NO NEWS, except that I’m hanging around doing nothing, wired on coffee and Ibuprofen, might as well scribble at you.
And it might distract me from getting in the truck and driving up to Massachusetts to eyeball a smoking deal on a 2013 wasserboxer.
As if I need another motorcycle sitting out in the driveway…
My 4-year-old granddaughter is curious about the events of yesterday. I tried to explain it to her in a child’s terms this morning, before she went off to school.
A doctor made this line in my neck, to make an opening in the skin, and from underneath he took out something like a marshmallow…
You may want to know whether it was a friendly marshmallow, or more like the murderous, rampaging kind you might run into at a Walmart.
I’m told there won’t be any news on that for a week or so.
With lymph nodes, apparently, there’s quite a lot of laboratory work involved in deciding whether it’s a harmless hunk of people kibble or more like a portal into eternity, or oblivion if you like, or your own personal hell on Earth if they happen to give you shitty odds and you want to be a hardhead about it.
I did get a free pair of hospital socks, so that’s pretty good.
This was news to me today, a real-life lesson in how nerve pathways work. Where they cut the right side of my neck doesn’t hurt at all. I mean, not a bit.
My right collarbone, however… yow…
This leads me to revise what I had reported to you from British Colombia this summer: that I had probably fractured my collarbone riding the motorcycle off road. I think now it was the inflamed lymphatic tissues in the neck causing discomfort elsewhere.
Weird, huh? Something’s wrong here but you feel it there.
A pal in Virginia put me onto this new theory this morning. Some years ago he underwent a major life-saving surgery to his liver. Naturally, you’d expect that to hurt somewhere in the liver neighborhood, the abdomen, midsection… Except it didn’t.
He tells me the pain, all but unendurable, was centered in his right armpit!
I’m going to resist the urge to go outside and try to get some work done this afternoon. Lest I tear stitches and get the hairy eyeball from people queuing up to give it, the bride first in line. So far so good…
If I thought I could safely handle a chainsaw I’d have my work boots on by now and not just these super grippy hospital socks.
I got some pre-slice-and-dice work done out back in recent weeks, will be content with that for now.
I made quick work of the 80-foot locust tree that fell in a storm while I was in the Arctic.
Took out our back fence, thank you Mother Nature…
Same tree now, seasoning for stovewood duty in 2021.
While I was at it I harvested a locust that fell two years ago, on what I think is state-owned land on the corner of our property. Locust splits easily by hand. An ax gets the job done. No need for a sledge and wedges, which the oak around here always requires.
These are nice rounds, 24 inches in diameter. I’ll enjoy splitting them this winter, assuming the marshmallow doesn’t get me.
With the fence back up, the one-eared doe and her fawn are browsing elsewhere these days.
Tony DePaul, September 20, 2019, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
I think they call it referred pain…or something like that. At least it worked as a kind of decoy and you had a perfectly credible explanation for it which kept you going. With you now every step of the way as you figure out the meaning of all this. Praying for the best possible outcome!
Yep, that was a long ride with a hurt wing, British Columbia to Little Rhody.
I got out for 40 miles or so yesterday on the piglet, took a ride to see what John and Larry were up to in the woodworking shop. Left the iron piggy parked, she’s too heavy for me yet.
Only socks? Norway’s national health care provides skis, but only when there’s snow (Sept.-May). As the good Rev. Douglas used to say, “Be of courage. Hold fast to that which is good. Love and serve the Lord.” You’re in our thoughts and prayers.
Bill and Kirsti
Douglas Young, and what a sweetheart Muriel was. Harkening back to the Pleistocene now, was it “Be of good courage…”? My memory matches yours on the rest, Mr. Bill.
Those rounds would make perfect targets for throwing knives. Buy the bike!
I’ve got a few oak rounds left, too, they measure 4 feet across. I stopped cutting them last year ’cause I was ruining chains on nails that someone hammered into the tree in the 1930s.
Waiting for results should be enough justification to hop in the truck. If nothing else, the drive will be worth it. Thinking good thoughts from SoCal.
