Half Past Awesome

This site is hitting the road. For the next week, I’ll be back in the arms of madness; I’m going home to California to observe that most holy of sacraments – my brother Buns is turning 30. Since he went and carelessly found a “relationship” in the time between my purchase of an airline ticket and the actual departure, I’m harboring no illusions beyond that of relegation to third wheel status. That’s okay, though, because I’ll use the opportunity to steal one of his vehicles and scatter around the state, visiting friends, sowing discontent and fomenting rebellion at every stop. For a change of pace, I thought I’d use Half Past Awesome as a rambling travelogue. I’ll keep pictures to a minimum, so as to protect the various characters and the unwilling. Wherever the truck stops is where I’m spending the night, and we’ll let it fly from there. What better place to start than the Springfield/Branson National Airport, Lube & Tune?

In all fairness, I love travel for the sole reason that it allows me to observe the mundane and insane and everything in between, all under the heading “people watching”. Springfield, Missouri is no different. In the past twenty minutes, I’ve watched an irate dad come unhinged on some poor soul on the other end of his phone call and three old farmers grousing about this new terminal, complaining about fresh food being served, whereas the restaurant at the old terminal was famous for food poisoning (“yeah, but you could at least smoke in there! What’s happening to this goddam place?!”).  Since this is a direct flight to L.A., I’m getting the chance to observe a grandmother in leather pants (not that hot) and a trio of Mexican dudes with enough gold around their necks to put Mr. T into a snit of envy. There’s the token guy in a Crocodile Dundee hat (seriously? We’re going to Los Angeles, not the outback) and twenty minutes before boarding, people are starting to line up dutifully, although nothing’s been announced. There is a mad rush to head into a flying aluminum tube and sit down, but it eludes me as to why you must mill like starving cattle. I found some hot coffee and a quiet corner of this place; until the aging hippie trying to pass his steamer trunk off as “carry on” gets his ponytail on the plane, I think I’ll just enjoy the view. See you in California.

Is the nature of man really that competitive? If we use the holiday season as a barometer of our desire to slap the snot out of the Joneses, then I think the answer is an undeniable “hells yes”. Leading the charge in this water-boarding of festive cheer are all of the radio stations who deem it necessary to begin their holiday rotations the day after Halloween. I am not sure who the marketing genius is that decided that sixty days of the same five songs is far superior to thirty days of said music, but whoever he or she is, they deserve to be slapped in the face. Sort of like how it was at sixteen, when every other sentence to your girlfriend was “I love you”, the heavy handed tactics of bombarding us with the same rotation for two months results in the diminishment of the sentiment. Your first girlfriend, and I, are sick of hearing it over and over, and pretty soon the Pavlovian response to hearing “White Christmas” for the 784th time is to choke the living daylights out of someone (and then break up with you). And don’t give me any of this “Scrooge” business – I really like the holidays, I swear I do, but there is such a thing as saturation overload – it’s tawdry and cheap. About the only thing I cannot abide this time of year is eggnog, and that is a result of an experiment gone horribly awry when I was about five years old; the details are unimportant, just suffice to say that eggnog is not a good substitute for milk on your breakfast cereal.

The mindset that follows sixty days of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer in your ears is one that celebrates “Black Friday”. This is a shopping phenomenon that The Wife, along with millions of others, really gets into; it appeals to me about as much as kicking puppies for sport. Despite the ability to save the same amount of money by looking for deals online, there is some sort of joy to be found in getting up at three a.m. just for the opportunity to catch pneumonia and then promptly elbow some woman to death over the last Tickle-Me-Elmo doll. Over Thanksgiving dinner at the in-laws, I heard some ladies discussing strategy and “product-location” as though they were preparing to initiate a hostile takeover of a third world nation. They would assemble in a line three miles long, disperse throughout the stores and meet back up in the checkout lines for a few hours of gloating over their conquests like Viking warriors with lattes. This sounds like a lovely time, indeed. I’ve never been one for getting whipped into a frenzy over pricing, so this experience is one which I think I’ll avoid, if for no other reason than to keep from murdering other shoppers in a looting extravaganza.

