Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Bye For Now
It is with mixed emotions that I report my departure from our incredibly beautiful snow-filled landscape today, as Cyndie and I are traveling with our good friends, Mike and Barb, to visit the Florida home of Cyndie’s parents. It is a chore that must be done, and I do have it in me to address such difficult tasks while maintaining a sense of decorum. I will refrain from kicking and screaming as I am dragged onto the plane in my shorts and sandals, and I will take it like a gentleman. I will quietly read my paper, leaning back in the seat, while the pilot does all the work and everyone at my day-job continues the usual Friday grind without me.
Do not weep for me as I bask in the Florida sunshine, laughing with friends and eating well. Go ahead and let it snow back home, every day I am gone. I will NOT be shoveling snow this weekend. Hah! No snow shoveling. That’s a REALLY good thing because after just having done so last night again, I can’t imagine where I would put any more snow if I were here to do the shoveling. I’m hoping the piles will settle a little during my absence so that it won’t be too hard to manage the project which I’m sure will be waiting for me upon our return. If we return. I may choose to repeatedly volunteer to be bumped from the return flight we have booked.
I told the folks at work that I may have to take a return flight that has a layover… in Portugal!
Blessed Inhalation
I gotta tell ya, being able to inhale to my fullest, deepest desires is one pleasure that I think I will cherish like never before. Pain, mitigated!
During some of the worst of my aforementioned pleurisy, I found myself amazed at the frequent revelations of how my body goes about acting involuntarily and how often those gyrations of an odd, awkward swallow, a preclude to a burp, a hiccup, a sneeze, even a shiver, would start to trip the trigger of muscles and tissue in the hazard zone, and of how naturally the pain signal would intercede in all activity to cut it short. I am not nearly as much of a commander of this vehicle as I thought I was. I am merely a passenger that every once in a while grabs the controls and steers the ship to alter the course, for better or worse.
Even when I tried to fill my lungs past that initial threat of pain, trying to override the reflex to give up and exhale, there was an involuntary abort which kept me from getting the breath I craved. I am exceedingly grateful to now be beyond that level of infirmity. I played floorball with the guys last night and my legs ran out of gas before my lungs ran out of air!
Breath deep, everyone, and take a moment to fully appreciate it. Because you can!
Things and Experiences
The thing about things and experiences is that most fly by faster than words can capture when I’m ensconced in the confines of the day-job for 10 hours a day trying to fill in for others who are ill, delayed by snow-slowed traffic, or on a skiing vacation in the mountains, leaving me spinning in opposite directions most of the day in a vain attempt to accomplish more instead of less toward the goals that lie before us; goals which currently far exceed our ability to successfully meet, forcing me to work at such an insane pace that I miss even noticing what the weather is doing outside and providing a little surprise at the end of the very long day, a day that was sweetened by meeting a friend for a dinner out that ended up putting me even more in the dark about the surprise that was waiting all over my driveway, particularly at the end by the street where the city plow had so perfectly piled a particularly firm and dense mass that was difficult to see because for some strange reason that could very likely be related to sub-freezing temperatures, the two outside light fixtures on either side of the garage door have decided to occasionally refrain from functioning, which makes a nice complement for the one by the front door that has a daylight sensor that is supposed to keep the bulb from lighting during daytime hours, yet seems to require direct sunlight to successfully interpret when it is actually daytime and so it stays on pretty much all the time, even though I rarely get to notice because I am stuck in the confines of the day-job, not that I haven’t tried to do something about that sorry lack of visual opportunity to see what the weather is doing by enlisting the services of a contractor to replace the one unused overhead dock door with window glass, but said contractor is proving to be a master of inaction and the project that was conceived during the warm months of autumn is now expected to take place in the coldest month of the year during the only hours the contractor’s crew engages in such installation activity and which just so happens to be the very same hours when our crew is executing their primary responsibilities, none of which involve sitting in a room with a gaping hole the size a truck could drive through during the coldest month of the year.
Noticing
On the way to a movie yesterday with Cyndie, I tagged along as she visited several stores to return items. I think I have an allergy to consumerism. When we left the house, I felt fine, but after just few minutes of the returning process, I noticed myself sagging.
At the first store, I tried to help Cyndie pick out a different item from the same department, since that appeared to be the limitations offered. It wasn’t a refund, nor a store credit, but instructions to go right at that moment and select some other item. I watched as Cyndie was told that the toaster oven we selected didn’t equal the amount of the returned item. The clerk asked Cyndie if she would go find something else to add to the amount. Cyndie gladly picked some tube of cream from the display rack near the checkout lanes.
