected side effect and is not my favorite. Aside from unwanted time in the sun, being outside means exposure to a lot of what I like to call Eww-y Things. Eww-y Things encompasses anything serpentine - snakes, worms, some sticks. Eww-y Things also includes bugs. Did you know that there are flies that bite? I didn't, until I married an outie. And arachnids. I appreciate all they do vis a vis the bugs, but do they have to look so...so...spidery?
Being outside also means getting hot. Or getting cold. There's limited WiFi outside. There's no bathrooms. Not the good kind, anyway. You know, the kind with actual plumbing and toilet paper and soap.
Being outside at night is no better. There's mosquito coils, to repel the mosquitoes. There's bat boxes, which attract - ugh - bats in case the mosquito coils fail. And when something rustles in the underbrush near your left hand - and something always rustles in the underbrush near your left hand - you don't have the benefit of (harmful) sunlight to determine if it's a bear or a snake or a leopard or what.
That, for the record, never happens inside.
You know what does happen inside? Packages arrive that I, the innie, eagerly tear into thinking it is my latest Amazon order and instead discover it is vials of doe urine.
 |
| Just the tip of the iceberg. |
Prior to being married to an outie, I refrained from anything as unfitting as poking a worm onto a hook or examining scat to identify the animal of origin. I couldn't even define the word scat and I really didn't care about the animal of origin.
Scat is animal poop, for you innies out there.
The innie/outie marriage means two very different philosophies commingle under a single roof. I become apoplectic when my cable cuts out. I head right for my cable company's app to right the injustice committed against me. Husband becomes apoplectic when open spaces are threatened. He heads right for the computer to contact our congressman and right the injustice committed against the environment.
Entertainment Weekly is my favorite periodical. When the Summer Movie Preview Issue is delivered, I methodically plot movie premieres on the family calendar, along with notations as to who plans on attending. Fair Chase is (one of) Husband's periodicals of choice. Its contents are carefully applied to planned outdoor expeditions. Its contents are also not pornographic, despite what the title may imply and I sometimes think I would almost prefer.
When it is time to give our children gifts, I hit the toy store for the comfortably familiar plastic toys, complete with formaldehyde and hormone disruptors. Husband buys our children stuffed toys - replicas of endangered animals who receive a much needed financial boost because of Husband's purchase.
I don't get it. We need more stuffed animals in our house like the world needs another Spider-Man movie.
What state has our discordant marriage left our children? Well, I'm proud to say that each has a favorite superhero and can navigate Netflix with ease. My singular failure as a parent is that both children prefer Star Wars to Star Trek. I may start a support group to help with the devastation I feel daily.
Devastation, that is, until Son asks to use his Peeing Tree (exactly what you think it is) and Daughter tells her teacher her favorite experience from the summer was shooting and eating a squirrel with her dad. Then the Trek hate doesn't seem so bad, but I think if they said and did those things while wearing their Star Wars tee shirts I would probably fall to the ground crying and vomiting like Scarlett O'Hara after the lone vegetable root destroys her composure and intestines.
If only she'd been inside.
I'm sure you are by now thinking that maybe I have some foibles that Husband must suffer, his own innie/outie battle. I do not have any foibles. Just last night I was emphasizing to Husband the many benefits of living with me.
Husband never has to worry about me usurping his role as the torchbearer on our outdoor excursions with our children. Outside cannot be controlled. Inside can be controlled, and I do an exemplary job. Living in my house means lost possessions are either put back where they belong - you're welcome - or thrown away because I deemed them no longer needed - you're welcome again.
I clear dishes the moment a meal is finished because there is no reason to linger over a completed meal - the TV is anxiously awaiting your company. I organize belongings, and I'll just bet my family never even knew their belongings needed organizing until I stepped up. Well, now their belongings are beautifully arranged and all superfluous items - identified by me - are gone.
Everything in my world sits at right angles. Right angles are glorious. Right angles are one of the sole benefits of arithmetic. Right angles make the world pretty. When Husband comes home, his mail is sitting on the dining room table, squared at a lovely right angle to the table's edge. When he is done perusing his correspondence, I stand at the ready to throw everything away. Junk mail, catalogs, subscription magazines, bills - all tidily tossed into the recycling. I'm a dream.
I don't just go places, do things. All activities - all - require careful research. I study a few books, assess culinary circumstances, pack sunscreen, plan an appropriate - and appropriately cute - outfit. Maybe attend an accredited college course or online seminar. This is equally true whether the activity is a movie - Entertainment Weekly, remember? - or a trip to California.
Oh, that the rest of the world were like me! This week, at the post office, I purchased the new Star Trek stamps. I have waited six long months for them to be issued. They're finally here. Everyone will be getting Christmas cards with communicator badges and Mr. Spock silhouettes decorating the postage corner of the envelope. Oh happy day.
Until the lady at the counter asked if I needed the stamps for a Star Wars party. A Star Wars party? A Star WARS PARTY?! Who buys Star TREK stamps for a Star WARS party? I don't see any Star Wars stamps being issued by the post office. And do you know why? DO YOU? Because Star Trek has been around for 50 years, that's why. Because every Star Trek incarnation has been awesome while some of the Star Wars incarnations have Jar Jar Binks.
I bemoaned the postal worker's statement to Husband. Hadn't she paid attention during the New Stamp Issuance Inservice? I really feel like the post office should give primers for each new stamp subject. Shouldn't the postal workers know the details of what they are selling to the American public?
Husband gently pointed out that the post office probably doesn't hold an inservice every time there's a new stamp issued. He suggested I write a letter to the Postmaster General detailing the horrors of my postal visit. Which requires a computer. And WiFi.
Definitely an indoor activity.
The Binge
Here are some of the best outdoor media and supplies. In case you - like me - are an innie married to an outie and would like to better navigate the outdoor world.
Cabela's. This outdoor outfitter has everything you need to insulate yourself when you are forced outdoors. The best item on their website is the Cabela's Multi Tool. I keep one in every purse and glove compartment. I have used it to remove tags, splinters, and self-doubt.
Anything Steven Rinella. Podcast, TV show, books, articles. Pick your poison and learn a bit more about the outdoor life. I suggest beginning with "If You Are What You Eat", "The Case For Responsible Meat Eating", and "How I Fell For My Complete Opposite."
Outside Magazine. A periodical for outdoorsy health nuts who also like beer. This periodical frequently explores outdoor disasters, just in case you need a reminder as to why outside is bad.
Room by Emma Donoghue will make you feel grateful for every moment you get to spend outdoors.
