Voyage

I settle into the captain's chair with the controls at my fingertips. With no destination in mind, I'll let the solar winds set my course. A motor hums as I recline the seat into the familiar and comfortable pre-launch position.

My eyes grow heavy and my body is beginning to relax into the semi hibernation needed for the trip, when a commotion interrupts the tranquility. A late arriving passenger is requesting to board, and no sooner than I accommodate him, another one arrives. Finally, the three of us are settled in and comfortable. Let the voyage begin.

“Honey, you're wanted on the phone!”

The dogs kick me in the crotch as they leap off my lap and start barking. I fumble for the recliner control so I can get out of the damn thing. Once I find the right button and the motor slowly lowers the foot rest I get to my feet and stagger to the phone, only to get a dial tone.

“I guess they hung up,” Carol says, “Maybe you need a space ship with an ejection seat!”

Still Lost

Still Lost in Lost

We started watching the old TV series Lost this summer on Hulu but when we got tired of the ads, (even on the pay version, Hulu Plus) we switched to Netflix. Even though it was a lot better without the noisy ads, Carol gave up after we had watched the first season's 25 episodes. She's not as much a science fiction, supernatural fan as I am, so I started watching two or three episodes at a time in the dim confines of the Den, or Computer Room, or as I like to think of it, as my Bat Cave.

I enjoy the good acting, writing and jungle scenery, and I became determined to watch every one of the 121 episodes. It actually goes pretty fast watching without ads.

The main characters, survivors of a plane crash on a jungle island, whose lives are intertwined in flashbacks, flash forwards and flash sideways, keep you guessing as to who are the good guys and who are the baddies. To further complicate things, time travel and alternate universes abound in the story line. Just when I think I've figured it out a little bit, the writers throw me a curve and destroy my theories. I have thought that they could all be in Purgatory, waiting to be judged for their past sins, or they could already be in Hell. Maybe I'll find out when I watch the last episode. Right now I'm up to season 6, (the last one) and I only have a dozen episodes to go.

What will I ever do when it's over! I may have to come out of the Bat Cave!

The Attic

 

It wouldn't have been so spooky to me if it hadn't been for the head. It sat there expressionless, but somehow threatening, waiting patiently to come to life and fulfill some kind of evil purpose. For my brother it was the rattlesnake.

With the warm light of day shining through the dormer Window, the third story attic was a treasure house of wonderful things. Full Indian war bonnets, a tomahawk, crystals and minerals, ten-gallon cowboy hats, a bullwhip and a huge rattlesnake skin hanging from floor to ceiling; souvenirs from all over the country; collected by grandfather before he died. There was an old pump organ in the corner and it's off-key moaning could make our hair stand on end, even in the friendly light of day.

My little brother John and I were told to sleep in the attic when we visited grandmother's house. Our beds were made under the sloping paneled ceilings, and were surrounded by the shelves and cabinets full of grandfather Ferry's memorabilia. We were welcome to look at the collection, but not to play with any of the pieces. Except the organ - it was old and leaky, and grandmother said she was going to have it hauled away when she got around to it. We were free to play with it, no matter how much the eerie sounds scared us, or how long into the night they echoed around the museum-like room.

My cousin Tom and his mother lived with grandmother, and his bedroom was at the foot of the attic stairs. He was my age and I had confided in him about our fear of the attic. "Aw, there's nothing up there to be afraid of," he said, "grandmother keeps it locked up most of the time, so I can't even play there. You guys don't know how lucky you are, there's all kinds of neat things stored away in the drawers!"

On an Oak cabinet overlooking my bed sat the head. It was the bronze head of a woman; her hair piled on her head in smooth waves, her eyes closed as if she were dreaming and a look of sadness on her beautiful metal face.

