What’s Not To Love?

A blindfold would help me out, a lot, driving down the highway trying to get to our destination. The eye cover is not intended for me, being the driver, but for Elaine, my wife, who is ever alert and curious. She’s the trip planner and has a habit of stealthy factoring in the inevitable possibility of a multitude of spontaneous side trips, otherwise known to me as: butterfly stops—think of an orange and black winged Monarch flitting in a sunny field of blooming flowers, alighting on petals, sipping, and then flying to the next, each one holding the possibility of being tastier than the last.

Like the butterfly, it’s often a wildflower along side the road that Elaine wishes to visit–with flower book in hand, but it’s not just flowers that require the screech of brakes from our truck camper—along with horn blowing and hurled curses from the tailgater. It might be a billboard promising a never-before-seen-the-likes-of Yooper tourist trap or a what-looks-like to her a quaint establishment that must be perused. In other words—she often points out, in what sounds to me to be a superior tone—it’s the path not the destination…Yada-yada-yada.

Then there are the dirt roads leading back into the woods that catch her longing to explore: Elaine imagines a forest Shangri-La; l envision banjos, Bubba and his meth-toothed friends, which encourages me to paddle the truck camper past, as fast as I can and mutter, “Sorry honey, I didn’t see it in time…no place to turn around.” My head bobbles side to side to demonstrate my earnestness.

Her eyes roll.

To counter twenty-seven years of butterfly travel, I finally come up with a plan—obviously, I’m not the fast study my mother claimed I was. I propose to Elaine in a manner promising novelty and excitement, “lets have a travel theme for our trip, this time.” The underlying message that I hope she isn’t picking-up: if it doesn’t fit the theme, we don’t stop.

To my surprise and delight, Elaine likes the idea, but since I came up with the plan of targeted travel, she insists on choosing the theme. Fair enough. I figure, as long as it isn’t: planet Earth, I’ll be good with it. Being the fair-minded woman she is, she throws me a bone by suggesting I pick the back-up choice, a theme B, as it were—which, she warns, will only go into effect in the case of a catastrophe, such as a nuclear blast. I suck on that thought while she ponders what her focus will be, then she lights up and announces: Waterfalls.

I like it.

In fact, I love waterfalls with their peaceful, relaxing sounds, remote and beautiful locations…

What’s not to love?

How about way too easily accessed waterfalls, (Who thought it a good idea to build roads to these places?) with t-shirt shops and junk food?) where crowds of noisy on-lookers  block my view and don’t move on in a timely fashion, taking countless selfies of every imaginable combination of backgrounds and persons in their group.

Then there are the cotton candy fingers of little kids that find their way to my outfit de jour—for the record, I need no help grubbing up my my clothes. Then, my worst fear happens—at the third waterfalls. I fall victim to a lethal stabbing from a triple-decker death-by-chocolate ice cream cone straight to the back of my pants.

That’s what’s not to love…and that’s my nuclear blast.

As Elaine tends to me—in public—sopping up the brown creamy mess from my pants, I’m grumbling and becoming agitated. Being an ex-social worker, she recognizes when a melt down is imminent. She says, in an attempt to keep an obscenity-ridden (but totally justified) outburst at bay, “how about we just go to Tahquamenon Falls, we’ll  skip the next nine smaller ones.”

I perk up from being  a petulant child–her description, not mine. Whatever! But, I do, almost, forget about my wet stained pants. Besides, I’m remembering that there’s a brewery at Tahquamenon, flipping my mood 180 degrees, and I know that Elaine likes that place and will enjoy a craft beer there: I’m back to: What’s not to love? Especially since my theme B was: Bars of the U.P. (Pic: Elaine enjoying a glass of beer at the Tahquamenon Falls brewery’s deck.)

I love bars, not the popular ones, and not for the booze—though, I confess, I do imbibe while I’m there, in order to fit in, of course. But it’s the old ones that I love, the ones with personality and history, the older the better. I study them. So much life has happened in these places.

It’s archeological. It’s science.

