From Wit’s End

It’s good to have an empty closet. I started at the beginning of the week and over the last six days I have seen that all of these things will have a new and better life:

• Three old PC’s,
• Two inkjet printers from the 90′s,
• Two monitors,
• Three CD-ROM drives,
• My old GCC laptop, circa 1995,
• An external 56k US Robotics modem,
• A flatbed HP scanner, circa 1998,
• Four random pieces of RAM,
• Western Digital Caviar Harddrive,
• S3 Video card,
• Old Sound card,
• A 3.5″ floppy drive,
• A defunct mouse,
• The digital camera which died after our honeymoon.

My current monitor’s screen has been going pink a lot lately, too, so I will likely get drop that off at a friendly Office Depot before Labor Day and get a new one when I see a good deal. Here’s to an empty closet; i can put all different junk in there now.

And I’m glad it’s over.

1. Rachel was out of town for business training from Sunday night through Wednesday.
2. The tiresome and fake showboating in Boston this week.
3. This is the last week before my infusion, and i’ve been feeling kind of yucky.
4. gapless budget + end of the month = harrowing Thursday

But…

1. I only had to be at work for half a day today,
2. I received that aforemention infusion of grace this afternoon,
3. i managed to hit all three of the Office Depot locations in town today,
4. We both got paid today,
5. and It’s Friday!

So life is good.

I just heard on the news this morning that Office Depot is working with HP to have a technology recycling drive [Expired Link]. This is thrilling news, because the silicon graveyard in my closet is extensive. I’ll be disinterring all bodies for redemption purposes, and I exhort anyone reading this to do the same. The drive is over on Labor Day, and getting rid of a dead box of silicon after that will entail either poisoning a landfill or paying HP to pick it up for you [Expired Link]. The limit is one item per customer per store per day, just so you know. They’ll be seeing me at least all week long at the two stores nearest me. Death (and sometimes new life) to all clutter!

Last night and tonight Rachel’s sister Jennifer, her housemate Susan and her housemate’s dog Jessie are staying over due to hardwood floor refinishing going on at her housemate’s house.  I am currently the only male in the house out of seven living beings (one man, three women and three dogs).  Some notes on the experience:

As we were getting ready for bed in our room last night, Rachel listened to all the activity going on outside and commented that it was like living in a girl’s dorm.  This gave me a small but not unpleasant artificial feeling that I was getting away with something…

When we woke up this morning Rachel told me that she had an unpleasant dream last night that she was only one of my many concubines.  The irreverent part of my mind recalled our hospitality situation of these two days, and i laughed and told her, “Don’t worry, you’ll always be my favorite concubine!”  She only partially appreciated that…

Everybody had a bad day today.  Rachel had her annual performance review at work today, harrowing under any circumstances; Susan’s loaner car broke down downtown (her actual car having broken down in the middle of a cross-country July4th vacation), my day at work was a little empty and boring, and Jennifer, being empathetic, was having a bad day because everyone else was having a bad day.

For my wife’s sake primarily, I was on my best behavior.  I made dinner, did the dishes, delivered the tissue box, and tried to help everyone feel at home.  At one moment, when everyone was at the diningroom table commiserating, I walked in with the glass snack-cube, saying: “It is my decree as head of the house that everyone who had a bad day today must eat at least one chocolate-covered nut.”  This was met with general approval and kudos for Rachel from our guests for training me so well.

self

…early last Sunday morning in a freak electrical surge, with all hands lost, except for my sound card and my network card. This is despite my UPS, or perhaps because of it, I don’t know. Anyway, i’m typing this into a bare bones HTML editor on my wife’s computer, missing Microsoft Frontpage terribly [Yes! I admit it! I've become a WYSIWYG Loser!!! ] I’ll be back with more updates as soon as I can restore a viable and convenient editing interface.

The only word i can think of describing how i feel today is “blurry”. I feel as though if you took a picture of a group of people in which i was standing, everyone would be in sharp focus except me. Thankfully, i received a good number of tasks to do for the day which i had to finish before i could leave, so i stayed good and busy and didn’t have too much time on my hands to think too much about what happened yesterday. I actually didn’t even tell any of my friends at work what happened to me until lunchtime, and then only a few at that.

I found out from the insurance adjustor by phone this afternoon that the informal verdict on my car by the mechanic is that it is probably totaled, but that that the official estimate will come early next week. Mike, the co-worker who drove me home last night and to work this morning, was also kind enough to drive me home from work, and my roommate Mike was also quite good to drive me to the airport to pick the rental car i have reserved for the week. Looks like i’ll be doing some informal car shopping this weekend, to possibly get more serious as the week develops.

Still, it occurred to me today that an “unlucky” event can still be providential, yesterday being a case in point.

