Freak Magnet Dave

Let me preface this by saying I am not a fan of critters. Spiders, snakes, rodents, bugs...you name it, I call for The Squeeze to rescue me. Unless I'm feeling really butch at that moment. So you get the picture. Moving right along...

I left the house this morning with my dog on our way to work. Luckily I happen to work a block away from my house, so I usually leave about 15 minutes before I have to open my shop. This gives me ample time to let Stella do her business, and to arrive at the shop, unlock, and power up the computer, and turn on the lights.

This morning, I left a bit later than usual. There was laundry to be done, and some tidying up in the kitchen that was desperately needed. I stepped out the front door, and started walking down the main driveway of our complex when my next door neighbour called out to me from her garage.

I can't think of the last time I saw her, let alone spoke with her. She and her husband are pretty quiet, and keep to themselves. The look on her face showed some distress.

"How are you doing, Mary?"
"I'm OK. Can I ask you a favour?"
"Umm....sure."
"There's a dead mouse in front of my front door."

I'm sure I looked at her with a very blank, dissociative stare, both waiting for and dreading the upcoming question.

"Could you pick it up for me please?"

I could feel my eyes protruding a little bit as I shuddered inside.

"You don't have to do it right now. You can take the dog for a walk first."
"I better do it now, because I'm actually heading to work right now," I informed her.

I stepped to the side to see the offending critter at the entrance to her home, and there it was, lying on its side. Certainly dead. I looked back at Mary and asked if she might have something I could use to pick it up.

"I have a plastic bag," she said, which she then provided.

I've been picking up dog poop for nearly a year, so I just imagined that I was putting the baggie over my hand as if to pick up one of Stella's little piles. I grabbed the mouse by the tail, flipped the bag inside out, and tied it up. I looked in Mary's garage for their garbage can, and she looked at me like I had lost my mind.

"No, no! Put it in yours!" she said.

With time wasting, I didn't have time to go back into my house to throw our HER mouse, so I just said "Nevermind, I'll throw it in the can down the street."

Naturally, Stella had to leave another pile for me as we walked to work, so there I was balancing my bag with my lunch and other things I bring to work, my umbrella, Stella's leash, and a bag with a dead mouse, while I tried to stoop and scoop.

I am SUCH a multi-tasker. And SO butch! The Squeeze won't believe me. Of course, if I do tell him about this, he might expect me to kill my own spiders at home. This just might be our little secret.

OK, so I've mentioned about a thousand times that people who are lost have a real knack for coming into my shop and asking for directions. The one that happened moments ago pretty much takes the cake.

I was sitting at the computer, eating lunch and surfing the interwebs, when in walked an attractive young woman.
"I'm not sure if you can help me," she started. "I'm looking for #___ This St."
"Is it a business you're looking for?"
"It's __________."
"Oh, ok, that's just in the next building over, up the stairs on the second floor."
"How do I get upstairs?" she asked.

WHAT!? Did she just ask me how to get upstairs? Ya, I believe she did.

"Just walk in the front door and you'll just walk up the stairs."

Seriously. "How do I get upstairs?"
I guess I could have told her to walk around the back of the building and shimmy up the drain pipe, and shift herself along the eavestrough, and knock on the window, but I kinda have a feeling she would have done it. And that would just be mean.

The really sad part is that she appeared to be holding what I'm assuming was a resume in her hand. Good luck with that.

Saturday morning I met up with my baby-mama for the hand-off of the girls. My niece was having a birthday party for her son who was turning three, and for the event she rented a pretty cool indoor playground facility for a few hours that we ventured to.

There were about a dozen or so youngsters in attendance along with a variety of parents. All of the kids had a blast climbing up the platforms and weaving their way through paths and across bridges and down a variety of slides. There was an eating area where we had a bite to eat and to do the customary birthday cake and singing of 'Happy Birthday' and destruction of wrapping paper, after which the kids returned to the play area.

Throughout the time we were there, I had to take Zoe to pee once and had to take Brynn a few times to wash various food items from her hands. Each time we were in there, Brynn said "I don't have to pee yet." She's getting so independent.

About an hour before we were due to go, Brynn came running up to me. "Daddy, I have to pee!" "Uh-oh...hope it's not too late," my niece said.

I took her to the bathroom, she pulled down her pants and I lifted her up onto the toilet and I waited to hear the sound of success. She said something about her underpants being wet that I didn't quite catch. Not until after she hopped off the toilet and wiped did I notice that she hadn't pulled down her underpants when she pulled her pants down. I didn't notice because her shirt was just long enough to cover them.

Since I wasn't given a change of clothes for such an emergency, she had to go commando and I had to wash out her underwear in the sink and bag them up for the drive home.

When I came out of the bathroom, my niece asked me if we made it in time. "We did, but things didn't go well once we were in there."

