I think all of you knew the recent development where my doctor has me wear a Halter Monitor for a day to try to get to the bottom of a long-standing arrhythmia I had in my heart. Long-standing, as for as long as I can recall (Sharon used to put her ear to my chest in the early days of our marriage and remark on my skippy, stoppy heart beat).
The results of me wearing the monitor were a little startling - detecting that I had a second-degree "heart block," meaning, simply, that the signal or impulse from my brain would simply not get through every so often. My heart simply misses a beat, generally after slowing down over a succession of beats. At one point, there was actually a 2.5 second interval between beats. Almost all of this goes on while I sleep.
The other oddity is that I have a curiously high resting heart rate. It's in the upper 80s or low 90s, which really makes no sense given my decent level of fitness and my (on the whole) low stress level. It was thought that the two could possibly be related. Add to that, this inordinate amount of sweating I do (more so in the last few years); beyond normal, truly. I think the sweat is related to how I cramp up so easy (I'm simply losing fluid that fast), and my thought (hope?) is that the sweat was/is somehow related to the heart rate.
So really, I was going into this with a lot of questions. Questions that need answers.
Well, I just came back from a specialist visit at a cardiology center, and I am cautiously quite optimistic. First off - within the spectrum of second degree heart block, there are two main types: type two, or type one (the Wenckebach). Type two, not so good: unpredictable, likely progressive, ending in (ultimately) cardiac arrest. Type one is a more or less benign condition. This is the one the cardiologist is convinced I have, given the fact that you always see this slowing up of the rhythm before the stoppage. He says there is no reason the condition would need to impact my exercise or lifestyle, and there is no health risk, currently.
The high resting heart rate is curious. He doesn't think it's related in a cause-effect way, but he thinks BOTH conditions may simply be as a result of sleep apnea. That is his belief, and my hope. We know I snore, and we know I'm always a little tired, which would both be symptoms of apnea. The doctor says that sleep apnea can also wreak havoc with your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, and totally have all sorts of unexpected consequences on heart rate. My next step is to do a sleep assessment. But this is really good news, given the uncertainty of the last couple of weeks since the condition was diagnosed.
More on this as it develops, undoubtedly.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Major Event #2: The House
For the majority of my readership, this was chronicled in a recent trip up North. But I'll recap for posterity, as well as the one or two others who might have an interest in the nuts of it all.
I've maintained a long-standing dalliance with a house move. This is not new territory. Sharon & I moved into our current house one year into marriage, back in 1998. There was little thought of raising a family, energy upgrades, "walkability,""community," etc. We needed a place which was affordable on a meager income that was also not coming apart at the seams.
What we found at the time was a sturdy little home that was built for the post-WWII inner-ring laborers in North Minneapolis. A granny house. Orange carpeting throughout, and electrical/gas/piping/etc that had not been updated in 30 years. The outdated nature of the facilities has become our quality & energy efficiency playground, as we've updated it all - and generally to the highest possible energy efficient capability, short of pure solar/wind. And a choice borne out of necessity has proven to be one of the defining circumstances of our life: a surrounding community and set of environs & amenities that has essentially cemented our loyalty to our neighborhood into the foreseeable future.
But we've also smacked head-on into the actual structural limitations of our house. As our tastes have become a little more refined and our family has grown, we've become a little frustrated at the lack of flow & openness, as well as the cramped feel of an eat-in kitchen and dominating features of a central staircase and hallway. In addition, while a large number of our friends live in North Minneapolis, that is not so much the case in the surrounding few blocks. There are other areas of North, and one in particular (the "Victory Neighborhood"), which have beautiful stucco tudor-styled homes and early-century floorplans. Our "sub-neighborhood" predominately consists of the same type of small, uninventive little "banger" in which we live. That has resulted in a generally lower level of home ownership and, frankly, fewer peers. Lucy, alone, has about five relatively close friends living in this same seven block by seven block section of North (and our family, in total, knows probably a couple of dozen families); while in our neighborhood, we tend to have kids from rental houses running free & unsupervised (some as young as two or three) in the middle of the street, late into the evening. Not to mention being involved in a series of misdemeanor-type offenses up and down the block. Just not the type of environment we are excited to have our kids growing up in proximity to.
