In Through the Out Door

No, it's not a Led Zeppelin post.  But their album provided the best title for this quick entry.

I had a colonoscopy last week.

Nothing but a screening.  My brother Ronnie died from colon cancer 30 years ago this month at age 33.  Since the age of 30, doctors have suggested that I have a screening because of family history.  Like most people, volunteering for a 3 foot long tube with a camera to be shoved up your kiester was not how I wanted to spend a morning.  Not to mention the colon prep activities the day before (Harry in Mary Swanson's bathroom from Dumb and Dumber comes to mind).  But recent events have caused me to think a little more about my health and future.  Plus Prudence and I met our insurance deductible for the year.  So getting the colon flush and anal probe only cost me 10% of the total bill, which eased the pain in my...well, you know.  It's also been a great source of jokes at work.  One of my favorites was Rudiger creating an Outlook appointment on everyone's calendar entitled "Chris' First Colonoscopy".  Location of the "meeting", you ask?  In the butt, of course.

I'm happy to report that for the most part, everything was clean (or as clean as a colon can be).  There were 2 small, pinhead-sized polyps that they were able to remove via a "cold snatch".  The good news is that they don't need to see me for 5 years.  The bad news is that I need to go back in 5.  Actually, the procedure was not bad at all.  The colon pre-treatment didn't keep me up all night like I thought it might.  And I didn't walk out of the doctor's office like I'd been riding a horse all day :) 

In the "end", a pretty successful day.

Dancing In Eternity

In 1973, Dad had an exceptional year selling German farm equipment.  So much so that he and a few others from the sales staff earned a 10-day trip to Germany to tour the plant and take in the beauty of Bavaria.  The trip of a lifetime for a couple that loved to travel.  The picture above was taken at one of their dinner events.  Until recently, I never new my parents danced.  But now its a picture I can't get out of my head.  You see, my dad passed away almost 2 months ago.

It happened on a Sunday afternoon.  Dad had his normal Sunday.  He got up early and went to church with a couple that had faithfully taken him for the last 3 years.  He went to Sunday School and voluntarily tried to read the scripture, although he wasn't able to finish because of his diabetic neuropathy.  Afterwards, he made his 11am phone call to his best Marine Corp buddy Gus.  Then he went to lunch and ate mostly watermelon - one of his favorites.  Sunday afternoon was filled with Cardinal baseball and one of their few wins this season.  At 4:45 or so he started to make his way to supper.  Twenty feet outside his door, he had either a massive heart attack or stroke and was found slumped in his wheelchair a few minutes later by another resident headed to supper.  Local EMTs (actually a nephew and his daughter - my cousins) arrived on the scene too late to do anything.  They took him back to his room and laid him peacefully on his bed until the coroner arrived.  Just like that, he was gone.  While I knew it would happen eventually, I never thought about how or when this day would come.  I do know that I had different plans for that day. 

Dad had had a few incidents the week before with some of the people in charge of his care at the independent care facility he lived in.  Several times in the past he had been reprimanded for traveling down the hallways of the center backward and endangering the safety of the other residents.  Four times in a row that week he disregarded the requests of the administrator to ride down the hallway in his wheelchair going forward.  Each time as soon as she turned her back, he turned around.  At one of the meals he yelled at one of the staff in front of the other residents.  He argued that they weren't changing his bed, or were stealing his sheets.  And he stopped eating tomatoes - something he NEVER turned down.  The staff supervisor noticed that his color was poor and asked him if he felt okay.  He said he was fine.  She later called and told us all that had been happening that week.  Right then I knew that Dad was now beyond taking care of himself.  We had talked earlier in the summer about possible new living arrangements (him moving closer to me) and it looked like that time was now.  I took that Friday off work and visited a couple of the nursing home and assisted living centers in the area and prepared myself for "the talk" which I had in my mind would take place Sunday afternoon.  But on Thursday I had a doctor's appointment in which we began changing my diabetes medicine.  We upped my dosage of glyburide and my blood sugar level over the next 3 days was on a roller coaster ride.  So when Sunday afternoon came around, I felt jittery and nauseous.  I laid down after lunch to take a nap and figured that I'd call Dad after supper and tell him I'd be down to visit him later in the week.  When I awoke, the kids asked if I wanted to go for a bike ride.  I thought the fresh air would do us/me good so off we went.  When we got back, Prudence grabbed my hand and ushered me into our bedroom.  Oma (her mother) had been staying with us, and I figured there had been some sort of argument.  It typically happens about 2-3 days into a stay.  I couldn't have been further from the truth.  That's when she hit me with the news from left field.  The grief was overwhelming.  And what made it even worse was that I'd missed the opportunity to talk with him one last time - all because of an upset tummy.