Thursday, September 8, 2016
The Mysteries of Me
I queried my dad on the nature of my grandfather's relationship with Ximena. A niggling ate at my gut when I asked. I didn't want to know. But I felt I owed it to "Left Eye and the Carny", to complete the story. For me, I truly felt the details of my grandfather's affinity for a carnival clown were best lost to history. I was relieved when my dad couldn't (wouldn't?) shed some light on Pop-Pop and Ximena's relationship.
The only thing he could tell me was that after my grandmother died my grandfather left Pennsylvania for North Carolina, where he stayed for months. He made the trip alone, and what my grandfather did on his trip is also lost to history.
The only thing my mom could tell me was that she had no recollection of that trip. And that I shouldn't have anointed Ximena Ximena because it sounds like eczema.
Well, I was soon unwittingly enlightened. OK. Maybe not unwittingly. But my suspicion that I just didn't want to know about PopEna (their celebrity couple name) was brutally confirmed when Cousin K rather enthusiastically divulged the tabloid-worthy genesis of the Ximena saga.
If you've made it through the full scope of Jon Snow's parentage, this story just may be your new obsession.
I was at The Crabbiest - I have completely given up; if the computer wants to call The Crabfest The Crabbiest, I'm done correcting it - when Cousin K - CK, because I'm too traumatized to write out "Cousin K" for a full post - offered to explain PopEna.
First, CK explained PopEna to my dad. She wanted his permssion, you see. To tell me. Well, my dad's only rule is that no one comes crying to him when they get into something they shouldn't. He had no problem with CK schooling me.
PopEna had indeed been romantic. And Ximena was a dwarf.
I mean, I just can't with this story. I can't imagine that carnival life was kind to an early twentieth century dwarf. I also can't imagine my Pop-Pop getting it on as a single dude in the carnival. But CK should know of what she speaks; Ximena was her mother.
Ximena the namesake, not Ximena the dwarf.
CK probably should have stopped there. I wish CK had stopped there. But CK knows how my grandparents met. She offered to tell me, and I was curious. So curious. After all, my grandfather was a native of Indiana, while my grandmother was a citizen of Norfolk. My theory had been that the carnival had taken Pop-Pop to Virginia, where he'd met my grandmother. I was thinking love at first sight.
It wasn't love at first sight.
It was lust at first sight. Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop did the nasty. Just one time. But that one-nighter was enough to spawn my Uncle Junior and a shotgun wedding.
Oh no, no, no, no, NO!
My grandparents, born at the turn of the century, long storied to me as a conservative Southron-Midwestener marriage of over four decades, had a one night stand and made a baby? I'm still not allowed to have a one night stand or make a baby and I live almost one hundred years after their heyday.
Beck would probably tell me I'm insane to complain and not to believe everything that I breathe. Well, I'm going to complain, but I'll go along with the disbelief. I refuse to blindly accept any family story at face value and we're going to talk about why.
But first, the shotgun wedding. My parents were just as skeptical as I was. At their urging, I accessed the records I had amassed on ancestry.com. Ancestry has proven many a family legend wrong. I was hoping she - not sure why she's a she, but that's just how this is going to go - would prove my grandparents' chastity.
Wrong. So wrong. I was able to confirm that Uncle Junior was born in 1926, but I could find no marriage record for my grandparents. Was it a clerical error, or was it something more dramatic? Had my grandparents never been married at all? Were they the Brangelina of their day - six kids and no wedding?*
My distress is well founded. Ancestry has disspelled so much of what I thought to be true. About my family. About myself. I was always told I am equal parts Dutch and English, as are my parents. But when I delved into the Ancestry version of my lineage, I found that my dad is 100% English. Moreover, my mom isn't Dutch. At all. She is Pennsylvania Dutch, which is German, which basically explains why I'm a control freak, but fails to explain the rest of my family.
It does makes sense that we're so very English, though. None of us can cook anything with any flavor - should we talk about gurdy meat? - and my orthodontist bought a boat with the money he made off my teeth.
Another family legend is that no one knows the origins of our surname. My father's ancestors were New Englanders. One day, they and a group of their - what, cronies? Contemporaries? Puritanical devotees? - had been crossing a frozen river or lake. The ice gave way, killing my whole family, except for the toddler they'd brought on their icy trek. Because it's always a good idea to cross a frozen body of water with a child.
Apparently nobody knew my family's name, and therefore didn't know the baby's name. So they gave him the designation of Pope-pourri and moved on with their day.
Hmm...someone in my family doing something as nutty as crossing a frozen lake with a baby, and not saying a word to anyone with whom they travel? That totally sounds like them. I absolutely believed that story. And why wouldn't I? That's a rockin' cool ass story.
Unfortunately, it's also a mythical cool ass story. My dad's family goes back to 1340's England with our surname intact. They left England for Plymouth Rock, their ship landing there just three years after the Mayflower. They married into a prominent family, which sadly did none of us descendants any good.
No fractured ice. No mystery baby. Who were these affluent upstarts that risked all to start life anew in an unknown land? I was much more comfortable with the mute ice road trekkers.
So much misinformation. I was told I am related to Alexander Pope (false), a direct descendant of General John Pope (nope), the many times great great-something of James Pumphrey (not sure, but I let that one go because I like having a connection to Lincoln, no matter how tenuous or nefarious).
The truth about my grandmother's chocolate chip cookie recipe is just too painful to relate. If I keep digging, what other falsehoods threaten to surface? Am I really related to a pirate, or is that another inaccuracy? Did I indeed descend from Queen Elizabeth's chambermaid? Was my great-grandmother actually lashed to the mast of her father's ship during storms? Did he even have a ship? Did my ancestor - a knighted Brit serving as mayor to Hong Kong - really abscond with the city's treasury, never to be seen again?
The answer to that last one is no, on so many levels. He was governor - not mayor - and he never touched the treasury. Are we related? That answer awaits me in Ancestry's most factual annals.
At least I am a site better than Ximena The Namesake's grandson, who only knows his grandmother by the first name his grandfather always used and therefore thought all the Ximena The Namesake stories were about soemone else.
I feel like, today, I know more about who I am not than who I am. I'd bemoan my loss to my parents, but my dad has that don't-come-crying-to-me rule and my mom will only try - again - to make me see that the tea cup eye drop holder is a good idea.
Today, I related to Husband that I noticed my mom had a book from a library we never attended growing up in my parents' house. Our town lies in two townships. Had the library authorities caught up with my parents? Had my parents erroneously and criminally directed us to the wrong library all those years?
A terrible thought occurred to me. What if my childhood town isn't in the township I was rasied to believe it occupied? Had I gone to the wrong schools? Used the wrong zip code? Joined the wrong swim club?
I mean, probably.
The Binge
Stranger Things on Netflix (yes, the Winona Ryder show) is a healthy mix of The Goonies, E.T., Project X, and maybe a little bit of WarGames and Ready Player One. Set in the 1980's, it is equal parts nostalgia and science fiction thriller. You'll want to binge it. You should indulge that desire. Luke Cage starts on Netflix soon. You want to have time for that, don't you?
