Again, my son will question my masculinity

. . . but that's the way it goes. I wanted to get close up pictures of the rose of sharon blossoms last year but there were japanese beetles all over them, munching happily. This year I learned if you put out bug bags with attractant you get bugs from miles away migrating to your yard. More than you could ever catch in bags because it's a sexual pheremone.

I took a really cool picture of a japanese beetle last year, much to the disgust of my brother in law, Greg, who views them as the enemy. Even one's enemy can be attractive. Anyway, since they are not so horny, there are fewer of them this year, which is a blessing.

There's a little robber fly in this one. This fly is colored like a bee, but not really shaped that way. This must work for him. We are not always what we seem and this is usually a survival strategy. I seem to be a harmless middle aged man, so there you go. My goal is to be increasingly less harmless.

I'm well. I have a new non-narcotic pain reliever, which is nonetheless an opioid, and helped me get some stuff done today even though my back began rebelling early. I'm not sure what I did yesterday, other than see two new clients. There isn't a one to one correspondence between when I exert and when I have aches and pains. It was manageable today with a light dose and Wikipedia says this stuff isn't addictive except at the maximum dose, which I am nowhere near. Most of the time Tylenol 500s work well. I helped get the house clean and did some shopping and took little breaks and it all got done. This is more than I can say for my macho son who has done absolutely nothing we have asked him to do today, claiming fatigue. I'm an asshole dad so I suggested that he was too exhausted to do anything with anyone including the Xbox and he seemed to begin to move. It's looking like rain and I don't think the lawn is going to get mowed. Nor is his laundry going to get done or his room clean. His grounding will last until tomorrow when there's probably something he'll want to do. So it goes. Yelling at him doesn't make me feel better and still doesn't get the job done.

Rose O' Sharon was a character in the Grapes of Wrath. She nursed a dying man after her infant died as the family rode from Oklahoma to California, the promised land during the depression. These days there's no place to migrate to, except perhaps Alaska and I don't believe they are promising anything there.

I'd actually really enjoy mowing the lawn. It was one of the jobs I found satisfying, along with shoveling the snow. I liked being strong. Picking up rocks and making walls and shoveling holes and planting things. It has been strange to be weak, anemic. Atrophy has been almost alarming at times. Nowadays, I'm gaining my strength and can see progress. It's easier to have pain when one can see a progression. Robyn's back pain isn't like that and I'm noticing the difference. At some point I suppose I'll come to the conclusion that, in the words of the sage Jack Nicholson, this is "as good as it gets."

I suppose it won't be good enough.

Tough.

Flying dogs observed in Iowa

Caitlin took this picture of Tye doing his favorite "job." His rule is that he must catch the chipmunk before it hits the ground. Dogs have rules. Don't think they don't. Not bad for a nine year old dog.

Speaking of old dogs, I am feeling a lot better. Back on the campus at work, I'm walking a lot and climbing a lot of stairs and feeling the "burn" less and less. Running will be entirely another matter, but the first day back when I took the stairs I felt like I'd run a few miles. Now they just feel like stairs.

What I'm experiencing these days is more of an ache than a pain. I resort to the "big" drugs at night, but during the day, my aches are very manageable. On days when I "work out" more, I feel more achy at night and I understand that is to be expected. I have the "advantage" of knowing how it feels when all the surgeon's good work comes unglued, and this definitely does NOT feel like that. It feels like progress. I wear my lighter brace as little as possible: when in the car or when doing back intensive tasks such as vacuuming.

I go back to Madison for CT scans and a final pronouncement on October 8th. I expect to go get my license and be back on the road again. It's time. It will be wonderful to have some more independence. My Iowa City caseload is filling up and I'll need more flexibility. The Corps Members will be arriving on campus in a few weeks and we'll be hopping. I'd like to get going with some physical therapy so that I can look left and right without the "full torso pivot" move. I'm not sure how well I'll ever be able to look up. It may be a bend-at-the-waist deal from here on out. We'll see.

Our family is falling back into a more normal routine. Autumn has us in its grasp, getting us back to routine and nudging us with shorter days, foggy mornings, and crisp air. It's good to be alive, active, to wiggle my toes. It's good to value our lives and the good things we do. As I drove to Wisconsin in June I felt I was getting away from the grind of my life. I guess I sure as Hell was.

Having fought like Hell to get my life back, I hope I don't forget how much it's worth.

Merry gold

I have a great little photo shareware program called Gimp that I'm half way learning to use. I still haven't figured out to do what I set out to do but this one turned out okay. The morning glory was psychedelic all by itself.