Not that the Tahquamenon brewery is old, but it will be one day and I won’t be around to study it, so I got to take what I can get, now. Maybe I can add a few nicks, table carvings, and spills for future archeologists. We still have a lot of miles between us and Tahquamenon—the grandmother of Michigan falls, so I pull out my guide to Yooper Bars and announce we’ll be heading for the Up Chuck bar and grill; the next day, the Pine Stump Cook shack and Drinkery; from there, on to the Red Flannel bar; and then,  Tahquamenon Falls and brewery; and we’ll be finishing it all off with a grand finale: a tour of the Barmuda Triangle in the early settled city of Sault St. Marie (13 bars in three blocks)— advertised as: You won’t disappear but your troubles will…

What’s not to love?

(To hear more about our travels, scroll down to: “A Stopover in Hell.”)

I am to hungry bugs what Donald Trump is to white supremacists. I attract them everywhere I go—stadiums full. So I sit here in my portable screened refuge next to our truck camper with my computer on my lap, ruminating over another trip we’d made to the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula: Think, nightmare, a stopover in Hell.

I’ve quit trying to remember the how-long-ago of anything. The best way I can hammer down that trip’s time period is, we had a white Dodge van and a pop-up trailer—one of those tents on wheels you tote behind the car. My partner—now wife, Elaine—and I were headed for the Porcupine Mountains (AKA: the Porkies).

No more than fifteen minutes into our trip, I felt scratchiness in my throat, foretelling one of my specialties, a nasty long-lasting cold. For a while I rode along in denial. But soon my raw throat squeezed tight and any ability I had left to squeak out
words to Elaine became on a need-to-know basis. Soon, I required a stop for a six-pack of tissues to catch the goopy nasal juices that overflowed to my upper lip and to squelch the explosive spasmodic sneezing that was atomizing the interior of our car.

All my body wanted was my bed…at home, but this wasn’t just a vacation, it was a long-planned quest.

The Porky’s; The Holy Grail; Same deal.

Nothing would have pried my wife’s fingers from the wheel–think bulldog with bone.

Five hundred miles later, at dusk, within spitting distance of our campground destination on the shore of Lake Superior, a deer flew across the road. Our visual: the deer’s eyes bulging as it flipped over the hood of the van; the deer’s visual, two sets of human bulging eyes as an unidentified object flew into its path.

Smack!

Damages: We looked for the deer but couldn’t find it. We wanted to believe—and I’ve filed it in my memory bank as such—that the jolt-and-roll over our vehicle made him achy, irritated, and late getting home that evening, but he would be fine in the morning. Our van, not so good. The radiator spewed water like a breaching whale.

With the campground close by, we limped to our site before all of the water had escaped. Next day, the tow truck took away our means of motorized movement. Elaine, my up-’til-now caretaker, announced she’d succumbed to my germ blast. With no functioning wheels for exploration and barely working bodies, we were doomed to dwell in the pop-up, coughing, snot blowing, and grumpy.

Being I hang on to cold with a death grip, I was no where ready to assume  adult responsibilities, but the potency of my germs sent my wife into my level of sickness theretofore never experienced by her, which required of me, supposedly further along the path to wellness, to woman-up. That necessitated, on occasion, that I step outside the pop-up where super-sized blood thirsty mosquitoes buzzed in wait, licking their chops.

On trips, I never know where anything is because my wife packs things. That’s her rule. She claims that when I put something somewhere, it won’t be found, ever; well, until the kids do our estate sale. So, my packing is out of the question. However, with her out of commission, I couldn’t locate the bug spray or itch cream or much else for that matter. And Elaine could only muster a fling of a limp finger in an uncertain direction and cough out its whereabouts, which I couldn’t understand, and she would’ t (maybe,  couldn’t–giving her the benefit of doubt) repeat.

The next day, with my body garnished in bug bites, little sleep, and my mind running on little empty, I needed to cook something because we’re hungry. Not only didn’t I feel well, myself, I’m not the meal preparer in the family–for good reason. I scrounged around for leftovers of some kind before I realized we’d just gotten there, so none to be had. Elaine’s voice squeaked out from her sore throat a menu that would be simple, something she claimed even a child could do…

Humph! Maybe in a fully equipped kitchen with Rachel Ray’s help, I thought.

Then, that night, the storm hit with high winds, pelting rain, and tornado warnings. Our little two-person pop-up was perched six feet from where the waves lapped the shore—when it was calm. We’d fallen asleep, earlier, but woke to the ruckus and rocking of our wheeled tent, along with the spray of rain through the screens. We battened down the rain flaps and went back to our now soaked bed while the winds pummeled our shelter.

