Here are all the pics from our get-together with Neo. Enjoy.

CarmenSense lookin’ awfully lovely.

Makin’ a break for the diner!

Neo, feelin’ buff.

Neo and CarmenSense. (And sleeping progeny.)

Some pretty good lookin’ folks.

Crafty and Cougar with Neo, CarmenSense and some crew.

Neo’s oldest scopin’ the place out for a quick getaway!

Me, Spawnling, and Neo’s Clan minus middle girl.

Everybody, minus Cougar

Mixed group – Outside

Caught!

The crew at their own table talkin’ world takeover.

Middle Neo-phyte coloring up a storm!

Oldest Neo-phyte discussing Pokemon with Spawnling

Neo

Baby Boy, Dancin’ on the table!

Neo’s pride & Joy Again

Neo, Carmen, and Baby Boy.

Crafty – Still pretty cute. :)

Crafty, beautiful as always….

Me discovering the food was made THAT DAY!!

Me at the Choke & Puke

Crafty’s new nails – Right

Crafty’s new nails- Left

Another visit in the dark…..

I sat alone in the dark. Again. Music played on the machine near me, its solitary eye glowing with futility in the unlighted room. I could feel its breath on my neck. My old friend. My worst enemy. Here for another visit.

Locked doors don’t keep it at bay; nor do barred windows. Always, it finds a way in. Lights on, lights off, makes no difference. I know it is still going to come. Eventually.

It rakes its claws through the old wounds again, freeing up those juices it feeds upon. Bits of my soul flow away into the night, lost forever to time and space. Unbidden screams come and go as I am used once again to sate its evil desires. I am weak. I am tired. I am old.

If I was strong I would end this half-life. I would make this kind of thing stop. Feeding the evil can only bring more suffering into the world. If I were more a man I would not just sit here and be used this way. And yet I do. Just sit here. And wait for the thing to be finished.

I’ve seen the professionals about this thing. They say there isn’t much they can do. Some think the beast isn’t real. Others feel helpless and so shun me. Only a few are willing to face what is happening with me. Willing to put their name next to mine on this thing’s invitation.

Oh, there are things that help keep it at bay. Things I can take. Things I can do. Things that hold it off for a while….

Again and again they rake me, those greedy blades of hate and hunger. Slowly they slice the best parts of me off, fillets of my soul. Who I am flows away, never to be retrieved. Who I was taken long ago. Soon it will begin again on who I am to be. And here I sit. And there it sits. And the room slowly grows light.

As the shafts of the morning sun cut through the dirty glass of the windows, the thing leaves. Sated for a little while longer. Filled with who I was and who I would like to be, it leaves me here in this chair a shadowy husk of the man I would otherwise be.

And I sit here in the chair. Wondering if today is the day. Will today be the day I will make it end?

Maybe tomorrow……m

A Word From The Dinner Table….

I just stepped away from our new country table having finished a wonderfully non-pretentious meal. We dined on a delicate chicken vegetable soup with carrots, corn, potatoes, green onion and seasoned with a pinch of salt and pepper. While not fancy, I find great comfort in such dishes. They seem somehow more, um, fulfilling than anything one might grab from the store’s freezer section and microwave. The kind of food that seem to beg you to take just one more bite. One more little taste.

Store bought dishes often are awash in a plethora of spices and flavors all designed with one purpose in mind; to make you think that what you are ingesting might be somehow equal to that which you could make yourself. It isn’t. Not by a long shot. I think that one of the things we have lost in the last thirty or forty years is that loving touch that seemed to season the food coming out of the kitchen and onto the table.

Forty years ago there wasn’t much to recommend buying one’s dinner at the local Swap & Save. Only those with no other option would think of doing so; single men, ladies away from home, those living in hotels or such. In almost every other home you would find a wife or mother taking a few minutes to turn groceries into dinner. After all, what is a pot pie but a cup of flour, a little Crisco, some veggies and a smattering of whatever leftove meat was in the fridge. That simple step of taking a few minutes of care to prepare it seemed to add a rich and filling flavor that made store or restraunt food seem somehow dull by comparison.

So in the future, if you have a mind to and agree, try to take a few minutes of your own and flavor that dish that only you seem to be able to make. Be adventuresome! Try something new! It doesn’t matter what it is you make, because it will be seasoned with that one seasoning you can’t buy on a grocer’s shelf; love.

Four Minutes….

I stand on the edge of a dark abyss,

Waiting for that one little nudge to send me over the side.

It hurts too much.

Sounds simple doesn’t it?

It hurts. I want it to end.

I am tired, so tired I wish I could just stop.

