HMOKeefe

The Doctor and The Lioness

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

lionessI grew up, as did many folks my age, watching shows like Wild Kingdom and Flipper and Born Free. After years of such fare, I either internalized a phenomenon that I couldn’t articulate until after my son was born or, more likely, I just bore witness to behavior I would acquire on my own.

Said phenomenon was a set of behaviors centered on an attitude. Before Chef Boy ‘R Mine, I attributed the onset of these behaviors and that attitude to any number of things: my sense of justice, PMS, love, exhaustion. After Child-of-Mine’s birth, we coined a phrase to label this state of being, force of nature, whirlwind of 6’ woman with hair on fire. We called it Don’t-Fuck-With-The-Mama.

Think for a moment on every story you’ve ever heard or read about the mama bear, the lioness or the normally sweet-tempered family dog who turned into a wailing banshee of hell’s fury unleashed when the pups, cubs, kittens were endangered.

My child was a medical miracle and his first few months of life involved a lot of doctors and an insurance company who did not understand DFWTM.

I don’t yell. I don’t, generally, curse when confronting the problem. I don’t flail about or commit bodily harm – at least I haven’t yet. But I am either an immovable object or an unstoppable force. I say “unacceptable” a lot.

mama bearDFWTM extends to anyone I care deeply about though it is much stronger when my son is involved. Go ahead; ask me about the time I interrupted a board meeting of a health insurance company to question their decision to deny my son a surgeon with actual cleft-lip repair experience? Or the time my son was bullied to the point of blood on a school bus and the driver let him off at the regular stop as if nothing had happened. You’ll not want to ask me about the principal at the local elementary school unless you have a lot of time. It’s probably best that we don’t get into the Unfortunate Incident With My Mom’s Doctor or the ridiculous employment rules that endangered my ex-husband’s life.

I am fiercely protective of who and what I love.

The past months have been DFWTM. This time it’s not my son, but my husband-in-fact-if-not-legally. It’s further indictment of the sad state of healthcare in this country that most of my truly epic DFWTH moments center on medical folks. I have many stories about the wondrous effects medical professionals have wrought. I give praise where it’s due. And I put on storm trooper boots and wage battle when they err. Sometimes the iron fist is velvet-gloved as in the recent statement, “I believe that I must insist you consult with his transplant team before you continue” and other times a tad more confrontational such as the, also recent, “You will not talk to me that way especially when you do not know what you’re talking about.”  But it’s pretty much a given that the shit is about to hit the fan, when I quit dealing with the person responsible for the mess and pick up the phone to involve someone else.

After these events, when I sheathed my talons and the adrenaline has receded, I wonder how it is that some of these folks have habituated these behaviors? Do they not deal with lionesses protecting cubs? Or are the lionesses losing their ferocity? Or are the lionesses submitting to an authority who hasn’t earned the privilege of trust?

Taylor Mali’s quote on authority comes to mind, particularly as I have just written an entire paragraph of questions.

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.

I entreat you to advocate, vigorously, for those you love. Lives depend on it.

The Mailbox, Derecho, Dumpster and Beetle

/ wvfurandroot / 3 Comments

I can read by this sucker!

July 7th (or maybe July 8th, it could be after midnight)

I’m sitting outside in the heat and neglect ravished garden writing this with pen and paper. It’s a night to make 72F past midnight feel like watermelon on ice.

The last time I blogged, I was trying to make my mailman happy. I may have succeeded. But here we are again, trying to make the mailman happy. HMOKeefe and the mailbox had a lover’s quarrel. He wielded a U-Haul and the mailbox stood silent, but not firm. After sprawling on the ground for several days in the debris of unwanted catalogs and carpet cleaning advertisements, the monster mailbox was tossed into the rental dumpster.

Exhausted, but victorious. The post, that is.

