The Weekend, Take a Beating, and Keep Ticking…Mostly

   Liz landed into her second Highland Games like a trouper! I am so proud of her I could burst a seam. If I had any left that hadn't already burst that is. She is amazing. I kid you not, amazing. Several of her distance throws were over a foot farther, one was just over 3' farther. You've no idea how big that is, in terms of improving, without having the time to practice, nor most of the implements. Somewhere along the line I've gotta scrounge some equipment for her. Some I can make, others, well, that's gonna be more difficult. She is going to be a great athlete, shit, she is ALREADY a damn good athlete, and better than I think I ever was. She has determination cut from solid steel. She knows how, almost intuitively, and has muscle memory from high school from track and field then. She takes direction well from a woman I think is one of the best coaches around. She's quiet, to the point, and will tell you exactly at what point you are screwing the pooch. I could feel it, and she could see and tell me,  but I never seemed to be able to connect the two pieces. Shamefully I say, but she'd tell you I was just hard headed. Anyway, if Liz keeps this cooking along, and uses the very nice woman for a coach, she'll be very good. Liz put up very good numbers, and took I believe a very respectable third place.

  All of my wishing and wanting isn't changing the fact that I'm no longer the big dog distance and time rider/driver that I was two years ago. Hell, lets make it simple, even six months ago I could drive longer and farther without feeling like someone has pounded the piss out of me all the way around. Now, yeah, it's a bit like that. So, Liz and I leave about four hours later on Friday than I intended because I'd been about half woozy and somewhat unsteady that morning. From 0300 until just after noon. Unsteady enough that I didn't trust myself driving even the short distance to pick up stuff I wanted, but didn't need, really. So I rushed around, sliced up the bread I baked to share with the other athletes, and whipped up a little honey butter, and off we went. At 1400 instead of 11 or 1200 like I was really wanting to hit the road. Off to Pflugerville (pronounced Fluegerville, for those unaccustomed to german spelling) we go. For crying out loud, some friction electrical thing has knocked the vents for the A/C into some kind of fouled up Purgatory. Yeah, yeah, sitting for two years I know didn't help. The sad thing is, I think it needs an entire new set of switches for the fan, heat, a/c, defrost stuff. I mean, it's eleven years old, and still a good truck, but electrical has been hitting the skids in American cars and trucks for some time now. We struggle along into Eden, where we pick up some other stuff we needed and didn't need, but that's okay too. Get into the truck, crank baby up and the fan and A/C are perfect!! Right down to frost bite cold. Where, in my opinion, all a/c in cars and trucks should be to begin with.
A short spat, something that is going to happen because I can't speak, and the range of motion in my neck  sucks mule penis. Shortly we land in Lampassas!
  I write furiously as we fuel Baby up. "Look, we are an hour out of Pflugerville, if we crash here, since it's late, it's likely to be less expensive, you can eat, I can feed, we both get a nice hot shower. Get up early in the morning, get into town, find the field, get you fed a HUGE Bfast and get set up". She liked that idea. I am not without my moments. We bot got showered, I shoved a couple of cans of uber disgusting formula in, and realize it's damn near 2200! Taco Bell it is. Liz had a pretty healthy sized meal, and we both enjoyed watching what I consider the most accurate living specimen of a human pear I've ever encountered. He even puffed up a bit when he thought I was dissing him at the soda fountain. Okay, yes, I did, but I was just too tired to give a shit while a walking pear couldn't make up his mind over Root Beer, two kinds of tea, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and some other kind of nasty looking poo. So I got my tea and sat down. The hell of this is, I'm out with the one true love, she's doing something with her athletics that so few people do, and she's doing it well, and it's a bitch to have a conversation because I have to write every fucking thing down. Try that, for giggles. Try having a conversation where you must write down your thoughts, beliefs, silly answers and fun questions. You know, the stuff you spend time talking about with your number one heart carrier. I'd be interested in what all y'all think about that. It could be I'm just cryin like a bitch.
  Now I can't sleep. I'm a bit jazzed from the drive, and I can't stop from wondering if Liz got enough to eat. Did she hydrate okay? Is she sleeping well? Of course she is, I'm not. Now my trach plugged, minor emergency since my nose is so plugged I can't get a breath, and this evening (friday) my throat is also  shut off. Do I panic? Almost, HA!  I contemplate hiking across the highway and getting a little Nyquil. I mean, realistically that's not a bad idea. It clears up my head, I get some sleep. Yes, I get sleep, alright. I wake up on October 27 2060, a day after my 100th birthday. Nyquil not only knocks me out, it's gets Baxter as well. They ship me off to MD Anderson, where my insurance expires. Somewhere around my 60th birthday the family somehow gets me declared legally dead, which is okay, I mean, I'm in a Nyquil induced coma, and donate me to MD Anderson for experimental drugs. On my 85th birthday, the find a cure and Baxter and his minions are finally and permanently gone. On my 90th birthday, or there about the moral quandary of using my own genome to regrow parts I'm missing is attempted, and is a rousing success. With new types of electrically induced exercise developed for the first space shot to Mars (also a rousing success. turns out it's made of red sauce that covers a massive meatball. who knew?) I am toned, stronger and faster than I was at my peak strength. Simply by being in a Nyquil induced coma since July 11, 2012. Forty- eight years in my past. None of my kids remember me, although they are still alive. Kinda hip. But I have to say, who wants that? And WTF are you thinking you crazy bastard!! Shit, it's 0100. Damn, only two more hours and I have to be awake to start my daily constitutional. Okay, I'll hit a good two hour power nap. That's six times what a good power nap used to take me, but that's okay. Eyes close, I'm out. I have a short dream about a beer? Okay, that's not so bad. Beats having a dream about being trapped in a VW Micro-bus with 35 rabid or zombie midgets. (yes, that was a real dream from  around 3 weeks ago. odd, but funny as hell). Lets see when my alarm is supposed to go off. Hmmmm, it's 0135. Nice a twenty minute power nap after all.  I dropped off again and was actually out for close to an hour. It was enough to get me to town for the games. Total sleep on Friday night into Saturday morning: 45 minutes, I dropped off and the alarm did wake me up.