It's taken a while to come to grips with his passing.  If any of you had been reading my entries over the last year, you know our relationship hadn't been what I'd liked it to be.  Some of it was my fault.  Some was his.  But inthe last few months we had made some great strides in getting back to where we were 2 years prior - and possibly moving into new, uncharted waters.  Just a few weeks before his death, he told me he loved me.  It's something I've always known, but it was the first time I can remember hearing it.  It was in response to the "tough love" talk I had with him a week earlier.  You know the one that's normally broken out into several talks, except I lumped them all together.  I had to tell him he couldn't drive out of town anymore, ask him to allow me to handle his finances (he had missed some bill payments), and suggest that he may need to leave his adopted hometown of 45 years and come live closer to me.  In addition to all this, I broke the family rule and told him that I loved him.  Now he was gone, and I'd never get to tell him I loved him or hear him say he loved me again.

But now as I look at it, I realize I'd been given a gift.  I didn't have to throw away all the progress our relationship had made with fights over driving, money and moving.  I don't live with the guilt that I most assuredly would have felt if I had made the trip that Sunday and laid out the grand plan to him only to have him pass after he heard the news.  And I have a wonderful memory of Dad telling me that he loved me.  Sure I miss him and I wish he were still here.  But looking back, God had better things planned.

And speaking of God, I come back to the picture which opened this post.  Ever since Mom passed in 2004, there's been a hole in Dad's heart that couldn't be filled by anyone but her.  Now he's reunited with her in eternity.  And they're dancing every day in His presence.   I can't think of any better ending...or beginning.

Focus and Clarity

Everyone and their brother has something to say about Harry Potter. You can't swing a dead computer mouse without hitting a news sight or blog (no offense CL, Fasty, or Christy) that talks about their love for the be-speckled sorcerer. And with good reason. JK Rowling spun an epic and entertaining tale that brought many back to papyrus.

But I think we've lost sight of the true hero of the summer: Jonathan. He brought focus and clarity to the Internet and a smile to our faces with his simple statement of affection for our special reptile friends who live in their shells - much to the chagrin of Denise (may or may not be her name), the Action Channel 8 news reporter covering his antics. How quickly we forget...

So, without further ado, I reintroduce to you (for the eleventy billionth time): Jonathan, the "I like turtles" boy!

I Promised Crap...

...and I deliver!

Made of genuine cow manure from the Keystone State of Pennsylvania and sculpted by Amish dairy farmers, this poopet is perched on the binder bin above my desk. Even tho the odor was removed, it keeps all the texture of the original cow pie that spawned it - including straw and corn. It's eyes are soy beens. Normally you'd find him in a garden or lanscaping fertilizing the plants around him, but his job is much more important in my cube. He promotes interesting conversation, independent thought and scares dimwitted management away from my workspace.

Stay tuned for more "Things from Chris' desk"!

Quickie

We're getting ready for our annual Fourth of July trip to Prudence's parents home in south central Michigan.  We'll be gone a week.  Outside of another 2 day trip to The Henry Ford (our membership - which was cheaper than buying 2 day passes the last time we went - expires 7/6 so we're gonna squeeze a couple more visits in), a whole lot of nothin' will be going on.  We'll play pool (the billiards kind), fish, swim, and do some boating.  We'll attend their small town Fourth celebration and parade - complete with 20-30 tractors, fire trucks, Shriners, horses (and their crap), 2 or 3 marching bands, and some quickly put together floats.  The kids will actually ride in one sponsored by the Kiwanis group Pru's parents belong to.  Looking forward to my mother in law's cooking - German potato salad, cucumber salad, asparagus, etc. - and eating a steak or 2 on the grill. When not doing family stuff, I plan to read, write a post or 2 (several things on my mind), FINALLY organize pictures from Hawaii, and spend some quality time with my beautiful wife.  As I look at what I just typed, it doesn't look very relaxing.  So I better build some sleep time in there as well.  If anyone figures out how to get more than 24 hours out of a day, please let me know :)

But my intention tonight was not to sit down and give you an itinerary of my weekend.  There's a quick story and picture I need to share.  Sometime in the last couple of weeks, Weimie shared an embarrassing story about The Thing That Grew in the Garage Fridge.  It made me think of a few food items in my desk at work that will soon be teenagers.  Let me introduce you to... Banana, Orange, and Mustard Packets.