“Has a tent camper, like ours, ever been blown into the lake,” a crackled voice out of the dark asked me? With a flash of lightening I see Elaine’s eyes, wide, like those of the deer who’d flown across our windshield. She grew up in Colorado; I spent my childhood on the shore of Lake Huron—by the way, in a house, not a tent. I was supposed to be the expert on the possible fate of a flimsy shelter within easy gulping distance of  charging white caps—the sinking of the ill-fated ship, Fitzgerald, in weather such as this slithered  into my mind.

“No,” I said, which was true, I’d never heard of such a thing, but then, I suspected I didn’t hear about a lot of things.  The lack of conviction in my voice led us to re-open the rain flaps for the wind to flow through, hoping it would prevent us from being passengers in a sailing pop-up. We spent a fitful night under rain gear anticipating a possible launch out to sea–being I’m writing this, now, go ahead an assume we miraculously hung on to the land.

Sometime, around dusk, a couple days later, our van was returned, dents still there but radiator fixed, vehicle drivable.

My wife: sick, energy of a wet noodle.

My cough: resembled a moose call.

My body: red-peppered with bug-bite welts.

It was the morning of our last day of vacation. Determined, we decided to drive up through the Keweenaw Peninsula and view the countryside through car windows, requiring a minimal amount of effort, and having the luxury of Kleenex, nasal spray and cough drops close at hand.

We hobbled out to our van and were greeted by an army of marauding  black flies that had come in the night and draped our van in a black shroud on three sides—like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. We stood, locked in place, stunned and transfixed, when a park ranger drove up alongside our vehicle. He poked his head out his window and casually said, “They’re early this year,” and then drove on.

One of the flying black bastards spotted or more likely smelled me, then my scent spread, creating a lift off of flies that swarmed in the formation of a tornado of a size that could have wiped out the population of New York City. My recall, perhaps apocryphal, is that I ran for the campground bathroom with the black storm in chase.

But I didn’t get the door closed fast enough.

When the scraps of me emerged, I calmly made my way back to the camper, dosed myself with medication, and went to bed.

My wife’s dubious version of the saga of the flies that could have eaten NYC, but munched on me instead: I dove to the ground, hands over my head, like a kid in the 1950’s preparing for an atomic bomb blast, and was instantly shrouded with the huge black biters. And when I reappeared from the feed fest, my arms were flailing and I was screaming a never-ending string of innovative obscenities, and was in possession of a nasty disposition for days…

What—the fuck—ever!

We were determined to make something out of our last day of vacation. I slathered my body with the various ointments over previous ointments from the first bite and to all subsequent bites and reapplication of old bites, and we got into our newly retrieved van and headed off.

Along the way, we spotted an old, unkempt cemetery. Back in the day, they inscribed tombstones with interesting details of people’s lives. We can seldom resist stopping. It’s our way of paying homage to past souls and learning the history of an area. Against our vow to remain in the vehicle, we wheezed our way up the hill.

I suspect it was the build-up of the various brands of anti-itch potions, along with days of bad hygiene oozing through my pores that signaled a horde of very tiny flying things of my presence. They flew, en mass, straight into my unwashed hair, feeding on my scalp, and propelling me, dazed and incoherent, back to the car.  (Everyone has her breaking point.)

We hitched up the pop-up, and headed for home.

***

Ever since that ill-fated trip years ago, I have held up a two-finger crucifix to anyone who even mentions the Porcupine Mountains. But in an attempt to heal past emotional wounds, Elaine and I have returned to the whims of the Lake Superior weather and the scene of my sacrifice to biting-critters-that-fly. This time, I’m armed with a more substantial dwelling that’s parked back from the lake, an ample supply of bottled courage,         eight containers of lethal bug spray,and six  sticky fly strips that hang at the doorways            … and my snappy yellow fly swatter.                    

(To hear more about our present camping trip, scroll down to “Problems Along the Way.”)

 

 

It’s not that we are camping virgins. It’s not even that we’ve never owned a camper. But it was long ago when we hit the road, bringing our bed and toilet with us—and at that time, it was a trailer, not our turtle-style truck camper that rests on the bed of our truck and extends over the hood.

