Andrew's View of the Week

No Title

Posted on 03/03/2013 by Andrew Reynolds

I am not going to give this post a title. Not even going to try. If I knew which direction this post was going to go, I’d write the title and do this thing where each paragraph reviles a fragment of the theme and as the essay builds the pieces of the puzzle would fall into place and the last paragraph would cleverly rephrase the title, neatly tying the whole text into one sublime essay.

You’re not getting a post like that today. It’s not been that kind of week.

When I got married my mother told me that a good marriage is about sharing. Recall last week when I mentioned I had a cold? Yes, I shared it with Heather. I suspect that at this moment Heather isn’t thinking that’s a particular good way to strengthen our marriage – expect for the part where I attempt to be a good caregiver.

It’s been that kind of week – sick people everywhere. Seems like at least half the people in my office were sick this week. The other half where sick the week before. Even my brother isn’t doing very well and next week I’ve got to drag him back to the hospital where they are going to do unmentionable things.

Really, you don’t want me to mention the procedures he’s scheduled for. Just know that they have a whole day of fun planned and I am the designated caregiver. And chauffeur. And wheelchair wrangler. And form filler inner. And, and, and more than I’d like to be. He’ll be worried and I’ll spend all day reminding him that, “I am here to comfort and support,” then misjudge the corner and drive his feet into a door jam. That’s what brothers are for.

Heather said she’d go with me. Yes, this kind of burden should be shared – unless it can be completely avoided.

So to console myself and dodge reality for awhile, I spent most of yesterday in the workshop doing manly things (some pictures below of a work in progress). I made a stand for my cross that I really like. Did a lot of work on a birthday present. The birthday was last month but I figure it’s not a belated present since our daughter knows I’m working on it. It won’t really be late until she gets another year older.

Today I did another very manly thing: went to a baby shower.

Yup, I willingly walked into a room of women – one very pregnant – and stayed the whole time. Even participated in one of the games (didn’t win). Then during the opening of presents I did my best to be the annoying guy with the video camera. I don’t do annoying very well (expect for my brother, he’s fun to annoy) but I did take lots of video. So why would a self respecting power-tool-using-caveman go to a baby shower? The reasons go like this:

Heather organized the shower, but with her cold she was worried about being up to doing all she promised. Then someplace in my role as a caregiver and supporter of my wife I said out loud (apparently loud enough for Heather to hear), “I know how important this is to you. Don’t worry I’ll come along and help.”
I saw the bags of candy she bought and knew she couldn’t watch me every minute of the shower.
I heard that the baby’s father was going to be there too. A man doesn’t let a man go to a baby shower alone.
Heard that my contractor friend was going to attend with his wife – there’d be at least one other woodworker in the room.
Heather told me there’d be food there. I’ll do nearly anything for food (except broccoli, you’ll not motivate me with broccoli).
I knew that moving tables and chairs would be involved, so I could pretend to be a big strong man moving tables and chairs around (thank God the church has bought those lightweight plastic ones – I can lift those one handed, talk about making me look good).
It was held at church and as you know food eaten at a church have no calories, so I could help myself to all the candy I wanted, totally guilt free.

That’s all I really have to share this week and I still can’t figure a good title to throw on top of all that.

Until next week,
Andrew

Turtle Box rough cut

Side view of the turtle box

Close up of the cross stand

The cross on the stand

Project aftermath

Posted in General, Health, Writing | Tagged baby shower, caregiver, caregiving experiences, health, writing | 2 Comments

My Excuse

Posted on 02/24/2013 by Andrew Reynolds

Turns out that I lied last week. I told you that I’d be posting about our last hike on Wednesday. I didn’t do that. I meant to, had every intention to, even starting writing it up – got google maps, downloaded pictures, video clips, looked up references – the works.

And then didn’t finish my job.

However, I would never admit to this if I didn’t have a good excuse.

I was sick. No, I mean I had a cold, almost a flu-like thing. And I had to take my brother to the doctor’s office. And my wife’s computer broke. And I had to work yesterday – it’s been cold, my hair needs cutting, got a new wood working catalog…

This week just sucked and I accomplished none of what I set out to do except getting my brother to the doctor, the after-hours work yesterday and going to seeing the play I’ve been looking forward to. Well, guess that’s not too bad for a sick guy.

