September 26, 2003
Talking Trash
Tuesday night I had a dream about trash. In the dream, I was working at
KFC, must've been college. And I fixated on the trash in the restaurant
within the dream. I can still smell the trash there if I think about it - a
mix of vinegary cole slaw sauce remnants, the scrapings off of the trays
that held the chicken, too-old mashed potatoes, and, if you're in the
"back," chicken blood.
That's not the point of this post, though. When I awakened on Wednesday morning, I spent five additional minutes thinking about trash because of the dream.
My father was a collector of non-trashy trash. You know, that stuff that should be thrown out but one doesn't have the heart to do it? It's not going to rot or anything, so there's nothing that would necessitate throwing it a way. He was a true pack rat. I have a bit of that in me but not as extreme. I'm going to illustrate.
My mother and father have a house with a large attic. About four months after my father died, my mother asked Brian and me to come down with Brian's truck and remove the items still located in the attic. I balked at this a bit, knowing what a chore this would be; my poor mother had NO idea.
So after doing a few other various chores around her house and yard on an April Saturday morning in 2001, we decided to tackle the attic, the storage part of which is located above the garage. There's a pull-down ladder that you extend and then climb up. The item removal line went from Brian in the attic to Heather on the lowest step to Heather's mother who stood a bit to the right of the ladder.
The stuff just kept coming. At first it was funny - you know, like, when we pulled out the first of three toilets. Because we moved a lot as a family, there was a truckload (we know - we hauled it!) of recyclable cardboard moving boxes). There were all of the toys/stuffed animals/books that I kept from childhood. There was some furniture. It took HOURS. HOURS! And it seemed like it would never end.
In the end (that eventually came), though, it was a truckload that my mother and Brian took to the local dump, a truckload of recycling, and a truckload of items Brian and I brought home with us.
Three truckloads of stuff in the attic. We cleaned out the garage, too, and in so doing, my mother moved a board resting against the back garage wall and rediscovered the spot where my father was once too overzealous in backing his boat into the garage. He was always "going to fix that."
And we laughed and sighed. It's obviously not important, all of the little things left undone - not like you choose to suddenly die at 62. I think bringing down the trash/recycling really helped clearly define some of what my father was about, something I have in me, too. That strange unwillingness to let go of certain things, a wistfulness attached to a thing or twelve - maybe recognized as such, most likely not.
My father would've been 65 today. Perhaps that's the dream, or why I connected the dream with THAT particular trash. That day, though it was a whole lot of work, is one of the most memorable days of my adult life. And that comes a couple of years later after some serious reflection and can be reduced to a sentence.
It's hard to let go.
James Allen Igert, 9/26/1938 - 12/6/2000.
hln
That's not the point of this post, though. When I awakened on Wednesday morning, I spent five additional minutes thinking about trash because of the dream.
My father was a collector of non-trashy trash. You know, that stuff that should be thrown out but one doesn't have the heart to do it? It's not going to rot or anything, so there's nothing that would necessitate throwing it a way. He was a true pack rat. I have a bit of that in me but not as extreme. I'm going to illustrate.
My mother and father have a house with a large attic. About four months after my father died, my mother asked Brian and me to come down with Brian's truck and remove the items still located in the attic. I balked at this a bit, knowing what a chore this would be; my poor mother had NO idea.
So after doing a few other various chores around her house and yard on an April Saturday morning in 2001, we decided to tackle the attic, the storage part of which is located above the garage. There's a pull-down ladder that you extend and then climb up. The item removal line went from Brian in the attic to Heather on the lowest step to Heather's mother who stood a bit to the right of the ladder.
The stuff just kept coming. At first it was funny - you know, like, when we pulled out the first of three toilets. Because we moved a lot as a family, there was a truckload (we know - we hauled it!) of recyclable cardboard moving boxes). There were all of the toys/stuffed animals/books that I kept from childhood. There was some furniture. It took HOURS. HOURS! And it seemed like it would never end.
In the end (that eventually came), though, it was a truckload that my mother and Brian took to the local dump, a truckload of recycling, and a truckload of items Brian and I brought home with us.
Three truckloads of stuff in the attic. We cleaned out the garage, too, and in so doing, my mother moved a board resting against the back garage wall and rediscovered the spot where my father was once too overzealous in backing his boat into the garage. He was always "going to fix that."