Also, if you haven't tapped into The West Wing Weekly yet, get moving. This week Otter was interviewed. The show is on hiatus next week, but the following week showrunner Tommy Schlamme and the underrated Bradley Whitford stop by to reminisce. Yay!
* Further extensive research indicates my grandparents were, in fact, married long before Uncle Junior came along. A respectably long time.
The only thing he could tell me was that after my grandmother died my grandfather left Pennsylvania for North Carolina, where he stayed for months. He made the trip alone, and what my grandfather did on his trip is also lost to history.
The only thing my mom could tell me was that she had no recollection of that trip. And that I shouldn't have anointed Ximena Ximena because it sounds like eczema.
Well, I was soon unwittingly enlightened. OK. Maybe not unwittingly. But my suspicion that I just didn't want to know about PopEna (their celebrity couple name) was brutally confirmed when Cousin K rather enthusiastically divulged the tabloid-worthy genesis of the Ximena saga.
If you've made it through the full scope of Jon Snow's parentage, this story just may be your new obsession.
I was at The Crabbiest - I have completely given up; if the computer wants to call The Crabfest The Crabbiest, I'm done correcting it - when Cousin K - CK, because I'm too traumatized to write out "Cousin K" for a full post - offered to explain PopEna.
First, CK explained PopEna to my dad. She wanted his permssion, you see. To tell me. Well, my dad's only rule is that no one comes crying to him when they get into something they shouldn't. He had no problem with CK schooling me.
 |
| My dad didn't even cry when he was a baby. He sure as hell doesn't want to listen to you cry. |
PopEna had indeed been romantic. And Ximena was a dwarf.
I mean, I just can't with this story. I can't imagine that carnival life was kind to an early twentieth century dwarf. I also can't imagine my Pop-Pop getting it on as a single dude in the carnival. But CK should know of what she speaks; Ximena was her mother.
Ximena the namesake, not Ximena the dwarf.
 |
| Hmm...is there more to PopEna? |
CK probably should have stopped there. I wish CK had stopped there. But CK knows how my grandparents met. She offered to tell me, and I was curious. So curious. After all, my grandfather was a native of Indiana, while my grandmother was a citizen of Norfolk. My theory had been that the carnival had taken Pop-Pop to Virginia, where he'd met my grandmother. I was thinking love at first sight.
It wasn't love at first sight.
It was lust at first sight. Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop did the nasty. Just one time. But that one-nighter was enough to spawn my Uncle Junior and a shotgun wedding.
Oh no, no, no, no, NO!
My grandparents, born at the turn of the century, long storied to me as a conservative Southron-Midwestener marriage of over four decades, had a one night stand and made a baby? I'm still not allowed to have a one night stand or make a baby and I live almost one hundred years after their heyday.
Beck would probably tell me I'm insane to complain and not to believe everything that I breathe. Well, I'm going to complain, but I'll go along with the disbelief. I refuse to blindly accept any family story at face value and we're going to talk about why.
 |
| Oh Mom-Mom, you didn't. Did you? |
But first, the shotgun wedding. My parents were just as skeptical as I was. At their urging, I accessed the records I had amassed on ancestry.com. Ancestry has proven many a family legend wrong. I was hoping she - not sure why she's a she, but that's just how this is going to go - would prove my grandparents' chastity.
Wrong. So wrong. I was able to confirm that Uncle Junior was born in 1926, but I could find no marriage record for my grandparents. Was it a clerical error, or was it something more dramatic? Had my grandparents never been married at all? Were they the Brangelina of their day - six kids and no wedding?*
 |
| You guys have been to a wedding before....right? |
My distress is well founded. Ancestry has disspelled so much of what I thought to be true. About my family. About myself. I was always told I am equal parts Dutch and English, as are my parents. But when I delved into the Ancestry version of my lineage, I found that my dad is 100% English. Moreover, my mom isn't Dutch. At all. She is Pennsylvania Dutch, which is German, which basically explains why I'm a control freak, but fails to explain the rest of my family.
It does makes sense that we're so very English, though. None of us can cook anything with any flavor - should we talk about gurdy meat? - and my orthodontist bought a boat with the money he made off my teeth.
Another family legend is that no one knows the origins of our surname. My father's ancestors were New Englanders. One day, they and a group of their - what, cronies? Contemporaries? Puritanical devotees? - had been crossing a frozen river or lake. The ice gave way, killing my whole family, except for the toddler they'd brought on their icy trek. Because it's always a good idea to cross a frozen body of water with a child.
Apparently nobody knew my family's name, and therefore didn't know the baby's name. So they gave him the designation of Pope-pourri and moved on with their day.
Hmm...someone in my family doing something as nutty as crossing a frozen lake with a baby, and not saying a word to anyone with whom they travel? That totally sounds like them. I absolutely believed that story. And why wouldn't I? That's a rockin' cool ass story.
Unfortunately, it's also a mythical cool ass story. My dad's family goes back to 1340's England with our surname intact. They left England for Plymouth Rock, their ship landing there just three years after the Mayflower. They married into a prominent family, which sadly did none of us descendants any good.
No fractured ice. No mystery baby. Who were these affluent upstarts that risked all to start life anew in an unknown land? I was much more comfortable with the mute ice road trekkers.
So much misinformation. I was told I am related to Alexander Pope (false), a direct descendant of General John Pope (nope), the many times great great-something of James Pumphrey (not sure, but I let that one go because I like having a connection to Lincoln, no matter how tenuous or nefarious).
The truth about my grandmother's chocolate chip cookie recipe is just too painful to relate. If I keep digging, what other falsehoods threaten to surface? Am I really related to a pirate, or is that another inaccuracy? Did I indeed descend from Queen Elizabeth's chambermaid? Was my great-grandmother actually lashed to the mast of her father's ship during storms? Did he even have a ship? Did my ancestor - a knighted Brit serving as mayor to Hong Kong - really abscond with the city's treasury, never to be seen again?
The answer to that last one is no, on so many levels. He was governor - not mayor - and he never touched the treasury. Are we related? That answer awaits me in Ancestry's most factual annals.
At least I am a site better than Ximena The Namesake's grandson, who only knows his grandmother by the first name his grandfather always used and therefore thought all the Ximena The Namesake stories were about soemone else.
 |
| Who is this girl really? |
I feel like, today, I know more about who I am not than who I am. I'd bemoan my loss to my parents, but my dad has that don't-come-crying-to-me rule and my mom will only try - again - to make me see that the tea cup eye drop holder is a good idea.
