A Pain In The...????

It seems that I have made mention of my neck a lot lately. That's because it's my...neck, and necks get no respect in the best of times, let alone when they are killing you.

Redneck...a pejorative.

"I stick my neck out for nobody..." Rick Blaine, Casablanca bar-owner

Where is the dreaded albatross placed?   Around one's neck

When you are being hounded and harassed by a person or thing, it is said to be what?? Breathing down your NECK!

An extreme irritation is said in polite company to be a pain in the NECK.

So, my neck has been giving me fits for quite a while. This is the same neck that locked up on me at my Dad's funeral and had me sprawled out on the carpet in the balcony for the last thirty minutes of the service...THAT neck. I'm told that there are two bulging disks at various stages of decrepitude, along with the beginnings of arthritis. There is no remedy other than three or four neck excercizes, an occasional muscle relaxer regimen, and Advil. My doctor says not to worry since at some point it will get bad enough for surgery and that might help. I think he views my neck as part of his business inventory, a future accounts receivable. 

Meanwhile, I have these two to three week flair ups where there's quite a bit of pain and sleep becomes difficult. This morning It actually woke me up with a sharp pain at 4:30 am. "good morning, old man" were it's exact words I believe. Later this afternoon, I will apply ice. All day I will pop Advil like M&M's. I will hope nobody sneaks up behind me from the left side, since I can't turn my head that way. But, I will not follow my wife's advice to..." not do anything that might hurt your neck! " To comply with this particular edict would require me laying down on a stretcher all day with my head in one of those stint boxes. Not gonna happen.

Besides, it's a temporary flair up. Eventually, things will calm down up there and I'll be fine. She will roll her eyes at me and mumble, " idiot..." under her breath just like Deborah on Everybody Loves Raymond. Just the other day she says to me, " I don't want you power washing the deck with that neck of yours." Yes...because everyone knows that excessive power washing is one of the leading causes of neck problems in America. In fact, I'm sure that over 50% of all neck related emergency room visits are caused by men power washing their decks. Where do women get these ideas??

The Man is a Marvel.

This past Sunday, having just returned from vacation, Pam and I missed church. Later we discovered that Vander Warner had been the speaker since Mark Becton was away. So, last night I saw where his sermon was posted online. I settled into my recliner and pressed play.

There he was, in a dark suit and red striped tie, looking virtually unchanged from how he looked twenty years ago standing in that very spot every Sunday as pastor of a Grove Avenue Baptist. Now well into his 80's, he has lost nothing off his fastball, still confident and commanding. He's the kind of presence in the pulpit that makes you sit up a little straighter in your pew because he might be about to say something profound. It didn't take long...

" It is too late in human history to waste time on Sunday mornings, too late for feel good sermons, too late not to care..."

At that point he could have dropped the microphone and walked off the stage. 

In that one artful sentence, the man encapsulated every bewildered, confused thought I have ever had about the efficacy of the church over the past ten years. In that one sentence he summed up the reason for the decline of faith in the public square. 

Then it occurred to me that in all the time I have sat under his preaching, although I may not have always agreed with every interpretation, or cared for every emphasis, Vander Warner Jr. has never wasted my time. God has always managed to speak a nugget of divine truth through him, and I have always been able to hear it, because he has always communicated it with such grace and lyrical precision. 

Vander freaking Warner. The man is a marvel.

Keeping Up With the Dunnevants

Yesterday, I wrote a blog about the Duggar controversy. Ever since, I've been wondering what a reality show about the Dunnevant family when I was growing up would look like. You know what I mean, right? Lots of close shots of us kids being asked questions by off-screen interviewers, a narrator describing Mom and Dad's parenting style in a deeply concerned voice, an unseen camera recording the madness for millions of viewers every week. It would be must-see TV.

Narrator: The Dunnevant family is a loud and boisterous clan of opinionated hotheads. Although they seem to hold each other in high esteem, the parenting style of the matriarch, Betty can be summed up best with the term, laissez-faire.

