Up in Smoke

Today was a beautiful day.  I got up early, walked out of the house to a beautiful sunny, warm day.  I spent seven hours working in the yard, mowing, weed-eating, hanging up the heavy bag, putting up the canopy on the gazebo, watering the garden, etc.  It went much better than last Saturday. 

Last Saturday was windy and a bit on the cool side.  The wind did a good job of stirring up all of the pollen, so I immediately started sneezing when I walked outside.  Not a problem, I am used to it by now.  I mowed the front lawn with the push mower and then moved on to the tractor for the backyard.  About 20 minutes into the backyard, the tractor seemed to be slowing down.  I thought it was my imagination, sort of an allergy induced mind trick to make me feel like the lawn was going to take longer to mow. 

As I turned the tractor to make another pass on the lawn, the wind suddenly died down and I caught sight of something not right.  A little plume of smoke was coming from the front of the engine.  I hadn’t noticed it before because the wind was blowing hard and my already clogged nose wasn’t reporting anything other than its hatred of nature.  I shut off the mower and let it cool down (i.e. I walked around the yard cursing and kicking at things). 

When I returned, I inspected the engine and couldn’t find anything that could be causing it to smoke.  This isn’t the first time I have caught the tractor on fire, two years ago I ran over a small pile of leaves and they got caught around the exhaust and with a little breeze, burst into flames.

I thought something similar was happening, maybe with it being so windy, something got stuck around the engine and was just burning off.  I inspected the engine and exhaust and couldn’t find anything.  I got back on and started her up.  Everything was right as rain, for another 5 minutes.  This time, my nose, taking a momentary break from expelling high speed snot, got a good whiff of burning oil.  And there was that smoke again, this time a lot thicker.  I jumped off and saw the entire side of the engine covered in motor oil.  I messed around with it some more, added oil, checked for leaks, but I couldn’t find the source of the leaking and burning oil.  I tried to start it up again but the engine had seized and refused to start.  More cursing, more kicking at real and imaginary things.

Get it fixed or sell it for scrap metal?  After a long internal debate and then a very simple conversation with my wife, the scrap metal option would probably be the easiest and least expensive in the long run.  I headed out to what I thought would be a relatively quick trip to Sears to buy a replacement.  I already knew what I wanted, having seen it every time I get one of their ads in the mail.

I waited patiently as the Sears salesperson worked with other customers and when it was my turn, I told her what I was looking for.  She showed me a couple different models, explained some features, and even tried selling me their top of line professional garden tractor with a 54” deck, PTO, 23” rear tires and a reserve fuel tank for twice the price of the one I wanted.  I explained I wanted to mow the lawn, not harvest the back 40.  I gently guided her back to the one I wanted.  Craftsman lawn tractor, built by Husqvarna, 46” deck, 24 HP engine.  She said I was in luck, there was one in stock.  We headed to the outside warehouse to take a look at it.  We then proceeded to look at every single tractor in the building to find the right one.  It wasn’t there.

I asked if she could check with another store to see if they had one.  “No, they don’t,” she explained, “I called the two closest stores last night looking for one for another customer and they were all out.”

Last night.  You didn’t have one last night.  Did you think that the warehouse would magically grow one over night?  Why did we spend an hour reading the serial numbers off of 150 tractors if you knew you didn’t have one last night?  Did you think that over night, two of the other tractors might get frisky and spawn a new one?

“Can I have the floor model?”  (I really didn’t want the floor model, I saw at least 10 different kids jump up and down on it while I was waiting, who knows what other abuse it has taken in the year that it has sat there.)

“No, we don’t sell the floor models.  I could order you one, it would be here by Wednesday.”

“I can deal with Wednesday.”

“Well, it would be here on Wednesday, but it comes unassembled in a crate.  It would be ready for pick up by Friday or Saturday.”

My mind quickly calculated how many people saw me come into the warehouse with this woman and if I could be identified as a suspect if she was found dead with a Craftsman lawn tractor shoved up her ass.  “Umm, I will think about it.”  And quickly left before the voices in my head could persuade me to do it.