Today, I related to Husband that I noticed my mom had a book from a library we never attended growing up in my parents' house. Our town lies in two townships. Had the library authorities caught up with my parents? Had my parents erroneously and criminally directed us to the wrong library all those years?
A terrible thought occurred to me. What if my childhood town isn't in the township I was rasied to believe it occupied? Had I gone to the wrong schools? Used the wrong zip code? Joined the wrong swim club?
I mean, probably.
The Binge
Stranger Things on Netflix (yes, the Winona Ryder show) is a healthy mix of The Goonies, E.T., Project X, and maybe a little bit of WarGames and Ready Player One. Set in the 1980's, it is equal parts nostalgia and science fiction thriller. You'll want to binge it. You should indulge that desire. Luke Cage starts on Netflix soon. You want to have time for that, don't you?
Also, if you haven't tapped into The West Wing Weekly yet, get moving. This week Otter was interviewed. The show is on hiatus next week, but the following week showrunner Tommy Schlamme and the underrated Bradley Whitford stop by to reminisce. Yay!
* Further extensive research indicates my grandparents were, in fact, married long before Uncle Junior came along. A respectably long time.
Friday, September 2, 2016
Gross, Point Blank
Here's hoping Husband does as I ask and never, ever reads this.
I have spent the last month being, well, quite nasty.
I don't mean I've been nasty in a Ms. Jackson sort of way. I've been nasty nasty. I've been hideous. Gross. Repulsive. Foul.
I'll begin with the UTI, which I think I contracted in Maine but I stoically ignored until I was more intimate with my bathroom than I was with my husband.
Have you ever had a UTI? They're evil. They make you believe that if you don't go RIGHT NOW you will go IN YOUR PANTS. So you try to GO but the only thing that happens is that you drip like a gutter after a rain storm. You feel like an imbecile, being duped by your own body.
Five minutes later, when your lower abdomen feels like a water balloon getting squeezed by an overzealous child, you stubbornly refuse to GO, to be tricked again. You burn and ache, cross your legs and bounce in your seat. Another five minutes pass. You probably have some kind of internal injury, your viscera irreparably damaged. So you succumb, and GO, but nothing happens - nothing of any import anyway - and you again feel denigrated. You can practically hear the UTI laughing at you.
I started on an antibiotic just before leaving for the Outer Banks.
I don't like to disclose to Husband when I have nether region germ issues. I even tried to keep him out of the delivery room. I like him to believe that my nether regions have one purpose. That one purpose does not include bodily functions. Or the expulsion of humans.
Am I wrong to maintain this policy? Well, I'm happily married, so draw your own conclusions.
So I secretly packed my antibiotic, and secretly took it four times a day, for half of my vacation. By midweek, I was done with the medication, and blissfully free of any UTI symptoms. I was ready to enjoy my vacation, and so were my nether regions.
Except the next day, I woke up with a cold sore on my lip.
Let's talk about cold sores. Cold sores are caused by the herpes virus. The majority of the population has been exposed to this virus, whether they have suffered an outbreak or not. Cold sores are simply a fact of life.
I never had a cold sore, until about a year ago. Having suffered from chronic acne in my youth, cold sores, for me, are about as welcome as that atrocious UTI. Moreover, my mild OCD becomes debilitating OCD when I have a cold sore. Fear of autoinoculation, or transmitting the dreaded virus to my family, follows me like a shadow for the duration of the infernal blister. No kisses, no sharing, no nothing while I'm infected. I am my own private quarantine ward.
Being a Type A, overachieving, overly intense Aries, I refuse to lie back and allow the cold sore to have its way with me. I take ibuprofen and an antiviral. I make a poultice of secret ingredients that I apply to the lesion every few hours. I don't look pretty, but I knock out that cold sore in rapid order.
When I felt the little bump and tingle in the Outer Banks - and not the good kind of bump and tingle - I headed straight for my bottle of antiviral. I whipped up my secret poultice. I ate peanut butter, strawberries, and Naked Juice Green Machine - each food harboring nutrients that promote healing.
By the end of that week, I thought I was in the clear. I was infection free. No cold sore. No UTI. I ordered Mexican for a celebratory takeout dinner.
Three days later, I began to suffer from painful, aggressive abdominal cramps. They would seize my belly on each side, like parentheses, nearly knocking the wind from me, twisting my intestines like a wet towel.
F***ing celebratory Mexican takeout dinner.
Food poisoning, I thought. But the next day, I had such violent chills I donned jeans and a sweater, despite the August heat. My back muscles screamed. My head pounded.
Husband bundled me off to bed, again, not in a nasty way, in a nasty way, and I think you may know what happened next.
Yes, I rekindled my intimate relationship with my bathroom. This time, my problem quite decidedly was not the nefarious UTI.
How do I put this delicately? Can we say I was spewing flowers?
Now, my flower delivery was not at the front door.
No.
My flowers were delivered at the back door. The flower deliveries were urgent, frequent, and often from Havana.
I took to bed that day, until the following morning. I thought I'd wake feeling oh so much better. But for the next eleven days, I was continually seized by the wretched abdominal cramps. My back and stomach ached. My appetite was limited to bread products - something I largely eschew from my regular diet. And every other day, I would spend the morning receiving flowers at my back door.
Jeans became a prison. My belly swelled and distended. Was it a response to the normally verboten carbs, or had some ghastly parasite taken hold of me?
In keeping with my philosophy of Husband and the germ free nether region, I kept my flower delivery a secret from him, although he of course knew that I was ill. The universe, however, does not support my marriage philosophy. I was keeping my flowers a secret, but I could not hide the resurgence of my cold sore. It sat on my lip, a dastardly disruptor of the illusion that no microbes coursed through my body.
By Day 8, I could take no more. I went to my doctor, who felt my only recourse was to have a definitive diagnosis. To do so, I would need to submit a sample of my flowers.
Let's say that again. I needed to provide a sample of the flowers repeatedly being delivered at my back door.
My doctor suggested that I deliver my flowers directly into a Cool Whip container. I could then transfer the flowers to a specimen bottle. The specimen bottle, in turn, would have to be hand delivered to a lab.
Well, I don't eat Cool Whip. I use whipped cream, and I was pretty sure I couldn't deliver my flowers directly into the whipped cream canister.
Instead, I pulled a Tupperware from the kitchen cabinet. I designated my powder room as the Flower Specimen Collection Center. And at 5:30 the next morning, in the middle of my workout, the flowers were ready to be delivered.
I'll just take a minute here to set the stage. First, I was exercising because I decided to try to sweat out the tapeworm or amoeba or whatever it was that was tearing my gut apart. Second, when I work out, I wear wrist and ankle weights. Only at the moment, I can't wear my right wrist weight because I have tennis elbow. Not from tennis. From carrying a water bottle.