(Scene shifts to a ten year old Doug preparing to walk out of the house after breakfast on the first day of summer vacation)

Doug: Mom, I'm going to ride my bike.

Betty: Well, that's fine, but you better be back here before dark. I'm not holding up dinner for you if you're not!! And if you break your leg, don't come running to me!

Tight shot of Betty's face as interviewer asks...

Many people would be appalled at the lack of supervision and oversight that you and Emmett demonstrate over your children. Does it not concern you that your youngest son has been gone all day on his bike with God knows who?

Betty: Look, Douglas was born at night...but not last night! He's ten years old for crying out loud. He knows how to ride a bike. He can take care of himself.

Narrator: But, he's been gone all day and you have no way to reach him, you have no idea where he is or who he's with. Doesn't this concern you?

Betty: Let me get you something to eat, that's crazy talk! I know where he is...he's somewhere in Elmont on his bike. He's probably either with that Puryear boy or one of the Toombs kids. When he gets hungry, he'll be back.

Narrator: Speaking of eating, some of the Dunnevant children aren't exactly fond of their mother's autocratic menu planning, since she completely ignores their suggestions.

(Tight shot of Linda, the oldest daughter.)

Linda: Mom is on a liver and onions kick at the moment, we have it once a week. No matter how many times we complain about it, she doesn't fix us anything else. We have to either eat it or go hungry.

Narrator: (breathlessly) You actually go to bed hungry??

Linda: Well, no...that would be...stupid. We eat the liver and onions.

Narrator: But, I thought you just said you hated liver and onions.

Linda: Well sure...but on Wednesday nights we either eat it or go to bed hungry and who wants to do that?

(A montage of footage appears showing the children performing various jobs around the house, many of which are physically demanding and excessively rigorous. cut to tight shot of Emmett)

Narrator: Are you at all concerned that by forcing your kids to perform so many arduous chores, you might be doing real physical and emotional damage to them and their development?

Emmett: No.

(Cut to scene of Betty clanging two pans together at the bottom of the stairs at 7 am on a Saturday morning)

Betty: Time for you kids to get out of bed and come down to breakfast! Half of the day is gone, a today is blind cleaning day!!

(Cut to scene of Linda and Paula placing dusty aluminum blinds into the soapy water of the bath tub)

Linda: Where is Douglas? How come he gets to go ride his bike all day while we slave over these stupid blinds??

Betty: Now, y'all leave Douglas alone!

Narrator: The work is relentless and seemingly never ending. The Dunnevant family hierarchy seems determined to break every child labor law ever written.

(Cut to scene of Betty and oldest daughter Linda in a steamy kitchen canning tomatoes)

Linda: Seriously Mom, why is it that you pick literally the hottest day of the summer to do this??

(Cut to tight shot of Donnie, the oldest child)

Donnie: Mom and Dad are children of the Depression, so they both think that we'll starve every winter unless we can vegetables from the garden. Generally speaking, they are both cheapskates when it comes to food. Vegetable dinners every Tuesday is a perfect example!

Narrator: You mean to tell me that you have a meal once a week of all vegetables?? No meat at all?

Donnie: Afraid so. But that's not the worst of it, breakfast is the worst.

(Cut to scene of the entire family around the table at breakfast. There's a plate of homemade biscuits, a dish piled high with bacon, scrambled eggs and some grapefruit)

Paula: Mom, why do we always have to eat homemade stuff. All my friends get to eat Captain Crunch. Why can't we have Captain Crunch?

Betty: (excitedly) Well, it just so happens that your father and I went to the grocery store yesterday and bought you kids some boxed cereal!!

Kids: WOO HOO!!!!

( Betty disappears into the kitchen and emerges with a huge box of Quaker Oats Puffed Wheat)

Linda: What the heck is this?? It tastes like styrofoam!! 

Paula: This is disgusting!!

Emmett: See Betty? There's just no pleasing these kids!