Let me be clear right off, when I leave a task—requiring more than three sequential steps—for 24 hours or more, I need to be retrained. It’s just that way for me; though not for my wife, she retains things. However, she’s worn down from having three major surgeries and a biopsy in the space of six months, and still suffers from anesthesia brain—yes there’s such a thing. She has a good excuse for any missteps that have been suffered along the way to Green Bay.

Therefore, lapses could have been predicted. Like when we tooled on down the road with the back door flapping. I can only imagine how distracting it must have been for the driver in the vehicle behind us. Not to speak of stuff that flew out; you know, the things stashed in at the last minute. We were far too proud (embarrassed) to turn around and retrieve that shit. No, when something like that happens, it’s our inclination to save our dignity. So we quickly turned a corner, out of sight, and secured the door, and then took off, cutting o
ur losses. As we continued on, we debriefed, grasping to recover shreds of our self-respect by acknowledging (rationalizing) that the idiosyncrasy of our new-used camper door apparently requires it not just be closed, but locked…

And we didn’t lose life, just material objects.

All’s good.

Who knew that sleeping in the camper in a wind would have the effect of being at sea. The guy that sold us the camper didn’t say anything about that, nor did the instruction manual—I know because my wife reads directions. The unexpected advantage was, it feels like being rocked to sleep. Though, not everyone else in the camper felt that way. Not my wife, not my dogs.

Then there was the slide-out issue. Our camper is equipped with an extension to our living space called a slide-out, which we pull in when we’re ready to leave; otherwise, we’d exceed the width of the highway, not to speak of the fact that the weight of it would cause the vehicle to list to the passenger’s side when moving—more importantly, at any moment it could send us rolling into a ditch. (Pic shows slide-out.)

Now, the great thing about traveling along down the road in our camper is that in the case of having to pee—I won’t even go there regarding the stops we make for that activity, we have only to pull over and climb in the back. The good thing, the bathroom is conveniently located by the back door; the bad thing, it’s necessary to open the slide-out half way to be able to open the door to the bathroom enough to curl around and in, albeit still a tight squeeze that scrapes the flesh from our bones—and not in a good way.

We followed our stop-and-pee procedure, at first, but then a lack of vigilance set in—developing new habits is challenging for us.

A few miles down a country road—when I was at the wheel, eyes on the road avoiding potholes—my wife said, “I think we’re tilting.”

“Uh-huh,” I smile, thinking how in the last two years, our lives have felt on tilt. (Writer’s think in words like that.) “You are so right, honey,” I went on, “I’ve felt like our lives landed in a ditch, somewhere. It’s been so stressful. I keep wondering when the cloud over our heads will…”

“No, no!” she says irritated that I’d just made a metaphor out of what she sees as our present dilemma.

That’s when I noticed her frowning into her side view mirror. Our slide-out was still extended. Not only that, we’d been mowing down the road where the high weeds lined our path…gratefully, only snagging a few small branches.

I hit the brakes.

Now here’s the embarrassing part, we made that mistake, again and again. We can’t seem to remember to close the effing slide-out after relieving our bladders.

To compensate for our declining memories, my wife devised a sure-fired plan, a new protocol as it were: It had to do with yanking down the shade that covered the windowed back door when we came in to pee. Then, when we were about to exit the camper, we’d wonder why the shade was down, and this would be our cue to pull in the slide-out.

Foolproof!

How could we forget with a cue like that, right?

Apparently, one of us was annoyed with the shade down, and flipped it back when she left from doing her business—(I’m not mentioning who the last one out was.)

Not to continue our two-stooges style ineptness, my wife made a checklist…

I’m sure it’s around here somewhere.

(For more of our camping adventures, scroll down to previous post: “Second Day to Green Bay.”) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re off, clean camper, clean bodies—that’s as far as I can go with the concept of clean. I like how our dollhouse on wheels gets spruced up and organized. Believe me, only one person can be moving around in the allotted space; if two, someone is going die. So, the person who’s best at it—whose more naturally domestic, or at least, fussier as to how and where things are placed—does it. So my wife sends me on a walk with our two furry babies—poop pick-up bag in hand. Instructions: Don’t come back for an hour.