One aspect I can’t avoid, however, is hanging the lights for Christmas. I enjoy the way homes look at night, all lit up; it’s as though whatever else is wrong around the globe, a home warmly decorated with colored bulbs on the exterior indicates that all is right in your corner of the world, your home is happy and you are, in fact, NOT a tax cheat or some other public nuisance. But, much like the music and the shopping mobs, there is an intense, unspoken pressure to get your house lit up. Some may claim taking advantage of remaining good weather, others may boldly proclaim they “just want to get all that shit over with”, but I think the truth is lurking elsewhere in the shadows. I think, again, that there’s a competitive edge to getting your domicile adorned with exterior lighting. I do like how each persons home can serve as a creative expression for their inner holiday artist; that part I really like, but it’s the subtle hints that really frost my cocktail tumbler. The unspoken insinuation that your neighbor is maybe just a bit more of an embodiment of holiday cheer because they had their lawn Santas up on November 1st. They hauled their pre-lit fake tree down from the attic sometime in October, and because of that, you suck. In a way, I feel sorry for Thanksgiving, because soon it will be known merely as pre-Christmas dinner. We don’t do this with other holidays – there’s no pressure to give your wife a Valentines day gift in January, nor do we dress in spooky costumes in August, demanding free candy from our neighbors. So why do I feel as though hanging my Christmas light on November 29th makes me late for the party? When did we inherit the cultural mores of The Whos of Whoville? Is there a marketing department of a faceless institution that I can blame for this, shake my fist at and mumble about the decline of Western civilization?

All of this is probably why I insist on resisting the lure of the fake Christmas tree. Sure, it may be easier, and it may look (artificially) more perfect, but there is an intrinsic aspect of Christmas that comes with a real tree. Much like having a home with a brick front and vinyl siding on three sides, there are those for whom a fake tree is a cheap concession they’re willing to indulge because it looks good from afar. As a kid, my mom took me to the the neighborhood barber shop that served as a de facto tree lot in December, and I remember all the scents and the sounds of the electric chainsaws and the way the overhead strings of white bulbs gave it all a surreal feel. It was as though this was NOT the asphalt parking lot of a low-cost clip joint, but a magical place where the democratic process of selecting a tree was undertaken. When I lived in Alaska, there was a group of us that went out into the woods and found our own trees and cut them down, a ceremony that involved lots of drinking, good times and impromptu snowball fights. Anymore, it seems as though you would give the selection of a simulated tree no more thought than as an addition to your shopping list at Wal-Mart: milk, bread, diapers, some PVC pipe, and……oh yeah, a Christmas tree. And now, as an adult, father and avowed contrarian, I insist on dragging my kids to a swimming pool sales establishment parking lot, one where Cub Scouts are selling trees to fund their ascension up the Boy Scout chain of accomplishment. The trees aren’t necessarily the prettiest nor the cheapest, but they’re real, and this is one of the few times in their childhood where our kids will have a say in interior decor, so it’s a bit of a rite of passage.

Before long, I think that those who we labeled as “crazy” for keeping their lights up year round will be hailed as visionaries of the future. Black Friday will be preceded by “Purple Thursday” and “Sea-Foam Green Wednesday”. The day after Christmas will be advertised with loud radio voices proclaiming “ONLY 364 days to get your loved one the diamonds they so richly deserve!! And now here’s Bing Crosby with his rendition of Jingle Bells!” People looking for a haircut or a swimming pool installation will have to negotiate pine trees in the parking lot year round. Candy cane manufacturers will experience unheard-of  endless demand and you’ll get the opportunity to get a picture with Santa while he is water skiing in July. And you’ll probably find me in the month of May, trying to choke down some eggnog in a last-ditch effort to get into the season.

I like the noise of democracy.   ~ James Buchanan

This past week I worked at a polling station, endorsing the passage of a sales tax here in our city that would provide funding for a badly underfunded pension system; it would also allow for monies to be freed up in order to begin filling massive holes the police and fire departments have in terms of manpower. A sticky, thorny situation, asking for the passage of a tax in these times, especially in an area of Missouri conservative enough to deem air conditioning in school classrooms a “fancy-pants luxury”. The long and short of it was that the naysayers lost, and the tax passed. I am glad for this, because it tells me that there are still people out there who care enough about local public safety to consider actually paying for it; this runs contrary to many places where entitlement is the rule of law (didn’t we discuss this?) But I digress.

One of the best parts of working the polls? Working a ten hour shift there is like a guarantee that SOMEone will have an episode in your presence. Jim and I booked our slot down at one of the libraries and let the good times roll. Here are a couple of characters worthy of mention.