Those are great looking socks 😄
Nice socks!! Next time I go for an MRI, I’ll get an extra pair and mail them so you’ve got some variety. I get pink ones!
Free pink socks? Sign me up. I’m completely unthreatened.
Am amazed you get such nice clean cuts with your chainsaw. No binding or pinches… You must keep it extra sharp. When I cut lumber it looks like someone used a dull hatchet to beat the wood into submission.
Hope the doc’s scapel skills were as clean cutting as your chainsaw skill.
It’s a pro saw, Husky 372xp, 72cc’s, really eats wood, amigo. And I do keep it sharp.
Well, holy hell, Tone.
Do you think the last episode of VPN…(Very Painful Neck)…was from this?
My good thoughts are with you.
I go for the Mass Gen routine testing in November. Always a thrill.
Take good, good care.
Cheers, Alix
Hi, Alix. No, the neck pain of a few years ago was just simple mechanics. Once I got my work station set up properly and a dozen sessions behind me with the remarkable Dr. Luo, I was all set. No recurring problem there at all.
Hi you, such a doer you are…love the stack of wood reminds me of my Maine days! Sending love for a great outcome! J
Thanks, Jody. So true, there’s nothing like sitting by a wood stove on a cold winter evening.
Patty and I are thinking of you down here in Brazil. Hope the news is good when you get it. I know how hard the waiting can be.
Brazil, man… you’re amazing… Hi to Patty.
If you want company when you visit the Bay State to view the Beemer, let me know. I have time here in Boston….just sayin….
Thanks, Jon. I might take you up on that.
Rooting for it being a friendly marshmallow, Tony.
Hey! Holy moley, it’s old Original Garage days! Thanks for the good word, Chris.
Feel better Tony!
Scotty! Thanks, man.
Smoking deals on BMW only come once in a while.
Uber will get u there, just don’t ride it back.
Indeed, I think it would very quickly acquire a salvage title, Tim.
You Get Better Tony, you need to be here for all of us. That’s a beautiful place you have there, and you need to be there to share it with the bride. You sure made short work of that tree pal, you got more get up and go than I do, and in a week I hit the big 66, and it’s not the route, though someday would love to take a trip on it. Love the deer, the east cost is just the best place in the world, always wanted to live there, but the ole bank account says nope. Oh well looks like I’m gonna be in the mid-west for sometime to come. You just take care and enjoy that awesome place you have, and keep turning out Phantom stories for many years to come. The Ghost Who Walks is counting and depending on you. 🙂
Thanks, Terry. I do need to get a few more Phantom synopses in the pipeline to King Features. Mike Manley and Jeff Weigel are both working on the final stories to be had in the Completed file.
Love the hook “distracting me from jumping in the truck to eyeball a”. Had to open the post and read it. All the best on your recovery.
Thanks, Roger. Hey, and that wasserboxer hails from your preferred marque, too.
Yes, and I do love me a boxer engine.
That little BMW is a killer ride. If I was an adventurous soul, I’d have to have one in my quiver. Cheers and beers while roasting marshmallows over the campfire at Camp Cushman amigo… be here next summer for the fishing and story telling that ensues.
Gonna be there for sure one way or the other, Jan. In person, or you can scatter a cup of what’s left 🙂
Now you know the Rule of all Bikers is this. When you post a photo on your blog that you haven’t even bought yet, well – you may as well get in the truck and go get it. Especially that pretty blue.
Let’s think rationally about this. You can 1) go fire up a chainsaw which is work and you should not do a day after surgery, or 2) take a 90 minute ride and go see the BMW bike, which you probably shouldn’t do either but that’s a smoking deal and someone else may grab it, or 3) Sit around the house in your free grippy hospital socks and stare out the window drinking coffee.
I’m going with # 2. The tree will be there to cut up next week.
Haha!… A superb closing argument, I must say.
Get better, Tony. Meanwhile, watching the wheels works too.
Gonna. ‘Cause I’m told in Hell there’s a Sunday Room 🙂
It, too, got downsized. Hell couldn’t sell ads, either.