So there I was, the sole person awake in my house, huddled in my powder room in three weights, a tank top, my black-framed nerd glasses, and my cold sore poultice.
I delivered the flowers to the Tupperware, then studied the directions for getting my flowers into the specimen vials.
The vials themselves are the size of a tall shot glass. When unscrewed, the lid boasts an attached spoon, the size of a pinkie nail. The instructions directed me to use this teeny spoon to scoop enough flowers into the shot glasses to fill them. Fill them. Then, I had to freeze one of the vials.
Um, what?
I had to collect a vial of human flowers - probably riddled with parasites or Salomonella or scabies - and put it in my FREEZER?!
I crouched on the powder room floor, hunched over the very fragrant flower-filled Tupperware, and quite impatiently scooped miniscule spoonful after spoonful of flowers into the vials. It takes a long time to fill a shot glass with flowers when all you have is a spoon no bigger than the tip of your finger. I began to fear I would be discovered. Nothing signals the end of the honeymoon faster than a sweaty, bespectacled, tri-weighted wife with a huge white glob pasted to her upper lip, a carb/tapeworm pregnancy spilling over her waistband, and a Tupperware of - let's face it -poop in her lap.
Growing desperate, I decided to pour my specimen into the vials. A word of advice. Never pour your specimen into the vial. Unless you like flowers all over your powder room floor. Then by all means, pour away.
The whole collection experience was traumatizing, but once I had my specimens, I froze one - don't ask, you don't want to know - and stashed the other. Later that morning, I smuggled my quarry out of the house and to the lab, quite relieved the experience was over.
Until the lab tech coolly informed me that the doctor's office had given me the wrong specimen vials. I'd have to do it again.
In the meantime, she'd try to work with what I had provided. But was the one specimen, in fact, frozen?
I assured her it was.
"Did you put it in the fridge?" she asked.
Well no, because as far as I know fridges don't freeze flowers. I put it in the freezer.
"The freezer?" she asked. Then, "Are you sure?"
Yes, I was sure. I was sure that my back door flower delivery had spent the morning nestled on top of the Breyer's vanilla that was now melting in my trash can. I was sure that I had a massive disinfection to carry out when I got home. I was sure that what I had done that morning was akin to waking up with a coyote ugly.
I was also sure that I was getting better, and that I could not produce the desired second flower delivery.
So now I sit, like the rhyme, largely broken hearted. Cold sore is nearly gone, as is the stomach bug. I am no closer to knowing what infected me than I was before I sacrificed my Tupperware. My flowers refused to reveal to the lab which agent, exactly, had infected me.
And just as I began to wonder what would strike me next, my kitchen ceiling began to rain. Water dribbled from my ceiling fan, just like my nether region had dribbled a month ago.
This catastrophe, like the cold sore, cannot be hidden from Husband.
Fortunately, this one has nothing to do with my nether regions.
I have spent the last month being, well, quite nasty.
I don't mean I've been nasty in a Ms. Jackson sort of way. I've been nasty nasty. I've been hideous. Gross. Repulsive. Foul.
I'll begin with the UTI, which I think I contracted in Maine but I stoically ignored until I was more intimate with my bathroom than I was with my husband.
Have you ever had a UTI? They're evil. They make you believe that if you don't go RIGHT NOW you will go IN YOUR PANTS. So you try to GO but the only thing that happens is that you drip like a gutter after a rain storm. You feel like an imbecile, being duped by your own body.
Five minutes later, when your lower abdomen feels like a water balloon getting squeezed by an overzealous child, you stubbornly refuse to GO, to be tricked again. You burn and ache, cross your legs and bounce in your seat. Another five minutes pass. You probably have some kind of internal injury, your viscera irreparably damaged. So you succumb, and GO, but nothing happens - nothing of any import anyway - and you again feel denigrated. You can practically hear the UTI laughing at you.
I started on an antibiotic just before leaving for the Outer Banks.
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| Perhaps I should be the one in diapers? |
I don't like to disclose to Husband when I have nether region germ issues. I even tried to keep him out of the delivery room. I like him to believe that my nether regions have one purpose. That one purpose does not include bodily functions. Or the expulsion of humans.
Am I wrong to maintain this policy? Well, I'm happily married, so draw your own conclusions.
So I secretly packed my antibiotic, and secretly took it four times a day, for half of my vacation. By midweek, I was done with the medication, and blissfully free of any UTI symptoms. I was ready to enjoy my vacation, and so were my nether regions.
Except the next day, I woke up with a cold sore on my lip.
Let's talk about cold sores. Cold sores are caused by the herpes virus. The majority of the population has been exposed to this virus, whether they have suffered an outbreak or not. Cold sores are simply a fact of life.
I never had a cold sore, until about a year ago. Having suffered from chronic acne in my youth, cold sores, for me, are about as welcome as that atrocious UTI. Moreover, my mild OCD becomes debilitating OCD when I have a cold sore. Fear of autoinoculation, or transmitting the dreaded virus to my family, follows me like a shadow for the duration of the infernal blister. No kisses, no sharing, no nothing while I'm infected. I am my own private quarantine ward.
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| I have spent the last month being almost as attractive as I was in 1986. |
Being a Type A, overachieving, overly intense Aries, I refuse to lie back and allow the cold sore to have its way with me. I take ibuprofen and an antiviral. I make a poultice of secret ingredients that I apply to the lesion every few hours. I don't look pretty, but I knock out that cold sore in rapid order.
When I felt the little bump and tingle in the Outer Banks - and not the good kind of bump and tingle - I headed straight for my bottle of antiviral. I whipped up my secret poultice. I ate peanut butter, strawberries, and Naked Juice Green Machine - each food harboring nutrients that promote healing.
By the end of that week, I thought I was in the clear. I was infection free. No cold sore. No UTI. I ordered Mexican for a celebratory takeout dinner.
Three days later, I began to suffer from painful, aggressive abdominal cramps. They would seize my belly on each side, like parentheses, nearly knocking the wind from me, twisting my intestines like a wet towel.
F***ing celebratory Mexican takeout dinner.
Food poisoning, I thought. But the next day, I had such violent chills I donned jeans and a sweater, despite the August heat. My back muscles screamed. My head pounded.
Husband bundled me off to bed, again, not in a nasty way, in a nasty way, and I think you may know what happened next.
Yes, I rekindled my intimate relationship with my bathroom. This time, my problem quite decidedly was not the nefarious UTI.
How do I put this delicately? Can we say I was spewing flowers?
 |
| Not those kind of flowers. |
Now, my flower delivery was not at the front door.
No.
My flowers were delivered at the back door. The flower deliveries were urgent, frequent, and often from Havana.