Banana is the oldest of the group.  Back in the early 1990, when I could still show some restraint in my eating, I occasionally brought in some healthy snack choices.  Banana was one of them.  But apparently there must have been Hostess snack cakes in the vending machine that day and I forgot he was in my desk drawer.  It wasn't until about a year later that I found him when I was moving to a new job within the company.  He was in pretty much the same condition as you see him here.  There may have been a faint odor to him, but you had to get close to smell it.  Since it had lasted this long, and I have a penchant for novelty items like this, I decided to keep him wherever I went in the company.  So here he is at age 12 (going on 13).

Orange's story is similar to B's.  But he was created on purpose.  A coworker who knew about banana "planted" O in my desk, and he wasn't found for 6-8 months later.  He went thru some odd smells.  At first he was rotten, then he became somewhat of a potpourri item.  Ultimately he was left with no smell...which is good thing.  He's about 10 years old.  He gained a 1/2 brother (not pictured) about 8-9 years ago when someone else brought some rotting fruit to my desk.  They could sense I had a soft spot for garbage.

Mustard Packets was given to me 3 years ago when I joined my current work group.  One of the guys after hearing the story of Banana and Orange, brought out his own collection of expired condiment packets and asked that they join the menagerie in my desk.  Who knows how old they are, but then again who cares?  I kinda felt like a parent of 10 kids expecting number 11: what's another biohazard added to the mix?

So there you have it, Weims.  The story of the rancid desk fruit.  Sometime I'll have to share a picture of the crap (yes, literally CRAP) I have on my bookshelf...

I hope everyone has a fun and safe Fourth of July!  See you in a week or so!

A Cry for Help

You know you've got an eating problem when

• You spend the last $8 in your pocket on as many 50 cent legs as it will buy.
• You know that Zingers are a better deal than Ding Dongs by .25 oz in the vending machine.
• You profess your love for salt.
• To back up that love, you (on a dare) eat an entire salt packet straight (but vow to never do that again!)
• To further cement that love, you dip fries in salt instead of ketchup.
• To save you from a love gone wrong, your wife tapes shut 2/3 of the holes in the salt shaker from the inside with clear tape.
• And you catch on after 2 meals.
• You buy an entire roasted chicken at Sam's Club(for $5) and eat 2/3 for lunch because you don't like their regular menu.
• You buy "value" boxes of Snickers (48/box) and Ding Dongs (24/box) from Sam's Club and keep them in your desk.
• You eat a donut from a 11/12ths full box of donuts left BY (not in) the trash receptical on another floor at work.
• You bring a 10 gallon Rubbermaid container to "Bring Your Own Container "day at the local movie theater and have it filled with popcorn for $.53…and don't even see a movie. Done at least 5 times.
• You like your mashed potatoes with a very yellow, buttery tint.
• You like to drink pickle juice and the leftover liquid from green beens, onions, and bacon grease.
• You consider some foods as "vehicles" for condoments:
• Tomatoes --> salt
• French Fries --> salt
• Bread --> butter
• Lettuce --> ranch salad dressing
• Corn on the Cob --> butter and salt
• Crackers --> butter and salt
• Special instructions: dip the cracker in a tub of butter, use your tongue to spread said butter uniformly, salt then eat.
• You think that the pig is the perfect animal to eat.
• You eat at KFC for the skin.

Added by the lunch crew (within 5 minutes of seeing the above list):

• You get excited when certain people go to lunch with you that you know will not finish their meal, and they offer the rest to you.
• You get excited at Wendy’s because they have bigger ketchup containers.
• You call dibs on the Krispy Kreme box after it is empty of donuts to pick at the frosting stuck in the bottom of it.
• You at 100 shrimp during Shrimp Fest at Red Lobster… for lunch.
• You suspect you were the reason that the "all-you-can-eat" soup bars in town are no longer "all-you-can-eat".
• You post the rules and records for the IFOCE (Internation Federation of Competitive Eating) outside your cube.
• You consider a sleeve of Girl Scout cookies one serving.
• You were miserable eating 3 big slices of pizza, yet still found room for an ice cream cone.
• You email Hardees to thank them when they went back to promoting burgers.
• You frequent McDonalds enough to feel obligated to give the help Christmas gift cards.

To quote the Captain from The Simpsons: "He's more beast than man".