It seemed so illogical to me, and what made it somewhat sickening was how everyone around me seemed to accept it so comfortably.
At a next stop, while Cyndie was being assisted by one clerk, I was distracted by the interaction between a second clerk and customer, next to us. What first caught my attention was the clerk’s angry sounding query to the overly terse customer, asking if she didn’t have a smaller denomination. There was an incredible lack of evidence from either party for interest in helping each other achieve the activity in which they were engaged. It was heartbreaking.
Something about it, right or wrong, seemed to me a reflection of more than just that one incident. Maybe, in my mind, I was also reacting to the general feeling created by walking through these stores and the collection of customers and sales clerks. It all felt so adversarial. Something about this is not as it should be.
At this rate, thousands of birds could suddenly fall out of the sky, dead, and we would hardly notice, carrying on as if nothing were amiss.
Odd, and Not
That blank look you see on my face… Well, you can’t actually see my face, but if you could, you would see a blank look. It’s a look of the absence of anything. It’s an unlook.
Since I am so sure that in all things, there is always a combination of opposites, that blank look that depicts the absence of everything somehow also contains a brilliantly alive look that reflects everything in its entirety. That’s really great to know, but it doesn’t make it any easier to translate into words on the screen. It still all comes out looking just plain blank.
Some odd tidbits:
It seems like ever since I cut off my hair, dead birds are falling out of the sky. Coincidence?
One of the first things the youtube sensation homeless guy with the golden voice, Ted Williams, did, was get a haircut. Coincidence?
First thing in the morning yesterday, while moving a little slow on partial lung capacity, but trying to hustle up and get out of the house on my way to work, I accidentally inhaled some of the water I was drinking. Try not to cough next time you mistakenly inhale something you were trying to drink. It’s not pretty.
Good news, though… the pain pills are making a big difference. The trick is not letting it fool me into actually trying to suddenly breath a full breath. It’s a big difference, but not that big a difference.
Maybe not so odd, after all.
Ha! Odd and not so odd, all at the same time! There you go. Again.
Real Pain
It is often said to ‘write what you know.’ It is not exactly a topic that I feel particularly inspired to write about, but currently, real pain is what I know. Diagnosis: Pleurisy. 
I will always remember the words of my father, when he described his experience of having a heart attack. He told me it was unlike anything he had ever previously known; a pain he would never wish on a worst enemy.
If what I am experiencing were occurring on the left side of my body, I would say it must be a heart attack. It is most likely a virus that is having its way with me right now. Started on Sunday as dull, persistent pain in the back of my neck, from the back of my head down to between my shoulder blades. Nothing I did seemed to lessen the discomfort. I was able to play soccer on Monday morning, but by the time I got to work, the muscle aches had migrated to my entire trunk.
Yet, muscle ache was the only complaint I had. No specific headache, sore throat, congestion, runny nose, cough, or stomach upset. Tuesday, the pain began to settle into my chest, specifically the right side of my rib cage. By the time I got home from work, I needed something to ease the pain and allow me to catch my breath. I went for the bottle of ibuprofen, every 4 hours. That left me in desperation at about 2 a.m.
I awoke to such discomfort that it was almost impossible for that next dose of ibuprofen to put a dent in the pain. Each breath is cut short by a stabbing pain, long before I can accomplish the relief of the fill of oxygen I frantically desire. And with each jolt of anguish, there is a residual throb of ache that radiates up and out my collar bone, down my arm, up through my neck and into my jaw. I imagined a heart problem or a blood clot, and with Cyndie out of town, wondered how I would know whether this was something that deserved a call to 9-1-1.
A little research into pleurisy allowed me to settle my fears and, when the ibuprofen finally dulled the worst of the stabs, fall back to sleep while sitting in an upright position. I soaked in a hot, hot shower for a long time in the morning, then decided I could manage a day a work. It just so happens, the boss is out of town on vacation for a week and I am left in charge. I was gingerly able to respond to the particularly large volume of issues awaiting me in the email inbox. It was after lunch when I got surprised by an involuntary cough reflex. It felt like something in my chest ripped.
I let out a curse and struggled to retain any composure. I went up to the front office and tried lying on the carpeted floor. It only hurt worse. I was really panting at this point, and when found by a coworker, I knew her admonishment to get to urgent care was the only logical choice.
Diagnosis: Pleurisy. Unfortunately, there is nothing they can do to solve my problem. The virus has to take its course. At least they are able to offer assurance for a number of critical ailments that it is NOT. I came away with a prescription for something with a tad bit more oomph than the basic ibuprofen I was relying on before. But, it doesn’t prevent that inevitable pain inflicted by those involuntary muscle reactions of a cough, hiccup, sneeze, or even an awkward swallow. Stabbing pain.