So this combination of factors, including with the equity we believed we had accumulated in our house and current historic low interest rates, drove us to explore the notion of moving into Victory, to be within blocks of many friends and into an area with a greater sense of community. We went so far as to be pre-approved for a mortgage and begin touring some houses.
Well, to make a long-story short, some of our financial assumptions, in particular the amount we had truly lost in equity (e.g. pretty much everything - our area was extremely hard hit from foreclosure, and prices have not recovered) and the relative house prices between our neighborhood and the other, did not prove out as we had assumed. And, the more we investigated the interior and "guts" of prospective houses, the more we appreciated the solid foundation and interior investments we had made in our own. And the more we thought about it, the less favorably the parks & trail system in Victory compared to the parks & trails around our home, which may be among the best of anywhere in the Midwest. And yards in my neighborhood are much bigger (11 homes per block as compared to 15 in Victory). And you can hear toads calling from my back yard. And on and on.
And personally, I started to hold fast to some of my personal values about simplicity and non-wastefulness; realizing that some of these things I'd been looking for in another home: larger bathroom, dining room, etc. are things that simply aren't necessary for happiness. We can (and should) (and will) do some aesthetic interior upgrades to our own home, and are actually currently in the process of working out what sort of cash-out-refinance we can leverage, given the lower interest rate, to keep out monthly outlay about the same as it currently is, while rolling in our mortgage and a low-interest community fix-up loan we've been paying on for a few years. We're hoping we'll come out with an extra $10,000 or so with which to utterly remodel our bathroom and re-do the hardwood floors. In the meantime, there's some sweat-equity stuff we can take on ourselves: painting, some more landscaping, etc.
We may yet end up doing a move someday. It still doesn't seem likely that the character (e.g. the characters who reside within the houses around us) of our neighborhood change significantly in the next handful of years. I do wish Lucy & Rose had some "backyard friends." But in the big scheme of things, they're not all that far from their friends in North. And - good God, we live in the age of cars and, in a scant handful of years for our girls, bikes. And when my intellect is involved, I realize I have little to fear from the "bad influence" factor. My girls are smart and perceptive, and have the tools to gravitate to positive influences. So if we end up moving someday, to achieve a little more immediate "community," and maybe a dream house in terms of design flow, we're going to do it right, and it's going to be when & if Sharon is back in the workforce and we have a little more purchasing power. The key to a little more peace of mind in the near-term is to just let that go until the time feels right.
I've maintained a long-standing dalliance with a house move. This is not new territory. Sharon & I moved into our current house one year into marriage, back in 1998. There was little thought of raising a family, energy upgrades, "walkability,""community," etc. We needed a place which was affordable on a meager income that was also not coming apart at the seams.
What we found at the time was a sturdy little home that was built for the post-WWII inner-ring laborers in North Minneapolis. A granny house. Orange carpeting throughout, and electrical/gas/piping/etc that had not been updated in 30 years. The outdated nature of the facilities has become our quality & energy efficiency playground, as we've updated it all - and generally to the highest possible energy efficient capability, short of pure solar/wind. And a choice borne out of necessity has proven to be one of the defining circumstances of our life: a surrounding community and set of environs & amenities that has essentially cemented our loyalty to our neighborhood into the foreseeable future.
But we've also smacked head-on into the actual structural limitations of our house. As our tastes have become a little more refined and our family has grown, we've become a little frustrated at the lack of flow & openness, as well as the cramped feel of an eat-in kitchen and dominating features of a central staircase and hallway. In addition, while a large number of our friends live in North Minneapolis, that is not so much the case in the surrounding few blocks. There are other areas of North, and one in particular (the "Victory Neighborhood"), which have beautiful stucco tudor-styled homes and early-century floorplans. Our "sub-neighborhood" predominately consists of the same type of small, uninventive little "banger" in which we live. That has resulted in a generally lower level of home ownership and, frankly, fewer peers. Lucy, alone, has about five relatively close friends living in this same seven block by seven block section of North (and our family, in total, knows probably a couple of dozen families); while in our neighborhood, we tend to have kids from rental houses running free & unsupervised (some as young as two or three) in the middle of the street, late into the evening. Not to mention being involved in a series of misdemeanor-type offenses up and down the block. Just not the type of environment we are excited to have our kids growing up in proximity to.