I guess the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem…

Awesome Dad

Today our pastor shared the story and video below of Dick Hoyt and his son, Richard Jr. Their story can be found on their website: http://www.teamhoyt.com/. MSN is also featuring a tribute from Richard Jr. to his dad. It was just too moving not to share. Be prepared - you'll need Kleenex!

Have a great Father's Day!

"I collect spores, mold and fungus..."

I fully expected to match Burl Ives at about 80-90%, but I am a big Harold Ramis fan. Thanks again to Aynde!

"A-B-C! It's Easy as 1-2-3!"

Thank goodness Aynde tagged me on this. I've wanted to post something since last week but everything I wanted to write about would take long to compose. Uggh! I wish I could write something without it becoming "War and Peace" in my head. This was short and fun!

So here you have my ABCs. Can't ever say that without thinking of the Jackson 5. Hope it's in your head just like it's in mine :)

A - Attached or single? Attached. To Prudence for 19 years. She's my better 9/10ths...

B - Best friend? Prudence.

C - Cake or pie? Do I have to choose? Well, since there's no gun to my head, it's Panda's Cherry Pie and Mom's Chocolate Cake.

D - Drink of choice? Diet Pepsi, but I hate this choice. Rather have the leaded stuff, but my pancreas has other ideas.

E - Essential item? TV. Or radio.

F - Favorite color? Again, no gun: Orange and Blue!

G - Gummi bears or worms? Bears, but I prefer my candy in bars with lots of chocolate.

H - Hometown? An Native American named town south of Decatur in Central Illinois that means "Muddy Water". Just hate to name it because of search engines. It's the "one and only"!

I - Indulgence? It's like the Academy Awards: I feel like I'd be leaving someone out. But if I HAD name the top 3 (via said gun): gyros, Edy's Double Chocolate Fudge ice cream, and Hostess Ding Dongs.

J – Jail, Been There? Nope, but I was scared straight as a 4th grader on a visit to our county pokey.

K - Kids? 3 - Panda, The Boy, and Em.

L - Life is incomplete without? Prudence.

M - Marriage date? June 4th.

N - Number of siblings? 1 sister and 2 brothers - all at least 16 years older than me, so at times they're more like aunts and uncles.

O - Oranges or apples? Oranges. And they're best in juice form.

P - Phobia/fears? Ventriloquist dummies.

Q - Favorite quote? Almost every line in Stripes, Dumb and Dumber and O Brother Where Art Thou.

R - Reasons to smile? Too many to name. I like to smile A LOT!

S - Season? Summer - baseball, swimming, vacation, shorts...

T - Tag three. Bill, Weimie, and Jean. But anyone should feel free to do it.

U - Unknown fact about me? I was the valedictorian of my class...of 62 people. But we all rode the short bus.

V - Vegetarian or oppressor of animals? You can eat stuff from plants? Oppressor of Animals, of course! Reminds me to write an ode to the pig.

W - Worst habit? Cleaning my kid's plates. It's easily added 20lbs to my frame...

X - X-rays or ultrasounds?? X-Rays. Never been pregnant.

Y – Can you Yo-Yo? Used to Yo-Yo, but now? No-no.

Z - Zodiac? "It's the age of …"

"Goin' to the Chapel..." - 19 year later!

Taking a page from The Librarian's blog and reposting and entry from my Spaces blog.

Prudence and I celebrated our anniversary yesterday with a movie (Spider-man 3) and dinner (Fiesta Ranchera). No Zorba's this weekend - trying to watch our milage these days. Panda watched her brother and sister...and no one was killed. All-in-all, it was a success! Tonight we get to celebrate on our new memory foam mattress topper :) Happy Anniversary, Honey!!!

And while digging this one up, I re-read the comments and remembered that you can stop by and congratulate Christy and Cowboy on their anniversary as well!

Memories related to our 6/4/1988 wedding date:

