It’s got style and class. It has a shiny black leather exterior, a sturdy zipper, knit cuffs, and a thick pile-lined collar. The curious thing is Dad’s old bomber jacket simply isn’t comfortable for me to wear.
Not that I don’t like it. Far from it. The inside pile lining is soft, and the quilted lining in the sleeves will help keep you warm in chilly weather.
When I put it on, however, it’s not like pulling on favorite jacket. It doesn’t feel like a second skin. It feels more like suit jacket to me. Leather doesn’t really stretch or give.
The cargo pockets don’t work for me, and it has no inside pockets to hold my sunglasses. I need an inside pocket. I tried sliding my sunglasses into a cargo pocket, but the leather is so stiffly protective, I thought my glasses would be bent.
Dad got the jacket as a gift from Cooper Leather in Peddler's Village in the mid-1980s. He had a certain savoir faire, and looked especially dashing when he wore it. I was envious of the jacket. I loved the idea of it. I wanted one too, but I got what I needed when I asked for a similar jacket – a dress coat. I couldn’t exactly wear my comfortable old army/navy surplus pea coat to job interviews.
The bomber jacket hung in the back of the hall closet in Mom’s house for some time after Dad passed away in 1993. I don’t know if she ever wore it. I asked one day if I could have it and she said yes. The jacket has resided, nearly unworn, in our townhouse since.
When I was cleaning out my closet this past spring, I decided it was time to let it go. Maybe someone else could use it. My brother and sister probably wouldn’t want the bomber. I figured I would donate the jacket.
I emailed my brother, Cameron, and included the size - 44. He thanked me for the offer but said no thank you. He added he never could fit into the jacket and really couldn’t fit into it now. Too many beers have passed, it seems.
I also sent a message to my sister, Candace, expecting a “no” there, too. She seems to be the least sentimental of us three, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.
Surprisingly, she said yes. Candace hoped her daughter, Alexa, might like it enough to wear it. If she didn’t, perhaps her young son, Chase Preston, might want to wear it when he’s old enough.
A jacket like that is meant to be worn. I’m pleased the bomber jacket is staying in the family, at least for now.
Things feel like they came around full circle here. The old leather bomber jacket has a new mission in life, which is the way it ought to be.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
When Migraines Attack
I found this headline on Yahoo on Friday, August 20th:
"Viking's Harvin has migraine attack at practice"
I empathize with Percy Harvin, but migraine attacks aren’t really attacks. Like heart attacks, the word “attack” is somewhat misleading. Migraines, however, can feel as though they’re attacking you. I should know. I've been a migraine sufferer for decades.
Sometimes I feel like a red hot fire place poker is being driven into your skull time and again. Just as people enjoying the last of a dying fire will determinedly poke through its ashes hoping to stir up stubborn embers hiding from the light, I get jabs of burning, searing pain above my left eye or just behind my right eye.
Sometimes I feel as though a sharp stick or overgrown nail the size of a railroad spike is being enthusiastically jammed into one or both eyes until it bursts through the other side of your head like a triple-digit rally on the DOW and playfully turns around to wink at you through the veil of agony.
Migraine sufferers or migraineurs are not being attacked, but it certainly can feel that way.
"Viking's Harvin has migraine attack at practice"
I empathize with Percy Harvin, but migraine attacks aren’t really attacks. Like heart attacks, the word “attack” is somewhat misleading. Migraines, however, can feel as though they’re attacking you. I should know. I've been a migraine sufferer for decades.
Sometimes I feel like a red hot fire place poker is being driven into your skull time and again. Just as people enjoying the last of a dying fire will determinedly poke through its ashes hoping to stir up stubborn embers hiding from the light, I get jabs of burning, searing pain above my left eye or just behind my right eye.
Sometimes I feel as though a sharp stick or overgrown nail the size of a railroad spike is being enthusiastically jammed into one or both eyes until it bursts through the other side of your head like a triple-digit rally on the DOW and playfully turns around to wink at you through the veil of agony.
Migraine sufferers or migraineurs are not being attacked, but it certainly can feel that way.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Stench-berry
It beckoned like a tiny ripe blueberry. This miniature piece of butt fruit radiated stinkiness. It refined what "foul" means.