So this combination of factors, including with the equity we believed we had accumulated in our house and current historic low interest rates, drove us to explore the notion of moving into Victory, to be within blocks of many friends and into an area with a greater sense of community. We went so far as to be pre-approved for a mortgage and begin touring some houses.
Well, to make a long-story short, some of our financial assumptions, in particular the amount we had truly lost in equity (e.g. pretty much everything - our area was extremely hard hit from foreclosure, and prices have not recovered) and the relative house prices between our neighborhood and the other, did not prove out as we had assumed. And, the more we investigated the interior and "guts" of prospective houses, the more we appreciated the solid foundation and interior investments we had made in our own. And the more we thought about it, the less favorably the parks & trail system in Victory compared to the parks & trails around our home, which may be among the best of anywhere in the Midwest. And yards in my neighborhood are much bigger (11 homes per block as compared to 15 in Victory). And you can hear toads calling from my back yard. And on and on.
And personally, I started to hold fast to some of my personal values about simplicity and non-wastefulness; realizing that some of these things I'd been looking for in another home: larger bathroom, dining room, etc. are things that simply aren't necessary for happiness. We can (and should) (and will) do some aesthetic interior upgrades to our own home, and are actually currently in the process of working out what sort of cash-out-refinance we can leverage, given the lower interest rate, to keep out monthly outlay about the same as it currently is, while rolling in our mortgage and a low-interest community fix-up loan we've been paying on for a few years. We're hoping we'll come out with an extra $10,000 or so with which to utterly remodel our bathroom and re-do the hardwood floors. In the meantime, there's some sweat-equity stuff we can take on ourselves: painting, some more landscaping, etc.
We may yet end up doing a move someday. It still doesn't seem likely that the character (e.g. the characters who reside within the houses around us) of our neighborhood change significantly in the next handful of years. I do wish Lucy & Rose had some "backyard friends." But in the big scheme of things, they're not all that far from their friends in North. And - good God, we live in the age of cars and, in a scant handful of years for our girls, bikes. And when my intellect is involved, I realize I have little to fear from the "bad influence" factor. My girls are smart and perceptive, and have the tools to gravitate to positive influences. So if we end up moving someday, to achieve a little more immediate "community," and maybe a dream house in terms of design flow, we're going to do it right, and it's going to be when & if Sharon is back in the workforce and we have a little more purchasing power. The key to a little more peace of mind in the near-term is to just let that go until the time feels right.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Major Event #1: My Brain
When my readers last left My Brain, I was performing a self-diagnosis with the conclusion: Fucked Up. It was at near the height of a long-buildup of ambient stress, with a series of external stressors and a life in flux that was overwhelming me like so many Lilliputian Poltergeists. Here's the crazy/eerie thing: the date/time stamp of that last post on my psychological state was 8:27 pm last Aug. 13. That was about two hours before my dad died.
THAT was what finally pushed me over the edge.
So, it was a couple weeks after that I entered therapy. After one well-meaning therapist that was not a good fit, I ended up with a psychologist, Martha, who was wonderful. I saw her every two weeks throughout the fall, beginning with with working through what she diagnosed to be a moderate level of clinical depression, and evolving into digging into a weedy topic I will summarize as - ah - "HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?"