The Infectious Disease Clinic at UW called me today to let me know that my labs are normal. This means that I no longer have to wolf down antibiotics for the first time since June. They're going to test me again in a few weeks after no antibiotics and see if seratia has been hiding out and has started growing again. Dr. Mejicano is wily and knows all their sneaky tricks.

It is cool and a little sticky out. The corn is turning brown at the edges and you can hear it rustle now in a breeze. The cicadas are keening, louder and louder in waves and then dying out again. For a moment, everything is just as it should be.

Morning Glory

I went out to get the paper the other morning and in the middle of the worst of our grass, right down by the curb where all the sand and salt ends up, was a single morning glory.

I got great news in Madison and can now wear my lighter brace or no brace at all depending on my level of activity and on how I feel. Range of motion is a really wonderful thing. I'm miserably stiff and inflexible, particularly my neck. Because my spine is now bent forward, I think I'm having to hold my head up with somewhat different muscles. At any rate the muscles currently engaged were complaining mightily of overwork yesterday.

I've learned that the aches come and go and I can feel myself getting stronger as I "pay" for yesterday's exertion. An ache is certainly better than the sensations I was experiencing in June, or in July for that matter, when complications were arising.

Our friend and sister Katie suggests the pain is a reminder of how good it is to be alive. The man in the Army commercial says pain is the sensation of weakness leaving your body. These days for me an ache or pain is the fee for more freedom and normalcy. I got to sit in a small town bar and look pretty much like the other humans. We were early for a wedding and there were puppies on the floor and children beginning to tantrum because their parents were on beer number two and you know what that means. We enjoyed our drinks and speculated with the bartender about which local wedding we were attending. No one during the entire visit asked what happened to me. I got eye contact!

The young adults are returning to our campus at work. They are full of energy and critical analysis, humor and fun. There's going to be lots of work to do and my motivation is much higher to get my training materials written and polished. Now I have my audience and don't want to disappoint them.


We are bent but we are no longer broken. Knitting together, we piece ourselves into place.

We work to straighten ourselves as we walk and we keep ourselves tidy, the better to be clean and dignified.

To walk along the street and be unremarkable is a piece of luck, not a right. I am lucky enough to have a few upright miles remaining, before I order my online scooter, place a carafe of martinis in the bag, and roll toward the sunset, leaving only a little dust, and a faint whirring noise.

De-friended.

I've already had a lot of fun with this, but it seems a shame to waste it on Facebook. I made a vow to myself to try to get out of my own head and see what's going on and ever since I've noticed so many things and have had some really exciting experiences. I'm grateful, I'm just sayin'.

I got friended by someone I went to high school with on the aforementioned social network site. Her name isn't important. I'm not even completely sure who she is or was, although I think she ran in a flashier social circle than I. That's how it feels to be that age, so I'm not sure. My classmate is married and considers herself conservative politically (!) and has wonderful grandchildren.

My classmate posted some pictures of things she was doing to get ready for homecoming. There were rows of dresses hanging in plastic in long rows. There were tables of boutonnieres and banners hanging and strangely no people at all. Other pictures showed various people, but no one that I recognized. There were pictures of my classmate but they weren't really close ups and so they didn't help me make out how I was supposed to remember her. But what the heck, right? Wait and see.

My classmate seemed sympathetic when I posted about my adveture at the DOT office. That was nice.

Facebook has inane polls which it uses to mine your personal data for sales and analysis. My classmate answered a poll and indicated to one and all that she did not support removal of "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. I'm not aware that there's anything cooking in this arena -- God removal -- but I'm up for a little discussion.

I'm as big a fan of America as they come, particularly as we seem to have come at least a little to our senses as a nation of late. This Pledge has always bothered me.

I have never been very attached to things as objects worthy of allegiance. It does bother me that the Republic for which it stands gets second billing.

"Under God" was inserted in the '30's or 40's by politicians pandering for votes. One suspects this would be similar to saving Marriage by amending the Constitution.

"Under God" presupposes that we all agree about the Almighty. Religions that evangelize have a natural tendency to minimize the value of other points of view. Because the congressmen were Christian, we are not "One Nation Seeking Nirvana" although undoubtedly some of us are seeking Nirvana, rather than being born again.

Actually our early forefathers were free thinkers, Congregationalists and Unitarians, for God's sake. Their sense of the need for separation of Church and State was palpable.

In 1965, when I used to recite the Pledge, "liberty and justice for all" was just not happening. I knew that. I was a little Unitarian kid.

I commented to my classmate on Facebook that she was reflecting a certain bias. I shared with her my sense of the politicians who inserted God into the Pledge . . . the pandering part.

She commented that I didn't have to say the Pledge if I didn't want to then, did I? I commented that if the Pledge instead demanded that her children stand up every day in school and DENY God, then perhaps she'd feel differently.