I really hope I never have to experience being conscious during a heart attack. Does that count as positive thinking?
Weather Again?
Whether or not you can stand to read another word about the weather, and regardless the fact I would gladly write about anything else today, weather continues to command all the attention.
Picking up the saga where I recently left off… You may recall I was rushing to get the roof cleaned off in time to take advantage of the impending melt and following rainfall. Since I was hustling to squeeze the task in the limited time available, I was forced to shortcut some of the clean up on the ground. I moved just enough of the snow that had been thrown down from the roof, to allow our cars out of the garage and to make a narrow path to our front door.
It all goes down hill from there. Yeah, the temperatures soared above freezing and then the rain came pouring down. After that, real Minnesota cold set in and temperatures dropped below zero Fahrenheit (-20°C).
While that meltdown should have been exactly what we needed for creating paths to drain any water caught behind the ice dams on the roof, I never imagined that it would cause me to need to call our insurance company for a completely different reason.
One of the giant icicles on the corner of the roof broke off and made a direct hit on our brand new air conditioner unit. It was installed in November, and we haven’t even had a chance to use it yet.
When the deep freeze set in, all that snow I shoveled from the roof, but didn’t get around to cleaning up, froze solid on the edge of the sidewalk and driveway. I don’t think I’ll be able to move it until spring.
In the early morning hours of darkness, when the temperatures dip to the lowest extremes, the remaining ice on the roof can fracture with a BOOM of a concussion. The other night, one such BOOM shook the house and woke both Cyndie and me. I heard a crash on the deck below, immediately following. I was sure that some giant chunk of our roof must have broken free and then smashed the deck.
When I checked in the morning, I couldn’t find anything that matched my perception of the sound we had heard. Closer inspection revealed several small pieces of ice on the deck beneath our bedroom. I think things tend to sound a lot worse than they really are, from deep under the covers of your bed, during the pre-dawn hours, in a bleary, just awakened adrenalin rush. I won’t be telling the insurance agent about this one.
Dreadful Detail
The story of *this* John W. Hays and dreadlocks is one that I never considered until it actually happened. Who would ever imagine a man of my age, with marginally-able hair features, doing something so silly?
2008, before dreadlocks
It started back in December of 2008, about the time when I would normally cut off my long hair anyway, on my cycle of letting it grow long and then cutting it all off every 3 years or so. I was preparing to go on the 3-week trek in the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal. I mentioned to Cyndie, who loves my hair long, that I would probably cut it all off before the trip. She wondered aloud about the possibility of dreadlocks. Yeah, right. Me with dreadlocks. Ha! Really?
When both of our children offered their support for the idea, I agreed to make an appointment to discuss the possibilities with a professional salon, skilled in the art of creating dreadlocks. Carol, at Hair Police, Minneapolis’ best hair salon, assured me that she could pull it off without bringing any of my worst fears to life. It was close. But she did, indeed, pull it off. Over time, with Cyndie’s artful handiwork and incredible patience, we maintained them over two years and two international travel excursions.
I was able to avoid them becoming too unruly, so as to be presentable in work or other formal situations. It was a delight. Never in my life have I had so many people compliment my choice of hairstyle. I was a rock star without being a rocker, or a star. I will miss the strangers telling me, “Nice hair, dude!”
Just like all the times before, eventually, I reach a point where I miss being able to NOT have hair on my neck all the time. I become ready for a change. I usually need to verbalize, multiple times, that I have reached this point, for Cyndie to have time to reconcile the end is near. I love her dearly for the times she talks me through the occasions where I think I am ready to bail on the whole thing, only to find it was temporary angst speaking. Eventually, she senses when my comments indicate the time is really here.
I will admit to the possibility that she just lets me think it’s on my timing. It could very well be that she senses when the time is right, because she is the one deciding when that time is.
It was just a few days ago that she said she would cut them for me. We both agreed that the first of the year seemed like a good time for it. I don’t have any big travel plans on my horizon. I don’t have any reason NOT to cut them off now. I had thought I would cut them off when I got back from Nepal in 2009. Now is a good time. I am definitely ready to have short hair for a while again. Man, I love the feeling of rubbing my hand on the short nubs after all these years of not being able to.
I will miss my dreadlocks a lot. I will thoroughly enjoy not having them, too.
Celebrating Dreadlocks
Did you know that two years ago I had my long hair transformed into dreadlocks?