Warning: It’s cozy in a truck camper. (Check pic: I’m on bed, those are my legs as I lean against the back wall on our bed.) Wife, Elaine, is at kitchen sink, bathroom in back to right by door dimension of bathroom: approximately 2′ 6″ x 2′ 1o”) I wouldn’t recommend it to full-size humans. Especially to anyone who wears over a woman’s size 10 who has to pee. A bigger person, if she shoehorned her way between the walls and onto the toilet seat wouldn’t be able to reverse the process. It would take an emergency response team to get her out, probably by breaking down at least one wall to extract the humiliated pot sitter. For me, the good news about the shoebox-sized bathroom is that I can multitask by sitting on toilet, letting whatever happens happen, while showering at the same time. Sort of a full body bedet.

For those of you who, for political reasons and matters of taste, would never grace the door of Wal-Mart, cover your eyes for a moment. For our third stop of a three hour trip to Escanaba, we lingered at that establishment for probably two hours, given I had something we needed in just about every department—there are no other, to my knowledge, one-stop shopping stores in the U.P. No Target, No K-mart, No Costco, No nothing where I could repurchase everything we’d forgotten.

So one of us sits in truck with the dogs–the other hits the aisles—and we text back and forth, as needed. I’m lost in this store and there’s no one around to help me, but I preserve by devising a plan: go down every aisle, swiveling my head from side to side.

Not on our list, but I notice—in my swiveling—a must-have fly swatter. I try out the different models on some small airborne critters that were following me. I’m looking for just the right tool; it needs to have a good flexibility when I snap my wrist, as well as a pleasing color. I choose a yellow one.

As I wander around, I make a noteworthy connection: camping and Wal-Mart go hand-in-hand. In both environments there are peeps who walk around in their nightwear in the middle of the day, without shame. I’m thinking this might be an alternate lifestyle for me to consider—from camper to Wal-Mart and back. It’s got to cut down on my dyke attire budget.

My wife thinks I’m in this establishment far too long, so runs in to find me. She hands me the truck keys and sends me back to tend the dogs. Geez, and I only had three more items left on my list, and maybe a surprise purchase or two.

After the Wal-Mart adventure, we travel down the road but are soon hungry. My wife is not originally from Michigan, let alone the Upper Peninsula. So she’s never had the privilege of sampling one of those wrapped in dough, tasteless predecessors to the pot pie that are filled with carrots, potatoes and rutabagas, known as a pasties—who voluntarily eats rutabagas, anyway? But she sees the omnipresent signs along the road and is determined to have one, against my advice. We stop at a Mom and Pop cafe—which is pretty much all they have in this area—refreshing, in my opinion. I go inside with her, making sure she pronounces them correctly, so she doesn’t get laughed out of the place—a pasty is not something you put over your nipples. She’s looking up at the menu and says, “Look honey, they have a spicy Italian one,” knowing that’s my favorite ethnic fare. I’ve never heard of such a pasty, probably a nasty attempt at calzone. I don’t bite. I order a buffalo burger—better for my health than beef, I tell myself—dry but lots of catsup helps.

After her yooper (fyi: U.P. inhabitants) treat, we haul ass down the road paralleling Lake Michigan rubber burning the road. Shortly, we realize it’s our nap time,  so pull over, crawl in camper. Two hours later we’re back on track, arriving at our state park destination at 8:23 p.m. My wife, Elaine,  prepares our BBQ while Lucy Lou and Daisy Mae wait for food to fall their way–pic left.

Then off to bed after brushing our teeth with our newly purchased dental hygiene gear and hit the sack, a clean sack at that.

(For more of our camping experiences, scroll down to: “Green Bay or Bust.”

 

 

 

Looking at my pic, as I write this, I think I could use some leg extenders–not that I and the rest of the world haven’t notice before, but long shirt and shorts magnifies the problem. Not to let a fashion faux pas stop me, I’m off to learn what the cops know at the Writer Police Academy in Green Bay!

First day, a little rough getting off. To back up–or  backstory as we novelist call it–we should have had a trial run with camper, and would have, if three huge tree branches hadn’t fallen and landed on our roof, which vectored our lives in another direction for awhile.

