Rainy Day Man

It has been just a little bit of time since my last posting, but at least I have good reason. While most of you were out decking someone’s hall with loads of folly and swinging wildly from vines Divine, yours truly was in agony. It was discovered that lurking deep inside my wonderful urinary system far beyond bladder and release, lay a small quarry of stones.

That’s right –stones. Kidney stones. Oh what fun it is to ride to the ER room tonight! Well, actually I didn’t ride to the ER - I rode this one out. I rounded up my Vicodins, glasses of water and juice, and prepared for the exit. This is the third kidney stone episode in twelve years.

I know the scene all too well. You begin to think that you have a sore back or that you have to prepare for some throne reading and soon you realize that it isn’t your colon sending email to your brain, it’s your urethra Morse coding the nervous system that there is trouble in the right flank. After wandering around your living room, den,and kitchen gripping your lower back like Fred Sanford heading to meet Elizabeth, you grunt out a few syllables to whomever you can find with a driver’s license begging to be taken to relief. The problem is that by the time you get to the hospital and entertain a barrage of questions from insurance to suicide as you twirl, roll and bend, the pain is almost about to subside and you find yourself past the vomiting, cold sweats, and knotted stomach exhausted – sitting in a frigid laminate chair clawing at the sides and wishing you could have your co-pay back.

After my last stone I pledged to just stay home. Yet, after about three stone battles over a week and a half I finally called the urologist to make an appointment. I was pumped full of dye, prodded, poked, and x-rayed and found out that I was the lucky contestant behind blocked kidney number two for I was to receive an early morning meeting with Mr. Lithotripsy the following week. Lithotripsy is a wonderful technology whereby they sonically mule kick your kidney in an attempt to pulverize the stones. Ah, the grandness of modernity. Had I been born in 1823 I’m sure leeches, scalpels, and an ether rag would not have made me happy either.

So after the farm animal bugle horn technique they gave me a plastic filter and some pain meds and sent me home to a wonderful two weeks of urine straining in an attempt to catch those little fragmented stones. I shall spare the reader all tales of burning, mini-blood clots, and pain so intense that you will repeatedly slam your fist into your skull just because it feels better than what you are currently going through. Instead, I’ll just say that misery does indeed love company and echo the words of Mr. Dylan in saying that I would not feel so all alone, everybody must get stoned!

Deer Forest

I was finally able to experience deer hunting over these past few weeks. I’ve taken courses on hunter’s safety, read articles, learned about weapons, and have even taken NRA certification courses, but I’ve never had the chance to go on a real hunt.
A friend of mine was able to secure access to a restricted wooded area not too far from our homes that is near a small airport. It has few visitors and is perfect for stalking the elusive four-legged varmint of the woods.

As a former Boy Scout it was great to get back to the outdoors and woods and the feeling you can only get from being connected to the land – God’s land, the densely uncut fertile forest grounds and marsh and fields and tightly woven trails. Suddenly your eyes see seas of green and radiant colors that only show their fancies in this domain.

There will be a few hippie chicks that will toss handfuls of Sierra Club mist in my face and use my chubby cheeks as fodder for their Earth Day cannons for making such a blasphemous comment, but I do believe that earth bonding is uniquely male. We are to subdue the earth and all that is in it; not as mongers and natural rapists but rather as dominant stewards and concerned caretakers. It is in this context that a man comes alive in the forest as he seeks to observe, scout, plan, and conquer.

Rifle in hand. Boots strapped tight. Compass abreast. Eyes wide and ears up, every step is planted and loud and every leaf turn is a chorus. Thick-thicket walls. Chilled ankle deep water. Towering pines. And smoothly orchestrated breezes that bring cool refreshment to the sensory dance.

Two full days, six varmints and no powder residue, but like fishing, the beauty is in the pursuit and we look forward to the steaks. Soon we will dance again.