And we laughed and sighed. It's obviously not important, all of the little things left undone - not like you choose to suddenly die at 62. I think bringing down the trash/recycling really helped clearly define some of what my father was about, something I have in me, too. That strange unwillingness to let go of certain things, a wistfulness attached to a thing or twelve - maybe recognized as such, most likely not.
My father would've been 65 today. Perhaps that's the dream, or why I connected the dream with THAT particular trash. That day, though it was a whole lot of work, is one of the most memorable days of my adult life. And that comes a couple of years later after some serious reflection and can be reduced to a sentence.
It's hard to let go.
James Allen Igert, 9/26/1938 - 12/6/2000.
hln
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September 13, 2003
Shredding
I file all of the household papers, and for the last six months to a year or
so I've been putting off the task of cleaning out the filing cabinets,
having done it about a year ago and the things are STILL stuffed with
paper.
Paper we don't necessarily need.
So, today, Brian and I journeyed to Office Depot and bought a little $9.99 shredder.
I've found some interesting things today in those files. I've discarded (to the toothed shredding machine I have not yet named) any old bills that have my maiden name on them (seeing as I've been married close to 4 1/2 years, y'know) - things like that. All the ancient bank statements and pay stubs - things you don't want to THROW away because they're just too personal.
I find this extremely liberating - like - perhaps there's something symbolic about this, some quasi-renewal, a purge of things unnecessary. A silly sort of catharsis. I'm working on filling up my third trash bag of colorful (though mostly white) recyclable material. Wahoo! No more filing dread, and perhaps I can organize my life a bit. I predict I'll have five bags full before I'm done.
hln
Paper we don't necessarily need.
So, today, Brian and I journeyed to Office Depot and bought a little $9.99 shredder.
I've found some interesting things today in those files. I've discarded (to the toothed shredding machine I have not yet named) any old bills that have my maiden name on them (seeing as I've been married close to 4 1/2 years, y'know) - things like that. All the ancient bank statements and pay stubs - things you don't want to THROW away because they're just too personal.
I find this extremely liberating - like - perhaps there's something symbolic about this, some quasi-renewal, a purge of things unnecessary. A silly sort of catharsis. I'm working on filling up my third trash bag of colorful (though mostly white) recyclable material. Wahoo! No more filing dread, and perhaps I can organize my life a bit. I predict I'll have five bags full before I'm done.
hln
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September 06, 2003
Disappointment Afoot
I'll quote Dante from Clerks, "I'm not even supposed to BE here
today."
By this I mean home.
Today is the MS 150. In Columbia, MO, not St. Louis. I'm in St. Louis. Home.
This post will get really personal. I don't often do that, and I probably won't do that again until November 1, 2003. If it's too much or uninteresting, well, there are other things noted below, or you could go reread the PETA post that will eventually be above this. Or the Blogger/Blogspot rant that will shortly follow that.
Yesterday was Friday, the day before the event. I had planned to leave work between 12:30 and 1:30 to go home, pack, get bike (can't forget the bike), grab all other necessities, and head out to Columbia for the MS 150. I was nervous/excited. Okay, I was nearly manic.
At about 9:15, I walked over to Starbucks with a bunch of the guys from work, three of whom are on my MS 150 team, so we talked about the ensuing ride a bit. We returned to work at about 9:30. I had noticed a twinge in my middle toe on my left foot about halfway back from Starbucks.
My toes are really close together, and if I don't really keep abreast of the toenail length, occasionally one toenail will cut into its adjacent toe, sometimes drawing blood. I took off the shoe and sock to check on it. The little guy was painful to the touch - seemed to be the case, but no blood yet. Having no clippers on hand, and wanting to make sure it didn't get any worse, I did what I thought to be the wisest thing. I bit the edge off so it would not exacerbate the irritated part. Once, in June, I thought I'd be really wise and just tear off the offending part of the toenail. I got the WHOLE toenail, so I decided not to try to do that again.
Time passes. I'm working. At about 10:30, the thing is throbbing. I mention this in mild complaint fashion to my coworkers. Hans stops by and mentions that I might want to stop at Walgreen's to get a cushion for it so that the 5 - 6 hours of cycling on Saturday doesn't irritate it too much for me to function as a cyclist on Sunday.