1.) The Ghost Of Jerry Garcia
This cat was what we refer to on the northside as an “Urban Outdoorsman”, but is known on the southside as “homeless”. He looked like a toothless version of Jerry Garcia, stringy skullet style hair and the odor of old food and urine. He continued to berate us for a cigarette (neither of us smoke), demand of us the bus schedule (we kept telling him it seemed to come around every 20 minutes) and push us into buying his watch for some “lunch money”. Despite pointing out that neither of us needed watches, he remained undaunted in his quest to sell us his watch, even using yelling as a sales technique at one point. He also took the time to show us a couple of pictures that he had of himself in nothing but a diaper. As an adult. His explanation? Some kids offered to “put him on the internet” if he agreed to have his picture taken. One thing I love about the homeless – they never fail to be amused at their own stories, and are more than willing to laugh at appropriate moments, thereby alleviating us of the responsibility; this is critical, because we couldn’t understand more than every seventh word he uttered. So we all had a good laugh, checked the time on our corresponding watches and made sure to get him on the next bus, a process that took several hours due to his frequent need to take a piss and subsequently pass out behind the bushes every so often.

2.) Christian Vigilantes
A couple of older dudes came by our area to talk about the pension issue, and then assured us that due to our profession, no matter the outcome of the vote, our lives in the after world were a sure thing. I asked him if he actually knew any firemen, because that might cause him to re-evaluate his position; of course they may have been damning us for an eternity at this point. I smelled it first, but Jim wasn’t as quick to sense a theological trap, and he was left to be the point man in the conversation. They then went on to insist that the resurrection of Jesus was the most undisputed, scientific, undeniable fact of existence. There were some terms thrown about that made no sense, talking about radiological testing and lots of talk of bloodshed. It was creepier than your common conversion session. They then made us promise we’d read the Book of John, immediately. And since they hadn’t cast their votes yet, I just nodded like a cult follower, eyes as big as saucers, throwing in the occasional “you got that right, sister!” and “can I get a witness?” They then asked if we’d like them to kick over the sign that the opposition had put up next to ours. We politely told them we couldn’t condone that kind of thing, but we weren’t there to police their behavior. So the shorter chubby one walked up to the sign as they headed to the lot after voting and sort of kicked it. Sort of. He more like tripped over it and stumbled and created a scene. I shouted out “Praise Jesus” (okay, I muttered it) while he picked himself off the lot and demanded his buddy ride in the back of the car. They peeled out of the parking lot like they’d just knocked over a liquor store instead of a plastic sign. Jim looked at me and asked “Did that really just happen?”
Yes James, it did. And it was awesome.

3.) The Ultimate Pessimist
The only thing we’d say to people heading into the polls was “Good morning” or “Doin’ all right?” There were no pleas, nor any entreaties to vote one way or another. We were there only to answer any questions folks might have about the pension and to put a face on this huge issue. Most folks would at least give us a “good morning” in return, or if a no voter (I’m guessing) pretend they didn’t hear us and take an obsessive interest in the ground near their feet. But one man, a nastily grouchy looking sort, said “good morning” at first and then saw who we were and took the time to stop, point at us and say “NO. Not a good morning”. And then he shuffled off to electorally shake his fist at us.  I turned and said “Think of the power we wield, James. We just converted the entire aspect of this morning merely by wearing a shirt. Think of what we could do by lunch.”

4.) The Recyclers
At some point in the day, a couple of ladies came out of the library with the backpack on wheels- kind of contraption I took it to be used for the transportation of reading material. They weren’t poorly dressed, nor did they have the air of desperate people; they were merely passing some time waiting for the next bus, and I thought nothing of it. There was one of those sand filled ashtrays near us (fanTAStic!) and once in a while a library patron / voter would throw their cancer stick into the sand receptacle as they entered the building – everyone on board so far? Yeah, well these ladies would wait for just such an occurrence and then saunter on up, looking us dead in the eye, as though they wanted to talk. But this was arrogance on my part to think they wanted anything to do with a couple of poll workers; no, they would stop at the ashtray, pick through the butts and either begin to smoke one, or already having one in their mouth, place them into the pockets of their sweat pants. Each time this happened? I gagged just a little and excitedly jabbed Jim with an elbow and said “Dude. They just did it. Again!”, to which Jim would nonchalantly reply “I wonder if they’re single” or “Man, that’s really ecologically responsible, how they don’t waste ANYthing.”
Which is precisely why I picked working with Jim.

And precisely why, when called upon again to represent the local firefighters at a polling place, my first pick will be to work at the library. I love the democratic process.

I’ve never had writer’s block before. That’s because I’ve never been a writer, unless you count the post-it note reminders I leave myself so that I remember where I live. But for the past several weeks, in this, the most beautiful and scenic time of year in the Ozarks, I’m completely stumped in terms of being able to describe anything, much less anything amusing. You’d think all the fall foliage, the cold and rainy days, the time spent home alone – you’d think I’d have inspiration pouring out of my pores like sweat. You’d be wrong.