Boston Boy spent most of the day installing a new mailbox using some New England method that bears no resemblance to how anybody I know has ever installed a mailbox. It’s not going well. I say, “Um, you’re trying to pound that thing into bedrock,” and he says, “I did this in Massachusetts” and then I don’t say, “What part of any of this reminds you of Massachusetts?” But it’s been 3 weeks without a mailbox and another day or 300 doesn’t matter. I’m not the mail junkie.  The new post is sprawled in the driveway, exhausted but victorious against insertion into bedrock.

Oh, yes, rental dumpster. It’s been exciting times around the old barn and, really, if you’ve never rented a dumpster, do so. Before things got worse, I had a lot of fun running around like June Cleaver on crack de-junking the house.

I am too damn old for all the excitement of the past several months.

In no particular order, I offer up the following as a sort of “What I did on my summer vacation” essay.

1. The Derecho.

2. Three downed trees.

3. 6 nights and 5 days (and counting) of no power

First floor of the house. For upstairs, add 10 degrees.

4. Heat index between 105 and 115

5. The pied-à-terre abandoned (hence the Uhaul).

6. Mushrooms growing on my carpet.

7. New subfloor

8. Termites, carpenter ants, squirrels and a possum, all in the house, and all evicted.

9. Rotten bookcases.

Where are my bookcases?

10. 105 linear feet of homeless books PLUS HMO’Keefe’s.

11. Moldy drywall.

12. Packed the entire first floor of the barn.

13. New HVAC.

14. Chose new flooring, paint, and more paint.

15. Sanded drywall.

16. Acquired my first extension ladder.

17. New solid bottom (doesn’t that sound sort of risqué?) dishwasher to protect the as-of-yet-uninstalled new flooring.

Ah, there they are. Those aren’t bookcases, they’re trash.

18. Burl the Handyman Extraordinaire retired. Found Shorty, the Whirling Dervish Handyman.

19. Sheer, unceasing, unspeakable chaos at work.

20. Flunked the mammogram. Passed on the 3rd try.

21. More indignities of old age.

22. Even more.

23. Still yet more.

24. Filled the dumpster (and then some).

Building a new subfloor, fa la la.

25. This is only a partial list. I’m leaving out 26 through 147, but each and every one of them hold promise of a good story when I get to the point where I can laugh.I got a wee bit drunk last night. It was my only hope for sleep. I’ll never sleep tonight. It is, literally, 94F in the bedroom and the entire first floor is a construction zone. The only furniture available for human bodies are the wooden kitchen chairs. The idea of wine as a sleep aid is revolting and I’ve been mainlining water so I’ll pee every 30 seconds all night. Might as well just sit here.

AH DAMN. I JUST SWALLOWED A BEETLE.

After the Derecho slammer jammed West Virginia, 85% of the state lost power last Friday, including me. I woke Saturday morning to air conditioned comfort much to my astonishment. That astonishment grew as I learned about the Derecho, the state of emergency, the suffering that hurricane force winds during temps in excess of 100 can provoke. For those of you as ignorant of this weather phenomenon as I was, a Derecho is either Spanish or Sioux for Straight Arrow (different sources different origins). It’s a hurricane force wind that arrives with no warning and travels a great distance in a very short period of time wreaking havoc. This one started in the upper Midwest and didn’t stop until it knocked D.C off the grid. In 10 hours.

I routinely lose power. If a cloud somewhere sneezes, my power goes out. How did I get lucky? I don’t know. But I lost power in the second storm on Tuesday and here I sit, swallowing water and beetles.

Third degree mosquito bites fer shur, dude.

Boston Boy is resolved to sleep out here tonight. If he succeeds, we’ll be at the E.R. tomorrow tending to potential Lyme Disease and 3rd degree mosquito bites.

The IPhone is keeping me sane. I switch between Facebook, the APCO website and email. One thing led to another and I found Charlene on Facebook today. By the time she accepted my friend request, the battery was dead. So the phone is on the car charger and I’m losing the battle against the bugs. The nifty new lantern which was the last non-electric source of light available for purchase in the state of West Virginia is attracting June bugs who subsequently explode like tiny, wet fireworks when they get too close to the flame. (Yes, it’s gruesome, but there are that many fewer for me to swallow.