I took to bed that day, until the following morning. I thought I'd wake feeling oh so much better. But for the next eleven days, I was continually seized by the wretched abdominal cramps. My back and stomach ached. My appetite was limited to bread products - something I largely eschew from my regular diet. And every other day, I would spend the morning receiving flowers at my back door.
Jeans became a prison. My belly swelled and distended. Was it a response to the normally verboten carbs, or had some ghastly parasite taken hold of me?
In keeping with my philosophy of Husband and the germ free nether region, I kept my flower delivery a secret from him, although he of course knew that I was ill. The universe, however, does not support my marriage philosophy. I was keeping my flowers a secret, but I could not hide the resurgence of my cold sore. It sat on my lip, a dastardly disruptor of the illusion that no microbes coursed through my body.
By Day 8, I could take no more. I went to my doctor, who felt my only recourse was to have a definitive diagnosis. To do so, I would need to submit a sample of my flowers.
Let's say that again. I needed to provide a sample of the flowers repeatedly being delivered at my back door.
My doctor suggested that I deliver my flowers directly into a Cool Whip container. I could then transfer the flowers to a specimen bottle. The specimen bottle, in turn, would have to be hand delivered to a lab.
Well, I don't eat Cool Whip. I use whipped cream, and I was pretty sure I couldn't deliver my flowers directly into the whipped cream canister.
 |
| Nope. |
Instead, I pulled a Tupperware from the kitchen cabinet. I designated my powder room as the Flower Specimen Collection Center. And at 5:30 the next morning, in the middle of my workout, the flowers were ready to be delivered.
I'll just take a minute here to set the stage. First, I was exercising because I decided to try to sweat out the tapeworm or amoeba or whatever it was that was tearing my gut apart. Second, when I work out, I wear wrist and ankle weights. Only at the moment, I can't wear my right wrist weight because I have tennis elbow. Not from tennis. From carrying a water bottle.
So there I was, the sole person awake in my house, huddled in my powder room in three weights, a tank top, my black-framed nerd glasses, and my cold sore poultice.
I delivered the flowers to the Tupperware, then studied the directions for getting my flowers into the specimen vials.
The vials themselves are the size of a tall shot glass. When unscrewed, the lid boasts an attached spoon, the size of a pinkie nail. The instructions directed me to use this teeny spoon to scoop enough flowers into the shot glasses to fill them. Fill them. Then, I had to freeze one of the vials.
Um, what?
I had to collect a vial of human flowers - probably riddled with parasites or Salomonella or scabies - and put it in my FREEZER?!
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| If only it were winter... |
I crouched on the powder room floor, hunched over the very fragrant flower-filled Tupperware, and quite impatiently scooped miniscule spoonful after spoonful of flowers into the vials. It takes a long time to fill a shot glass with flowers when all you have is a spoon no bigger than the tip of your finger. I began to fear I would be discovered. Nothing signals the end of the honeymoon faster than a sweaty, bespectacled, tri-weighted wife with a huge white glob pasted to her upper lip, a carb/tapeworm pregnancy spilling over her waistband, and a Tupperware of - let's face it -poop in her lap.
Growing desperate, I decided to pour my specimen into the vials. A word of advice. Never pour your specimen into the vial. Unless you like flowers all over your powder room floor. Then by all means, pour away.
The whole collection experience was traumatizing, but once I had my specimens, I froze one - don't ask, you don't want to know - and stashed the other. Later that morning, I smuggled my quarry out of the house and to the lab, quite relieved the experience was over.
Until the lab tech coolly informed me that the doctor's office had given me the wrong specimen vials. I'd have to do it again.
In the meantime, she'd try to work with what I had provided. But was the one specimen, in fact, frozen?
I assured her it was.
"Did you put it in the fridge?" she asked.
Well no, because as far as I know fridges don't freeze flowers. I put it in the freezer.
"The freezer?" she asked. Then, "Are you sure?"
Yes, I was sure. I was sure that my back door flower delivery had spent the morning nestled on top of the Breyer's vanilla that was now melting in my trash can. I was sure that I had a massive disinfection to carry out when I got home. I was sure that what I had done that morning was akin to waking up with a coyote ugly.
I was also sure that I was getting better, and that I could not produce the desired second flower delivery.
So now I sit, like the rhyme, largely broken hearted. Cold sore is nearly gone, as is the stomach bug. I am no closer to knowing what infected me than I was before I sacrificed my Tupperware. My flowers refused to reveal to the lab which agent, exactly, had infected me.
And just as I began to wonder what would strike me next, my kitchen ceiling began to rain. Water dribbled from my ceiling fan, just like my nether region had dribbled a month ago.
This catastrophe, like the cold sore, cannot be hidden from Husband.
Fortunately, this one has nothing to do with my nether regions.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Basement Instinct
This story, like David Copperfield - or the far better tome Flowers In The Attic - begins with a birth. Rather than the birth of the protagonist like those great works, this story begins with the birth of my parents' basement.
My parents' basement has a legacy of its own in the annals of my family history. Friends and family alike are aware of the legendary status of the basement, if only to know one does not enter my parents' basement, for that is all one needs to know.
So yes, I will begin with the birth of my parents' basement, which was three years before my own and, like the house above it, built at the command and expense of my parents. Nobody has lived in my parents' house but my family. To borrow again from Dickens, this point must be appreciated in order to grasp the significance of the story I now impart.
My parents' basement is under the sole and proprietary direction - and discretion - of my father. In the nearly five decades my parents have owned that house, I believe the total time I have spent in the basement to not exceed a single day.
The basement is quiet and still; no noise emanates from it - not even when my dad works down there.
There is nothing in the basement for anyone but my dad. The washer and dryer, once upon a time, were relegated to the basement, but I was spoiled and therefore did not do my own laundry until long after the laundry equipment had been moved upstairs.
No one in my family has ever said "I'll go to the basement to get the cooler" or "the bucket is in the basement" or "I'll be watching TV in the basement". In fact, if you go to the basement looking for something, you won't find it. I have nosed around, looking for the dresser that graced my childhood nursery, or the photo album from my mom's 40th birthday party. I know they are down there, but the basement is loathe to release her bounty.
Yet, when I have gone to the basement looking for my dad, the basement will occasionally toss me a treasure, like an ocean wave depositing a message in a bottle at your feet. Once, I flattened myself to squeeze past something to get to my dad, only to realize that "something" was the train set my father used to assemble at the holidays, still smelling of ozone and Christmas. Another time, I found my dead grandmother's artificial leg, laying on a shelf, just at my eye level.
Yes, my grandmother's artificial leg is a treasure. Maybe we'll talk about that later.
I have never seen the rear wall of my parents' basement. That's a weird thing to say, isn't it? I have never seen the rear wall of the basement in the home my parents have lived in my whole life. My friends of twenty, thirty years - my husband of nearly that long - have never even been in my parents' basement. Son doesn't even know where it is located. He's eight. My parents live 15 minutes from me. He's been to their house more than once.