Taking care of a spouse on the mend doesn’t exactly lend itself to amusing scenarios. I’ve even been poring over the stupid and trashy magazine sites, in search of celebrities to irritate me with their antics. No such luck. The best I can come up with is that I nearly backhanded an old lady today in line at the coffee shop when she decided to cut in front of me only to try and pay for an $0.84 cup of joe with a check. WITH A CHECK. The barista waited until the entire check writing process took place and then informed the woman that there was a minimum of $5.00 that needed to be purchased in order to use a check. The process continued. Normally, this would dictate an incredulous freak out on my part, or, at the least, an offer to pony up a buck so I could get Mrs. McScrooge out of my way. But I was hacked that she cut me off and wouldn’t have given her a dollar any time in this life (this is based on principle, now). And in reality, I was just too damn down and too damn lazy to pitch some sarcasm her way. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

Hockey season has begun, both professionally and in the rec league – the place where I take a weekly beating by punk ass college kids and old men alike. And when the St. Louis Blues are playing on the television, I usually get all peppy and jittery and stoked to witness the poetic, chaotic circus that is hockey. I’m really glad that I’ve finally found a sport that holds my attention longer than 34 seconds, but even my beloved Blues aren’t doing the trick. Of course, the fact that we haven’t won one game yet in our rec league may be an enabler of my funk.

The Heathens are healthy, The Wife is healing and I’m fortunate enough to have a job that allows me to take family medical leave in order to care for them, so all in all I have no chair on which to stand and shout about just how bad life can get. But to lose the muse? Ever since starting this blog back in the spring, there has been an ample supply of material from which to draw; in fact, there are about five posts waiting in the wings in various stages of completion, and I can’t seem to get off my creative ass to give them the touch they need. Sending out half hearted attempts isn’t an option either.

You know what I think I need to snap out of this? A road trip, probably to the Northwest. That, or an epiphany as to how to make it in the world of writing. Or, a new MIG welder. So either I’ve got to hit the pavement, have a revelation or discover untold thousands in credit down at the welding supply shop. That shouldn’t be too hard, I’d guess. But it sounds like a problem to tackle on, say, Wednesday. There’s hockey on tonight.

Like all of the roads that lead to hell, today’s was paved with good intentions. After The Wife’s ankle fiasco and my subsequent knee torque job (read: here) all of this crazy training for the half marathon in December went the way of the Dodo Bird. Not coincidentally, my fitness level and associated weight bore a direct proportion to the number of days I’ve been spending helping her recuperate; it looks like food is the great healer, bad-for-you food in particular. Full disclosure – I will use any and every excuse to get out of cardio training that isn’t hockey. I’ve even bailed from the spin class for the last several weeks since I feel odd about abandoning her for more than an hour unless beer is involved.

A couple of nights ago on a news feed, I saw that there would be a non-competitive 5k walk here in town called the “Making Strides Against Breast Cancer” event. I honed in on two words “non-competitive” and “walk”. If there’s any way on this earth that’ll I’ll be able to make an attempt at a half marathon in December, I’d better get offa my ass and back on the pavement. So I registered, with the lazy side of me thinking “if I can keep up with a bunch of purpose-driven walkers, then I’m like 7% there.”

And I showed up on un-race day, checked in, found a cup of joe to ward off the 44 degree temps and wondered a.) is anyone else going to show up? and b.) is it going to stand out that I’m not wearing anything pink? The answer to both questions was an overwhelming yes. For an inaugural annual event, I’d guess there were 1000 people there, and I was one of three people not bedecked in pink. It sort of felt like I was giving off the creepy vibe, in a gray hoodie and black shorts and my silly little “registered walker” sticker on my boob. I briefly considered knocking out a grandma and stealing her pink boa, but the word “karma” crossed my mind and I thought the better of it. Plus, there was some guy standing near us with, no kidding, a huge beer gut, flannel shirt over his race tee, Mountain Dew in one hand, cigarette in the other and a cell phone earpiece in and blinking. I wasn’t too bad, all things considered.

The pre-non-competitive race hoopla had a local radio dj trying to rev a frozen crowd up, peppered with actually touching moments such as a breast cancer survivor telling her story and the raucous response she got from an incredibly supportive crowd. I cheered with the rest of them so as to lessen the predator vibe and promised myself to walk the course with the crowd, you know, gently ease the ancient knee back into a routine. My godmother passed away from breast cancer 15 years ago, and she’s who I put down in the “who I’m walking for” category, and I would be damned if I croaked within the first mile trying to push it in her name; a walk it was going to be.