It was almost 80 degrees and it was only 6:30 in the morning. The humidity of our heat wave bathed the low-hanging bowel berry in moisture, coaxing from it the sour smell of intestinal wonders best not thought about.
My lhasa-poo, Penny, was rather put out that she had a dingleberry.
We were returning from her morning walk. She made a deposit, I picked up after her, sealed up the bag, and turned back for home. Except, she was walking like she had a board between her legs. This would be awkward for anyone, but Penny has a fairly masculine gait anyway. Now she walking with her rear legs even farther apart.
Just as I was wondering what was going on, she paused just short of our walkway, and looked up at me. She never does this because she is far too eager to get back inside her home. She is a dedicated watchdog and agoraphobe, never straying very far for very long. I knew something was up.
The look on her face said, "Help me, daddy. Something is wrong." Not knowing precisely what, however, I encouraged her toward the door. When she mounted the doorsill with her front legs she afforded me a better view of the effrontery.
Clinging to her caboose was the most perfectly round excrement marble I ever saw. As I bent down to remove the extrusion, an olfactory sunami slammed into me. Penny's buttocks bangle stank to high heaven.
With deep misgivings, I reopened the occupied poop bag I was carrying. That was bad enough. I readied it for reuse. I lifted her tail out of the way, and went in close for the extraction. A foul odor gripped me snuggly, like the cloying embrace of a drifter's corpse.
I gently grasped the aromatic atrocity and plucked it into the bag. Penny looked relieved. My senses were still reeling.
I opened the door and we went in. Penny galloped off to fill in Mom on her latest adventure, abandoning me at the door as is her custom. I was left to dispose of the stench-berry.
It was almost 80 degrees and it was only 6:30 in the morning. The humidity of our heat wave bathed the low-hanging bowel berry in moisture, coaxing from it the sour smell of intestinal wonders best not thought about.
My lhasa-poo, Penny, was rather put out that she had a dingleberry.
We were returning from her morning walk. She made a deposit, I picked up after her, sealed up the bag, and turned back for home. Except, she was walking like she had a board between her legs. This would be awkward for anyone, but Penny has a fairly masculine gait anyway. Now she walking with her rear legs even farther apart.
Just as I was wondering what was going on, she paused just short of our walkway, and looked up at me. She never does this because she is far too eager to get back inside her home. She is a dedicated watchdog and agoraphobe, never straying very far for very long. I knew something was up.
The look on her face said, "Help me, daddy. Something is wrong." Not knowing precisely what, however, I encouraged her toward the door. When she mounted the doorsill with her front legs she afforded me a better view of the effrontery.
Clinging to her caboose was the most perfectly round excrement marble I ever saw. As I bent down to remove the extrusion, an olfactory sunami slammed into me. Penny's buttocks bangle stank to high heaven.
With deep misgivings, I reopened the occupied poop bag I was carrying. That was bad enough. I readied it for reuse. I lifted her tail out of the way, and went in close for the extraction. A foul odor gripped me snuggly, like the cloying embrace of a drifter's corpse.
I gently grasped the aromatic atrocity and plucked it into the bag. Penny looked relieved. My senses were still reeling.
I opened the door and we went in. Penny galloped off to fill in Mom on her latest adventure, abandoning me at the door as is her custom. I was left to dispose of the stench-berry.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
The Mom Zone and The Turd Geyser
“What’s that?” asked Mom, pointing at something moist and forbidding reclining on the front lawn.
“A turd,” sighed my brother, Cameron.
Earlier that day, my wife, Samantha, and I met up with Cam at Mom’s vacation house in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, for a community yard sale. You had to own a house to participate. After signing up, homeowners would put sale items out on their front lawns, driveways, or porches.
Cam was helping her set up her stuff. My brother lives in Sterling, Virginia, but enjoys spending time at Mom’s shore place. Sam and I had our own pile of things to shift.