• The month prior to the wedding saw me receive my first 2 speeding tickets. The first happened while heading down to my hometown to solidify some arrangements. I was the last in a line of people speeding – and the easiest to nab. The second happened the Thursday before the wedding on Saturday. Prudence was to deliver some sheet music to our new vocalist (the other came up with laryngitis), but she forgot. So she asked me to run the errand. I was in a hurry to drop off the music and pick up pizza (Godfathers – our favorite at the time) and went 40 in a 30. I tried to weasel out of the ticket – tried to use the “I’m getting married this weekend and going to drive on my honeymoon” in order to keep my license, but it didn’t work. Probably should have shown some leg or something…
• No wedding planner, so Prudence and I came up with the wedding program/scorebook. I listed her sister as the “Matron of honor” because I thought that sounded more formal. I later found out it meant that the “maid of honor” was married. Which she wasn’t. I still take grief about that from time to time.
• I was okay until about 10 minutes before the ceremony when I started to freak out at the whole commitment thing – the rest of my life with this woman? Pacing frantically in the alcove at the front of the sanctuary. Speaking in loud and hurried speech. The minister (who was also a very good friend of mine) settled me down enough to get me out on the stage. As the bridesmaids came down the isle, I started to calm down. Then when Prudence and her dad began their walk, my heart immediately went calm. It was like no one else was there. Only her. And that was a cool as it gets.
• During the lighting of the unity candle, Prudence and I had some time to talk quietly – just between us. Many people have asked us what we were talking about. That’s our little secret.
• After the wedding, we had a dinner (or was it supper?). Because I insisted in the tradition of not seeing the bride before the wedding, we took all our pictures after the ceremony. So we were late to our own dinner, and most people had finished by the time we got there. I’ll regret that as long as I live.
• My grandparents from Iowa were able to make it to the wedding. We had a number of great pictures taken of and with them. The next year, on my birthday, my grandfather died of a heart attack. Our pictures are the only professional pictures of him left, and I’ll be forever thankful of that.
  
• My sky-blue 1979 Cutlass was covered in Oreo cookies when we left the church. Most of them stayed on during our drive to Chicago for our wedding night at a Days Inn off Halstead Avenue. We washed them off the next morning.
  
• My car had been in an accident before the wedding and still had a can of paint left in the drunk from the paint job. I forgot to take it out before we left. Somewhere along the line it tipped over and drained out below the rear quarter panel and onto the hotel parking lot. We drive by the hotel every once in a while on our way to Michigan to visit her parents and I think of this every time.
• We went to Niagara Falls for our honeymoon (again, the traditionalist in me). About 30 miles from the Falls, my radiator went out. We nursed the car into town and had to make arrangements to get it fixed. The concierge at the hotel got a case of his favorite beer.
• We were on our honeymoon for 10 days and only stayed consecutive nights in the same hotel once. This drove Prudence crazy. To get back at me, she spilled something on the floor in every room we stayed at. This has become an inside joke for us when we travel.
• We also visited Boston, the Cape, and NYC on our honeymoon.
• The Cards played the Mets at Shea Stadium on Monday, June 13th. We had planned to leave for home on Monday but I talked her into staying one extra day for the game. Romantic, aren’t I? The only catch is that we would have to drive straight home after the game. The game went into extra innings and we left NYC at Midnight. We had NO IDEA how to get out of the city. Unfortunately we took a wrong exit off a bridge and ended up in a questionable part of the city with only a few working stoplights and streetlights. We pulled up to one red light and heard what we thought were gunshots down the road to our right. So I went thru the light. At the next light, we came across a truck stopped in the middle of the intersection. The driver’s door was open, the engine was still running and no driver to be found. I ran thru this light, too. We finally found a truck route sign and followed it out of “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood”.
• I drove until 5am and got us to somewhere in PA on the turnpike. I asked Prudence, who had been sleeping the entire way, to drive for me while I caught some Zs in the back seat. When I woke up 4 hours later, we were stopped along side the road in a rest area and a cop was walking away from our car. She’d become too sleepy to drive and had pulled over to rest. From 5am to 9am, we traveled only 75 miles. The rest of the way home we took turns driving 1-2 hours at a time. We haven’t attempted a straight-thru drive since.
• We paid so many tolls on our drive home that on our first night at home, I rolled over in the middle of the night and asked Prudence for toll money.
• Sometime later in the week after we returned home, Prudence woke me up in the middle of the night to let me know that she heard something outside (we slept with our windows open for a breeze) and was worried a woman was in trouble. Not wanting to be bothered but still concerned with the woman’s welfare, I told her to call the police. After she got off the phone, I finally woke up enough to hear what she was worried about. The woman was not in trouble. She was definitely “enjoying herself” and her time with a guy named Mike in an apartment 2 floors up. When the police arrived, I told them what my wife heard (that was strange to say at the time!) and that they probably didn’t need to investigate any further. But because they just can’t take my word for it, they paid a visit to the couple in 3B. Shortly after the cops left, I heard the woman laughing louder than I’ve ever heard anyone laugh before – including me. Dare I say that Prudence then challenged me to “be like Mike”?

Happy Anniversary, Prudence! I love you!