I headed to Home Depot.  Big mistake.  The is the busiest Home Depot on the east coast, one the busiest in the country and a Saturday in spring is perhaps one of their busiest days.  There was not a single parking space open in the entire lot.  In my current mood, a large crowd of people would not be the best place for me to be.  Lowes was another ten minutes away and if I couldn’t find anything there, I could head to the overflow Home Depot (yes, they build a second Home Depot seven miles for this one strictly for overflow).

Lowes proudly displayed a row of several different John Deere mowers.  All of them at least $800 more than the comparable models at Sears.  But they had an amazing offer going on, if you purchased one that day, you would get a John Deere hat for FREE!  Who could pass up that offer?  No thank you.  But what did I see in the second row of mowers?  The same exact mower that I wanted at Sears.  A Husqvarna 46” cut 24 HP, except this one was orange instead of the Craftsman red and black.  And it was on sale for the same price!  I flagged down a sales associate and yes, he had five in stock.

“Are you sure?”

“Um, yeah [jackass], I just sold one to someone else and there were five more like it sitting right next to it.”

I told him I wanted one.  As part of the current sale, I could get a $120 dump cart along with it for free.  What?  No hat?  I told him that I already own a dump cart and he agreed to knock the $120 off the price.

My new toy:

The heavy bag hung temporarily from a tree (Thanks Mr. Dave!):

Riding Fences

My back is sore.  My hands are sore.  My head is sore.  My ass is sore.  I left the house at around 9:00 AM and didn’t step foot in it again until 5:00 PM.  My goal was to both replace the broken split rail fence and remove the holly bushes from the front of the house.  The kids and I ended up spending the whole day working on the fence.  The kids were a big help, they were the runners, getting tools from the garage and shed, refilling water bottles, removing staples, raking leaves, etc. 

The savior of the day was our neighbor, Dave.  Dave and I share the fence that was in need of repair and he appeared like an angel while we were taking the new posts and rails off of the truck.  Together we removed all of the old fence and chicken wire and put up the new one. 

Dave showed me a really cool trick for removing the stubs of the fence posts that are still buried in the ground.  This trick requires two people and two shovels or digging bars.  Dig on opposite sides of the buried post until you can place the shovel at a 45 degree or higher angle to the post (not to the ground).  Both people dig the blades of their shovel or digging bar into the post on opposite sides and slowly, very slowly, apply downward pressure on the shovel handle.  With a little luck, the post will slowly come out of the ground.  Be careful not to push too hard on the shovel handle or it will snap off or rip a chunk of the post out of the ground causing you to get a new shovel or dig more to find a better place to bite into the post.

We successfully removed all 7 posts this way with only one broken shovel.  The shovel’s handle snapped and severely bent the steel shank, so it had to be put to rest.  It was an old shovel, but will be missed.  The rest of the day consisted of clamming out the post holes and setting the rails.  We left the most difficult set of rails until the end, the set that had to trimmed down to fit in a shortened space.  We used my handy DeWalt reciprocating saw for that.

Sounds pretty easy right?  So why am I so sore?  It is because I have reached the level of outta-shapedness that is reserved for the bedridden and the guys from the computer labs in college.  You know the ones who spend 48+ hours in the same chair, only leaving to relieve themselves and to refill their supply of soda and snacks.  The ones who redefine body odor as a physical shield that encompasses a 15 diameter sphere around them.  The ones surrounded by empty Mountain Dew cans and snack size Doritos bags.  I don’t know if these people still exist, but they did 14 years ago and I imagine that they still might be sitting there.  This winter of inactivity really had a negative impact on me, I have gone flabby and weak.

My 5 YO is also suffering the unfortunate result of spending the entire day outside.  He came down to breakfast this morning looking like he went 10 rounds with Apollo Creed.  Both eyes were swollen and he was barely able to open them.  I resisted the urge to cut him with everything I had, and gave him eye drops instead.

In other news, the kids got a new swing to replace one that had broken last week.  The baby also got a new swing which she loved.  We also acquired an 80lb. heavy bag which hasn’t been hung up yet.  Maybe I can combine that with the elliptical trainer in the garage and get myself into some semblance of physical fitness or just continue to sit in front of the computer all day and night long.

Gesundheit

God bless you.  Bless you.  Enough already.  In my household, we say it once somewhere around early April and it covers you until late October or early November.  Yes, it is that time again.  Every one of my clones, or what you would call children, have the puffy eyes, running noses and spasmodic sneezing fits of seasonal allergies.  My wife, brilliant biologist and baby maker that she is, failed in her attempts of ridding the clones of that pesky gene.  It seems to have carried through to all of the G2s (that’s lab speak for Second Generation or so I am told). 