I am such a liar, especially to myself. I made it two blocks when the competitive demon made an appearance. After slipping on the earphones, it didn’t take long for Rodrigo Y Gabriela’s tune Tamacun (live) to come up in rotation, and it’s like the music possessed me, man (said in best Tommy Chong voice). The aching knee disappeared, and next thing you know, I’m hungry to take down these little ol’ ladies and jogging moms and anyone else wearing pink and laughing too loud. You see, most people approach this kind of event in teams, so Anderson Accounting is all together in spiffy shirts and having the time of their lives. The only other solo members I saw were a group of angry lesbians who’d gotten into some sort of spat and decided to run on their own. And yes, they were gay, this wasn’t just an assumption; their shirts and tatts were showing their pride, although I’d have been willing to wager they weren’t too hip on the same sex when I saw them – in fact murderous glares were being traded like currency. So it came to me and a group of disgruntled ladies being the only ones running on our own, and, in fact that’s how I like it. Despite being a damn social bastard, I actually prefer to run on my own, with no one around to mock to my buffalo-style huffing and chuffing.

I thought I was doing pretty well until I was getting passed by some kids who looked no more than ten. At that point, the shame would overtake me, and I’d walk for another hundred yards or so, only to be motivated to get jogging when I saw groups of volunteers at each intersection cheering like lunatics. Before long, mile markers 2 and 3 rolled by, and next thing you know, I’m back in the park where it all started, feeling pretty damn good and re-hydrating and high fiving total strangers. Felt great in fact, until the rush passed, and my knee began throbbing in an ungodly way. The self-promise of “you will walk” came back across my mental teleprompter. I had to make an actual effort to not punch myself in the head in front of a bunch of cancer-cure warriors while muttering “stupid, stupid, stupid” all the while. The knee is still hurting, hours later, even though it was an impressive get together for a cause that truly is worth the pain. It was a refreshing breath of fresh air, that all those people would come together in such a show of support, love and dedication, united across all lines for the day, at least.

ps- I’m pretty sure I beat the smoking guy with the Mountain Dew.

“I’m very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.” – Ron Burgundy

Despite whatever impressions you may have formed from reading the rants I dole out here on this site, I actually do enjoy reading; yelling at the computer screen each time the schism between pop culture and real life grows wider…..well, that’s just a hobby. But unlike my author-amigo Josh Conviser and my idiot-savant brother Buns, I don’t delve into real intellectual-like tomes on a regular basis. So somewhere between People Magazine (a favorite target of fury) and A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking is where I like to get my read on. I enjoy authors that make me laugh, make me feel like I’m being let in on a hilarious family secret or just a wild yarn about some crazy adventure. I’m curious as to what you guys are reading….so give me some literary suggestions that might make a Missouri winter a little less hostile. And I thought I’d share with you the latest selections that were in my rotation. Enjoy.

1. Born To Run (Christopher McDougall) – this guy is the kind of outdoors author I’d want to hang out with based on both his superb ability to tell a tale and to utilize language to which I can relate. In other words- he’s not taking an incredibly serious subject too damn seriously. An awesome account of people who run for no other reason than a love of running, this book on the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s Copper Canyons makes my whining about 3 mile runs seem even more pathetic.

2. I Was Told There’d Be Cake (Sloane Crosley) – a collection of essays by a hilarious observer of life in New York City, this girl has the acid wit that made me laugh out loud while reading a few times; and yes, it was in public, and yes, I looked even MORE like an idiot than I already do.

3.) Water For Elephants (Sara Gruen) – I really enjoyed escaping into this one, and it read kind of like a grown-ups version of Polar Express. It was elegant and graceful – two traits that have eluded me all my life.

4.) BOBOS In Paradise (David Brooks) – this book attempts to reconcile the Bohemian and bourgeois lifestyles (hence BOBOS) in a very definitive study of how aging hippies can afford to live in places like Santa Barbara and not feel guilty about it. It’s something of a hard read in that it tends to be dry as toast at parts, and this explains why it’s taken me so long to slog through the thing. Plus, I don’t think that I possess the kind of intellectual capital which would afford me a “summer” home in Martha’s Vineyard. I’ll continue through to the end, however, because there are some pretty eye-opening theories that he puts forth with regards to wealth and values.

5.) Let My People Go Surfing- The Education Of A Reluctant Businessman (Yvon Chouinard) – possessing all the ingredients for a potentially badass read, the founder of Patagonia wrote this horrible turd of a book that was impossible for me to finish. It had everything I love – life on the ocean, blacksmithing, the West Coast that is my home and it still managed to irk me to no end. Was it his condescending tone? The apparent megalomania? The holier-than-thou approach to environmental conservation? The constant self-congratulations? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. I gave the book back to the friend I borrowed it from, muttering that I’d just like to cold-cock the smug bastard/author in a bar sometime. So much for my time-tested approach of judging a book by it’s cover……apparently, you can’t.