Stop hurting.  Stop thinking.  Stop breathing.

How hard should that be?

.

Four minutes to eternity…..

Four minutes to relief from all this agony.

Four lousy minutes…

And still they keep up their dirty little job.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Condemning me to another four minutes of agony.

Then another. And another.
.
.

I close my eyes and all I can see is where I go when this life is over.

I catch glimpses in my mind’s eye of that which could be,

That which will be….

Someday.

If only I hold on. Four more minutes…

.
.
It’s not that I fear suicide.

On the contrary, I would welcome it.

What I fear is the harm and pain I would inflict on those I profess to love…

What would happen to their souls?

They might never recover from the evil I would do.

And therein lies the trap.
.
.

If I stay, I scream silently through every second.

Of every minute, of every hour, of every day….

I go through the motions of living.

But it is all just a sham.

Something has killed the best part of me,

And left me holding the pieces of a broken soul…

Unable to move on, unable to move back.

Stuck. For another four minutes of hell.
.
.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

A servant of a Master that did all this and more.

A poor slave of the man and God who came in the flesh to buy me another day of eternity.

And all I have to do is breathe. And obey.
.
.

Sounds tough, huh?

It is….more than you know.

The love part becomes easy….

Over time and with a little practice.

I am stuck here because I love too much.

A hell of a crime.

And my punishment is a perceived eternity of pain,

Before I can stand before my Master and hear those awesome words:

“Come in you good and faithful servant, be at peace and rest.”

*sigh*

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Another four minutes in hell…….

Dinner at the Folk’s…

I finally found time to spend an hour or two at my parents’ house for dinner. even though we live only about 4 blocks away, since the move there hasn’t been much time spent together in person.  My dad and I talk almost daily on the phone.  he’ll call me or I’ll call him and we’ll fill each other in on what is going on in our lives.  My dad and i have always gotten along fairly well.  When I got hurt, he was one of the few people around me that didn’t treat it like I was begging for attention or making it all up.  throughout the last seven or so years, he has always been there to lean on.

My mom is a different matter.  After I got hurt and had to start using narcotics to help treat the pain, she couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just “buck up” and keep up the good work.  She projected her feeling that I WAS just faking it, or attempting to bury my mind in a narcotic haze.  She acted (For the first six or so years anyway) like there was nothing wrong with me that a little more effort or endurance on my part wouldn’t cure.  After the MRI’s and other diagnostics started coming back with definitive damage she started coming around, but it was touch and go for a while….

Now we get along pretty well, actually.  Shawna and I have endeavored over the last couple of years to NOT ask them for any money or financial help.  It has been hard at times, but I would rather bite my tongue out than ask them for money for bills. (Food is a different matter. No way i am going to let pride get in the way of my kids getting a hot meal.)   In doing so, I think they have seen that I might just actually be a grown-up now.

Anyhow, dinner was good. (Pizza Hut lasagna and chicken noodle dish with bread sticks.) Conversation was good.

Life is good.  If painful.

Here’s a pic of my folks:

The kindest, most generous, smartest woman I have ever met….

The most honest, honorable, faithful man I know.

I have achieved PersonHood!!

Here are a few photos of the trip Crafty and i took to meet up with tah and his brood.  We had a wonderful time.  Here are a few pics to tide everyone over until I can figure out how to

A. Post pictures WITH their descriptions, or

B. Post pics individually and just tell everyone all about  each pic as we go. *sigh*

Ah well. I just spent the last hour typing our description for each pic, but I guess you are all stuck with just holding your mouse over each pic for its descriptive title. (And I have been informed it should be PINTLAR Pass….) LOL

*UPDATE*  I have added descriptors for each pic (again!).  Just click on each one if you want more details!

Alone once again in the landscape of my Mind…

Too many days have I been trapped here.
Too many nights all alone.
Unable to escape this dark reality,
Trapped in a hell all my own.

The pain, an old friend, Leads and guides me.
It tells me which pathways to trod.
I struggle to keep up my energy,
I humbly submit to my God.

The current fast flowing slips by me.
I see glints of beauty ahead.
I hear calls of love from behind me,
They burn me like bullets of lead.

I will not give up the struggle.
Too long in the doorway I’ve stood.
I fight for the good of my family.
I stay out of love for my brood.

So easy it would be to give up.
So little a step it would take.
To slip through the portal before me,
So big a decision to make.

But knowing the love of my Master.
The pain He already endured.
Secure in the knowledge of passage,
And illness to soon be all cured.

So when in the darkness you journey,
Alone in a world filled with pain.
You find the hot doorway of passing,
Turn round and face life once again.

Or something like that…..