By 11:30, the pain has doubled. I take off the sock and shoe yet again and pronounce myself with a toe infection. I call the doctor, wise woman that I am. Luckily, the nurse practitioner can see me today - at 1:30.
I eat lunch - read the blogs of all of you good people who occasionally stop by to see mine. That takes my mind off it some. I get up to wash my salad bowl, and by this point, I really can't walk without torturous pain. I freak out accordingly, take my cell phone outside, and try to call Brian.
Who just happens to be at lunch. (Imagine that - it's lunchtime). I call my mother because she always helps. Between limping/pacing and talking to her, I pass the time between lunch and the appointment. Brian also returns my call.
I drive to the appointment (yes, across the street). After about a fifteen-minute wait, I'm deposited in the little doctor's room, and I remove my sock and shoe and prop up my ailing toe.
Said ailing toe is red, inflamed, swollen, and there's a pencil-width line of what I perceived to be infection that runs from the toe 3/4 of the way up to my ankle.
Whoa, okay. No wonder that hurt. Thing is, this manifested itself in the period between 9:30 a.m. and 1:45 p.m. Very scary, and of course, a very disheartening sight considering my weekend plans.
I unfortunately have a nice long wait for the nurse practitioner, or at least it seemed. I call my mother again and have a "feel sorry for self" session. The NP arrives. She frowns at my foot. I fill her in between gasps of tears that I'm supposed to ride the MS 150 this weekend. She's not a cyclist I learn later (most people probably aren't), and probably didn't understand, but she can tell I'm certainly upset, and it ain't about the pain.
She asks for the chronicle of events. So I give it, matter of fact. 9:30 onset, 1:45 (probably now 2:00 p.m., this is how it looks). I explain the part about the toenail problem I have - the cutting thing, and I mention biting off the end of the toenail. She completely loses control with laughter. This is contagious. I start laughing too, not sure why she's laughing. She said, "you can put your foot to your mouth?" I said, "well, yeah" and then demonstrated by bringing a leg up and setting my foot to my cheek. Which made her laugh even harder. So, a moment of levity. I guess everybody can't do that.
She leaves me be again to find my doctor.
The time alone sets the emotional roller coaster in motion. I am supposed to be the person to collect our jerseys and ferry them over to some of the guys at their hotel. I call Hans and attempt (in snivelling fashion) to explain that I'm not a likely candidate for this task any longer. Not sure how much of the info I actually got to him because the doctor arrived and I pretty much abruptly terminated the phone call.
The doctor is my normal doctor, so he has a general feel for my personality and my training, and I've probably mentioned the cycling to him. I explain the event of this weekend. He frowns.
He said, "do you clip in?" I said, "yeah." He frowns again.
He gives my foot that doctorly stare and judgment, "mmmHmmm." He then pronounces it a strep infection and then proceeds to give me a set of instructions that he repeats no fewer than three times.
2 grams a day.
I eventually gather my new medicine and limp out. The drive home produces a tug-of-war match in my head between Reason and Emotion. They're both pretty battered right now. Reason agrees with the nurse practitioner and Brian, who want me to stay home and ensure I get better. Emotion keeps calling me a wimp and a loser for even attempting to listen to Reason. See, I don't have the devil and the angel on the shoulder. I have Reason and Emotion. Good enough, I guess.
I return home and take the medicine with food, as instructed. And then I decide to be cycling Cinderella. My bike shoes are lying by the couch. I slip them on. I stand. No way. There's absolutely no way.
150 miles will take me between 10 and 12 hours of actual cycling time to do. At a cadence (RPM) of, oh, say 90, that's...5400 cycles per hour, meaning at least 54000 revolutions. Jabbing pain with each.
So, no MS 150 - the compromise possibility is an MS 75. I tell myself this as I call my friend Susan, whose husband is the captain of the team. Susan, I'm not going to be there. Here's why. This finally sinks in, and she takes the jersey distribution responsibility off my hands. I feel like a wimpy heel.
I next call Sheryl, wife of Adam, at whose home I am slated to crash for the next two days. I explain the predicament. I let Emotion have the phone for about 3 minutes during that explanation. She says to me, "Take pictures. Put them on your blog." I get a good laugh out of that. And do what she says.
I'm kind enough to not post them in the main spot, but if you're my mother, curious, or have already pronounced me a wimp, you may want to visit footpics. I have yesterday's and today's up. The pictures serve as fantastic objective evidence when I need to stop beating myself up.