Our 7 YO, who has proven much less susceptible to allergic reactions, started sneezing and rubbing his eyes the other day.  Today in church, our 5 YO started bawling because his eyes hurt so much.  Even my little baby girl, who is a few days short of being 10 months old, has had her share of snot and watery eyes over the past few days. 

Every day, starting as the first buds appear on the trees and lasting until the last leaves have fallen, is a constant battle against pollen, mold, mildew, hay, etc.  My kids seem to only be effected during the early spring season when pollen counts are the highest, but occasionally over the summer, you can hear their stuffy-nosed snores in the middle of the night.

My condition is worse.  Most days are just sneezing and running nose until about noon, when my current medication of choice kicks in.  Followed by the inability to breath through my nose around 11 or 12 at night.  But every so often I get a crippling attack where the sinus headache and constant sneezing just stops me in my tracks and forces me to a subterranean layer of cool darkness.  I will lay flat on the sofa in the basement with the lights out and a ready supply of sugar and caffeine near by.  If I incline my head just a bit, the snot starts to flow.  During these attacks, I become ravenously hungry and will eat anything in my path, but I tend to gravitate towards sugar, carbs and caffeine.  I will devour an entire sleeve of crackers or chocolate or candy and down as much Coke and lemonade as possible and then still be hungry for more.  

I have tried so many different treatments over the years, but none seem to be effective.  I have been tested, shot full of 126 different allergens and concentrations in one test.  My arms looked like those old candy dots that used to come in pastel colors and were deposited in rows of tiny sugary turds on paper.  I got a shot once a week for 4-5 years, finally ending it while I was in college because it never seemed to do anything except give me a knot in my upper arm for a few days.  I have taken Benadryl, Claritin, Allegra, Clarinex, Nasacort, you name it, I have taken it.  The most interesting treatment has to have been the Neti Pot, or as I like to think of it, drowning on salt water while you perform a nasal douche.  It worked once and every subsequent time, just made everything worse.

Zyrtec is my current daily fix, 1) because it seems to be effective in calming my day to day symptoms and 2) because I can buy it in bottles of 300 from BJs.  BJs is also where I buy my tissues, in packs of eight boxes, each box containing 300 2-ply unscented, un-lotioned tissues.  On a bad day, I will blow through (pun intended) almost an entire box.

Attacks always seems to happen at the worse possible moment.  I thought they were going to kick me out of the church at my daughter’s baptism because I looked like I was infected with Ebola and high at the same time.  I look like a zombie in the last family portrait we had taken.  I will save my wisdom teeth extraction story for another day.

In 30+ years of dealing with this, I have failed to come up with any benefit of this condition.  The one slightly cool thing I have learned  is how to sleep with my eyes open.  Yes it is weird, but it is cool when you get the chance to freak someone out with it.  When it hurts to close your eyes, sleeping with your eyes open affords you some much needed rest.  The trick is to start in a dark room, close your eyes half-way,  blur your vision, and make sure you are not looking at anything that might shed light, i.e. a digital clock, window, DVD, etc. (ha ha – I shocked myself by writing VCR first and then realized we haven’t had a working VCR in the house in at least 7 years).

I think I may have found something today that may change my entire life.  It is not a new medication or treatment, it may be my true calling in life.  I found out (while trying to find the proper spelling of Gesundheit.  Yes, 2 years of German and I don’t know how to spell it.) there are people in this world that have a sneeze fetish.  I could be a God to these people.  They could worship me as I drive them to ecstasy with every boisterous blast from my nose.  They would build temples of hay and straw in my honor and lay bouquets of ragweed and goldenrod at my feet and sacrifice dust mites in my name.  The most pious would wear Tommy Hilfiger cologne, burn Yankee candles, and mow their grass on my Sabbath.  I could bestow upon my loyal subjects sodden tissues as tokens of godly appreciation.  I could become the incarnation of Arkleseizure.

If you don’t hear from me for a few days, I may be heralding my existence to my new followers or I may be recovering from trying to shove a burning hot poker up my nose in an attempt to cauterize my sinuses. 

I bless you.