In the night as I lay trembling under the covers, I knew she opened her eyes and looked down at me, and her face was no longer sad, but incredibly angry. I could see her eyes in the darkness, burning through the blanket I had pulled over my head, even through my closed eyelids. My brother tossed and moaned, dreaming snake nightmares. The next morning I turned the heavy bronze bust around so it faced the wall, but that night when we climbed the stairs to go to bed, I saw that grandmother had turned it back.

A scraping noise woke me from a restless sleep and then a hideous face appeared over me. My heart stopped until I realized that it was just Tom with a flashlight under his chin. "Gotcha!" He said, climbing onto the bed and turning off the light. I punched his shoulder for scaring me and we were giggling about it when John's voice came from across the room, "Hey you guys," he whispered, "be quiet, I hear something!"

A loud buzzing noise began to fill the air and Tom turned the flashlight on. The beam of light searched across the hardwood floor until it came to rest on the source of the noise; a huge Diamondback Rattlesnake lay coiled in the middle of the room, its head raised, a hissing sound coming from between its dripping fangs. Its tail was a blur of motion, rattling a warning of death. Tom jerked back in terror, and the light illuminated more horrors; an Indian with a skull face, wearing the war bonnet and wielding the tomahawk, and beside him a skeleton cowboy with the bullwhip raised to strike. Then a voice dripping with malevolence came from the cabinet above us, "Well, well! Look at the tender little boys!" Tom pointed the shaking light up at the bronze head. Its once placid face was a grimace of evil, the eyes looking down at us, its mouth opening to reveal sharp pointed teeth.

We all found our voices together and screamed in unison. We were still screaming when the overhead light came on and Grandmother shushed us. "What's the matter with you boys," she said, "this is just an ordinary attic. See, there's nothing here!" Sure enough, when we opened our eyes the snakeskin was back on the wall, the tomahawk, war bonnet and bullwhip were resting innocently in their places, and the head just had the face of a sad woman.

With the attic door securely locked by grandmother, the three of us crowded into Tom's bed downstairs and said goodnight. After grandmother closed the bedroom door, I quietly got up and jammed a chair under the attic doorknob. Just in case.

Lost in Lost

After enjoying countless episodes of Doctor Who, Doctor Who Classics, all of the new Who episodes, a half a dozen BBC specials about the show, and the so called “Missing Episodes,”we had pretty much run the gamut of “Whodom.”

Looking for new TV territory on Hulu, we decided to try the 2004-2010 adventure series, Lost. Carol had seen some of the 118 episodes years ago, but due to it's late air time and my early bed time, I hadn't seen any of them. (Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise!”) (I'm still waiting for that last part to happen!)

We're up to episode 8 now, and from what we've seen so far, we should have a lot of wintertime evening entertainment.

For those of you who didn't see Lost when it was originally broadcast, it's about a group of commercial jet passengers who are stranded on a mysterious, deserted island when their plane crashes. It starts out a little weird and quickly gets weirder and weirder, just our kind of show, although some parts are a little more than weird. A Polar Bear on a tropical island? It's full of metaphors, mythology and the supernatural, so I guess anything goes.

YouTube Gardener

Last year I learned how to grow pumpkins in a greenhouse by watching videos on YouTube. I learned how to tell the difference between male and female Pumpkin flowers and how to hand pollinate them. If it hadn't been for the Internet and YouTube I probably would have been running around with a net trying to catch some bees to turn loose in our greenhouse.

This year, along with the usual Tomatoes, I'm trying Cantaloupe. I found videos that show how to tell the male and female blossoms apart, which is similar to Pumpkins, but more difficult due to their small size and my failing eyesight. Like Pumpkins, the male flowers are first to appear in great numbers but the shy females take their own sweet time to make an entrance. A small artist's paint brush works to transfer the pollen, and an electric tooth brush imitates the buzzing vibes of a bee. (Oh yeah, I got that from a video about Tomato pollination!)