If you care to read through a couple of the posts during my job search odyssey last year, you we see how I had managed to expose and master a number of hang-ups and generally messy roadblocks I had constructed for myself early on in life, for whatever reason. Coping mechanisms that allowed Young Dan to get through childhood with a minimal investment of energy on directing his own future. During the job search in Spring '09, I wasn't digging into the "why" so much. But I WAS, for the first time in my life, moving from a mindset of believing all things in life would generally default to not working out for me to realizing that people can make things happen for themselves, and that I'd laid a pretty solid foundation for success in life (my definition of success, not Norm Coleman's) without even thinking about it.
So, I was understanding this on some level in the late spring and into the summer. But it was through therapy in the fall that I dug into how that came to be. And also (more importantly) how to recognize when I was in danger of falling into old patterns of thought; gaining an ability to clinically evaluate a situation and say, "Ah yes, I'm doing it again." As any therapist (or substance abuse counselor) would tell you, getting your head around what you're doing is the first and most critical step to moving past a roadblock. It's related to the old cliche of "admitting you have a problem."
At some point, in the fall I think (and kind of at rock bottom), a Wise Friend said something to the effect of "I think when the dust settles, you're going to be able to take stock of things and realize you're in a much better place." It is a Wise Friend who has a penchant for saying things that stick with me over time. And, obvious as that statement might seem, it did stick with me throughout the fall and into winter, as bi-weekly therapy sessions turned into monthly sessions, and moderate depression went into disthymia (mild depression) and, eventually, simply away.
With the departure of depression and the greater level of self-awareness, AND with a number of "externalities" of life having settled into a Good Place, a burst of motivation and energy has been unleashed, the likes of which I haven't seen in a long, long time (the fruits of that burst of motivation and energy will be covered in following posts for Major Events).
Understand, I live in the topsy-turvy world of the New Millenium. Our nation is awash in economic disparity, corruption, and widespread political vitriol. Our world hangs in the balance from environmental and militaristic threats. I essentially live check-to-check and I have two young kids providing (in addition to many moments of indescribable joy) a moderate level of ambient, background stress. I can still have my highs and lows.
But I'm in a Good Place.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Back with a Vengeance: And The State of Me, Executive Summary
The plan – to begin this anew. We’ll see how it actually comes to fruition, but my hope is to steal coffee time in the morning to pound out some thoughts on a regular basis.
Time was, I used to examine and deliberate every life decision in this forum. Needless to say, that’s been pretty much absent in the past year. There were a couple of posts about my dad last summer, and one odd one during the summer when I suspected (rightly, at the time) a state of depression. Before that, the blog chronicled my unemployment and career change – that that was only monthly during the spring of ’09.
And the new job. And the end of theatre and the resurgence of music. And the impending house move-WHA?!?!?!
I will attempt to go back and get into the particulars of these assorted Major Events over the course of the next few weeks.
Stay tuned!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Ranch-Style, Part 2 of 2
…exact events….slipping from my mind….have to….wing it…..
So, got down to The Ranch about mid-morning where, as I said, the opportunity to put the morning’s events in the context of a classic regale helped quash the potential of fuming or scorn from my host. We had a laugh together, then headed out for late breakfast at the Happy Chef who, as we discussed, is almost certainly the father of the Big Boy.
Events at that point were, out of necessity, coming together in such a way that would allow us to be down in Clog’s basement in front of the TV by 1:00 pm. For, you see, the heartbreak kids (aka The Vikings) were to be taking on the surging Cowboys in the NFC playoffs. Given the much-chronicled last playoff game we watched together in a previous January (a game of such cataclysmic bitterness in these parts, that two phrases: “the knee” and “the kick” need no further explanation), there were some ghosts of the past that needed busted.
Before the game, we had the chance to traipse around out front of the house with a football. There was a lot of snow and some ice, but we made a few catches and made a few throws. I think, additionally, that T-Clog made some frozen pizza which we consumed before the start of the game. Then: the game. And what a game! Such an ass-beating I’ve never seen the Vikings lay on ANYBODY in the playoffs. Clog was still concerned heading into the 3rd period, but the game was well in hand. Making it at least five times sweeter was the fact that Sean & his boy, fanatical Dallas fans, were at the game in Minneapolis. It was definitely the source of some mirth and merriment as the game progressed. It was only over Easter weekend that I dared bring up the game to my brother, who is still so shocked and sad that he is unwilling/unable to even attempt to deflect the negativity back on fans of the enemy team, a classic sports-dummy move. So, that game definitely raised the overall fun quotient.