As word of our misadventure in the bathroom made the rounds, much laughter filled the place. Brynn went back to playing and having fun with the other kids, and I was ever so grateful that she was wearing pants that day.

The next night I discovered an e-mail from my baby-mama that said she got quite a laugh out of Brynn saying "Daddy made me pee my pants" several times that afternoon and the next day.

I hope this won't require years of therapy for her.

I tell ya, that little girl of mine is too cute.

Easter Sunday, The Squeeze and I picked up the kids and headed to my brother and sister-in-law's place for lunch with the family. Upon entering the house, Brynn hawk-eyed in on some foil wrapped chocolate eggs that were "hidden" behind the couch in the living room. She drew in a gasp and began scooping up the goods. Then she saw more under the table, and on the window ledge, and by the TV, and around the piano, and by the lamp. She was scooping up chocolate like nobody's business. Zoe just stood by, looking at everyone while Brynn lost her mind.

As people milled about and found their way into the kitchen, dining room or family room, Brynn and I found ourselves alone in the living room for a moment. She walked up to the ceramic bunny bowl on the end table, brought her face in line with the bunny's and said "Thank you." That just melted my heart. To witness the sweetness, the innocence and the kindness of those words...I just can't tell you what I felt inside.


And now for something completely different....

Yesterday I had an elderly couple come into my shop to have an old wedding picture framed. I believe it was the woman's parents or grandparents in the photo, I don't recall which. At one point another client came in to pick something up and asked "Oh, is that your wedding picture?". If I were them, I'd be quite insulted. "Just how old do you think we are?" I'd ask. But they didn't seem bothered.

Obviously the photo was black & white, gray tones to be precise, so I was sorting through some gray mats to compliment the photo. They didn't like the gray, they wanted black. OK, no problem. A bit harsh and heavy for the piece, but it's not hanging on my wall. Then she asked for a metal frame. Again, not what I would pick. She wound up choosing a black metal frame with silver stripes. A little busy for my taste, but like I said...

After entering everything into the system, they got up and started to leave the store when the husband asked me the price of a framed nude sketch. As I looked at our stock list for the price, his wife really seemed to want to rush him out of the place. "What do you want with that picture? You don't know the lady." I gave him the price and they left.

I walked around the table to put the frame sample back on the wall and that's when I saw it.

Remember the Seinfeld episode where Poppy peed on Jerry's couch? That's right. The chair he was sitting on had a big wet spot. I'm thinking that's why the wife was trying to rush him out of there. She must have noticed it, or perhaps noticed that his pants were wet.

I spent the next hour or so blotting, diluting with water, blotting, diluting, blotting, spraying with Lysol, diluting, blotting. Out, out, damned spot! Out I say!

The fun never ends here.

Following my last post where I mentioned that my father was quite ill and losing his battle with cancer, I'm saddened to report that he passed away in late February, just about ten months after my mother's death to the same horrible disease.

I was able to stay with him during his last night in his own home. Unable to put up with the discomfort of being helped upstairs to his bed, he chose to sleep on the sofa in the living room, while I sat up by him most of the night. I knew things were coming to an end very soon. He hadn't eaten in a few days, was only able to drink very small amounts of water or Ensure in a day. His feet had swollen, apparently a symptom of kidney problems. And he was taking 10 fast acting morphine and 4 slow acting morphine pills a day as well as many other medications.

I helped him with his medication on that Saturday night, sitting beside him while he tried to take the five pills he was to take at bedtime. We started at 10:00 pm. It took until 11:30 until he took the last of them. Through his morphine-induced fog he was able to tell me in his frail voice that everything hurt. He was in a lot of pain and somewhat disoriented.

In the morning, he was due to take seven pills, but wasn't able to take a single one. He asked to go to the hospital. I called my brother and sister-in-law to let them know what was going on, and they called his doctor to make arrangements. It was around noon when the hospital had a room ready and we called for the ambulance to transfer him. It would be about three hours later when he had his first shot of morphine. Nearly 16 hours had elapsed since his last morphine pills were taken. I can't imagine the pain he felt. Eventually, he was outfitted with a morphine pump which game him a dose every 15 minutes.

Much of the family spent Sunday and Monday with him at the hospital. He was in such pain Monday evening. The morphine pump allowed us to administer additional doses as needed, but with a maximum number of doses per hour to prevent overdose. At one point he was pretty distressed and I'll never forget him yelling out "Help me!" as best as his voice was able, my sister frantically pressing the button on his pump.

I drove home that night, exhausted from the past few days and went to work on Tuesday morning, planning to return to the hospital after work. At 5:30 I received a call from one of my brothers. "Dave, can you come up to the hospital now?"
"Oh, God. Are things getting worse?"
"Ya, they did," he said.
"Is he gone?"
"Ya, he is."