Tomatoes are different; the flowers have both male and female pollen, the bees just stir it up when they enter the flowers. One video I watched was called “How to spank your Tomatoes!” It showed a guy whacking his plants with a rolled up newspaper to distribute the pollen. Another espoused the electric toothbrush method which I liked much better.

If I can find a Yellow and Black striped Tee shirt, my Bee imitation will be complete.

The Big C

Options

The dreaded phone call came in the afternoon.

“Honey, your doctors on the phone!”

I was expecting the worst and I got it. “I got the lab report back from your biopsy and they found cancer on both sides of your prostate. We need to make an appointment so I can talk to you about your options.”

We agreed on a date and time, and after hanging up I told Carol that my biopsy was positive for cancer. I think we both were in a daze as we sat on the patio staring at our glasses of wine. “At least we caught it early!”Carol said.

“Yeah, I hope so.” I said, thinking of my brother JC and the devastation prostate cancer wreaked on him.

Carol accompanied me into the doctor's office and after a short wait he came in. Very explicitly he explained my options starting with the most drastic being surgery, a radical prostatectomy. He explained the nasty side effects of several types of radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy and to my relief, and my favorite, “active surveillance.”

He explained that in my case we could wait until my next checkup in 6 months and see how my PSA level is. Evidently prostate cancer grows slowly and in a lot of cases in older patients like me,watchful waiting is recommended.

My PSA level last year was a little over 3, it had raised to 8 at my latest checkup causing my primary care doctor to recommend the biopsy.

Since this was the same doctor who treated my brother I asked him what JC's PSA was when he finally got checked. He looked up the records on his computer and shook his head, “Your brother's PSA level when I first saw him was 700!”

So, anyway I'll be walking around for 6 months with a big “C” for cancer, hanging over my head, (actually it's hovering around my crotch.) or maybe a big “P” for Parkinsons stamped on my brain, or maybe the “P” stands for proststate.

All I know for sure is that I'm not going down without a fight. (I know, everyone says that.)

Me And My Prostate

Since my brother John (JC) had died from metastasized prostate cancer, and when my last checkup showed a significant increase in my PSA level, I was sent kicking and screaming into the referral system. My primary care doc had recommended that I have a prostate biopsy done, but unfortunately the nearest urologist is 60 miles away, in Corvallis. I envisioned a trip to get another exam from him and then another 120 mile round trip to do the procedure. When Carol asked me what the doctor had said, I couldn't remember the word “Biopsy” so I said, “I need to have a core sample taken!”(A term from my mining days.)

At the Corvallis Clinic the nurse gave me a container and directions for a “clean catch” urine sample and after I supplied that she led me to an exam room where I waited for the doctor. When he came in we shook hands and he said,”You look a lot like your brother!” and I realized that he was the same doc who had treated JC. We talked about how JC had waited until it was far too late before seeing a doctor, and then he explained what the biopsy procedure would entail.

“We can do it now, if you're ready,” he said.

“oh,” I weakly answered. Shit, I'm not ready for this!

“OK, lets do it !” I said in a brave voice.

“The nurse will get you ready, and I'll be back in a minute,” he said.

“Take your shoes, pants and undershorts off,” she said,”You can leave your shirt and socks on.” I stood there waiting for her to leave the room so I could undress but she said over her shoulder as she worked, “Don't worry I'll keep my back turned. When you're ready, get on the table, lie on your left side and I'll cover you with a blanket.”

When the doctor returned he sat down and helped position me so that my bum was in a handy position, at least for him.

“Now this instrument that I'm going to insert will take ultrasound images so I can see exactly what I'm doing, It also will inject a local anesthetic and take the biopsies. Biopsies! When did it become plural?

“This won't hurt, it'll just be a little uncomfortable.”

OW!

I couldn't see what he was inserting back there but if it did all the things he said, it must be like a medical Swiss army knife, or maybe like one of those robots on the Si-Fi channel that have interchangeable gadgets on the end of their arms.