Donnie: (Grabs the box)...Give me that! Yeah, says here,"Guaranteed to induce vomiting or your money back." (throws the box to Linda)

Linda: "Made from only the finest North American styrofoam."

Paula: I wanna see, I wanna see!

(Linda throws the box to Paula, it glances off her outstretched hands and flies over her head, crashing into the china cabinet sending a fine china cup crashing to the floor)

Doug: Great hands Paula...E-6!!

Emmett: And THIS is why we can't have nice things.

The Josh Duggar Scandal

Anyone who knows me well knows of my distaste for reality television. Survivor, Big Brother, Keeping Up With the Khardashians...never watched a single episode. Although my sister never misses a chance to pester me about how great Duck Dynasty and TopGear are, I've still refused to watch. And don't even get me started on The Bachelor or Celebrity Apprentice! Part of it is my stubbornness and contrarian streak. Honey Boo Boo may be the funniest thing ever, but I'm just not going to watch, partly just to irritate it's fans. But mostly, as a writer, I refuse to believe that in 2015 we've suddenly run out of stories to tell and must resort to watching the very worst of human behavior paraded, unscripted, in front of us every night. To call what happens on the shows I have listed above, reality, is one of the most disingenuous descriptions ever conceived by the mind of man. Does anyone seriously believe that the 24/7 presence of television cameras has no ability to alter...reality? Please.

So, having confessed to my reality television ignorance, the reader must keep this in mind when considering the opinion I am about to give on the scandal du jour in America at the moment...the Josh Duggar child molestation brouhaha. Although I have never watched a full episode of the 19 and Counting show, I must confess that I have seen bits and pieces of it while walking through my living room. Pam sometimes watches it, mostly in bewildered fascination at the incredulous fact that there exists a woman who willingly gave birth to 19 babies and survived. The fact that, generally speaking, the kids all seemed to get along and love each other was a bonus. The values on display in the show were also in sharp contrast to the normal narscicistic dysfunction celebrated elsewhere in the genre. For those of us who try to live a life of faith, the family's commitment to theirs was refreshing and seemed genuine. So, when the magazine InTouch leaked a police report that revealed the molestation history of Josh Duggar last week, all hell broke loose in the culture wars. Many on the left have had a field day with the story, thrilled to finally have proof of the too-good-to-be-true Duggar's hypocrisy. Conservatives, on the other hand, have largely rallied to their defense, suggesting some sort of journalistic conspiracy and pointing out that he was a minor at the time etc...and has since reformed.

Ugh.....

I'm not about to judge an entire family by the actions of one of its members. How many of us would hate being judged to be just like our crazy lunatic Uncle Pete? Every family is a mixed bag of saints and  sinners. Actually if I had brought 19 kids into this world and wound up with just one child molestor, I would consider that fine parenting indeed. However, what I will judge the Duggar's for is allowing their family story to be exploited by Hollywood in the first place. What kind of father would agree to allow cameras to become a permanent fixture in his home? What kind of parents would trade the sanctity and privacy of their family's life for the fame and fortune of a television contract? If you allow the barbarians into your house, don't be shocked when fame starts exacting its pound of flesh. You set yourself up as paragons of biblical virtue, then you better be prepared to deal with the heat when it's discovered that one of your kids is a pervert.

I wish the Duggar family no ill will. I would hate to see the amount of dirt that could be dug up about the Dunnevant family if I made myself a target by becoming a reality television star. But, I'm sure that by now they have made enough money to provide for even their expensive futures. Maybe now is the time  to get off the fame treadmill and go back to just being the Duggar family, those crazy people stuck on the letter J.

Vacation Withdrawal

I walked into my office today at 7:20 am. It looked the same, smelled the same. It was exactly as I had left it eleven days ago. Thirteen hundred miles to the south, someone else was taking a morning run on my beach, someone else was swimming out to the float, someone else was saving a couple of chairs steps from the water.

I rummaged through the 84 e-mails, deleting all but 7 of them. I checked the real, old fashioned stack of mail, throwing away all but two pieces...both bills. There were a lot of voice mail messages, but none of them were urgent. I took a few notes, then wiped them clean from the log.

