Electioneering

Surfeit of color and noise
and that was just the crap
in the mailbox, every day
Forests bled to extinction

More shiny noises from the box
Bright hues and gaudy wraps
So many promises! like God and
Marilyn Monroe delivered to your door

The palate dulls, hearing fades
eyesight dims under sensory fatigue
No, under siege! Because you cannot escape
bleat, blather and bother, beyond the end

Necessary evil, this binge and purge
of the body politic, they tell us to care,
we must care, but too many broken promises,
shattered hopes, have eaten our trust.

Event Horizon

Heart falling into redshift
time doesn't seem to pass
outside eyes trace the blur
and wonder where it went

Inside eyes stare in disbelief
racing to a point down below
the infinite fall into a void
white-hot with radiation

The Watcher sees it fall
The Heart feels its slipping
Each reach out to the other
Yet nothing is to be done

Love, the collapsar, has burst
and one heart split into two,
yin and yang, singing, keening,
from opposite ends of the universe

It's Not Just Fresh, Its 'Butt' Fresh

Yet another thing I'm surprised consumer products companies haven't made us worry about...

Earlier in the day, the Wee Lass and I watched an episode of 'Brain Surge' on Nickleodeon.  The Lass, she likes the burping noises and the references to flatulence.  I go along because it is a silly game show, and you actually do have to concentrate and pay attention to detail in order to advance.

Any one who loses a round has to leave the set via a twisty slide called the 'Brain Drain'.  It's not just a slide, it's a slide that has been partially filled with some sort of goop.  Of course, the poor sap who loses has to slide through the mess du jour, getting covered with shaving cream or Crisco or aerated dish soap, whatever it is the minds behind the show deem fit to use.

Wee Lass, of course, finds it hilarious.

Which brings us to the fast slide at a local amusement parlor for the kiddies.  We went to a birthday party there, the same day of Brain Surge.  It is one of those places that has all sorts of inflatable bouncy things akin to moon bounces, inflatable slides and obstacle courses, and they rent them out for parties and junior executive team building exercises*.  Run around like a maniac for an hour, bouncing (literally) off the walls and each other, then on to pizza or cake and ice cream.  It's quite cool, although a bit exhausting to watch.  Them tykes have some serious energy reserves.

So there is this slide there, a green plastic half-pipe attached to a small tree fort like structure.  At the bottom on the floor is a padded gym mat.  This gym mat is a good thing, because that slide was fast like so roads are fast: the kids were hurtling down that thing like they had been strapped to rockets.  Kids were crashing into the floor, each other, doing face plants and butt plants, and laughing like bastards the entire time.  Wee Lass was having a ball.

Later, she said to me, "Daddy, wouldn't it be funny if they filled the slide up with soap?"

I responded that, yep, I reckon that would have been pretty funny.  Then she got this gleam in her eye.

"Daddy, daddy! It would be better if they filled it with toothpaste!"

"Toothpaste?" I asked, puzzled.  She was giggling hard, and said "Yeah, 'cause then our butts would smell minty fresh!" and she dissolved in a fit of laughter.

I'm still chuckling over that one myself.

*Just kidding.  Although it could happen...

Stone Free - Medical Adventures, Part the Third

A very interesting day here in the people's Republic of Gumbolia.  It's not often one gets serenaded by Jimi Hendrix while urinating.

What's that, you say?  Some explanation is needed?  Of course, allow me.

So last week I chronicled my unfortunate encounter with a kidney stone.  I am happy to report that most of the week was relatively pain-free.  I say relatively because now my Pain-o-Meter has been recalibrated thanks to the aforementioned kidney stone.  I followed the doctor's instructions to drink lots (LOTS) of fluids, and stick to the medicine, and wait for things to...pass.  They advised me to monitor my 'output' even if that meant filtering said 'output' through a strainer to better catch anything (this becomes critical, later, you'll see).  They can be sent for testing, to better determine how to prevent recurrence. 

Well, the only strainer I have in the house is my trusty little tea strainer...and there is no way I was going to whiz through that, even if I sterilized it in boiling water.  Just couldn't do it.

I didn't have time to go strainer shopping, so I decide to take my chances and bide my time, trusting that the stone would be evicted by the natural flow of things, and that I would know when it did.  It's a jagged little stone, right, traveling through rather constricted spaces, right?  Some rather sensitive constricted spaces, I must add.

All the past week, I anxiously awaited results.  And every day since last Monday, nothing.  Nothing, that is, until Sunday morning.

Things...shifted.  I noticed a little disturbance going on in Brother John early, and hoped that this might be the end of it.  First trip to the loo...a little scratchy, but no stone.  Second trip, mid-morning: did the pee-pee dance, still scratchy.  Still, no stone.  Third trip, just past noon:  They told me that sometimes an 'escapee' can be heard hitting the, um...bowl of whatever miracle of modern sanitation one happens to be, um...using.  And so it was. Clink.

Amen and hallelujah, I thought, looking down, and there it was, big as day.  Well, it felt bigger than day but was really only about the size of a grain of rice.  Sitting there, all ready for retrieval...except there was a catch.  I wasn't using a strainer.  I wasn't even at home. 

I was at a urinal in the public restroom at a local park.  An automatic flush urinal, right next to the door.

I slowly zipped up, trying not to move too far.  Also, I didn't have any tissues or gloves with me, and I couldn't walk away to get some tissue or a towel for fear of setting off the auto flush and thereby washing away the "fruits of my labor", as it were.  So it was me, stock still, contemplating reaching into a public urinal(!) barehanded to pick up(!) a kidney stone.  And what if someone walked in just as I lifting the "prize" out of the urinal?  How to explain that?

Eventually, intellectual curiosity won out over revulsion...I took a deep breath, prayed that no one would come in, and make a lightning grab for the stone.  I was like a peregrine falcon on a pigeon, I was moving so fast.  Amazingly, I snagged the stone in one try.


I immediately hot-footed it over to the sink before any one else ventured in.  I hurriedly washed the thing off (and with a thorough washing of my hands!) and wrapped it in some tissue paper for safekeeping.  Hopefully, some good will come of this rather distasteful brush with the public sewer system.


The soundtrack to this farce?  "Stone Free" by Jimi Hendrix was playing in my head the whole time. 


"...Stone free do what I please
Stone free to ride the breeze
Stone free I can't stay
Got to got to got to get away..."

Lyrics from "Stone Free" by Jimi Hendrix.  This song may end up in a Flomax commercial...