It’s a dandy lantern – 1500 lumens with an electronic ignition. If it just had wi-fi, I’d be all set.

I need a strait-jacket.

Besides every hotel being full to bursting with tree trimmers, power workers and the heat-tortured citizenry, we’re not in a hotel tonight for fiscally prudent reasons. Nor were we last night, but we were Thursday night because otherwise I was going to end up in either prison or the psych ward. But the, “Gee! Let’s put in new flooring” torture and massacre of every penny and more in the budget has the checkbook keening loudly, although not loud enough to drown out the neighbors’ three, yes three, generators. I hate the sound. Hate it. It sounds like a stampeding herd of semi-trucks. I just know the neighbors are over there wearing sweaters and surfing the Internet while sipping something frothy with lots of ice.

[Connie looks forlornly at the 2” of dirty water in the bottom of the cooler.]

So, it seems I’ve blogged again.

Find contentment in creating chaos.

It’s now Sunday evening, about 10 p.m. I’ve had power since shortly before 2 p.m. Of course, another storm arrived shortly thereafter which is wreaking havoc. Thus far, the power is on having only flickered once or twice. I have the AC cranked. I’m going to get this house freezing so if we lose power, and I expect to, we’ll have some spare cool air. However, the heat has broken. It’s a good 30 degrees cooler outside than it was this time last night. I expect to sleep well tonight. Last night I prowled Walmart after writing the above. Heat-induced insomnia is a terrible thing. I did manage a few hours of restless half-awake-half-asleep-all-miserable time in the bed. I did persuade HMO’Keefe to sleep indoors last night so no hospital adventures for us today.

Sleep well, y’all. And try to find contentment in chaos.

My mailman better smile tomorrow.

/ wvfurandroot / 5 Comments

My mailman complained.

HMO’Keefe gets more mail than any other private citizen in these the United States. I’m convinced of it. 99% are magazines and catalogs. Then there are the book clubs. Never mind that he can no longer read at the speed that he used to. He orders more and more. More and more arrive.

And then there are the medical bills followed up by confirmation from the insurance company. Then the banking and retirement account stuff.

You have to see it to believe it. We need a burro or at least a little red wagon to haul it into the house.

My long-suffering mailman complained. [Not the mailman that ended up in the tree – he retired. The new guy. A nicer guy you’ve never met.]

Under normal circumstances, I get very little mail. It’s been part of my modus operandi to leave the mail in the mailbox until I’m ready to sit down and deal with it. This can be a couple of days or nearly a week. When the mail comes out of the box, everything is immediately dealt with. The bills are paid. Junk mail goes in the trash. Magazines are read or put in designated magazine spot. Insurance statements filed. Yada yada.

Not as big as it looks. The barn roof makes it look like it holds more than it does.

Leaving it in the mailbox means I know where it is. You might think it a silly way of doing things. It works for me. My bills get paid on time. I don’t have to ransack the house

HMO’Keefe’s deluge of mail (bear in mind there’s another address a few miles away where he also gets mail) is making all of us a bit cranky.

The two of us also shop online a lot. Most of Christmas arrived by UPS, Fed-Ex or the USPS. All three have been delivering packages to my folks and my folks are a wee bit tired of being our mail drop.

There’s also the issue that HMO’Keefe lives for the mail. Or at least acts that way as he watches for the mailman and then bounds out the door to collect the mail which he then brings in and leaves scattered all over the place – not one piece of it thrown away. Not one advertising circular, not one car insurance come-on, not one Cigar Aficionado catalog thrown away despite his not having smoked a thing in nearly 40 years. He opens the envelope, looks at the contents, sets it aside. Wanders to another part of the house, where he opens something else. Rinse and repeat.

Did I mention I was cranky? Did I mention the mailman complained? Did I mention that I didn’t charge a single Christmas gift in part because my new-expiration-date-credit card got stuffed somewhere and nobody knew where.

