Even Xena can't drive fast enough

Not that I didn't test her, but even Xena can't drive fast enough to outrun some things.  Three years today, and for the first time in those three years I woke up this morning and felt like I could take a deep breath without crumbling.  Paul died on January 26, but today is the day we buried him.  This day is the one that gives me the most trouble of all the bad days that come along.  The day he died was surreal, not solid, not tangible.  But that day we sat in the frigid cemetery and I saw that box next to that awful hole in the ground, that is the day that is seared on my mind like a brand.  The blister heals and the angry red turns to a faint pink, but the scar never goes away.  As they say, time does heal all wounds, but time seldom erases those scars.  I visited his grave and looked at his name carved on that granite marker and memories flashed through my mind.  Happy ones, sad ones, memories filled with regret, longing for those missed opportunities to be a better mother, a better friend during his too short life.  I want him to be happy wherever he is.  I want him to remember me and know that I love him the same way I swear to remember him always.  I will let a few tears fall, I really have no choice in that, but I also know that tomorrow I will dry my eyes and life will continue.  I will tuck those painful memories away and hold them for another year and I will try to drive as fast as I can to keep ahead of them, knowing that in about a year from now they will catch up with me again.

                                                                         PAUL J NIELSON

Adventures in Animal Husbandry (or wifery in this case)

It's 4:30 a.m. and the phone rings.  Unavailable number?  Who is calling me at 4:30 in the morning?  It could only be Jay, right?  So, of course, I answer.  It's the security company informing that they have had a non-emergency alarm on my system.  As I hang up the phone I hear the rain falling in buckets on the roof and I realize what has happened.  I get up, wander to the kitchen to inspect the security system keypad, and sure enough, all the little lights are black.  It has no power.  Just a side note here, just because it is not lit up and has no power, does not mean it's not armed.  I open the garage door and the alarm unexpectedly and loudly screams in my ear.  I fumble like a blind person to find the right code to turn it off.  Now, not only am I fully awake, but I also need clean underwear.  I unplug the power cord going out to the chicken house, and then pitter patter in my little bare feet around the cars to the far side of the garage and reset the GFCI receptacle, and just like that, power is restored to the alarm system.  Now, I have to restore power to the chicken house so they don't get cold, but I have to discern why the power cord is tripping the GFCI.  Come to think about it, if the power is tripping off, I hope my little feathered friends have not been electrocuted.  I slip Jay's green rubber rain coat over my nightgown and then top off the ensemble by pulling on my knee high, black rubber farm boots.  I am stunning.  I slosh into the backyard where the rain is coming down in torrents.  I live in Idaho, it's a desert, it never rains like this, let alone in January. As I hop the fence to the chicken run I see the problem.  I just can't imagine why the power would trip off when the cord connection is only sitting in six inches of water.  This situation would require a bit more of a solution than just putting duct tape around the connection.  I head back in the house and now Frankie is awake and wanting to go outside.  He has not yet realized it is raining and I know him, he will not go to the bathroom if he's getting rained on.  So now I am in the backyard, in my nightgown, green rubber rain coat, and knee high black rubber farm boots, following an 8 in long, 2 in high spud around the yard holding an umbrella over his head so he will poop.  And I wonder why the neighbors are afraid of me.  Frankie, being the good boy that he is, did his business quickly and ran for the house.  Now, one problem solved, on to the next.  I determined I would probably need a slightly less casual attire, so I traded the nightgown for a sweatshirt and some jeans and added a baseball cap to hide the scary hair.  I realized that there was another receptacle I could use on the back of the house that if tripped, would not effect my security system.  But, it would require a longer extension cord.  Now, remember it is only 5 a.m.    I would have to figure something out.  There was a longer extension cord being used to plug our trailer in over at Kate's house.  The trailer didn't need a long extension cord because the receptacle was close, so I would be doing some cord swapping.  I sloshed back out into the backyard and wound up the existing cord and hopped in the truck and drove the 1/4 mile to Kate's house.  There I wound up the much longer cord attached to our trailer and replaced it with the sort of long cord from the chicken house.  Yes, it is still raining buckets.  Now, back to my house to string the new cord from the new receptacle out to the chicken house.  It still wasn't long enough to reach completely inside the chicken house and the connection would still be exposed to the weather.  As I stood in water up to my calves and pondered my dilemma, I realized that the redneck fence of wooden pallets I had around the run to keep the dogs out was perfect!  I strung the two cords through the pallets and made the connection a good three feet off the ground.  I then was able to cover it with a tarp that was in place already to, once again, keep the dogs from seeing a tiny opening in the redneck pallet fence.  This would keep the rain off the connection.  I finished my creation and connected the two cords and, hurray!, my babies had heat once again.  I know, I know, the animal farm was my choice.  Without them, I would have been sleeping peacefully at 4:30 in the morning instead of tromping around in the yard like some kind of swamp monster, scaring the neighbors.  But, sleep is for the weak, and sanity is overrated.  So I'll just smile at my temporary success against the elements while my rubber boots and raincoat are drying in the garage, and sit in front of the fireplace eating my scrambled eggs made from the freshest eggs from my own little pets.  For now, all is right on the Shaw Family Farm.