6.) Classic Trains, Fall 2009 – because, really, who doesn’t like steam trains?

It was a dark and stormy night. No, it wasn’t; it was the middle of the afternoon on a perfectly average day. As the monsoon-like fury raged on, there wasn’t enough visibility to make out your hand in front of your rain-soaked face. Again, not so much; it was sunny without even a hint of clouds in the sky. The mountains were steep and rocky….. enough so that even the sure footed Dall sheep were loathe to venture higher. Actually, the whole thing took place on my dead level gravel driveway. The crevasse gave way, exposing our intrepid explorer to a sure death as the ice ax began its slow southern migration from its chiseled hold.  To be honest, the rut was like 3.75 inches deep, caused by a little rain runoff, and completely avoidable.

As I returned to a work bench in my shop, I hear a wailing cry, the kind you might expect to hear from family members when they discover Dad has driven over the beloved Shar-Poodle-Shit-Zsu on his way to work this morning. I drop the cutting torch and sprint out of the shop to find my lovely wife rolling around next to the driveway, clutching her legs as though she’d just breezed over a hidden land mine that I may or may not have placed to deter trespassers. I ask just what in the hell she thinks she’s doing, lying there when we had company coming over shortly. She immediately demands that I grab a Fresca from the shop fridge, and pour it down her throat. In case that sounds awkward, let me emphasize: SHE DEMANDS A FRESCA. “Oh, what the hell”, I thought, got her the damn Fresca, and returned to find her engaged in what looks to be Lamaze knee rolls and associated hysterical cry/laughing.

My fire department training then took over, so I engaged in our standard protocols: I took some vitals, tried to give her some supplemental oxygen, then offered to check her smoke detector and told her to wait for the ambulance. She did not find this in the least amusing. She then told me how she’d been walking back to the house, and how one ankle rolled in the rut, the subsequent over-compensation of the other and the crash landing results. Having extensive training in the medical field, I told her “stop crying. Walk it off.” We’ve all rolled an ankle or two in our time, and she’s not so special as to merit an ambulance ride or anything. Eventually, she hobbles into the house and we proceed to throw a lavish party. The kind of party that involves the use of plastic utensils, if you catch my drift.

The next day, she opts to go to the doctor, because the swelling hasn’t subsided and, as it turns out, complaining about the pain rarely heals the wound. It then comes to our attention that one ankle has a spiral fracture and one is severely sprained. That’s right (and here’s where I make the big “my bad” part of the speech): she broke her ankle in the driveway. In flip flops. So while my assessment skills were a bit, shall we say, off, you’ll forgive me if the x-ray vision is on the fritz and I missed that one. And so it began. We got the knee scooter. The crutches. And, after a particularly nasty tumble in the kitchen, a wheelchair. I’ve gotten a glimpse of The Wife at age 85. I am most amused by this development.

Karma has a way of taking a steaming dump on your lap, though, when you derive too much amusement from your spouses pain. As I’ve alluded to in other posts, I’m in the middle of training for a half-marathon, a spectacle in which I completely expect to have a massive coronary event. And, one week into her rehabilitation time, I went a little off the rails at a wedding reception, prompting my knee to go from “a little achy” to “now I can’t walk on it without a limp.” With the aid of a knee brace, we are now a pair of invalids, hobbling all over creation. I’ve had to take over most of the domestic engineering, and while I am always happy to divide the labor, I ain’t so cheerful about a solo endeavor. I limp around the kitchen, shaking my fist at The Heathens, hollering that they are LUCKY to be having Mac & Cheese yet again. In the grocery store, we are constantly asked if we were involved in a car wreck. I’ve taken to lying on a much grander scale, often replying with “Why yes, yes we were. It was a 67 car pile-up and we’re the only survivors. But I don’t like to talk about it. How’s YOUR day going?” Really, it’s rather crass, but I take the little victories where I can.

And that, my friends, is why I haven’t posted in a while. We’ve been lucky enough to have the kinds of friends that have been bringing meals over and helping us out as I attempt to coddle (or yell) my family into well being. All of our visitors are of the mind that what we REALLY need is another lasagna, and while I’m eternally grateful for their thoughts and “help”, it’s as though they don’t even know me: not one cold Guinness has been offered as of yet. On the flip side maybe they know us too well; when you have two lame ducks limping all over the house, I’ve found it best if all parties are sober.