  So, here we are. Liz got a decent carb/protein Bfast from Mickey D's (yes, it's possible). I fed, got water for the portable mist makers I got to go with the screen tent and new ice chest, which by the way got cold enough to make your joints ache, and the stuff we put in it get so cold it made my eyes water. So, I'm all set up in my hut, watching Liz throw her first set, relaxing under the cool mist….and dozed off. Seemed like a couple of days, but Liz came back in and it was only half an hour or so. There's one thing I don't do when I go with Liz to the games now, and maybe after the next one or two I can change that. I don't go sit close and watch her. I don't want her to feel….oh geez, what's the word I'm looking for? Not intimidated…self conscious, that's it. I don't know that she would be, but I'm not risking that, not one iota. These are her games now, not mine. She owns them, and should have the right to sort out her technique without wondering what I think of it. Am I certain that's how it would go? Why no, I'm not certain, but I'm also not going to run that chance. I'd like to set up there, where ever "there" is and watch her throw in a Women's Master's World Championship. I think she has that kind of talent. Barring injury or burn out, I think so. She has a woman who is an excellent Highland Athlete that will help coach her along, I need to get a video set up so we can practice, and I can send that off to the wonderful woman that can help her. I need to do this quickly. I've made a couple of new goals for myself. One, to help Liz out as much as I can. She's been the big cahuna here for a long time now, covering my ass and watching over me. She and Dec are taking vacations starting next Sunday, and when they get back, I hope they feel more like themselves before this fucking thing came back and tried to destroy my family, something I  can't abide, nor will I let it, if I'm able.
  All day, I drift in and out of sleep, they turned the caber in front of me, so that was damn cool. I got to be out and about in the fresh air and a touch of sun. Heat of course, but it didn't break 100, which is nice. Still, seems darn humid to me after all the time I've lived here in the semi arid desert. Oddly enough, I was able to share a pretty decent if not fairly strong hops beer called Victory. The label even looks a bit like the bike logo, which I thought was neat. It's called Victory HopDragon Indian Pale Ale. So, it's got this bite to it, with a little sweet of an ale. Not bad, from what I could get on my tongue with the syringe without choking myself to death. I shared. I went for more ice, water, and beer. I put a quart of Gatorade in me between feedings. As well as 120 ounces of water. I was sweating perhaps more than I thought. I shared again. My bread I baked disappeared, which is good, I hope they liked it. I know some of the folks didn't. Come Kerrville, I'll get a better athlete count and maybe bake six or eight loaves if it goes over well. Okay, back to the fun. Watching Liz, talking to…writing to the folks. Walked around a bit, discovering as I did, that I didn't come well prepared for sharing suds that weren't twist off caps. Two things I never went without back in the day. A decent skinning knife, and a church key bottle/can opener. Back when I was in my twenties, there were still a few imported beers that hadn't gone pull tab yet, or that silly experiment of Coors with the two  spots to tap in on the top of the can. Had to have a church key opener, or the skinning knife to get those babies open. Anyway, Liz was slammin the hell out of the heavy shit, I was napping in a mist that kept me soaked most of the day, and napping so much that both of my legs went sleep at one point. I did, though, get so sore that I had to grab a dose of morphine. Kinda burnt my ass a little, since I've not had to take another pain killers other than the fentanyl in over two weeks. Oh well, that's how she bounces sometimes. We got everything torn down, hugs, handshakes, and man hugs and we were off. I felt like I would melt, but I wanted to bring some of that brewski home with, so we stopped one last time in Pflugervill, and hauled balls for Lampassas and home. We split the driving up, I had to stop and piss in Eden. I sat in the truck, I don't know how long, Liz was texting or something. I'd written her earlier, that I'd give myself three strikes. If I felt like I was going to doze off three times during my drive, I'd pull over ASAP and let her drive, no questions asked. I dozed off three times in that parking lot, and Liz drove us home.

  Settled in Saturday night. I don't know what time I fell asleep, well after Liz did, I think. I know, though, that I spent nearly all day asleep. Long enough that I almost didn't get the daily drugs, or the all the feedings that I needed. Almost, not quite. Same thing with today, although I did make it to therapy okay. Things change fast with me, man. Four days ago my lymphatic system could build different directions for fluid to drain away. Today, no chance of that, for some reason. If it goes that way Thursday, that will be about it for Lymphedema Therapy. A shame as well. But I knew the time was going to come it's just a sad moment for me. Proving out my theory that Baxter had little minions heading into my lymph glands, since that's where he liked to play so well the last time, and this time as well

 So, in a recap. Good God I had a good time, even if I spent so much time sleeping Saturday that I didn't get around as well as I'd liked. I gotta tell ya though. Being out, being able to drive without getting us both killed is a huge plus. In the end, I was totally wasted and washed out, in a bit of pain and swelling up like a toad. If Liz walked in today and said, "There's a game in blah blah, wanna go?", I'd be packing the truck up right now. For what I've got going on, my life is absolutely wonderful. Yeah, it's a bitch to be dying. To watch my upper lip fly out there worse than Joan Rivers, and seeing me waste away to pretty much nothing, in my eyes at least. But it's a bigger world than I think most people see. I have always tried to see it all, and now, I get a chance, with some better eyes than I would have thought.