The Attack of The Contractors!

Contractor:  A person or company that performs tasks like electrical or plumbing work in construction projects.

I'm having some work done on my trailer home.  I'm having a water softener installed because god forbid I should have to endure the agony, both physical and emotional, of hard water.  The psychic tragedy might cause the earth to wobble on its axis.  Wars have been waged over hard water.  Brilliant minds have postulated and hypothesized over the relative grains of water hardness that the Seaweed household has had to endure.  For almost 5 weeks!    

We asked a water softener company to come out and give us a quote.  The guy talked really, really fast.  He sounded roughly like a high speed dentist drill.  His solution was the best AND the cheapest.  He had some worrisome talking points.  I'm ex-sales - I know about these points.  They're designed to worry the potential sucker . . . er, customer.  I gave him the chance to admit to some weakness.  Anything.  Bad breath, noisome vapors, slickery surfaces.  Nothing - the best AND the cheapest.  I moved on.  It was: Too Good To Be True!

I hired A Contractor to do the work.  The guy is in The Fellowship and he works a good program.  I trust him.  He's also A Contractor.  He's doing both electrical and plumbing work on my trailer house per the definition of A Contractor.  It started well.  He called and said that he would arrive on Thursday and might be able to finish the work that very same day.  That very same day!  If not he'd be able to finish it up the next morning.  The next morning!!

There are many tiny little Seaweeds living in the Seaweed brain.  One of them - just one! - mumbled that this might be Too Good To Be True!  Today is the following Tuesday and The Contractor is still on my property.  The job is not finished.  He has run into unforeseen obstacles - he has forgotten tools - he has had to pick up kids who may or may not be his own to take them to various practices, recitals, exhibitions, and the occasional wilding.  He arrives and he leaves.  He sees new situations.  He recalculates old situations.  He's a nice guy.  I like him and I trust him.  But he's A Contractor!

Insanity: repeating the same action over and over while expecting different results.

Forgive and Forgave

Forgive:  To pardon, to waive any negative feeling or desire for punishment.  

A group of guys that I played basketball with back in high school got together for a little mini-reunion recently.  The name of our coach surfaced during the weekend.  His memory was not held in the highest regard.  While I stayed above the fray this time it was just a few years ago that I was leading the charge of the Criticism Brigade, being a hyper-sensitive, overly-immature adult.

This is a good group of men.  The criticism wasn't mean-spirited or gratuitous, and our coach was a pretty flawed guy.  It made me think about our Step 9 amends process and how freeing that can be.  When I was getting started with my amends the hardest thing was saying sorry and meaning it.  I'm good at saying: "I'm sorry."  I'm glad there's no Google translator chip embedded in my skull because the words would come out something like this: "I'm sorry that I'm in pain - I'm sorry that you caught me in bad behavior and I'd like the pain to go away.  Not strongly enough to change my bad behavior or to right a wrong but strongly enough that I can loose a few insincere words from my pie hole."

This is assuming I ever got to the "I'm sorry" part.  Usually I got bogged down telling you how my bad behavior was really your fault.  And god save us all on the rare occasions when someone really had behaved worse than I had.  Our literature uses the phrase "triumphantly seized" to describe what we do when we see bad behavior in others as a foil to our own.  I personally am a Zen Master of Detecting Defects In Others.  I am Blinded At Birth to seeing any of my own.

Specks in your eye, logs in mine.

For EVER!

Forever:  For all time; for all eternity; for an infinite amount of time. 

When things happen to me they're never going to change, ever.  It will be this way for all time, for an infinite amount of time.  Eternal.  Changeless.  When things are going my way I try to manipulate the system so that they continue to go my way, forever.  When things don't go my way . . . well, I'm here to tell you that I have a problem with that.  It isn't fair, it isn't right, and it shouldn't happen to me.  It's perfectly OK if it happens to someone else - just not me.

This, too, shall pass, or so my sponsor tells me.  I love this advice when I'm in pain but he can stick it in his ear when I'm not.

S.O.B.E.R.

SOBER - Son of a Bitch, Everything's Real

The good news about getting sober is that you get to feel everything again.  The bad news is that you get to feel everything again.  It's a package deal, this reality stuff.  Even in sobriety I find myself thinking: "I'd love for this bad feeling to just go away."  This is why I drank and took drugs.  And ate too much sugar and worked 15 hour days and exercised compulsively - it's easier moving around a lot than feeling bad feelings.  All motion is easier than quick reflection.  

I love to meditate when I'm in a good mood.  It's fun sitting there soaking up the good vibrations.  Not so much when I'm in pain.

The other good news is that there is a solution.  But the bad news is that it takes a while.

That's all the good news-bad news analogies I have this morning.  

A dude at the meeting yesterday offered this up: "Do you know why it can be easier losing a person that a pet?  Unconditional love."  Might be some truth to that.  The cat never pissed me off intentionally.  The cat never held a grudge.  The cat never hurt my feelings to get back at me although she did bite me from time to time.