The other funny and rational thing I did was take a black Sharpie and mark the point on my ankle past which the infection cannot go without necessitating a trip to the friendly local hospital. Thankfully, it does not seem to be spreading. The redness from it is a bit wider in my foot near the toe, and my toe is forming a pus bomb (yucky, I know) in the middle on the side/top that's about as wide/tall as a thumbtack.
What now? Research. I got online and looked up strep infections that were not of the throat. I found that Ed Belfour, goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs, missed at least a game for a strep-infected thumb. I felt a bit better. Hockey players don't miss games very often.
So, terrible timing = no MS 150. Only good news? It didn't happen today. If it had happened today, I probably would have ridden through the pain, had a horrible time, and had the infection crawling into my leg instead of merely my foot. And, there's a century planned for the end of the month. It'll take the place symbolically of this ride. It's the best I can do.
More good news? If Blogger ever comes back, more blogging. And I get to keep my foot.
hln
By this I mean home.
Today is the MS 150. In Columbia, MO, not St. Louis. I'm in St. Louis. Home.
This post will get really personal. I don't often do that, and I probably won't do that again until November 1, 2003. If it's too much or uninteresting, well, there are other things noted below, or you could go reread the PETA post that will eventually be above this. Or the Blogger/Blogspot rant that will shortly follow that.
Yesterday was Friday, the day before the event. I had planned to leave work between 12:30 and 1:30 to go home, pack, get bike (can't forget the bike), grab all other necessities, and head out to Columbia for the MS 150. I was nervous/excited. Okay, I was nearly manic.
At about 9:15, I walked over to Starbucks with a bunch of the guys from work, three of whom are on my MS 150 team, so we talked about the ensuing ride a bit. We returned to work at about 9:30. I had noticed a twinge in my middle toe on my left foot about halfway back from Starbucks.
My toes are really close together, and if I don't really keep abreast of the toenail length, occasionally one toenail will cut into its adjacent toe, sometimes drawing blood. I took off the shoe and sock to check on it. The little guy was painful to the touch - seemed to be the case, but no blood yet. Having no clippers on hand, and wanting to make sure it didn't get any worse, I did what I thought to be the wisest thing. I bit the edge off so it would not exacerbate the irritated part. Once, in June, I thought I'd be really wise and just tear off the offending part of the toenail. I got the WHOLE toenail, so I decided not to try to do that again.
Time passes. I'm working. At about 10:30, the thing is throbbing. I mention this in mild complaint fashion to my coworkers. Hans stops by and mentions that I might want to stop at Walgreen's to get a cushion for it so that the 5 - 6 hours of cycling on Saturday doesn't irritate it too much for me to function as a cyclist on Sunday.
By 11:30, the pain has doubled. I take off the sock and shoe yet again and pronounce myself with a toe infection. I call the doctor, wise woman that I am. Luckily, the nurse practitioner can see me today - at 1:30.
I eat lunch - read the blogs of all of you good people who occasionally stop by to see mine. That takes my mind off it some. I get up to wash my salad bowl, and by this point, I really can't walk without torturous pain. I freak out accordingly, take my cell phone outside, and try to call Brian.
Who just happens to be at lunch. (Imagine that - it's lunchtime). I call my mother because she always helps. Between limping/pacing and talking to her, I pass the time between lunch and the appointment. Brian also returns my call.
I drive to the appointment (yes, across the street). After about a fifteen-minute wait, I'm deposited in the little doctor's room, and I remove my sock and shoe and prop up my ailing toe.
Said ailing toe is red, inflamed, swollen, and there's a pencil-width line of what I perceived to be infection that runs from the toe 3/4 of the way up to my ankle.
Whoa, okay. No wonder that hurt. Thing is, this manifested itself in the period between 9:30 a.m. and 1:45 p.m. Very scary, and of course, a very disheartening sight considering my weekend plans.
I unfortunately have a nice long wait for the nurse practitioner, or at least it seemed. I call my mother again and have a "feel sorry for self" session. The NP arrives. She frowns at my foot. I fill her in between gasps of tears that I'm supposed to ride the MS 150 this weekend. She's not a cyclist I learn later (most people probably aren't), and probably didn't understand, but she can tell I'm certainly upset, and it ain't about the pain.