Later in the morning, Cam took a few moments during a lull in the yard sale action to sit on the front steps. Mom quickly found him and began chattering at him about what she wanted to accomplish. I ambled over to lend what help I could. By 10 AM Cam already had the non-focused combat stare of shell-shocked war veterans.
He held his chin in his hands. He eyes were front and center, but they saw nothing. His hollow-eyed look resembled that of Boris Karloff in the old 1930’s Frankenstein movies, when the monster was captured, chained, and tormented by angry villagers bearing torches—or, in this case, an over-excited mother waving a To-Do list.
Cam was in the Mom Zone.
The Mom Zone, for those not in the know, is not a physical place. It is a state of mind. It is the far-away mental place to which your brain retreats when it tries to process meandering phone calls that seem to have no point. Or when you receive mail filled with random articles about Frankie Avalon, stink bugs, or someone she assumes you must be interested in reading about because they graduated when you did in 1979--30 years ago.
Serving the same purpose as Grey Havens in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy when the mind has had enough of schlepping that damned ring, the Mom Zone provides a retreat when you hear the same story about your first grade teacher again….and again.
When the sewer pipe vomited poo, my first thought was one of sympathy. My poor brother. He has to deal with this.
My second and less charitable thought was, I’m glad we’re heading home after dinner!
You see, Cameron is what my wickedly funny “baby” sister, Candace, calls the Golden Child. Nothing bad seemed to happen to him as a kid. Even as a gawky teen he had charm and a winning smile. When things threatened to turn nasty, he emerged smelling like a rose and looking like a million bucks.
For instance, sometime in the mid-1980s, Cam was driving a sporty Nissan two-door sedan Dad had bought. He rounded a corner a bit too quickly and rolled the car.
He wasn’t wearing a seat belt, but thankfully, and in true Golden Child fashion, he was uninjured. I would have woken up in the ER with plastic tubing snaking merrily from every bodily orifice.
I would have been SO grounded.
The car was pronounced dead and buried by our insurance carrier. Dad later bemoaned the loss of “that cute little red car I used to have” over supper conversation one evening, but he seemed to say it with a hint of pride in his voice, in a lighthearted manner.
I think he was glad he got a brand-new car for no out-of-pocket cost.
Our larger misdeeds—wrecking a car would be one of them--were generally discussed seriously and solemnly. To her credit, Mom noticed the Cheshire Cat tone in his voice, and took him to task, exclaiming his first name with exasperation,
“Lee!”
Dad didn’t mind being fire-hosed by Mom, but then I chimed in.
Knowing full well the answer to this question, I asked, “What would have happened if I had wrecked the Nissan?”
The room got real quiet real fast.
“You would have been grounded,” he said firmly.
“But that’s unfair, nothing like that had happened to Cam!” I almost shouted.
“Very different things are expected from you,” said Dad. He harrumphed once, with finality, gazed downward, focused on his prey, and dove into supper.
Mom did her best, nailing her supper plate to the table with the tines of her fork with a resounding “THWACK!”
She gave him the side eye, glaring at him from beneath her blond curls.
But further discussion along those lines was useless. That subject was never mentioned again.
When my major wrongdoings were brought up in family conversation, tones were hushed. Conversations were clipped. Ghosts of the Spanish Inquisition shuffled ever closer, hoping to ply the tools of their trade yet again.
Well, the Golden Child might be losing a bit of his luster these days.
After the community yard sale was over, we had cleaned ourselves up and were preparing to venture out for a nice dinner when someone noticed the sidewalk.
“The sidewalk is wet,” said Cam.
“It hasn’t rained, has it?” asked Mom.
“No,” said Cam.
“The grass is wet, too. It must have rained,” said Mom.
“No, it didn’t rain. Everything else is dry,” said Cam.
Mom and Cam wandered over to the wet spot to solve this little mystery.
I remained where I was, near our car. I was hungry and ready to eat. I thought I heard a bubbling sound. Whatever was issuing forth from the ground was neither Black Gold nor Texas Tea. It was something far more aromatic and infinitely less valuable on the commodities market.
My brother stood gazing with disbelief into the gusher of noxious brown excrement bubbling up from the front lawn. “That’s nasty.”