It's great having a big group of people to talk to about my difficulties.  Many people only have a couple of friends or family members and a lot of people - especially men - don't have anyone.  The more I go over what happened the less the sting factor, the more the acceptance factor, the more I see that I did the right thing.

Catharsis

Catharsis: A release of emotional tension after an overwhelming vicarious experience, resulting in the purging or purification of the emotions. 

I have a friend in The New City.  By all rights I should stop right now and post this.  The fact that I have a friend in The New City should be The News, but I'm not very good at stopping.  I'm not very good at starting, either, and I totally suck at the middle parts.  What I'm good at is telling you when to start and stop and what to do in between but my small, rapt audience in this endeavor has been drifting away and rapidly diminishing.  So I'm left with what follows:

This guy had a dog that he loved with a sharp intensity.  In a disaster of Biblical proportions he backed over his animal with a trailer that was attached to his company's moving van.  The injury wasn't immediately fatal but his dog was grievously wounded.  She lived, her neck broken, long enough for my buddy to drive her to a veterinary hospital, terrified, howling, where she was euthanized. 

He shared this story on a social media site.  There was a huge outpouring of sympathy.  I like Facebook but I like hugs and voices more, so I rang him up using my 1000 lb telephone.  He talked non-stop for 20 minutes, pausing only to sob from time to time.  This guy is one of those guys who could break me in two with one hand tied behind his back.  This doesn't sound as impressive as it should because SuperK can also accomplish this feat, but he is a big man.  He moves furniture for a living.  Big, heavy pieces of furniture.

I was happy to do this.  It wasn't fun but it meant something to both of us.  I think friends hang together on sunny days and when it's storming outside.  I didn't think this way when I was drinking.  I was a sun god.  If you couldn't promise me some serious sun I was going to try to have a nice day elsewhere.  I was not a fan of the harshed buzz.

When The Wheeze hit the road for the Big Friskies Factory In the Sky I posted a picture of her that he saw.  I got, of course, a call almost immediately.  I talked non-stop for 20 minutes, etc. etc.  It was cathartic to share the story of what happened.  It helped me sort it out in my head.  It helped me hang on to her memory for a little longer and to get some reassurance that I did the right thing.  It's an awesome responsibility to hold the life of an animal in one's hands.

Give a little, get a lot.

That's Not How You're Supposed To Do It, You Know

Here's another thing about death - it makes you sit up right straight and ponder your relationships with the non-dead.  Not zombie non-dead but those who are still, at this point, technically alive.  I get pissy about people not doing exactly what I want them to do exactly when I want them to do it, and I end up irritated.   When I'm mad at my friends and family it's usually about the most inane crap.  Whatever I'm mad about is not worth it.

Here's another thing about me: I don't learn shit about shit when I'm getting my way.  I don't learn anything valuable when I'm on vacation - the best lessons come when I shoulder my way through some unpleasantness.  At my Step meeting yesterday we read Number 9 - the direct amends Step - and a lot of people talked about how scary the amends process is and how wonderful the results are.  We do it because we need to do it - it's the right thing to do - not because it sounds like a lark.  The famous Promises come into play after we're well into saying we're sorry.  We get 'em when we do the hard stuff.

After our cat had gone to The Big Sandbox in the Sky we sat with her for a while.  I couldn't get past the stark beauty of her corpse.  It was like looking at one of the space capsules that had actually been on the surface of the moon, reconciling the stillness with what had gone before.  We were able to think: "I know she isn't going anywhere ever again but, man, where she has been."

The vet offered a personalized cremation service which we declined.  Neither of us are particularly sentimental so the thought of The Wheeze's ashes on our mantle was unappealing.  I have trouble walking through the house without knocking something off a table so we both knew where an urn of ashes was headed.  I felt guilty making the decision - I spend a great deal of time worrying about whether or not I'm acting the way I'm supposed to be acting, whatever that is.

I had my camera phone with me. 

"Would it be weird to take a couple of pictures?" I asked my wife.

"Oh, god, yes," she said, clutching my arm.  "I was hoping you were going to suggest that."

They're our favorite pictures.  They're better than shots of our failing cat stumbling around.

So we turn on an old sitcom last night.  The episode centers around two brothers - one tasked with delivering the eulogy, the other with disposing of - you guessed it - an urn of ashes from an aunt who had passed away.  In the scene that was sent to us from above, the eulogy brother is in the car, discussing his speech with his father, while the ashes guy is in the background, struggling to get the lid off the urn so he can spread the ashes.  He twists and turns, he bangs it on a tree and against a rock, he falls into the bushes, and when the lid finally releases with a jerk, the remains fly out and cover both of the brothers.  

A message from god delivered by a 20 year old episode of "Frasier."  Priceless.

Godspeed, Little Wheezer

I'm not sure how this story pertains to recovery but I'll wedge it in somehow.  I'm a master with a hammer.  There is no problem that can't be fixed with a good hammer.  There is no hammer that can't be fixed with a big sledgehammer.  And don't get me started on jackhammers . . . 