So, being this is a new camper (used, but it great shape, so said the sale’s man. I say, at least it is pretty) we had to learn to load it on the truck–oh my–good thing my wife can read very detailed directions. Then, we had to figure out how to tie it down–no directions for that. Next, deal with a malfunctioning water system–wife googled problem and got it fixed. That’s my woman! All this, in two days. That gave us a bright and early take off at 5:08 p.m. on the day we’d planned on our early departure.

Then, of course, the stops along the way: first one, half way out of our driveway to make sure the lights were working on the rear of the camper; second stop, down the road to get beer–a must have; third stop, get cash–no, didn’t rob a bank, got it, legit, at ATM; fourth stop, it’s dinnertime, we’re hungry–where can we pull in with this behemoth; fifth stop, rest stop on the highway, we have to pee. Then off we go to cross the Bic Mac and stay at Straits State Park in St. Ignace to camp for the first night. Technically, our sixth stop on our two hour drive to our first campground, on our way to Green Bay.

Oh yeah, didn’t have time to clean or organized the camper, threw the stuff in like a thief in the night, and by now we’re sweaty, exhausted, snarly. Arrived at our spot to park, forgot the toothbrushes and paste, too tired to shower, threw a blanket on the piled high bed, so slipped between the stacks of whatever with our beers in hand, and fell asleep. Tomorrow, we can take care of our camper, wash stinky bodies, and scrape the fir off our teeth.

(To read more about my excitement to attend the “Writer’s Police Academy,” scroll down to: “My Characters an I meet at the the Shooting Range.”)

Shooting a gun, riding in a cop car at break-neck speeds, evaluating crime scene evidence, eating donuts, and much more will be my soup de jour at the writers’ police academy in Green Bay, Wisconsin! I’m stoked. Big time.

I’m on my way.

It’s an oxymoron of sorts: In my real life—if there’s such a thing, I’m a peace -loving, non-violent socialist who has attended more peace and justice rallies of all sorts than I can possibly count. And I’m a enthusiastic vegetarian want-to-be—who constantly fails—who rather than kill my meat, lets someone else do it for me and present it under glass at the meat market so I can guiltily purchase it, saying to myself that my wife has to have meat or she’ll get surly. On top of that, I eat it too—how many different meals can my wife make—all the while excusing myself as a backsliding vegetarian. In denial? Shit yes. I’m aware.

And, I excuse myself, also, for wanting to shoot a handgun.

When I was a kid, on every New Year’s Eve my dad let me shoot off his pheasant rifle in the air over Lake Huron–which was our front yard. He held me as I fired it because the first time I shot the rifle, at at the age of eight, the kickback put me on the ground, as well as making my shoulder black and blue—though that never dissuaded me from the next New Year’s Eve’s traditional shooting event.

But, I have never shot a pistol even though the characters in my novel have. I need the experience, I need to feel it; I rationalize.

Well hell, I repeat to myself, over and over, I’m a mystery writer. That gives me some latitude, right? I need to feel and experience what my characters feel and do, sometimes, anyway. I’m not responsible for what my characters say or do, but I need to know what they think and how they come to choosing their behaviors and heroic or miscreant paths.

Hello! I need to participate in their existence, at some level, understanding and experiencing how the good guys try to interrupt the activities of my bad guys, or visa versa.

I have already graduated from my hometown’s police academy, and now I’m privileged to attend an academy that trains not only local and state police departments but federal crime fighting agencies as well.

Wow!

Picture me jumping in the air and clicking my feet together. Or, given I’d fall and break my neck trying to do that, envision me with a big smile and thumping heart.

The end product of this adventure, I’m a more informed mystery writer…And one happy dude-ette!

(To read more about how a cloud can hang over a person and refuse to leave, scroll down to: “What’s Next?”)

We stood at the picture window, mindlessly awed and mesmerized by the wind, rain, hail, tree branches and anything loose swirling and flying sideways, straight-line winds at 60 miles an hour. Tree limbs smashed on our roof, terrifying the dogs, poking holes in the roof, and ripping off a screen door. Still we stood there, amazed, enthralled, hypnotized…

Our common senses stunned…Not taking cover in the basement.

We’re smarter than that. Usually.

Since then, I’ve been searching for the answer to the lack of concern we had for those 20 minutes of wild weather that could have easily sent a tree right through the window we stood by, watching. Finding the answer is an important quest. If I’m out hiking and see a wild boar, I want a better reaction from us.