The shore house was built in the 1920s and the pipes are out of date. The sewer system occasionally backs up. When this happens, the pipe from the house to the mains overflows, pops the venting lid, and – “Eureka!”
Because Cam is spending more time at the shore house, he is likewise doing a lot to help keep the place running. He is immersed in the hustle-and-bustle whirlpool of activity that is Mom’s life. Even now, she stuffs her calendar to bursting. When you stray too close to the vortex, you might get sucked in.
Knowing Mom’s penchant for assigning blame, I figured she would order DNA tests to determine where the errant excreta came from. Best leave town before the swabs come out.
“A turd,” sighed my brother, Cameron.
Earlier that day, my wife, Samantha, and I met up with Cam at Mom’s vacation house in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, for a community yard sale. You had to own a house to participate. After signing up, homeowners would put sale items out on their front lawns, driveways, or porches.
Cam was helping her set up her stuff. My brother lives in Sterling, Virginia, but enjoys spending time at Mom’s shore place. Sam and I had our own pile of things to shift.
Later in the morning, Cam took a few moments during a lull in the yard sale action to sit on the front steps. Mom quickly found him and began chattering at him about what she wanted to accomplish. I ambled over to lend what help I could. By 10 AM Cam already had the non-focused combat stare of shell-shocked war veterans.
He held his chin in his hands. He eyes were front and center, but they saw nothing. His hollow-eyed look resembled that of Boris Karloff in the old 1930’s Frankenstein movies, when the monster was captured, chained, and tormented by angry villagers bearing torches—or, in this case, an over-excited mother waving a To-Do list.
Cam was in the Mom Zone.
The Mom Zone, for those not in the know, is not a physical place. It is a state of mind. It is the far-away mental place to which your brain retreats when it tries to process meandering phone calls that seem to have no point. Or when you receive mail filled with random articles about Frankie Avalon, stink bugs, or someone she assumes you must be interested in reading about because they graduated when you did in 1979--30 years ago.
Serving the same purpose as Grey Havens in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy when the mind has had enough of schlepping that damned ring, the Mom Zone provides a retreat when you hear the same story about your first grade teacher again….and again.
When the sewer pipe vomited poo, my first thought was one of sympathy. My poor brother. He has to deal with this.
My second and less charitable thought was, I’m glad we’re heading home after dinner!
You see, Cameron is what my wickedly funny “baby” sister, Candace, calls the Golden Child. Nothing bad seemed to happen to him as a kid. Even as a gawky teen he had charm and a winning smile. When things threatened to turn nasty, he emerged smelling like a rose and looking like a million bucks.
For instance, sometime in the mid-1980s, Cam was driving a sporty Nissan two-door sedan Dad had bought. He rounded a corner a bit too quickly and rolled the car.
He wasn’t wearing a seat belt, but thankfully, and in true Golden Child fashion, he was uninjured. I would have woken up in the ER with plastic tubing snaking merrily from every bodily orifice.
I would have been SO grounded.
The car was pronounced dead and buried by our insurance carrier. Dad later bemoaned the loss of “that cute little red car I used to have” over supper conversation one evening, but he seemed to say it with a hint of pride in his voice, in a lighthearted manner.
I think he was glad he got a brand-new car for no out-of-pocket cost.
Our larger misdeeds—wrecking a car would be one of them--were generally discussed seriously and solemnly. To her credit, Mom noticed the Cheshire Cat tone in his voice, and took him to task, exclaiming his first name with exasperation,
“Lee!”
Dad didn’t mind being fire-hosed by Mom, but then I chimed in.
Knowing full well the answer to this question, I asked, “What would have happened if I had wrecked the Nissan?”
The room got real quiet real fast.
“You would have been grounded,” he said firmly.
“But that’s unfair, nothing like that had happened to Cam!” I almost shouted.
“Very different things are expected from you,” said Dad. He harrumphed once, with finality, gazed downward, focused on his prey, and dove into supper.
Mom did her best, nailing her supper plate to the table with the tines of her fork with a resounding “THWACK!”
She gave him the side eye, glaring at him from beneath her blond curls.
But further discussion along those lines was useless. That subject was never mentioned again.