I really embrace the idea that pain is part of life, that loss is part of life, that death is part of life. Most people aren't exactly thrilled with the concept of pain but are still understand that it visits everyone from time to time.  Alcoholics, however, are on an eternal hunt for a pain-free existence.  It's a fallacy that alcoholism and drug addiction center around a pursuit of pleasure.  In my mind it's much more about the avoidance of discomfort.  I don't care if I feel good as long as I don't feel bad.  At the end of our drinking and using most of us weren't having a good time - we were trying to keep the demons outdoors.  We were watching TV by ourselves, in a blackout.  That isn't fun by anyone's measure.

Anyway, we took our cat to the veterinarian today and the good woman agreed that it was time to set the animal free.  She wasn't doing well and the treatment plans weren't providing anything but a temporary fix.  Sometimes animals get old.  Getting old is different than getting injured or sick.  A doctor can set a broken leg or cure an infection - a doctor can't make an old cat young.

Whenever The Wheeze (and you can bet that's the last time I get to name a pet) would falter SuperK would tell her to let us know when she wanted to go.  She'd been pretty sick the last few days - not eating, not drinking - and we figured she was getting close to the end.  This morning she pushed open the screen door and wandered outside, into the sun and fresh air.  She walked down the front steps and started off down the street like she had someplace important to go - not in a hurry but walking with purpose.  I followed her all the way to the end of the road.  She would stop from time to time and look at me or wander off into a side yard before I corralled her and got her back on track.  This was an indoor cat, mostly afraid to be outside so the whole trip had a strong sense of finality.  I could hear her say: "You're still here?  Go back inside - I've got it now."

I picked her up and took her to a park near our house that has a small pond with a fountain in the middle.  She hadn't been drinking anything at all so she walked falteringly to the edge of the pond and lapped up some water.  I wasn't all that sure was a good idea but figured it was better than her dying of dehydration.  Then, she stepped into the water, front paws first, finally submerging all four feet.  She moved into water deep enough that her belly got wet.  Every now and then she would pat at something that she saw on the water's surface, or maybe a minnow on the bottom.  She never looked back - she looked out into the water.  I was transfixed.  When she was a kitten I would punish her by flicking water in her fact.  I had never seen her get anywhere near water.

"I've got 50 feet high neon lights here," she was saying.  "I've got shills with amplified bullhorns screaming at you.  You're aware that I can't talk, right?  Can you please open your eyes and see what's going on?"

After a while I carried her to the path leading back to the house and set her down - she stopped and laid down in the dirt.  I moved her a few yards onto the concrete; again, she flopped down.  She was done - she was out of juice.  I brought her into the house, dried her feet, and she snuck behind a piece of furniture.  I know cats like to hide when they don't feel well.  I've heard they like to go someplace to be alone when it's time to die, but I was still resisting the message.

I could almost hear her say: "OK, how about that piece of performance art?  Tell me you're going to forget my last day?  I went wading in a pond, for chrissake.  Now will you PLEASE leave me alone because I feel TERRIBLE."

At the vet's office - once we had made the decision to euthanize - we had about 20 minutes with The Wheeze while the staff prepared the drugs that would anesthetize her and then stop her heart.  She sat quietly in my arms.  She seemed to know.  No fidgeting, no crying, no purring, eyes half-open.  She seemed to be letting go a little already.  I expected her to say: "Are you guys going to be alright?  Because I'm ready to do this thing."

We told her we loved her.  We told her she was going to be missed, that she had been a good pet.  We thanked her for being with us for almost 19 years.

SuperK was holding her chin as the vet injected the first syringe of anesthesia.   Her whole being relaxed almost immediately and her head sank onto the blanket, her eyes widening.  She looked . . . like my cat.  She no longer appeared to be grimacing in pain.  The third syringe held the medicine that stopped her heart, and it worked quickly.  I could almost feel her soul being released.  There was a spark of life and then there wasn't, just like that, just like flicking a switch.

"OK, mom and dad," the vet said.  "Her heart stopped beating.  She's gone."  The vet called her "little friend," which I thought was a good touch.  We appreciated the fact she agreed it was time for our cat to pass into the next dimension.  She excused herself and quietly closed the door.

I was struck by the incredible stillness in the room.  Death seemed to me to be characterized by a lack of motion so profound that it was hard to understand.  It looked like she could get up and move at any time.  It was disconcerting.  I had to fight back an urge to ask the vet to come back in and make sure that the medicine had indeed worked.  We sat there for a while and looked at her lying there, slumped in a beautiful posture of repose.  She was beautiful and she was resting comfortably - it was clear then how much pain she had been feeling.  We could see, in death, how free she now was.  It was a good feeling.  It made us feel like we did the right thing.  She looked like a sleek, antique racing car, sitting quietly - we could almost hear the engine roaring and the whine as the car flashed by.  Her eyes were wide open, but cloudy, opaque.  Her fur was flat and she looked groomed.  Her ears stood upright.  She looked like she was beat and it felt so goddam good to lay down for a while.

Here's the thing about love and companionship: it's wonderful but it's going to end.  I'm so afraid of pain that I'm tempted to forgo years of wonderful times.

I WAS tempted to do that.  Not any more, my brothers and sisters.  Not any more.