MOONS OVER MY HAMMY
At some point, I should probably see a sports-injury specialist. I’ve now pulled my hamstring three times in the past year, each time from a seemingly mild athletic endeavor. Obviously, much of it is age, and the fact that I don’t stretch out in advance of some of these activities and go suddenly into sprinting. I think it probably also has to do with my chronic dehydration. So really, a three-bladed sword. But somehow, when doing our silly little football thing (you know, four passes to get pas an arbitrary TD marker), I came up lame. Like, bad enough to where I had to hobble back to the ranch (following a long American tradition of men hobbling back to ranches).
Other than that, it was – as they say – all good. TClog has an array of pleasures to delight the senses and trip the mind to fancy. His house is the dream of EveryMan. Pool table, high-class dartboard (almost canceling out his 1995 purchase of a Poverty Phone), Nintendo Wii, and foosball. We played all of the above, for various amounts of time and in multiple instances, for most of the rest of the afternoon and into the night. I could be remembering this wrong, but I think I lost every time at pool, foosball, and darts; but I did much better than one might expect, since I don’t have the opportunity to practice any of them. Beatles Rock Band, at least, I dominated (on vocals). I think I recall that all day I was pestering the Clog about opening up the hot tub on his deck. He was like a mad scientist, feverishly mixing chemicals and fretting over the pH levels. At one point, having just added this and that and waited out a timer, he actually stuck a lead rod into the hot tub to test it’s condition, and when he pulled the rod out, the bottom half was eaten away. Nevertheless, I eventually convinced him to let us take a dip, which was glorious (and the results of which are available in the video, below).
That night, before bed, I watched the last half of The Lost Boys. It was as bad as I suspected, but I hung on either out of respect to the recently departed (or soon to depart – I can’t recall the timing) Cory Haim.
In the morning, it was breakfast, and back on the road for a much, much less eventful ride home.
So, got down to The Ranch about mid-morning where, as I said, the opportunity to put the morning’s events in the context of a classic regale helped quash the potential of fuming or scorn from my host. We had a laugh together, then headed out for late breakfast at the Happy Chef who, as we discussed, is almost certainly the father of the Big Boy.
Events at that point were, out of necessity, coming together in such a way that would allow us to be down in Clog’s basement in front of the TV by 1:00 pm. For, you see, the heartbreak kids (aka The Vikings) were to be taking on the surging Cowboys in the NFC playoffs. Given the much-chronicled last playoff game we watched together in a previous January (a game of such cataclysmic bitterness in these parts, that two phrases: “the knee” and “the kick” need no further explanation), there were some ghosts of the past that needed busted.
Before the game, we had the chance to traipse around out front of the house with a football. There was a lot of snow and some ice, but we made a few catches and made a few throws. I think, additionally, that T-Clog made some frozen pizza which we consumed before the start of the game. Then: the game. And what a game! Such an ass-beating I’ve never seen the Vikings lay on ANYBODY in the playoffs. Clog was still concerned heading into the 3rd period, but the game was well in hand. Making it at least five times sweeter was the fact that Sean & his boy, fanatical Dallas fans, were at the game in Minneapolis. It was definitely the source of some mirth and merriment as the game progressed. It was only over Easter weekend that I dared bring up the game to my brother, who is still so shocked and sad that he is unwilling/unable to even attempt to deflect the negativity back on fans of the enemy team, a classic sports-dummy move. So, that game definitely raised the overall fun quotient.
MOONS OVER MY HAMMY
At some point, I should probably see a sports-injury specialist. I’ve now pulled my hamstring three times in the past year, each time from a seemingly mild athletic endeavor. Obviously, much of it is age, and the fact that I don’t stretch out in advance of some of these activities and go suddenly into sprinting. I think it probably also has to do with my chronic dehydration. So really, a three-bladed sword. But somehow, when doing our silly little football thing (you know, four passes to get pas an arbitrary TD marker), I came up lame. Like, bad enough to where I had to hobble back to the ranch (following a long American tradition of men hobbling back to ranches).