When my major wrongdoings were brought up in family conversation, tones were hushed. Conversations were clipped. Ghosts of the Spanish Inquisition shuffled ever closer, hoping to ply the tools of their trade yet again.
Well, the Golden Child might be losing a bit of his luster these days.
After the community yard sale was over, we had cleaned ourselves up and were preparing to venture out for a nice dinner when someone noticed the sidewalk.
“The sidewalk is wet,” said Cam.
“It hasn’t rained, has it?” asked Mom.
“No,” said Cam.
“The grass is wet, too. It must have rained,” said Mom.
“No, it didn’t rain. Everything else is dry,” said Cam.
Mom and Cam wandered over to the wet spot to solve this little mystery.
I remained where I was, near our car. I was hungry and ready to eat. I thought I heard a bubbling sound. Whatever was issuing forth from the ground was neither Black Gold nor Texas Tea. It was something far more aromatic and infinitely less valuable on the commodities market.
My brother stood gazing with disbelief into the gusher of noxious brown excrement bubbling up from the front lawn. “That’s nasty.”
The shore house was built in the 1920s and the pipes are out of date. The sewer system occasionally backs up. When this happens, the pipe from the house to the mains overflows, pops the venting lid, and – “Eureka!”
Because Cam is spending more time at the shore house, he is likewise doing a lot to help keep the place running. He is immersed in the hustle-and-bustle whirlpool of activity that is Mom’s life. Even now, she stuffs her calendar to bursting. When you stray too close to the vortex, you might get sucked in.
Knowing Mom’s penchant for assigning blame, I figured she would order DNA tests to determine where the errant excreta came from. Best leave town before the swabs come out.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
They're Planning a Murder
[Fictional narrative inspired by a colleague]
It's going to be unpleasant. They’re doing it tomorrow. I know they are, because I’m an accessory before the fact. Honestly, I was in on the plan from the start. Someone else mentioned it, and I jumped on board. Some pacifist I am.
My doctors are planning to kill a cancer, but this cancer might just kill me. This one is inside me. Nasty to think about. But that’s what the docs are going to try to do. And they have to be the best chemo-slingers around, because they must murder my cancer without killing me. Tough job, that. Don’t envy them. Not one bit.
I almost feel as though I have the easy job -- all I have to do is survive.
Ha!
Then again, I’m a marked person. I feel as though I have been confined for my own protection. Today is Tuesday. The chemo starts tomorrow. I have a laundry list of things I can’t do. I’m not allowed to do this, I’m not allowed to do that.
I am being treated like a delicate piece of bone china just before it gets sent into fiery red maw of the 5,000-degree kiln to be cured by heat. Rather apropos in my case. I have cancer, so I guess I am more delicate than others on this planet. I hope to be cured. A metaphysical spear of fire and heat – in the form of a chemotherapy injection – is going to cure me by scalding my cancer to death.
Maybe. We hope. I hope. It's my tail that’s on the line here.
It’s like I’m stuck at the airport waiting for my next flight. Not much to do. Time to kill. They told me to get some sleep. REALLY? My mind is a whirlwind. Too restless to rest.
I moon about my house, wondering how my world is going to look after getting a snoot-full of caustic chemicals injected into my body.
I feel pretty good right now and I’m enjoying that. The cancer hasn’t spread. My feeling well will change plenty quick. The very stuff that should help me is going to bring me to my knees and might knock me off my pins completely and onto my derriere. I might feel like I caught some fictional super-flu. Which is sort of true, isn’t it? Cancer is a kind of super bug, I guess. I will feel sick as a dog and tired as all get out.
I won’t feel like doing anything after I get home tomorrow – except maybe york. They tell me not to think about it, but I can’t help it. Then, just when I start feeling like myself again, and my strength begins to return, it will be time for another round. And I will get knocked right down again. To knock the killer cells down, they have to knock me down, too. No way around it, really, as the little bastard cells – to which my own body gave birth! -- are living and growing and creating their havoc inside me.
Anyway, tomorrow is a new day. Not just another in a long string of days quickly forgotten, but the beginning of my renewal. Bring it!
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