I think I have come up with a clue, at least a smidgen of insight into our action—or lack thereof: It’s the cloud that has hung over my wife and me for sometime now–refusing to move on–causing chaos in our lives and disrupting our equilibrium. Namely: the biopsies, the operations for cancer, the treatment, the rotator cuff surgery, all assaulting her body, robbing her strength…and overloading mine. The mental stress to both of us, given this is her fourth cancer. The doctor appointments, the medical bills, and then learning one of our daughters will be facing surgery as well. All in the season of preparing for family visits.

Then there’s the shit that life normally tosses out—usually not so close in time and, in this case, way more than “in threes”: At the cottage: spring clean up, the refrigerator died, ordered a new one, then the hassle of getting the refrigerator to the cottage because the delivery company’s truck is too tall to come down our road—I guess having only a semi for delivery has never been a problem for them before. Really? They drive out to a road near our lake cottage with only a refrigerator, nothing else, in the trailer of a gigantic semi. Think: waste as well as poor costumer service. So, we have to meet them at a road, nearby, and literally beg them to put it on our truck. Really?

There’s more: The lines to the septic tank plugged, requiring two visits from a plumber. The water heater died, and the furnace wouldn’t work. Battery to boat: dead. My wife’s cells phone hits the cement and cracks…

I could go on, but those are a few of the highlights, if highlights is an appropriate word when speaking of the cloud we’re stuck under.

I’ve warned family and friends to keep their distance, don’t even get within ten miles of our cloud…yet still they come. Bravely, if not foolishly.

Back to ignoring the dangerous winds: I believe that the chaos we’d been experiencing has left us shell-shocked, feeling like helpless bystanders to life’s vagaries. A constant wondering and an expecting of what’s next. So when the winds brought three huge tree branches crashing onto our roof and other bad shit stuff…

It was merely the arrival of the what’s next.

 

 

(To read about belly button gazing, scroll down to: “What Were My Chances?”

In the very beginning there was the egg meeting the sperm thing. What were my chances? Nil to None! But here I am. Staggering thought, right. It’s like looking out into the universe or into the microcosm of life. All those swimming sperms and all those flushed eggs since womankind existed—and yet, here I am. An unflushed egg that was caught by a random sperm–in the body of another arbitrarily developed egg and sperm connection that happened before me, and before her, and before her and before her..

Then there were all those instants leading up to the present moments of my existence when things might have turned out differently. Like in my teens:

Such as the time that my friend and I skinny-dipped in the dark of night on Lake Huron in a boat whose lights were off—we were naked and didn’t wish to be seen…which of course, the fast-moving skiff didn’t and came barreling toward us. We had only the stars to cast light on our small craft–our one hope to be spotted.Luckily I did not

The TV show Naked and Afraid comes to mind.

We clung to our vessel, hoping our craft would be noticed in time. The end of this story: We’d done the right thing.

Again, somewhere in my teenage years when my family fell apart, I took to idolizing Sylvia Plath–the poet who wrote of her angst and solved her misery by sticking her head in a gas oven….

Luckily, we didn’t have a gas stove.

However, I was resourceful, I took to the highway, 100 miles per hour, wanting to lose control…

Then in college, I rolled over the median of a major highway, four times, ending up on the other side of traffic going in the opposite direction–not trying to die, but a victim of my speed and a car suddenly pulling out in front of me.

Again, lucky.

I could go on and on but don’t wish to belabor the point.

All those times I could have left this planet through circumstance, or not have caught the ride on Earth to begin with. And yet here I am, years later.

What were your chances?

(To read what happens when hatred is nourished, scrolled down to: “The Cork has Popped.”)

The cork has been popped on the fermentation of hate, greed, ignorance and despair, snaking through the veins and arteries of our country…

Festering.

Septic.

It’s not about who’s coming into our country.

It’s about us, we who are here.

It’s about turning our heads, covering our eyes, thinking, hoping it won’t affect us–maybe the other guys, but not us, not our families, not our friends. Or writing it off as just politics…Or being so embeded in our day-to-day lives in the distractions du jour…It’s about not looking up and outside the window of our lives…Not listening, hoping it will go away…Or writing it off as “just politics.” It’s about believing someone else will fix it when most of our leaders are stunned into silence or afraid to speak out or holding tight to what they think they have.