Don’t know where I got it but on Tuesday I started to feel a bit ill – sinus congestion, feeling weak, and a scratchy throat. It’s been down hill since then. Didn’t go to work Wednesday – hoping that taking a day off would revive me. Fail. Felt worse on Thursday, but had to drive my brother up to the clinic for a procedure that’s been scheduled for weeks and couldn’t easily be rescheduled.

I am not going go into details other than say, yes, I was the only person on the planet that could do this. Yes, it was more important than me being sick. He has far more physical problems than me. No, I shouldn’t have been driving. No, I shouldn’t have been exposing a surgery center full of patients to my germs. Yes, I’ve nominated myself for a martyrdom medal.

So I rise from my sick-bed on Thursday, summon my remaining strength and spent four hours driving and waiting around on uncomfortable chairs. Then I got the good news that there was something wrong and could I bring my brother back at 8:30 tomorrow morning so they could do a few more things. Wouldn’t have minded so much if it wasn’t 4:00 pm and I was SICK.

My medal will have a purple ribbon and an oak leaf cluster.

So 6:00 am Friday morning the alarm goes off and I consider calling 911 but a shower and a cup of tea give me the mental strength to think I might be able to manage it. I thought of stopping for a Starbucks but the thought of walking into the store and waiting for them to make it a latte was just overwhelming.

Got to the clinic and everything was just fine. Peachy. Perfect. My brother was the perfect patient, the procedure went flawlessly. He was all smiles and happy. The nurse was happy. When I got him back to his apartment even his health aid was happy.

I drove home and collapsed. I think I was on the couch, but couldn’t swear to it. I recall Heather being there for a while and her bringing me food. There was water and at one point, tea. Heather went out somewhere and came back. Somewhere I found the remote control for my fancy new TV and spent the time between my sandwich and tea watching “Adam-12” and “Emergency!” reruns on Netflix.

There is a restorative power in reruns of 1970’s TV shows that I just can’t explain. It has something to do with connecting with my childhood memories and visiting nostalgia lane. My goodness, did we really dress like that? And talk like that? I mean man, can you dig? Like bummer.

By Saturday I was feeling well enough to engage in a little after-hours maintenance work on one of my servers at the office (good thing it was a software thing and I could do it remotely).

Someplace in the mist of all my problems, Heather had her own crisis – her computer developed a problem and on my advice took it down the genius bar where they promptly declared, “No idea, we’ll send it to the repair lab and charge you a lot of money. Okay?”

At one point during the week that seemed like a good idea to me. Now I am wondering how sick I’ve been. oops, shouldn’t have said that. Heather will read that before you do.

Today has finally been a good day. Managed to get to church and then over to see our friend, James Creer, perform in his one-man show, “Looking Over the President’s Shoulders.” It is first person account of Alonzo Fields, who was chief butler in the White House for 21 years and served four presidents. It was a great show and I was very happy that I got over my cold and was able to see it.

There is my excuse for lying to you about the hiking post I promised last week. For next week I promise a hiking post or a much better excuse.

Till next week,
Andrew

Posted in General, Health, Writing | Tagged being sick, caregiver, caregiving experiences, cold, excuse, flu, writing | Comments Off

120

Posted on 02/17/2013 by Andrew Reynolds

Today is the 120th post on this blog. Celebration, party time – time for a happy dance!

So why is that important you’re asking?

Well, because I didn’t think of anything else to write about and since I didn’t notice when I wrote my 100th post, I thought I’d make a big deal out post 120. I can’t claim to have written 120 because Heather wrote couple of posts, a few were just pictures and I think one or two might just be posting the link to someone else’s blog.

But I will claim – 120 posts on this site. Not great but it’s the longest running blog I’ve ever had. Okay, okay, it’s my first blog. It is better than some people do. Go try this: go to http://www.wordpress.com and start looking at people’s blogs. Some are wacky. Some weird. Some insightful. Some should be deleted without reading. Many with just five or six entries and a bunch with just one entry from 2007 (there must have been a Oprah show that year about starting a blog).

So, here I am with a blog, 120 posts, a few dozen followers and a couple of hundred comments. At least one of us should be impressed.

Writing for this blog has been a great writing discipline. Forcing myself to write helps keep the brain unclogged and the imagination flowing. In the past most of my writing has been in spurts – I’ll write a short story over a couple of months and then not write for a year or more. Now, I’ve found myself able to bang out a short piece every week without too much effort. I’d like to think it has helped me grow as a writer.