I made some coffee. It was the only thing better in Short Pump than the Cayman's. The water there isn't the best, making the coffee quite pedestrian. Plus, all the coffee down there came via a Keurig machine, that monument to capitalism and marketing whereby millions of otherwise bright discerning people become convinced that tiny cups of coffee produced individually by a machine so poorly calibrated that it cannot properly fill a mug, is somehow better than coffee brewed by the pot-full using freshly ground beans. But, I digress.

I returned to my desk and began preparing for my first appointment, due to arrive in 2 short hours. Somehow, I was going to have to wipe the silly, self-satisfied grin from my face and manage to look both professional and serious before he showed up. I went to the bathroom only to discover that I had forgotten to shave. Sigh....

My neck is killing me. While on vacation it started acting up mid-week, but I was able to manage the ill-effects because I was in the most beautiful place on earth...and the daily consumption of mudslides and pink sand beaches serve as excellent pain management therapy. Now, there's just Advil. There are a couple of bulging disks back there and the beginnings of arthritis so once every six months or so it blows up into a hot mess of discomfort.

I turn on the iPod and dial up some Caribbean music. It's horrible. Listening to steel drums on a beach in the tropics is one thing, but in Short Pump it sounds silly, childish. I quickly switch to Frank Sinatra since there is absolutely nothing silly about Frank.

The appointment goes well. By noon, I have checked off seven items that had warranted immediate attention. I glanced at the market and noticed that the Dow was down 200 points, clearly just to piss me off. The phone rings a few times. Clients with questions. I answer them. I hang up the phone and it occurs to me that exactly four days ago to the minute,  Pam and I were hanging from a parachute 300 feet above the ocean. The neck is getting angrier by the minute, a raging mess.

I pay a few business bills, prepare for a couple of reviews later in the week. By then, I'll be over vacation withdrawal. I will, right?

The Magnificent Cayman's

I'm writing this, 30,000' somewhere over the Caribbean Sea, or to borrow from the great Louis CK, sitting in a chair...in the SKY! What better time than now to write about my week on Grand Cayman? 

My biggest worry in the weeks leading up to this trip was, "is seven days and nights too long?" Before you laugh consider the fact that Pam and I had never been away for this long before...ever. Our honeymoon was shorter. Would we run out of things to talk about? I mean, we do at home. When you're around each other all the time, it's easy to run out of stuff to talk about. How many times can you tell your wife about your latest pulled muscle without it getting a little boring? How many times can your wife regale you with the latest insane happenings within the education bureaucracy without you just tuning her out? I pictured the very real possibility that by Wednesday night we would be sitting at some five-star bistro, picking at our risotto while checking e-mails on our cell phones. On our last dinner I shared my fear with Pam and she informed me that she had worried about the very same thing. Then we looked at each other and said, "What the heck were we thinking???"

This place has been so glorious, such a delight, it has afforded me the opportunity to think of nothing but her for over a week. Doing so has been like a holiday from life. What happens when your mind suddenly empties itself of every care, every burden, real or imagined? You become a different person, that's what, and this new guy is way cooler than the guy you were at home. Your wife becomes that beguiling creature who spun your head around 30 years ago. You wake up on day two and realize that you're on a second honeymoon, but this time you're not a couple of witless idiots, and this time you have enough money to eat something besides oatmeal cream pies and orange soda. Sweet!!