Nobody puts anything in the basement but my dad, and my dad is the only one permitted to ever remove anything. Occasionally, my father will come to me with something he has found in the basement. When he begins with "I found this and thought you'd want it," I inwardly cringe. Usually, it's used candles or a moldy Barbie that I last played with in 1982. But when he starts with "I found this and thought I'd check with you before I threw it out," I know I've struck gold.
Once, it was the wooden doll cradle my grandfather had carved and painted for me when I was a child. Another time, it was a stack of letters exchanged between my grandparents and a distant relative. On my 40th birthday, my dad made me a scrapbook of all the cards and letters my parents received when I was born. Some were dotted with mildew, others curled with moisture, but all were precious. My father had saved them, somewhere deep in the basement catacombs, then had painstakingly retrieved them and mounted them in an album. One of the best presents I was ever given.
My father himself is not unlike the basement he finds so dear. He, too, is quiet and still, and I challenge anyone who has ever known him to claim they know everything about my dad, or understand him completely. Even my mother doesn't - can't, won't - claim to fathom my father. Like the rear wall of the basement, there is no one who has penetrated every level of my dad's being.
My dad does not give up anything you seek directly from him. Much like locating my childhood dresser, questioning my dad is a fruitless endeavor. I have tried and tried to ask about his time in the Marines, his childhood, his grandparents, his life with my mother before I arrived. Always the answers are one word, without exposition or detail, or the dreaded "yes, more or less..." said with great hesitancy, a half smile and a far off look, and no other words.
That response, by the way, covers everything from "Why didn't you marry your first fiancee?" to "How was your appointment with the dermatologist?" I'm not kidding. Go ask him a question. I'll wait.
But if you are unassuming and approach my dad without an agenda, you will occasionally be graced with a nugget as valuable as his train set. You may discover, for example, that his brother had a tracheostomy for years, or that his ancestor was a pirate. He may volunteer that he owns land in El Paso, Texas, or that his family called him Pip as a child.
Hello again, Mr. Dickens.
So when my mom called on Day 6 of her hospitalization to say she had been trying to get ahold of my father all morning, to no avail, I was not surprised. My mom probably said to my dad, on Day 5 of her hospitalization, "What are you doing tomorrow?", and my dad probably said "Nothing." Only if my mom said "Are you fixing the boiler at church tomorrow?" or "Will you be in the basement tomorrow morning?" or "Are you walking over to the body shop to get the car I damaged when I drove into a semi?" would my dad answer in the affirmative. Besides, my parents never answer any phone, but that's a tale for another day. Suffice to say I wasn't really concerned because I figured my dad was in the basement, without a phone.
When I got to my parents' house, my dad's car was parked out front, the door was locked, his wallet was on the kitchen counter, and both the TV and radio were on. A search of the house failed to produce my dad, and when I headed into the basement there was still no sign of my father. My ability to assess that my dad for certain wasn't in the basement was, of course, severely hampered by the mounds of junk (treasure?) that loom from wall to wall to wall to wall.
Finding the back door unlocked, I searched the yard. Again, nothing.
Over the next 30 minutes, I went through the house, basement, and yard half a dozen times. I looked in his car. I questioned the neighbors.
"You know," a neighbor said to me, "one time when I was talking to your dad, his phone started ringing in his pocket. He told me my phone was ringing."
I called the church. I called the body shop. I called my mom, to make sure my dad hadn't somehow been en route to the hospital - it's not beyond him to walk anywhere.
He says he walks because walking is never crowded.
I checked the six - yes six - cordless phones lying about for some clue on the caller ID. I checked the two dead flip phones on the kitchen table. I called and called his cell.
With no dad and nowhere else to look, I was about to call the police. I set out on one last search of the house and its grounds.
And that was when I found my dad, on his hands and knees in the backyard, camouflaged by shrubbery and khaki-colored clothes.
He was fixing a section of the neighbor's fence.
Relieved, I called to him. I told him that I'd been at his house for over 30 minutes looking for him, that my mom had been trying to reach him for hours.
His only response was to ask if he and I were heading out to my cousin's house that day.
I called my mom and let her know my dad was safe, not wandering the streets with a traumatic head wound, but outside, working in the yard. She asked if he had water with him. I eyed his shirt and pondered a safe answer:
I passed the phone to my dad, and stood, five feet away, easily hearing every word my mom yelled at my dad. Like the basement, the world rages around my dad, but my dad remains still, undisturbed, a mysterious warren of solitude. He didn't defend himself, or yell back. He just shrugged, tossed out the occasional "OK", asked if my mom wanted to talk to me.
"I hope you yelled at him," my mom said (yelled) when I took the phone. I could have, but really, what would have been the point? Most people would not be missing in their own backyard for two hours, and most people would have thrown down a carpet and some paneling in the basement.
I could seethe about the way things are, or I could accept the fact that my dad, and our basement, are treasure troves of enigma, easy to overlook but a mistake to do so.
Proofreading this, it sounds like my dad could be a serial killer. I'm about 98% sure he isn't, but I can't really be sure. When he passes, I'll hire a junk removal company to clean out the basement. When they reach that rear wall and there's no bodies, I'll have an answer for you. But mostly, I just think my dad is my dad, the basement is his kindred spirit, and that he does stuff like this:
And this:
And I'd rather he be like this, basement and all, than be a serial killer, 'cause I watch American Gothic and having a serial killer in the family will destroy you.
Having my dad in the family will just suck up two hours of your Friday morning.
My parents' basement has a legacy of its own in the annals of my family history. Friends and family alike are aware of the legendary status of the basement, if only to know one does not enter my parents' basement, for that is all one needs to know.
So yes, I will begin with the birth of my parents' basement, which was three years before my own and, like the house above it, built at the command and expense of my parents. Nobody has lived in my parents' house but my family. To borrow again from Dickens, this point must be appreciated in order to grasp the significance of the story I now impart.
My parents' basement is under the sole and proprietary direction - and discretion - of my father. In the nearly five decades my parents have owned that house, I believe the total time I have spent in the basement to not exceed a single day.
The basement is quiet and still; no noise emanates from it - not even when my dad works down there.
There is nothing in the basement for anyone but my dad. The washer and dryer, once upon a time, were relegated to the basement, but I was spoiled and therefore did not do my own laundry until long after the laundry equipment had been moved upstairs.
