March 2017

thu mar 2
Everyone I know hates the winter, but I like it.
It’s a blustery cold day and the wind is kicking up swirl-pools of snow in the orchard, and I’m watching it happen from the warm side of a window.
In the summer, I feel a little guilty when I work inside because … it’s nice out.
But in the winter, I get to stay inside and play, guilt free, because  …
There’s no way I’m going out there!

sat mar 4
The thicknesses of the walls at the green house varies. Sometimes there’s an 8×8 post in the wall. Sometimes there’s an olde tyme 2″ x 4″ 2×4. There are no walls, though, which are a standard 2×6 plus 1/2″ of sheathing, so when I replaced the windows, it was impossible to buy them with sidewalls matching the wall thickness. Some of them stuck out past the sheetrock, and the rest needed extensions, but all of them had to be trimmed flush.
I made a primitive router jig and a helluva mess, and I was tired and sore and working on the very last window, standing on the very last rung of a 10′ step ladder, trimming the window over ‘the abyss,’ when I grabbed the router wrong and got my thumb stuck against the spindle. Blood everywhere.
Shit, Piss, Fuck, and Damn!

thu mar 9
Mary wanted a rice cooker for Christmas, so I gave her one.
She said they cook perfect rice every time but it turns out that, just like stove-top cooking, you can still make glue out of the rice if you add too much water and cook it too long. Good thing we always read and follow the directions, huh?
It turns out you can also make oatmeal in a rice cooker. If you’re careful.
This morning, Mary got up early, started some oatmeal, and then took a long, hot shower. When she came back, there was an oatmeal volcano belching steaming steel-cut oats onto the countertop and, since I was still asleep, she covered it up with a towel, ate her bowl, and left for work.
Not only that, but we were out of coffee beans!

wed mar 15
I’ve had this vague fantasy in my head that I’d like to take a long motorcycle trip some time this summer. Realistically, it takes a lot of equipment, time, and planning – not to mention a reliable motorcycle – to pull off a trip like that, so I’ve been chipping away at it.
Now that I’ve got pannier luggage mounted, I got to wondering what’s the most likely thing to break on a long trip? There’s only half-a-dozen moving parts that I haven’t already re-built, so I started taking a close look at them and it turns out the rear suspension’s swing arm bearings are seized.  I’ve got parts on order.
I know, from many years of bicycling, that a rear derailleur wears out after 1000 miles or so, and the symptoms include failure to shift, skipping under power, and even having the chain fall off at full speed. A modern motorcycle chain is supposed to last 10k miles or so, and the Suzuki’s got its original chain, with 29k miles on it. I took a close look and – surprise! – it’s shot. (So bad, in fact, that I suspect it’s the real source of the clanking sound that made me replace the clutch last year, because it still clanks.) I’ve got parts on order.
The good news? Both axles seem to be in ship-shape and no parts are on order!

I had a colonoscopy today, and they let me do it without sedation. Watching it was the most fun I’d had in weeks, and I have a healthy colon.

fri mar 17
We had a big dump of snow the other day, followed by a little extra cold air settling over the hills, so I didn’t think it odd when it seemed a little chilly in my chair, reading my book. I put on a sweater and kept reading. After dinner, I was still cold, so I swapped my sweater out for a thicker model. Then, watching TV at midnight, my whole body was cold through and through, and I was shivering in my sweater. Shaking and chattering in spasms. Something was wrong, and it wasn’t an open window.
It was 12 hours after my colonoscopy, where I’d watched him take out two polyps. My first stool was a puddle of lumpy blood, and the most likely scenario seemed: I was bleeding from the inside, I’d gotten shit into my bloodstream, and my system had gone septic. I took a long hot shower, tucked myself in, assumed a fetal position, and waited to die.
I made it as far as Hell before morning came around, and we called the doctor. Not to worry, he said. Maybe I’ve got that bug that’s going around? “Call me if he shits his bloody brains out,” he basically said.  Mary took my temperature (though the mouth, thank you) and it was normal, so she went to work and I had a basically shitty day doing absolutely nothing.
As it turns out: my butt is fine, but I’ve got that bug that’s going around.
Always: I’m the last guy to ‘get it.’