I was driving home from work and hadn’t quite got up to full speed as the clouds burst overhead something fierce. Something like this had happened a few times before, so I didn’t think much of it. All of a sudden, i felt the rubber lose touch with the road. A split second later, my car veers to the right suddenly from the right-most lane and over the slick, grassy shoulder, and all i can do is hold on. The world spins around faster than i can think, and nothing and everything passes through my mind all at once…

…the world stops moving, and i am dazed for a few seconds, realizing i am still alive and not drastically hurt. Thank God for safety belts! My car door still opens, and i get out, and walk around the car, running visual diagnostics on it and sensory diagnostics on myself. Rear seems okay, i guess. Around to the front, and oh yes, the right front panel has cracked, and the right front wheel is bent down about 20-30 degrees. I may be able to walk away from this, but I won’t be driving away. The headlights and front bumper are looking pretty sad, and the left front tire has blown. I look back at the muddy tire tracks in the wet grass, and try to piece together what might have happened. Best i can figure is that the car slid over the grass into the slightly inclined rain gutter, the front of the car hit the embankment on the far side of the gutter, pivoting on the front end, kind of bouncing back out of the gutter, spinning around to face forward once again, and then rolling/skidding to a stop. Good God, it could have been so much worse.

It’s still raining pretty hard, and all i can think of to do is walk back up the highway the way i came to find or call for some help. I walk a few hundred feet, and then i hear a car horn and see a red pick-up truck with a cap over the bed pull over onto the shoulder behind me. I run up to it, and its Mike, an assembly engineer from work. He asks if i’m okay, and i tell him what happened. He offers me a dry seat in his truck and the use of his cell phone. Now, you should know that one of the many family jokes of ours is our mom worrying about us while we’re out and thinking that we’re “in a ditch by the side of the road”. So of course the first thing i do is call my mom and say, “Hey mom, guess what? I’m in a ditch by the side of the road!” and then tell her what happened and that i’m okay. I get some phone numbers from them, and then call the auto-repair shop of choice, which tells me that i should have it towed to a body shop first, so get the number a particular shop from them, call it, and get the answering machine. Giving up on that for the moment i call Rachel’s cell phone and leave a voicemail. Mike drives me home, and gives me his phone number in case i need a ride to work tomorrow. Does the providence ever cease?

I walk into the kitchen and sit down in front of the phone. I try Rachel’s cell again with no success, and then i call the landline at her house. While that’s ringing, my folks show up on the call waiting, and i take the call. Talk to them for a few minutes, and then call the car insurance claims number and talk with a service rep or two. While i’m on hold, Rachel rings in from her house and i tell her i’ll call her back. I finish with the insurance company and call Rachel back, and tell her what happened. The call waiting beeps, and its the automated notification that the tow truck will be getting to the wreck in about an hour. I flash back to Rachel, and she asks if i want her to come over, and i say “Yes, Please.”

Finally off the phone, i feed the dog and turn on the evening news, wondering at it all. Rachel finally drives up with a Chik-Fil-A bag in her hand (what a woman!), and i walk out to meet her and give her a nice long hug. She asks if i’m scared, and i say, “Yeah, a little bit.” We sit down at the dining room table for a minute or two, and then we go to meet the tow truck. As we’re heading north on I-77, we see on the southbound side that the truck is just getting to the wreck. We get off at the next exit, and head down the freeway southbound. I walk up to the guy and give the key to the car with hands still imperceptibly shaking. He with a few words betrays himself not to be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but i trust him to do his job. Rachel comes over to survey the scene and stand next to me, and we watch this guy get his truck partially stuck in the mud while trying to do a K-turn with long truck on the shoulder. He works on this for about 10 minutes, and it starts to earnestly rain again. We go around the back of the truck back to her car, and watch somewhat amusedly as he somehow gets his truck turned around and drive off the wrong way down the shoulder into the horizon. “Well, shall we dine?” i ask, and we munch on chicken nuggets and waffle fries, basking in the existential moment.

The tow truck comes back driving the right way on the highway, and as he pulls onto the shoulder again and prepares to pull the car up onto the platform, i look up and point into the sky and say “Look,” to Rachel. A rainbow is in the sky, standing in quiet glory. “And there it is”, i think to myself and say to Rachel, “the sign of God’s promise that everything is going to be okay.” It seemed to me that God was speaking to me through his Providence: saying that he may have flooded the few square yards under my car for a few seconds — so that i swept myself off the road in a most dramatic fashion — but never again would He flood the earth to destroy all life. And indeed he preserved even my unworthy life in this small flood for the sake of His Son. How merciful is it that there were no other cars involved and that my car didn’t flip over as it very easily could have?