No one in my family has ever said "I'll go to the basement to get the cooler" or "the bucket is in the basement" or "I'll be watching TV in the basement". In fact, if you go to the basement looking for something, you won't find it. I have nosed around, looking for the dresser that graced my childhood nursery, or the photo album from my mom's 40th birthday party. I know they are down there, but the basement is loathe to release her bounty.
 |
| I mean, that's just a diagnosis right there. |
Yet, when I have gone to the basement looking for my dad, the basement will occasionally toss me a treasure, like an ocean wave depositing a message in a bottle at your feet. Once, I flattened myself to squeeze past something to get to my dad, only to realize that "something" was the train set my father used to assemble at the holidays, still smelling of ozone and Christmas. Another time, I found my dead grandmother's artificial leg, laying on a shelf, just at my eye level.
Yes, my grandmother's artificial leg is a treasure. Maybe we'll talk about that later.
I have never seen the rear wall of my parents' basement. That's a weird thing to say, isn't it? I have never seen the rear wall of the basement in the home my parents have lived in my whole life. My friends of twenty, thirty years - my husband of nearly that long - have never even been in my parents' basement. Son doesn't even know where it is located. He's eight. My parents live 15 minutes from me. He's been to their house more than once.
 |
| What gems do you conceal, basement shelf? |
Nobody puts anything in the basement but my dad, and my dad is the only one permitted to ever remove anything. Occasionally, my father will come to me with something he has found in the basement. When he begins with "I found this and thought you'd want it," I inwardly cringe. Usually, it's used candles or a moldy Barbie that I last played with in 1982. But when he starts with "I found this and thought I'd check with you before I threw it out," I know I've struck gold.
Once, it was the wooden doll cradle my grandfather had carved and painted for me when I was a child. Another time, it was a stack of letters exchanged between my grandparents and a distant relative. On my 40th birthday, my dad made me a scrapbook of all the cards and letters my parents received when I was born. Some were dotted with mildew, others curled with moisture, but all were precious. My father had saved them, somewhere deep in the basement catacombs, then had painstakingly retrieved them and mounted them in an album. One of the best presents I was ever given.
My father himself is not unlike the basement he finds so dear. He, too, is quiet and still, and I challenge anyone who has ever known him to claim they know everything about my dad, or understand him completely. Even my mother doesn't - can't, won't - claim to fathom my father. Like the rear wall of the basement, there is no one who has penetrated every level of my dad's being.
My dad does not give up anything you seek directly from him. Much like locating my childhood dresser, questioning my dad is a fruitless endeavor. I have tried and tried to ask about his time in the Marines, his childhood, his grandparents, his life with my mother before I arrived. Always the answers are one word, without exposition or detail, or the dreaded "yes, more or less..." said with great hesitancy, a half smile and a far off look, and no other words.
That response, by the way, covers everything from "Why didn't you marry your first fiancee?" to "How was your appointment with the dermatologist?" I'm not kidding. Go ask him a question. I'll wait.
But if you are unassuming and approach my dad without an agenda, you will occasionally be graced with a nugget as valuable as his train set. You may discover, for example, that his brother had a tracheostomy for years, or that his ancestor was a pirate. He may volunteer that he owns land in El Paso, Texas, or that his family called him Pip as a child.
Hello again, Mr. Dickens.
So when my mom called on Day 6 of her hospitalization to say she had been trying to get ahold of my father all morning, to no avail, I was not surprised. My mom probably said to my dad, on Day 5 of her hospitalization, "What are you doing tomorrow?", and my dad probably said "Nothing." Only if my mom said "Are you fixing the boiler at church tomorrow?" or "Will you be in the basement tomorrow morning?" or "Are you walking over to the body shop to get the car I damaged when I drove into a semi?" would my dad answer in the affirmative. Besides, my parents never answer any phone, but that's a tale for another day. Suffice to say I wasn't really concerned because I figured my dad was in the basement, without a phone.
When I got to my parents' house, my dad's car was parked out front, the door was locked, his wallet was on the kitchen counter, and both the TV and radio were on. A search of the house failed to produce my dad, and when I headed into the basement there was still no sign of my father. My ability to assess that my dad for certain wasn't in the basement was, of course, severely hampered by the mounds of junk (treasure?) that loom from wall to wall to wall to wall.
Finding the back door unlocked, I searched the yard. Again, nothing.
Over the next 30 minutes, I went through the house, basement, and yard half a dozen times. I looked in his car. I questioned the neighbors.
"You know," a neighbor said to me, "one time when I was talking to your dad, his phone started ringing in his pocket. He told me my phone was ringing."
I called the church. I called the body shop. I called my mom, to make sure my dad hadn't somehow been en route to the hospital - it's not beyond him to walk anywhere.
He says he walks because walking is never crowded.
I checked the six - yes six - cordless phones lying about for some clue on the caller ID. I checked the two dead flip phones on the kitchen table. I called and called his cell.
With no dad and nowhere else to look, I was about to call the police. I set out on one last search of the house and its grounds.
And that was when I found my dad, on his hands and knees in the backyard, camouflaged by shrubbery and khaki-colored clothes.
 |
| Walked past that bush six times before I found my dad hidden behind its leafy fronds. |
He was fixing a section of the neighbor's fence.
Relieved, I called to him. I told him that I'd been at his house for over 30 minutes looking for him, that my mom had been trying to reach him for hours.
His only response was to ask if he and I were heading out to my cousin's house that day.
I called my mom and let her know my dad was safe, not wandering the streets with a traumatic head wound, but outside, working in the yard. She asked if he had water with him. I eyed his shirt and pondered a safe answer:
I passed the phone to my dad, and stood, five feet away, easily hearing every word my mom yelled at my dad. Like the basement, the world rages around my dad, but my dad remains still, undisturbed, a mysterious warren of solitude. He didn't defend himself, or yell back. He just shrugged, tossed out the occasional "OK", asked if my mom wanted to talk to me.
"I hope you yelled at him," my mom said (yelled) when I took the phone. I could have, but really, what would have been the point? Most people would not be missing in their own backyard for two hours, and most people would have thrown down a carpet and some paneling in the basement.
I could seethe about the way things are, or I could accept the fact that my dad, and our basement, are treasure troves of enigma, easy to overlook but a mistake to do so.
Proofreading this, it sounds like my dad could be a serial killer. I'm about 98% sure he isn't, but I can't really be sure. When he passes, I'll hire a junk removal company to clean out the basement. When they reach that rear wall and there's no bodies, I'll have an answer for you. But mostly, I just think my dad is my dad, the basement is his kindred spirit, and that he does stuff like this:
 |
| That's inverted milk cartons. On top of the stove. |
And this:
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| His cataract eye drops. In a tea cup from my toddler niece's tea set. Why? |
And I'd rather he be like this, basement and all, than be a serial killer, 'cause I watch American Gothic and having a serial killer in the family will destroy you.
Having my dad in the family will just suck up two hours of your Friday morning.
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