Yesterday, our fishwrap-caliber newspaper ran a story on a local pot bust. I would assume that that is a newsworthy subject due to the simple fact that the majority of our drug busts out here in Springfield are meth-based; at the least, they’re generally rooted in the transportation of drugs across I-44, our local superhighway of narcotics. The reason I found this story amusing is based on this line, right here:

“Officers from the sheriff’s office and from the Missouri Highway Patrol located and seized about 130 mature marijuana plants, many of them 10 to 15 feet tall, from the property, according to the release.”

I will admit here, in the interest of full disclosure, that I know NOTHING about growing pot. And if you were witness to my attempts at growing pumpkins a few years ago, you know that the agricultural degree I got is positively going to waste (sorry Cal Poly; in all fairness, you tried. We just didn’t work out. No shame). So my next question is this: what?

As in “What. The. Flugelhorn?”

What Einstein thinks about this hare-brained cultivation of the Devi’ls lettuce and thinks that plants 10-15 feet tall are unremarkable? Apparently our Mtn. Grove herbaliser does. I mean, even if you live way out where the Baldknobbers still tread, you’d think that you might not let your crops get nearly two stories tall. And think of the hassles when trying to tend, feed or care for this illegal little operation of yours; would you take trips to the local rental yard when it came time for maintenance? I imagine it went down like this:

Rental Guy: “Hey, Ronnie! Wow, back again! Don’t tell me…..you want to rent the aerial lift again? Jesus Ronnie, that’s like twice in the last month. What the hell are you doing with that thing? Hanging gutters? Trimming trees?”

Ron: “Yeah….something like that.”

Rental Guy: “Okay, but hells bells, Ronnie, for what you’ve been paying to rent this thing, you could own one by now. WOW. That’s a lot of cash in your hand! Christ, what are you, a drug dealer now Ron?

Ron: “Why? What have you heard?”

When my buddy Todd called up to bring this story to my attention (it already had caught my eye due to the genius quotient), these were the kinds of scenarios that were playing out in our conversation.  We were left to wonder: did the fertilizer instructions lead this man astray? At what point did he look upon his ocean of cannabis and say “Jeez…..those suckers are gettin’ a mite tall?” Are there websites and forums that he could have joined that would give him instruction? Wait, don’t answer that, I don’t want to be bombarded with anecdotes on hemp sites. I already have one brother who is the resident expert on all things green. Some knowledge is best left to others.

Everyone has a point at which their risk/benefit ratio flips and they are no longer will to assume the liabilities. I choose not to rob convenience stores when I am low on cash, because it would be hard to report for duty at the firehouse from jail. My wife chooses to not violently hack me to pieces every time I upset her, because it would be too inconvenient disposing of the body. There must have been a point in time when Ron the pot grower decided that it would be worth it to have 130 mature marijuana plants grow taller than corn. Maybe that’s standard protocol for hemp farmers. Maybe he has brass clankers. Maybe he’s just an idiot pothead. Or just maybe, he too is an alumni of Cal Poly who happened to pay attention in Crops 101.

A sinus rhythm is defined one way as the normal regular rhythm of the heart as generated by the sinus node. This is what you want to see in a patient when an EKG is performed- five healthy waves in a single heartbeat. But like each beat of the heart, life happens in these up and down waves that define our interactions with others.

I thought about this while I was enduring the cardiac event known as “training run” today. Currently at the end of week three in a twelve week cycle of sado-masochism, I’m attempting my first half marathon in December. Back story -the event is for St. Jude’s Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis, and I committed to it for a couple of reasons; on October 18 of 2007, the beautiful daughter of a coworker of mine passed away at three years old, the victim of a brain tumor. St. Jude’s was instrumental in helping the family, and I’ve been impressed with this organization since I first learned of it. Secondly, if I am gonna do more than just TALK about being in better heart health, there’s nothing like setting a seemingly impossible goal to guilt me into running.

While experiencing undoubtedly abnormal rhythms, my mind was wandering all over the place, focusing on the peaks and valleys that happen to us at this age. The craziness knows no limits: one classmate of mine is in jail for allegedly murdering his wife in the heat of a bitter custody battle, we have folks with marriages on the rocks or ending, The Lyin’ Dutchman has ostracized each and every member of his family (except Bones), The Wife broke one ankle and sprained the other two days ago just walking down our driveway; hell, I even went nuts to a minor degree this past spring, sold off the excavating business, lost my mind and took up yoga. On the plus side, Heathen #1 is rocking kindergarten, this site has been a fulfilling outlet for my creative impulses, RoJo welcomed a baby boy into this world, Lyrical Jackass is back with an old crazy flame, Dirtbag is busy building out in the northwest, JoBoo just got him a new Harley and my first tattoo is on the horizon.