Other than that, it was – as they say – all good. TClog has an array of pleasures to delight the senses and trip the mind to fancy. His house is the dream of EveryMan. Pool table, high-class dartboard (almost canceling out his 1995 purchase of a Poverty Phone), Nintendo Wii, and foosball. We played all of the above, for various amounts of time and in multiple instances, for most of the rest of the afternoon and into the night. I could be remembering this wrong, but I think I lost every time at pool, foosball, and darts; but I did much better than one might expect, since I don’t have the opportunity to practice any of them. Beatles Rock Band, at least, I dominated (on vocals). I think I recall that all day I was pestering the Clog about opening up the hot tub on his deck. He was like a mad scientist, feverishly mixing chemicals and fretting over the pH levels. At one point, having just added this and that and waited out a timer, he actually stuck a lead rod into the hot tub to test it’s condition, and when he pulled the rod out, the bottom half was eaten away. Nevertheless, I eventually convinced him to let us take a dip, which was glorious (and the results of which are available in the video, below).
That night, before bed, I watched the last half of The Lost Boys. It was as bad as I suspected, but I hung on either out of respect to the recently departed (or soon to depart – I can’t recall the timing) Cory Haim.
In the morning, it was breakfast, and back on the road for a much, much less eventful ride home.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
City Slicker's Visit to The Ranch #1 of ???
First off - All Apologies to T-Clog for the delinquency of this report. Hell, I haven't chronicled the re-emergence of my musical career, my battle with depression, coping with the loss of my dad, and only barely, my new career. So he can feel a measure of pride in that he rose to the cream of that cup of mik, at least.
So...kicking off what is poised to be a year of much time off (nonprofit holiday schedule, three weeks of vacation, and a two-week furlough) providing space (if not funds) to visit a cadre of friends, I decided to kick it off with style. Ranch-Style.
Shortly following T-Clog's birthday and just braving the possibility of treacherous winter winds, I planned my solo trip down. If you'll pardon what borders on a blatant product endorsement, trips in my new Kia Forte are generally pure bliss. While it would be an insult to Kobe Bryant, and would seem like a modest, entry-level vehicle to most of America, it is the closest thing to a luxury class vehicle I have ever owned. And that luxury is never more evident than when it is simply me being by myself (e.g. sans the responsibility of kids) with my iPod, cruising to God-knows-where at God-knows-what-hour-of-the-night. It was this deal when I went on my solo camping trip this last Fall, and it was certainly an oasis of Me when making myriad trips down to Waterloo at the end of that last, awful summer.
My plan had been to wake up at maybe 3:30, head out at around 4:00, stopping for a really nice long cup of eaaarly morning coffee at, say, my old familiar Rochester Caribou (I still crave Caribou Coffee, on occasion), alone with my thoughts. I would then roll on into Cedar Falls sometime around 0h - I don't know - 8:30 or so? Well, part and parcel of my psychology of late has been that I am not hitting the sack particularly early (if I was T-Clog and in the Escalante, though, I might say that 'Sack' was hitting me!). So, I ended up going to bed around 12:30 or 1:00 or so, and there was just no way I was going to wake up at the target time. I did get up around 5:20 and was on the road by 5:40.
As a Man of the New Millenium, packing for a trip with yourself is a pretty simple affair. Throw some shit in a bag and then it's: iPod? Check! And then off you go!
Pretty uneventful. Long drives in late night or early morning hours and me are old friends. On alert for deer, but other than that things are pretty mellow. I cruised on into Rochester, making pretty good time, by around 7:00. At that point, I decided not to tarry any longer than it would take to post a "Coming on into CF to visit an old friend!!!" or some other such trivial thing to Facebook via the iPod Touch, then it was off.