She asks for the chronicle of events. So I give it, matter of fact. 9:30 onset, 1:45 (probably now 2:00 p.m., this is how it looks). I explain the part about the toenail problem I have - the cutting thing, and I mention biting off the end of the toenail. She completely loses control with laughter. This is contagious. I start laughing too, not sure why she's laughing. She said, "you can put your foot to your mouth?" I said, "well, yeah" and then demonstrated by bringing a leg up and setting my foot to my cheek. Which made her laugh even harder. So, a moment of levity. I guess everybody can't do that.
She leaves me be again to find my doctor.
The time alone sets the emotional roller coaster in motion. I am supposed to be the person to collect our jerseys and ferry them over to some of the guys at their hotel. I call Hans and attempt (in snivelling fashion) to explain that I'm not a likely candidate for this task any longer. Not sure how much of the info I actually got to him because the doctor arrived and I pretty much abruptly terminated the phone call.
The doctor is my normal doctor, so he has a general feel for my personality and my training, and I've probably mentioned the cycling to him. I explain the event of this weekend. He frowns.
He said, "do you clip in?" I said, "yeah." He frowns again.
He gives my foot that doctorly stare and judgment, "mmmHmmm." He then pronounces it a strep infection and then proceeds to give me a set of instructions that he repeats no fewer than three times.
- This is a very virulent infection. I am going to give you the strongest antibiotic there is in pill form. Take this every 12 hours. It will kill ALL of the bacteria in your body.
- If the infection increases, go to the hospital for IV antibiotics. (He repeats #1, so I really get this more like 6 times instead of 3).
- You can ride. It will hurt horribly. You won't worsen it by riding. However, the antibiotics will give you diarrhea, which should dissipate by Sunday.
- (Repeat #2).
2 grams a day.
I eventually gather my new medicine and limp out. The drive home produces a tug-of-war match in my head between Reason and Emotion. They're both pretty battered right now. Reason agrees with the nurse practitioner and Brian, who want me to stay home and ensure I get better. Emotion keeps calling me a wimp and a loser for even attempting to listen to Reason. See, I don't have the devil and the angel on the shoulder. I have Reason and Emotion. Good enough, I guess.
I return home and take the medicine with food, as instructed. And then I decide to be cycling Cinderella. My bike shoes are lying by the couch. I slip them on. I stand. No way. There's absolutely no way.
150 miles will take me between 10 and 12 hours of actual cycling time to do. At a cadence (RPM) of, oh, say 90, that's...5400 cycles per hour, meaning at least 54000 revolutions. Jabbing pain with each.
So, no MS 150 - the compromise possibility is an MS 75. I tell myself this as I call my friend Susan, whose husband is the captain of the team. Susan, I'm not going to be there. Here's why. This finally sinks in, and she takes the jersey distribution responsibility off my hands. I feel like a wimpy heel.
I next call Sheryl, wife of Adam, at whose home I am slated to crash for the next two days. I explain the predicament. I let Emotion have the phone for about 3 minutes during that explanation. She says to me, "Take pictures. Put them on your blog." I get a good laugh out of that. And do what she says.
I'm kind enough to not post them in the main spot, but if you're my mother, curious, or have already pronounced me a wimp, you may want to visit footpics. I have yesterday's and today's up. The pictures serve as fantastic objective evidence when I need to stop beating myself up.
The other funny and rational thing I did was take a black Sharpie and mark the point on my ankle past which the infection cannot go without necessitating a trip to the friendly local hospital. Thankfully, it does not seem to be spreading. The redness from it is a bit wider in my foot near the toe, and my toe is forming a pus bomb (yucky, I know) in the middle on the side/top that's about as wide/tall as a thumbtack.
What now? Research. I got online and looked up strep infections that were not of the throat. I found that Ed Belfour, goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs, missed at least a game for a strep-infected thumb. I felt a bit better. Hockey players don't miss games very often.
So, terrible timing = no MS 150. Only good news? It didn't happen today. If it had happened today, I probably would have ridden through the pain, had a horrible time, and had the infection crawling into my leg instead of merely my foot. And, there's a century planned for the end of the month. It'll take the place symbolically of this ride. It's the best I can do.
More good news? If Blogger ever comes back, more blogging. And I get to keep my foot.
hln
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