And now she is not my friend. Sure was fun. I wonder who she was.

church

Brief update: the visit to Madison was great, in that Dr. Mejicano, who is great and truly worth the price of admission said my wound was "beautiful," and my labs were "great" and explained very clearly what we're watching and why. He treated us as though we were capable of understanding this stuff and in fact we were. I really love being treated as though I'm capable of understanding my own situation, particularly when the news is good.

As I mentioned, my friend and colleague J.J. is hauling me to work when he can, which is every day this coming week, and that's just the thing for my morale. I work better in my office, get more done, and the interaction and stimulation remind me that I'm part of something that I really love. NCCC is a great place to be these days and soon there will be 160 young people running around our quaint little campus.

The campus is very much like a small college and I have to walk back and forth between my building and our 3rd floor administrative office in the next building. This is more walking than I was doing at home and I can feel it. You don't get stronger if you don't push a little and I was defaulting to the not ineptly named La-Z-Boy far to often.

After a good night's sleep it is easier to have hope and not be so impatient. Yesterday, I went to the DOT to try to get my lapsed driver's license renewed before I passed the 60 day limit. Needless to say, I went as Samatello. I checked in at the desk and got my number, sat in a very uncomfortable chair and waited for an hour, only to be asked if I was under a doctor's care. Good guess, Tonto! I said that I was and that I was not currently driving because of my injury, and would not drive until my doctor released me, but that I'd like to renew my license on time. The woman called the manager.

It turns out that if they suspect you are unable to drive, they put you on a list and require that you fill out a long form, and that your doctor fill it out too, in order to get a license. I suggested that had I not come in in good faith they would never have known that I was not driving because of an injury. The manager agreed, and said that now that she knows, they can't help me. She said if I wanted to take a driving test, I could get a license. I reiterated that I was not driving. She reiterated that I could get a photo ID, but no license. I suggested that this was penalizing me for coming forward and wasting my time and damned poor customer service. "You are free to go," she suggested. I had not been aware that I was in fucking custody, but it was a relief to know. I suggested that it would have been nice if the woman at the first desk, seeing the full body brace I display prominently, could have cued me when I hinted by saying "I am here to renew my license" that this might be a futile mission. The manager again offered me the long form.

After a long night's sleep, I can understand that there are some who will continued to drive when they can look neither left nor right. Most drivers regularly encounter able bodied people who seem to have this disability while driving. As a responsible middle aged citizen who hasn't been behind the wheel since June 17th, I resent being treated as though I am one of these people. I would think that showing up on time to be responsible would count for something. What really makes me mad is the limitation, though. I miss the freedom and independence and the idea that now some dimwit who never met me is enforcing something I am compliant with anyway just adds insult to injury (literally). Having done my best irate citizen imitation I took my fiberglass clad somewhat bizarre form out of that den of iniquity, as the speaker recited "now serving number 657."

I understand that one of the lessons I am to learn here is that, as my son said, I am "not invincible." Apparently, I need reminders. One of these days, I'll be a senior person trying to renew my license and some drone is going to figure out that I'm a hazard to navigation and I'll get my license pulled permanently. I request that my friends and family assure that I am not carrying weapons or sharp objects when that time comes. I may not be entirely cooperative.

Easier to have some faith

Facebook is ridiculous in a lot of ways, but a lot of folks from my past have found me, and that's mostly gratifying. For those whose gratification escapes me there is the "hide" button. Yesterday, a woman "friended" me and I had to go look to see who she was. One look at her kids and I knew, she was a girl I worked with when I was a new social worker still working at child psychiatry and then doing street outreach.

I won't recount her story here. I'd probably get it wrong, because I wasn't involved in all of it. She experienced unspeakable trauma and for a while used her wit and intellect to protect her awful secrets and her family. Later she used the same wit and intellect to find herself and to heal. The message from facebook was about how she turned out "okay" and had a family and beautiful children who are safe and healthy. She lives nearby and is a professional who works to help children. I am guessing she's on to most of their tricks. I am sure she gives them much of her very large heart.

I used to have an imaginary house on a hill in my mind with a great big porch and a long grassy lawn, and I populated it with kids I knew who I felt needed to escape from their lives and be appreciated. I supposed it was a mental excercise that allowed me to rescue them, even though I could only do a little in real life.

In the end it's not about rescue, of course. I can do what I do because I've been around long enough to observe that people rescue themselves. They grow stronger and healthier and heal themselves. Like the rest of us, they come to approximate normalcy and often to find the things in they long for - family, love, safety, joy.

She thanked me in her message, and she's welcome. I am a priveleged observer.