Waiting in the wings…

Well, here it is the first few days of a new year, and I find myself stuck in the waiting role. Again.  One would think I would be used to it by now, after the past six years of enforced idleness, but that would be a wrong belief.  I HATE waiting.  With a passion that is almost holy.  I want to get things STARTED!!! Urk.

I’m a little angry with the medical profession right now.  Last week i was slated for a set of diagnostic nerve block procedures, and as a result my new doctor was reviewing my medical records to make sure he hadn’t “missed” anything.  He found that the last set of MRI images and reports were missing from my file.  I volunteered to go to the clinic where I had it done and have them send him a new set.  When I got there, I made sure to get another set of the reports for myself whilst I was there.

It turns out the doctors should have known what was wrong with my back TWO YEARS AGO!!!!!  The images show a protruding disk pressing against the tegament of a radial nerve that runs down  into my left leg.  The report said that this was the reason for the constant rending pain I am in.  When the doc saw this, he cancelled the diagnostics and set up an appointment for a nerve block to that specific location to see if surgery might be an option. (If he can give me significant relief with a nerve block, then surgery would most likely be effective…)

Here’s the kicker:  The reason my new doctor’s never got the report/images and were told nothing about the underlying cause of my pain is that my old doctor worked for a competing hospital/clinic!!

I could just scream!! URK!!!!

*sigh*  I go in Monday for the nerve block.  If it gives me some serious relief, I could be looking at living a more normal life in a matter of a few WEEKS! *gulp*

Needless to say, I am just a wee bit nervous!

Wish me luck.

A Few Days Short…

of the holidays and things are VERY hectic!!  It looks like we are going to be doing the majority of our X-mas shopping in the last few days!! (YIKES!!)  Oh well.  Who really wants to have everything done early and be able to just sit around those last few days and only have to worry about the cleaning and cooking, right?  Urk.

As we draw into the “family season” my mind goes back to all of those souls that have at one time or another shared the road with me for a while.  I miss the way we used to gather around and just “hang out”.  I miss the fun.  I miss YOU all…..

I have word from my Doc that there is an experimental treatment that has a chance of reducing my pain by up to 50%.  It requires me to undergo an agonizing set of injections, but if successful, it could lead to a deadening of this constant agony I am stuck living with.  Imagine, a world that doesn’t revolve around pill counts or med times!! Amazing.  Here’s hoping it will work!

And because I live on the edge of utter dispair, here’s my latest bit of dark poetry. Enjoy! (Or whatever…)

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As I sit here in the dark,

Staring with blinded eyes into the brightness of the night,

My ears ring with the sounds of

Those that I have loved.

Those I have bled and cried with and for.

Those I once thought I could not live without.

Those I thought could not live without me.

.

I was, it appears, wrong.

.

Inch by inch,

Strand by strand,

The ties that bind were broken and cut

By things outside my control:

Pain

Poverty

Pride

Fear

Money

Power

Weakness.

.

The cold wind blows over my parched skin,

Bringing back memories of days that

Rained down happiness and joy.

A never-ending shower of companionship and Bliss.

.

*SIGH*

.

So I sit here in the dark.

Alone.

Holding in my broken hands the memories

Of moments gone by….

.

And I quietly weep…..

Looks Like I Might Just Be An Owner

Interesting days and times around the old homestead the past week or so!

I got a call from my current landlord telling me that he is now an owner of the house we have been looking at. (YAY)

Sometime in the next few days, we will get together and come up with the best way to work the financing/money issues/move date to put my family into this new (to us) house.  I think about all that is going on and while I am overwhelmed with gratitude, i am also scared spitless about the whole thing!  Somewhere deep inside, i keep expecting everything to fall apart somehow.

I guess the thing that is throwing me for the loop is  the “reallness” of it all.  Yesterday Shawna and I were driving through some of the small towns in the area.  Some had only a part time post office and a button-sized school!  As I drove quietly through, all I could think of is how much I would really LOVE to live somewhere like that.  I can fully picture stepping out of my front door each day to the sounds, smells, and sights of nature all around me.  The feeling I get is……..home. *sigh*

Perhaps Shawna is right.  She thinks that the only reason i want to live out in the boonies is so that I can shoot dinner from the front porch without any of the neighbors complaining. LOL  (She may be partially right!)

Shawna is, of course, excited as all get out about the thought of actually owning our own home.  She needs to be near other folks.  the thought of being miles from the nearest neighbor doesn’t do much for her. So, because i love and need her, I will live here in town.

But somewhere deep inside, down where no one can see, I will be dreaming of living on the edge of the frontier.  And I will stand there in my mind’s eye and just breathe….