Back into the car, and down the road. Speeding South of Roch. (most people say "Rod-chester," but don't be deceived! There is no "Rod" in Rochester!! It's "Roch" with the "ch" as in "cheese." But that's neither here nor there). Slowly on through Stewartville. And then sliding into Spring Valley and stopping at a Tom Thumb for gas. And thank God! For, as I emerged from the car,(yup, you guessed it) no billfold. Not immediatly panicking, I dug in and around the seat, through my backpack about five or six times; and then I ripped the sonofabitching Kia Forte apart. Nothing.
All the music that had been so nurturing and soul-enriching on the drive to that point were cold and empty as I raced with dark clouds on my brow back out of town in desperate haste back to the Rochester Caribou (30 minutes back North), in hopes of the wallet being there. Oh - did I mention I'd neglected to bring the cell phone? So....back to the Caribou. I raced through the door and asked the girl at the counter. She says..."Uh, no, sorry."
I'm like, "OK....so, I'm kind of in a bind here." (remember, I'd stopped in Spring Valley for gas. The Forte was BEYOND empty, here. My situation, had I not opted for the Fuel Economy Package at the time of purchase, I dare not consider). I continued, "I have no gas in my car, no money, and I live in Minneapolis." Of course, she looks at me partly like I'm nuts, and partly in fear of her life. At that point, I turn to head over to the table where I sat. Nothing. Then I look under the chair. Ah! The billfold!
so....backtracking here...because I can hear the "Damn you!" all the way from Methuen, as I type. I won't go into considerable detail here. Only to say that I have been learning a lot about myself through my psychiatric sessions this past Fall, and I am pleased to inform you that - it's not me, it's my brain. I'm hard-wired to lose things. It is what it is. I can work as hard as I possibly can, and then that one time in fifty I will not put something in the place it's supposed to go and - BAM! A combination of attention deficit syndrome, some degree of hyperactivity, and a restless heart is a dangerous combination. Add to that stress and fatigue and - wow - I think I do pretty well considering.
In any event, this was one of those instances where a case could just about be made that my forgetfulness was not entirely at fault. I have this Columbia fleece - a fairly new one that zips into my parka shell. Don't often use it on its own. I always forget that the pockets don't actually have any downward slant to them. They kind of go straight in. There's been times I've jammed my keys in there and stood up, only to have them slide right out onto the floor. Evidently, this principle was at work in the case of the wallet.
So, back out onto the road, now an additional extra hour beyond my already late start time (now, about 8:30 or so) and without the ability to call into T-Clog, I knew it was just a matter of time till he woke up, took stock of the situation, and began to get impatient. I KNEW one of my stops was going to have to be in a small town that still had a pay phone.
And, I did finally take care of that nasty little bit of business in Lime Springs (best town by a dam site), careful to only hint at the overall reason for my tardiness for fear of raising Clog's early and unnecessary scorn without the ability to put everything in context. Then, back on the the road with a little more peace in my heart.
And finally, with no further hassles, into Cedar Falls...
So...kicking off what is poised to be a year of much time off (nonprofit holiday schedule, three weeks of vacation, and a two-week furlough) providing space (if not funds) to visit a cadre of friends, I decided to kick it off with style. Ranch-Style.
Shortly following T-Clog's birthday and just braving the possibility of treacherous winter winds, I planned my solo trip down. If you'll pardon what borders on a blatant product endorsement, trips in my new Kia Forte are generally pure bliss. While it would be an insult to Kobe Bryant, and would seem like a modest, entry-level vehicle to most of America, it is the closest thing to a luxury class vehicle I have ever owned. And that luxury is never more evident than when it is simply me being by myself (e.g. sans the responsibility of kids) with my iPod, cruising to God-knows-where at God-knows-what-hour-of-the-night. It was this deal when I went on my solo camping trip this last Fall, and it was certainly an oasis of Me when making myriad trips down to Waterloo at the end of that last, awful summer.