I called The Squeeze and found he was already home from work, scribbled a note and taped it to the shop door and proceeded to walk the dog home. The Squeeze met me halfway and we walked home in silence until I got in the door and broke down. I got in the car and drove to the hospital. It seems that at times like this, it is inevitable that you get behind slow drivers and stuck at every red light. I even had to stop for gas or risk getting stranded in the country. Between bouts of tears, I calmed myself by reasoning that he is now out of pain and at peace, together again with my mother who he missed terribly, and my brother who died nearly ten years ago.

When I arrived at the hospital, I met my brother's widow in the parking lot and we hugged. But I needed to get inside. When I made my way onto the ward, I was met with a throng of family members. I remember hugging my aunt and uncle - my parents' closest friends, whose son is also battling cancer. I walked into the room to see many of my nieces and nephews, my sister, my brothers, and my father lying on his bed. I held his hand, whispered in his ear, told him I loved him and thanked him for being my father, and gently placed kissed fingers to his lips.

The next few days are a blur. I stayed at his house with my dog, crating her as needed while making funeral arrangements or running errands. I drove back home a couple of times to get clothes and grab a shower and touch base with The Squeeze. Most days and nights my father's house was full of family, gathered to be together, sorting through photographs, writing the announcement, and looking after all the other details one must tend to at times such as this.

Friday was the visitation, and I was touched by the sheer volume of people coming to pay their respects. All of my dearest friends arrived to offer their support, and it was so gratefully received.

The funeral service and burial was performed on Saturday, followed by a luncheon put on by the ladies of the church. My brother got up to say some words about our father, and offered up a moment of silence to pray for our cousin who was in intensive care, having just undergone emergency surgery due to complications from his earlier cancer surgery. My brother has a way with words, and there was hardly a dry eye in the place. He spoke of holding my father's hand when he passed away, and reflected on many of the things his hands had done throughout his life. From cabinetmaker to house painter, even mentioning his famous "gehst du!", which is German, loosely translated to "get out of here!", often accompanied with a comical, yet effective backhand to the head when we were acting up as kids. The cousin in intensive care does a mean impression of my father doing this.

And so we gathered again at the house to reminisce and be together, realizing that we are at the end of an era in my family. The glue that held my family together is gone, as it was when my grandmother passed away many years ago. We rarely see each other now, our cousins, aunts and uncles. As time marches on, we become more than the branches of our family tree. We grow and move on. We become roots, and branch out ourselves with our own partners and children and grandchildren. The roots we had are gone now. There's no going back. Those roots now exist only in our memories, and in our own character. They are reflected in the things we have learned and in turn pass on to our own children, wishing only that they had the opportunity to know them as we did, or at least as long as we did.

My father was taken in to see his oncologist yet again yesterday. He had a bone scan last week, and they determined that the cancer hasn't spread to his bones, but the cancer in his liver has spread and is very aggressive. My brother asked the doctor what kind of time line they were looking at. My sister and my father didn't want to know, so the doctor spoke with my brother privately. Last night when I got in from work, my sister-in-law (the family bearer of bad news) called me to give me the update. She asked if I wanted to know. After a long pause, I decided that I would rather know the prognosis. She informed me that my father has between 3 to 6 months.

The doctor again suggested that he should make alternate living arrangements rather than staying in his house alone. In the recent past my sister and another of my brothers has offered to have him move in with them, as they have one-floor homes, and he has refused. He still wants to stay at home. My sister-in-law suggested that we take turns staying with him until such time comes that he is not physically able to get around and will likely be hospitalized.

At this point only two of my brothers and myself are aware of the time he has left. My sister and my other brother do not know, nor do any of the grandchildren. The Squeeze asked me last night after the call whether or not I'd like to know how much time I had left if I were in my father's shoes. It was difficult to answer, but I finally said that I would. It would make me do things that I might not if I thought I had a lot of time left. I would spend more time with friends and family. I would probably do a lot of writing. I would let those closest to me know how much they meant in my life.

This is not going to be an easy time, especially after losing my mother to cancer nine months ago. So often I wish I could just go back in time. Back to my teen years when I didn't have a care in the world and Death hadn't yet come to call. But that is folly. I am where I am at this point in time as planned by someone or something much more powerful than me. I am blessed with a loving, supportive husband, and we have two wonderful little girls in our lives that bring us so much joy. I have an incredible network of friends who are there for me when the wheels fall off. I have family that has been dragged through Hell more times than I care to count, and I know we'll pull through this again. And I have faith that my mother and brother are waiting to welcome my father when his time with us here is done.

OK, just had to share this from www.totallylookslike.com
The comments cracked me up, especially the last one.

Barack Obama Totally Looks Like Ilham Anas

noone
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:06 am