“You'll feel a little pinch now.”

OW!

“That was Lidocaine, the anesthetic, and there's one more.”

OW!

“OK, I've got a good picture on the ultrasound, I'll show you the pictures when we're done.” I can hardly wait!

“Now when I take a biopsy, you'll hear a loud snap like a mouse trap going off, so don't let it startle you.”

SNAP!

OW! ...Well, I'm glad that's over!

SNAP!

OW! Biopsies! Plural, remember!

The mousetrap in my butt went off 6 times and then there was a pause, but my hopes were dashed when he said, ”Now we'll do the other side!”

“How are you doing? Any pain? Just uncomfortable, right?”

“Yeah, piece of cake!” I answered. Just get that thing out of my ass!

SNAP! OW! SNAP! OW! SNAP! OW! SNAP! OW! SNAP! OW! SNAP! OW!

“I'm going to withdraw it now.” Thank God!

Afterward, he proudly showed me a string of ultrasound pictures that looked exactly like a bunch of blobs. I might as well have been looking at someones pregnancy ultrasound pics. Was it a boy or a girl? Should I name it yet?

After I got dressed he informed me that it would be 3 or 4 days before the results would come from the lab and that he would call me when they showed up.

Carol was waiting for me in the hallway, and she walked with me as I waddled along out to the parking lot.

Hooked On Who

Recently I connected our laptop to the living room TV and we started watching streaming video on the Internet. We subscribed to Hulu and watched some episodes of Sleepy Hollow and Almost Human that we had missed when they originally aired. I watched Jon Stewart on the Daily Show and we watched a bunch of YouTube videos, mostly about dumb kids crashing on skate boards.

I started browsing through the extensive list of available shows on Hulus menu and when I checked out the BBC network I discovered that there were over 400 episodes of “Doctor Who” available to watch, going all the way back to 1963.

Doctor Who is a British Sci-Fi program produced by the BBC. The program is about the adventures of the Doctor, as he explores the universe in his “Tardis,”a time traveling space ship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police phone booth, which was a common sight in Britain in the 60s. It's huge inside, complete with complicated machinery and even an indoor swimming pool! Along with a succession of companions, (mostly female,) the Doctor faces a variety of enemies while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right wrongs.

The doctor has been played by a succession of 12 different actors which is neatly explained in the show as “regeneration;” when the doctor dies, or is killed, he regenerates into a new body.
We started out watching some of the first black and white episodes, which are pretty corny, but fun to watch. Then we got into the newer shows which have first rate special effects, beautiful sets, good acting and good writing. Soon we were watching 3 or 4 episodes every evening. Now around three or four pm one of us says, “Is it time for the Doctor?” or “Is it Who time?”

Its not a bad way to pass the time during these rainy crappy days, but unfortunately we've gone through almost all of the later episodes. Now all we have to do is travel back into the 60s,70s, 80s, and 90s with our own time machine!

Lions and Bears

Well, I'm back on safari patrol! Our next door neighbors saw a mountain lion trying to get in their horse corral and managed to scare it off, so now the scare is on. A couple of months ago it was a bear that we were worrying about, now it's a cotton picking mountain lion.

Taz and Squeak are typical small dogs; they both think that they can kick anything's ass no matter how big or ferocious it is. Mountain lion, coyote, bear or mouse, they don't care. They think they can ankle bite and yap it to death.

So now I take my old blunderbuss shotgun, put on my headlamp and accompany them whenever they need to go outside into the back yard. Again!

I'm not sure what would happen if I did come across anything like a mountain lion in the dark, with it's beady eyes glowing and a rumbling growl issuing through its drooling fangs. Hopefully I wouldn’t shoot my foot off, or God forbid, one of the dogs, or blow a twelve gauge hole in the side of the house.

Wounding it would be bad, too. Then I'd have to try and track the blood trail into the dense forest that borders our back yard...

Shit! I'm scaring myself!