For the first time in years, I had mail stacked everywhere. MY MAIL. And then there were the towers of his mail threatening to topple and kills us all.

Santa Claus took pity.

New crate?

Under the tree was a mailbox large enough to hold a body. The photos don’t do it justice. As Santa maneuvered through Anderson’s General Store in Columbus, folks moved to the side of the aisles to gape in astonishment at the mutant mailbox. One person asked if it was real.

It is. And it’s big enough to hold a week’s worth of mail and a package or two.

I went to Lowe’s to see if there was a pre-made platform available for my mailbox. Nope.

I went back to Lowe’s to see if they could sell me a piece a wood and cut it for me. I never found out because the Lowe’s guy suggested a bracket set-up that looked like it would do the trick a whole lot easier.

I thought about painting the mailbox a garish color, but decided to keep the elegant, understated black. At least until warmer weather.

I took off the old barn mailbox that I’ve hated almost since it was first put up 23 years ago. That actually went pretty easy.

The old mailbox is nestled in a pile of leaves outside the front door. I’m considering doing something with it INSIDE the house. I doubt HMO’Keefe will cotton to removing mail from one mailbox and putting it in another, but I may cogitate some more. If I could have all the mail (sans junk mail, magazines, advertising) in one place, I’d be less of a bitch.

Photo perspective is weird. This thing is HUGE.

I also removed the Herald Dispatch tube. They refused to deliver a paper to me well over 10 years ago. For reasons I don’t understand, there’s been an empty jar in the newspaper tube for years. Every time I thought to remove it, I would stop reaching just in time to avoid the giant wasp nest just inside the opening. January is a good time to destroy a wasp nest.

After removing the old mailbox, it was blatantly obvious the existing mailbox platform was inadequate even with the bracket gizmos.. The new mailbox would bow and bend and, probably, collapse if attached to the Barbie House sized mailbox platform.

Mail-related Trash

I persuaded my 72-year-old mother to play table saw with me.

After returning with a piece of wood cut to the right size and a power drill, I set to assembly. Other than the fact that I didn’t have the right kind of wood screws, it went well. I put in 4 screws. It’s kind of wobbly, but I have to stop at Lowe’s tomorrow anyway, so I’ll get 4 more screws to fill the empty screw holes and call it done.

Why do I have to stop at Lowe’s? Well everybody knows any project requires no less than 3 trips to Lowe’s. On my second trip, I bought a nifty house number thing that hangs from brackets either from the mailbox or the mailbox post. After opening it and looking at the parts, this thing had 89% chance of utter destruction within a couple of weeks. So back it goes. Along with the bracket gizmos.

Clean desk!

Since I had to tear off the old mailbox, I had to empty it of mail first. After playing with power tools, I came inside and rock’n’rolled through stacks of mail. I found my credit card. I found all sorts of stuff. I threw tons of stuff away. I have a large, heavy-duty black garbage bag nearly full with mail that has accumulated since Thanksgiving. The mail to be dealt with is down to a short-stack.

I’m feeling very virtuous.

My mailman better smile tomorrow. I told him a new mailbox was coming.

Art and Gwen’s first W. Va. Snow

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

Without ceremony, Art and Gwen were snatched from the ground in Massachusetts where they’d been deeply rooted for a number of winters, and tossed into a moving van on June 1st.  To mitigate the trauma, they were casually, but sincerely, promised milder winters which would make the most of their pinkness.

They didn’t ask any questions.  Shock and awe, probably.  Had they asked, I might have explained that a typical lower Ohio Valley winter is shades of gray. Snow, generally infrequent, is a big deal if it tops out 3-4″.  Their lithe legs may once again be buried in snow measured in feet, but it’s not likely.

I suppose it’s possible that Art and Gwen are snow lovers, but I’m guessing not.  When I went out to take their portrait, I swear I heard, “Hot damn! She was right!”