And so it goes. These various waves in our lives give it spice, meaning, passion and heartbreak. When compared to asystole (also known as “flatline”), sinus rhythm is not such a bad option, even with all the valleys. Living a flat line life would be boring, repetitive, secure to the point of mad doldrums. I’m not advocating abandoning family nor commitments, but rather, learning to accept the valleys as just another point in my life’s rhythm. Caring for a temporarily crippled wife? That’s not too bad, especially when taken in the context of having a person in my life who is willing to even be seen with me. Mile 5 of the training run today? Well, there was nothing good to say about that one, save for that it’s about 4.75 miles further than I’ve run in nearly a decade.  As the knees were snapping, the sweat pouring down like a monsoon, and the feet protesting with each stumbled step, it actually brought a smile to my face. My shuffle might embarrass the hell out of me if I ever were to witness it, but least I’m out there, and not flat-lining here on the couch. I’ll never be a runner’s runner – I know this. To survive this thirteen mile race without congestive heart failure will be nothing short of a medical miracle. But I’ll take the unknown inconsistencies of this run, this life, over the alternatives any day.

I’ve decided I need to join a cult. After reading about how the Church Of Scientology is having conniption fits over the actions of some internet trolls (read here), I was left feeling like a spiritual Switzerland, with no dog in the fight. Sure, the guys who are attacking the Scientologists are nothing more than a coterie of jerkwads and the Church Of Science Fiction is little more than a pyramid sham with Tom Cruise as their unofficial spokesman. Sure, we have churches here in the Ozarks that want a copy of your W-2 for tithing purposes, just as we have plenty of nice, humble little places of worship all over, available in the denomination of your choosing. But these options are just not fringe enough for me these days.

You ever notice the fiery passion that cultists have? The wild eyes, the insane zealotry, the madcap desire for worldwide evangelicism of their faith? The fact that theirs is always the “chosen” religion, that their leader is the one who has been called to guide us heathens out of the abyss of mankind? And that most of those same cult leaders will demand at some point that their followers kill themselves? You never hear about a former cult leader now living a normal life and employed at a car title loan establishment. Hell no, when these guys call it quits, it often times involves a hail of gunfire or a raging inferno. At a bare minimum, grape Kool Aid and/or a subway system plot is involved.

I envy their conviction. Yes, yes, I understand that envy is one of the Deadly Sins and all that, but when it comes to cult life, I’m sure that these become more like flexible parameters than steadfast rules. Sort of like the whole plural marriage concept, or the assertion that Jesus would vote Republican, there are certain spiritual speculations that cult leaders find themselves uniquely able to justify and propagate. I can’t even declare the way The Wife’s customers drive on my lawn a sin, so I could use a dose of evangelical charisma if there’s a chance of making it into an off-brand religion.

The Wife has a friend, and I’m going to call her “Consuela” to protect her anonymity here, who is also feeling a spiritual void. She has tried 97% of the churches in the area with little satisfaction and was left feeling like there’s something wrong with her being a 35 year old divorcee. Consuela, in her quest for fulfillment has recently attended a mega church in the area affectionately known as both “Six Flags Over Jesus” and “The Jesus Christ Supercenter” and left there more than once crying. She reportedly cried because she felt worse about herself after the services; a couple of dates with other single parishioners ended with them telling her she wasn’t “Christian enough”. Ouch. I told her that in order to get churchy enough for those boys, all she really needed was to join me in my quest for a cult. And thus we were two.

All that Consuela and I are lacking is the kind of wingnut religious movement that will satisfy my spiritual needs, and those needs are as follows:

1. That our brand of religion is a zero-sum game. If I’m gonna move to some forsaken hell-hole like New Guyana or Los Angeles, then I want assurances that THIS is the team that wins. WE win. And everyone else loses. Sorry Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Scientologists; we win and you burn.

2. Harems. They were, apparently, quite popular in the Old Testament times;  if they were ok with The Big Man way back when, then I see no reason why there shouldn’t be a return of that venerable institution.

3. Spaceship rides. Most of your higher-grade cults promise you at least one ride to the cosmos on either the tail of a comet or some other groovy form of space travel. Of course, this usually only occurs after the suicide, so there are some sticking points we might need to iron out.

Buns as cult leader?

I think those needs are reasonably basic, and as long as we can find a charismatic lunatic in oversize Coke-bottle glasses to lead us, I’d venture that we’d make damn good cult followers. Now, if you’ll pardon me, I need to troll through several late night cable tv channels that are offering spiritual salvation in the form of big hair, big jewelry and big promises. And if you don’t hear from me, chances are that Consuela and I have found the cult of our dreams. At the very least, I hope the Kool Aid tastes good.

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