A week ago I was asked by someone who has read this blog about how I figure out what to write and how long it takes. Well, it takes about two hours to create a post which includes, writing, editing – mostly done by Heather, processing pictures and doing the mechanics of uploading everything to server.

How do I figure out what to write? I don’t really know – not a clue how I do that. I mean it. Sometimes I’ll have a thought about what I want to write about. I’ve even made outlines, done research and gone through drafts. Strangely enough I rarely post those. Most of my writing for this blog starts out with a title and an opening sentence and just flows from there. You might call it a stream of consciousness.

I do have a few guidelines I keep in my mind: Keep the writing style conversational, use words I can spell, don’t let my fingers stop typing for more than a minute, there are off-limit subjects, and most importantly – try to have some fun.

The other thing I do is to delete my words without mercy. While I general post entries with about 800 words, most times I’ve really written 1,200 or 1,400 and deleted what doesn’t work.

What I write about is just what is affecting me that week. For example this week I’ve been affected by my new office location, I missed Ash Wednesday service because of work, I’ve had to help my older brother deal with the medical system, I am working on a piece in my shop that is going frustratingly slow, I’ve been updating my “intertextual Andrew” and “Earth Abides” pages and yesterday Heather and I went on a great hike (got tons of pictures). Oh, and I had lunch with a friend and put gas in my car.

Out of all of that what to write about?

Of course, none of it.

When I sat down I saw that I was about to write my 120th blog post and naturally my brain starting working on that.

That’s about it for this week. Maybe next week I’ll have something really insightful or really funny to post. While I was in the shop this afternoon cutting at the scroll saw, I did have a vague notion to ask my readers if you all had any subjects you’d like me to write about (I also thought about asking for titles, or writing prompts).

It was just a notion – likely best to not say that out loud.

No idea what I’ll write about next week, however you can expect a mid-week post this week about the hike Heather and I took yesterday. It’ll have pictures and maybe a couple of words.

Till next week,
Andrew

Posted in General, Writing | Tagged blog, hike, hiking, writing | 1 Comment

Heartbeat

Posted on 02/10/2013 by Andrew Reynolds

Heartbeat. The sign of life. The sound that beats in the chest. The feeling of blood moving through the body. The knowledge that I am still alive. After being touched with illness I am now more sensitive to listening for life. My life, your life, all life.

The cat lies on the bed, her fur slowing rising and falling. Breath. Life giving breath. Heartbeats.

Email in the in-box. Facebook post and likes from friends. Tweet counter increasing. RSS feed with unread blog posts. Youtube new videos on the feed – a new woodworking video and a song I’ve never heard. Signs of life from my friends. Heart beating

I am by nature a watcher – an observer of life. I can sit for hours and watch a sun set or a tide ebb. It’s what I do: look for the signs of life in the world around me.

Perhaps I am just being overly sentimental this week. Perhaps it is just the cold winter days and the lack of life in our roses. Perhaps it is just …

Well something.

This week my daily rhythm has been disturbed by the office move. My commute route has changed. My daily office routine has been changed. I am such a creature of habit that any change is disturbing – changing the sure and steady beat into unknown song. In time it will settle into new familiar patterns.

Phone calls from my brother weigh on my mind – he’s having health problems again and I need to see his doctors. I don’t like the decisions we may have to make.

The anniversary of my mother’s death is approaching and another brother calls to make arrangements for all of us to visit her grave.

My mind is a bit disturbed this week by slower pulses of life. It’s tax time and I’ve been spending extra time with paper work, budgets, retirement plans, wishes, dreams and desires. Will there be time to do what I want? Will I have the resources to fulfill my dreams? I’d love to buy a bandsaw but the roof needs to be fixed. Will I be able to do both? Have I made the right plans? so many doubts trouble my soul.

Tonight I am tired. I’d like to be lighthearted and joke around but my mind is fixed on listening. What is it that I am supposed to hear? What happens when there is only silence?

Some times there are no words to really describe a feeling. Some times there is only the quiet and gentle life-giving breath filling the lungs. Sometimes all I feel able to do is to listen for the heartbeat.

Till next week,
Andrew

PS. Here are a few more pictures Heather took of the fretwork clock I finished for my grandson.