We saw the truck drive back onto the highway, and then headed for the Urgent Care facility on Decker Blvd, so a doctor could check me out to make sure i was really okay. Arriving fifteen minutes before closing time, the doctor checked out my reflexes and my pupils and my range of motion, etc., and said I should be okay, though i may have to take pain-reliever for the next few days. We drove back to the house and worked on the wedding invitation list for the rest of the evening, almost as if it was a normal evening.

Heavenly Father, you are better to us than we deserve.

My mom went to the emergency room of Walter Reed Medical center today. She had a heart episode as she has had before a few times. Basically what happens is her heart starts beating really fast and won’t stop. Dad called this evening and told me that she was safely stabilized at Walter Reed Army Hospital, and that she would be kept overnight for observation. Be with her, Lord…

Today the journal feature on my website makes it debut. I shall be filling it in backwards as well as forwards, in a most haphazard fashion, so keep your eyes on these calendars. I woke up the other days with this alternative to Blogger popping ready-made into my conscious brain. In these journal entries, i’ll put banter, links, etc., and the handy “Year-at-a-Glance” navigational tool that i cooked up will make it easy to travel around in this virtual time-scape. We shall see how it works out, eh?

Today i went to a chiropractor for the first time. For a few weeks now i’ve been getting this clicking sensation in my neck with almost every step i take when i walk. And then last week, my middle back decided to chime in with the occasional really annoying stab of pain, and my head has been rounding out the chorus with under-the-radar headaches that come and go all day long. So perhaps Dr. Sonya R. Allen can get me realigned eventually. I go for my next visit on Monday.

I might have written earlier this week, but i think i might have fried something in my computer. I was trying to upgrade my processor, but by the time i was done fiddling around in the box, the darn thing would even go on. It’s in the shop now. I built it from parts almost three years ago now, so i thought a processor upgrade would be a relatively simple thing. How little did i know; our computer-guru friend told me that putting a new processor on an old motherboard is like putting new wine in old wineskins. I thought that was a good use of the biblical metaphor. I should be getting it back before the end of the week. It was eye opening, though: sometimes one doesn’t miss something until it’s not there, you know? And i didn’t realize how much i used my computer until it wasn’t available. I filled my time with other things, though, in a most profitable fashion.

I’m afraid after my long Tuesday in Chicago, i was wiped out all the rest of the week, and had little brain power to spare for very much “extra-curricular” verbal activity. Monday and Tuesday i only got 10 hours of sleep out of 48 and my poor brain felt like a frisbee every evening for the rest of the week. Work during the day went fine, but it was all i could do to just watch a video in the evenings afterwards. It seemed to particularly affect the verbal part of my brain: i didn’t write any e-mail, work on my newsletter, or even read very much at all in the second half of the week.

I think i’m back to normal this evening. Last night my dad and i went to Greenville to see my most favorite band in the world, the Vigilantes of Love. A great time was had by all, but we got back at around 2 am, since Greenville is about 2 hours away. I slept in until 9am (virtually unheard of in my case– rarely do i ever sleep until 8am, let alone 9am), got up and had breakfast and watched a few episodes of M*A*S*H just for the heck of it, and then went to go read Ed Welch’s book, “When People are Big and God is Small”. I only read a few pages before i zonked out again, and slept for another 2.5 hours. I think the week’s “sleep debt” is paid off, however, because i find myself able to once again string words together in a coherent fashion.

We flew back from Arizona on March 7th. While I zipped through Josh Harris’s new book “Boy meets Girl” on the flight home, I had to get up and walk around on the airplane because of strange sluggish circulation feelings in my legs.

Later in the middle of March, I was in the house and the phone rang. I hurried to answer it, and I slipped on some water that was spilled around the dog’s dish. The end joint of my right pinky finger jammed into the wall as I caught myself, and the rest of the inertia went into my calves as they slipped and skidded on the wet floor, and they got a bit pulled. The phone was for me, but it was just a pre-recorded message from the doctor’s office reminding me that I had an appointment later that week. I wrapped a bag of frozen peas around my pinky and walked stiffly to my computer to e-mail Leanne.

Well, my pinky was at first achy, and then stiff, but in about a day it was back to normal. But over the next few weeks, my legs had only begun to bother me. To this day i’m not absolutely sure which of these two incidents contributed to my leg trouble that gradually grew over the rest of the year, or if indeed either of them had anything to do with the onset of Restless Leg Syndrome. I’ve done a bit of reading up about it on the internet, and nobody is really sure what causes it, which is why it’s called a “syndrome”. In some people it can be trauma-induced, some think it’s caused by iron-deficiency or malnutrition, and in others it just shows up in old age or in my case as early as one’s mid-twenties. However I got it, it was to prove to be one of a few factors that conspired against any kind of healthy sleep patterns for me for the rest of the year.