It’s about the porous boundaries of our sleeping minds that allow “a reality show” to merge into reality…

Or is it the other way around?

It’s about apathy.

It’s about not understanding that everyone’s “one vote” counts.

The real scary part: it’s about not knowing how Hitler came to power…Listen and you’ll hear the dictator’s voice.

(To learn about my neighborhood dogs at our cottage, scroll down to: “A Tale of Tails.”)

He strolled into our yard, like he owned the place, pooped, then barked at us, drawing the ire of our dogs, Daisy and Lucy, who took off after him as he squealed tearing back home. If I were to describe this seven-month-old puppy to a forensic sketch artist, all I could say is that he sports a black head and spot near his rump, otherwise grayish fur. Breed: several. This new mutt pup of the neighborhood is named Meatball, not his initial name—a handle that was more sophisticated, but it didn’t stick. So, Meatball it is. A pest: maybe. A threat: NOT.

The neighborhood I speak of is at our cottage on a remote lake where dogs can run free—if they mostly behave themselves. I like this concept. I grew up on a beach of Lake Huron’s, and back in the day dogs lived their lives as free as the kids. When I walked down our tarred dirt road, dogs would run up to greet me. It  delighted me. They were my friends. So, being able to allow our two cavapoos—mutts with a fancy breed name—to run unrestricted up here in the North Country feels like life as it should be.

Two of the neighborhood dogs are only allowed out for exercise and a swim in the lake after we’ve gathered up all the other canines, giving them refuge from the bad boys of the neighborhood. Well, the brothers, Gus and Gunner, aren’t actually “bad,” more like can’t be completely trusted. Gus (mug shot above) is approximately the size of a small horse and holds strong opinions about others of his kind. Gunner, a yearling, has the enthusiasm and size of a new born colt, and could run down anything in his path–he’s not called “Gunner” for nothing.

Meatball has an older sister, Marley, a free spirit who runs with the lake breeze. She’s a golden retriever and who-knows-what. Yesterday I was out cleaning up the yard. Exhausted, hot, I flopped down in a chair at the fire pit to recuperate. Out of nowhere Marley made a beeline through our yard, down to the beach and leapt into the water. After swimming five circles–I counted–the diameter of a kid’s inflatable outdoor pool, she came bounding back and slammed on her brakes two yards from me: pooped. Geez, she could have at least hid behind a tree, out of my sight. Brazen bitch! After her expulsion, she took off. I yelled after her, letting her know I thought she was rude…

I lifted my sweaty self out of the chair and retrieved the pooper scooper…Like, I didn’t have enough to do.

Last, but not least, there’s Otis–pictured sitting on back of sofa. Though I’m fond of every dog around here. He’s my favorite neighborhood pooch. Otis is a Shih Tzu—and maybe something else. The old guy has no teeth, which allows his tongue to droop out, at will. Luckily it’s not so long that it trips him up as he wanders around between his place and two other houses he favors—ours is one of them.

In the mornings when I go out with Daisy and Lucy, treats in hand—only awarded after they’ve done their business—we likely find Otis waiting. Of course I give him a dog reward too. I figure he’s already taken care of his bodily elimination needs, waiting for us to get up. Besides, how can I ignore his irresistible mug, wagging tail, and off-the-charts lovability factor looking up at me?

I can’t. No way!

Throughout the day and evening, Otis often makes his way into our house, slipping in, camouflaged in the same approximate size and color as our pooches. He’s learned our routines. Unlike Daisy and Lucy, Otis can’t jump onto our bed, though he initially tried when he first decided he’d like to nap with us. His initial attempt at boarding had to have been painful: he’d backed up and flew toward our resting spot, but slammed into the side, not possessing the lift required to mount our princess-and-the-peas high mattress. Since then, he’s offered a boost up—there’s no end to how a dog can manipulate me.

As I  write this tale of tails, Otis has jumped up onto my chair and made himself comfortable, beside me. Problem is, his head keeps flopping over onto my keyboard, creating new spellings for my words, discouraging me from writing further.

Please forgive any typos.

(To read about how to spread prejudice, scroll down to: “A Bad Sentence in Every Way.”)