My plan had been to wake up at maybe 3:30, head out at around 4:00, stopping for a really nice long cup of eaaarly morning coffee at, say, my old familiar Rochester Caribou (I still crave Caribou Coffee, on occasion), alone with my thoughts. I would then roll on into Cedar Falls sometime around 0h - I don't know - 8:30 or so? Well, part and parcel of my psychology of late has been that I am not hitting the sack particularly early (if I was T-Clog and in the Escalante, though, I might say that 'Sack' was hitting me!). So, I ended up going to bed around 12:30 or 1:00 or so, and there was just no way I was going to wake up at the target time. I did get up around 5:20 and was on the road by 5:40.
As a Man of the New Millenium, packing for a trip with yourself is a pretty simple affair. Throw some shit in a bag and then it's: iPod? Check! And then off you go!
Pretty uneventful. Long drives in late night or early morning hours and me are old friends. On alert for deer, but other than that things are pretty mellow. I cruised on into Rochester, making pretty good time, by around 7:00. At that point, I decided not to tarry any longer than it would take to post a "Coming on into CF to visit an old friend!!!" or some other such trivial thing to Facebook via the iPod Touch, then it was off.
Back into the car, and down the road. Speeding South of Roch. (most people say "Rod-chester," but don't be deceived! There is no "Rod" in Rochester!! It's "Roch" with the "ch" as in "cheese." But that's neither here nor there). Slowly on through Stewartville. And then sliding into Spring Valley and stopping at a Tom Thumb for gas. And thank God! For, as I emerged from the car,(yup, you guessed it) no billfold. Not immediatly panicking, I dug in and around the seat, through my backpack about five or six times; and then I ripped the sonofabitching Kia Forte apart. Nothing.
All the music that had been so nurturing and soul-enriching on the drive to that point were cold and empty as I raced with dark clouds on my brow back out of town in desperate haste back to the Rochester Caribou (30 minutes back North), in hopes of the wallet being there. Oh - did I mention I'd neglected to bring the cell phone? So....back to the Caribou. I raced through the door and asked the girl at the counter. She says..."Uh, no, sorry."
I'm like, "OK....so, I'm kind of in a bind here." (remember, I'd stopped in Spring Valley for gas. The Forte was BEYOND empty, here. My situation, had I not opted for the Fuel Economy Package at the time of purchase, I dare not consider). I continued, "I have no gas in my car, no money, and I live in Minneapolis." Of course, she looks at me partly like I'm nuts, and partly in fear of her life. At that point, I turn to head over to the table where I sat. Nothing. Then I look under the chair. Ah! The billfold!
so....backtracking here...because I can hear the "Damn you!" all the way from Methuen, as I type. I won't go into considerable detail here. Only to say that I have been learning a lot about myself through my psychiatric sessions this past Fall, and I am pleased to inform you that - it's not me, it's my brain. I'm hard-wired to lose things. It is what it is. I can work as hard as I possibly can, and then that one time in fifty I will not put something in the place it's supposed to go and - BAM! A combination of attention deficit syndrome, some degree of hyperactivity, and a restless heart is a dangerous combination. Add to that stress and fatigue and - wow - I think I do pretty well considering.
In any event, this was one of those instances where a case could just about be made that my forgetfulness was not entirely at fault. I have this Columbia fleece - a fairly new one that zips into my parka shell. Don't often use it on its own. I always forget that the pockets don't actually have any downward slant to them. They kind of go straight in. There's been times I've jammed my keys in there and stood up, only to have them slide right out onto the floor. Evidently, this principle was at work in the case of the wallet.
So, back out onto the road, now an additional extra hour beyond my already late start time (now, about 8:30 or so) and without the ability to call into T-Clog, I knew it was just a matter of time till he woke up, took stock of the situation, and began to get impatient. I KNEW one of my stops was going to have to be in a small town that still had a pay phone.
And, I did finally take care of that nasty little bit of business in Lime Springs (best town by a dam site), careful to only hint at the overall reason for my tardiness for fear of raising Clog's early and unnecessary scorn without the ability to put everything in context. Then, back on the the road with a little more peace in my heart.
And finally, with no further hassles, into Cedar Falls...
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