Halibut fishing….A metaphor for life

A couple of years ago Jay and I decided while on our annual vacation to Newport, Oregon that we would fish for Halibut.  Usually, we stuck pretty much to the shore, taking 4 hour trips to fish for Rock fish and Ling Cod.  Of course, Gilligan’s crew was only supposed to go on a 3 hour tour, and we all know what happened to them.  Okay, maybe if you’re over 30 you know what happened to them, but now I’m just meandering aimlessly about.  So, back to my story.  So, just to be different, we decided to take the 8 hour halibut trip.  It’s not that it takes longer to catch the Halibut, heck it takes less time, because you can only catch one, but it takes about 3 hours just to get out to the really deep waters where the Halibut like to lay on the bottom of the ocean.  Thus, the 8 hour trip.  We got up the morning of our Halibut day and the weather looked a bit ominous.  Cloudy, windy, really not that unusual for the Oregon coast, but not the best for toodling about in the ocean.  But, we headed to the fishing charter office anyway.  Once we arrived, we were informed that we would be fishing with Captain Steve, one of their finest fishing boat captains.  And at this point, I remind you all that Forest Gump was also a fishing boat captain.  Just sayin’.  Anyway, the 15 of us loaded ourselves on the boat, listened to the safety speech from the 1st mate, and situated ourselves for the long ride out.  As we passed under the Newport Bay bridge and out of the harbor into the open ocean, the sea looked a little rougher than we were used to.  The waves were rolling up pretty high and I looked at Jay with a little bit of a crease in my brow.  About that time, Captain Steve, who resembled Seamus from Family Guy (google him), casually announced that, “all the other charters for today had cancelled because the ocean was too rough.  But, he thought we could get out, get our halibut, and get back before we got killed.”  I can quite honestly say, I was not reassured.  We soon found that, in rough water, the cabin was not the best place to be.  Jay stood up for just a second and the wild waves tossed him into the overhanging roof and cut his forehead open.  Without the fresh air slapping you in the face, your stomach would start to rumble and roll.  I had no intention of throwing up on this trip, so we ventured out of the cabin and sat outside on the gear storage bin.  It was cold, and the waves crashed over the side of the boat and drenched us, but for some reason being outside kept the nausea at bay, so we stayed put.  After about 3 ½ hours of being tossed back and forth, breathing deep to keep the bile down, and chowing down on ginger snaps (because I read that ginger helps with sea sickness), we finally reached our fishing destination.  Those who could still stand or who weren’t busy vomiting over the side of the rail, dropped their lines and waited for the halibut.  It was an interesting situation as I stood there with one arm looped through the railing to keep me from being thrown over the side, and the other arm gripping the gigantic fishing pole.  Soon I had a fish on my line.  I cranked the line….and cranked, and cranked.  It was like trying to pull a 4 X 8 sheet of plywood up off the bottom of the ocean floor.  It was exhausting clinging to the rail, trying to keep my balance as the 15 foot swales rolled under the boat lifting it high in the air and then dropping it back down.  It was like riding a roller coaster, standing up, with nothing holding you in your seat, while you tried not to spill your big gulp.  Everyone was in the same boat as me, no pun intended, but true to his word, Captain Steve managed to get a halibut on board for every paying fisherman, puking or not, and we headed back for the shore.  Jay and I stayed outside on the storage bin, regardless of the fact that we were soaking wet and freezing.  The waves continued to pound and I continued to mumble, “please, God, let us make it back to shore before these waves decide to capsize this boat.”  It seemed like an eternity before we could see the distant shoreline.  I can’t tell you the relief that washed over me, along with the freezing seawater.  I knew, at least this close, they would be able to find our bodies.  Once on shore, and with our halibut filleted and packaged, we headed back to our nice, warm travel trailer to change in to dry clothes and rest and relax.  Once in the truck and on our way, we looked at each other and said, “well, that was….interesting, but we don’t ever want to do that again.”  

Now, for the metaphor.  Life is often like this fishing trip.  It is often filled with unexpected storms and crashing waves.  Once you’re headed out in life, you often can’t avoid these storms, but instead you just have to ride it through.  I remember a few years ago when the economy took a nose dive.  Prices were high, jobs started to disappear, and Jay’s was one of them.  It took him a year of unemployment before he could find another job.  During that year we found ourselves everyday just clinging to the rail, riding out the perfect storm and trying not to throw up. Praying every day that we would make it back to shore before our boat capsized and we were drowned.  It was a great experience because we kind of learned what we were made of.  We didn’t hide in the cabin.  We walked right outside and held our heads up and let the waves crash over us.  We rode out the storm and watched for the welcoming shoreline.  It was an experience worth going through.  Sometimes in life you just have to get wet.  You just have to hang on and try to enjoy the ride.   However, that being said, just like Halibut fishing, it’s not an experience I ever want to go through again.  I’m not sure knowing what it was going to be like, if I would be nearly as courageous again.  So, when you see trouble coming and you are afraid, or when you just don’t have the words to describe something difficult you might be experiencing…just say, “I don’t think I want to go Halibut fishing.”  And then hold on, breathe deep, know you’re gonna get wet, and watch for the shoreline.