Our hotel, the Grand Cayman Beach Suites Resort, is very nice but initially disappointed me. I planned everything about this trip, I picked the place, made all of the arrangements and did all the research, so on the taxi ride from the airport, I was nervous. It didn't overwhelm me, and for the first few hours, I felt like I had failed somehow. Our suite was very nice but the hotel itself seemed a little threadbare, a little long in the tooth, especially for the money I had paid. But then we walked down to the beach and suddenly felt much better...or at least we would, as soon as it stopped raining. Yes, after a five and a half hour flight, paradise greated us with a torrential downpour that had us fleeing to the Seven Mile Beach Bar for a drink while we waited out the storm and waited for our room to be cleaned. Our friendly barkeep,(and everyone on the Island was friendly), assured us that rain in the Cayman's was something that blew in and blew out with little notice. Before we could say, "Good Lord, look at the size of that iguana," the rain was gone and the clear blue sky opened up above us like a dream. The ocean lapped up on the perfect, shell-less sand with less force than the waves on a lake in Maine. A turquoise expanse spread out before us as far as the eye could see like a blue mirror. We both looked at each other with mouths ajar like a couple of tourists from Des Moines. The only thing missing would have been black socks, sandals, and a metal detector. We have been to many islands in the Carribean, but neither of us had ever seen such a beach. The vacation had begun!

The cab ride from the airport had disabused me of any notion I might have had of renting a car for the week. Being a British nation, everything was backwards...and terrifying. Just about the time I would finally start feeling comfortable, we would enter one of the ubiquitous roundabouts, which is English for, "what the &&$:@&8,?¡$7!!!!!" No, if we were leaving the resort it would be on foot or in one of the handy island buses, which amounted to private Caymanian citizens out to make a buck by offering to take you anywhere on the island for 5 American dollars. No need for bus stops or posted routes, just start walking in the direction you intend to go and wait for someone to honk their horn politely at you. Wave back at them and you've got yourselves a deal! This arrangement was literally the only affordable thing to be had in the Cayman's. The cost of living here is outrageous thanks to all the American tourists willing to pay 20 dollars for a tuna wrap, bag of chips and a flat soft drink. But, you know that going in, so you have to mentally prepare yourself to overpay for everything. Oh, and then there's the relentless problem of having to constantly perform math. Prices are generally posted in Cayman dollars, which are worth .80, but everyone accepts American dollars as well. So, when you find yourself pleasantly surprised that the green fee for nine holes of golf with rental clubs is only $80, you're only allowed to be shocked once when the nice man behind the counter asks you for $100 American.

But that's the only thing bad I can think to say about this place. In every other way it is truly a paradise. The people are friendly beyond description. The streets are safe and clean. Almost every night Pam and I would leave the hotel grounds and walk somewhere, and never once did we feel threatened. You try leaving your hotel in Jamaica after dark and your experiences wind up being made into a Lifetime movie starring Valerie Bertinelli!

We began every day by parking ourselves in our nifty resort beach chairs, featuring a retractable roof which could be raised and lowered as needed. With the temperature each day topping out at exactly 86 degrees, this little convenience was worth it's weight in gold. About every twenty minutes or so one of us would say, " Time to get wet." Then we would walk ten steps towards the beach, take another five steps and suddenly we were up to our chests in clear water, so clear you could see your toes against the white sand bottom. Heaven.

At least once before lunch the drink-boy (me) would walk up to the Beach bar and order up either a Pink Sand Beach or a Mudslide and bring it down as a surprise. Pam was quite impressed. Then we would apply for a line of credit on our house so we could have lunch beachside. I'm mostly just kidding...Each evening we would do something different. One night we took a catamaran ride across the Cayman Bay to Rum Point for a romantic dinner. Incedently, on the Cayman's there are no other kinds of dinners. We never ate at the same restaurant twice, and each was a wonder. 

Along the way there was snorkeling. But this was exclusively a Pam thing. She was amazing at it, gliding out there fearlessly. Twice before I had tried, without success, to snorkel. Each time I had the same result, a lung full of salt water. Apparently, the combination of my facial hair and my "face shape" does not lend itself to a pleasant snorkel experience. I went back to the Red Sail Sports desk to inquire if perhaps they had a larger mask to accommodate my..er...prominent, aristocratic nose. I was told that they used to have a special size HH mask, (huge honker) but had gotten rid of it ever since Barbara Steisand stopped visiting the island back in the 80's.

One day we made our way into Georgetown, the capital city. We bought two tickets for a submarine excursion out to the coral reef, and got to view it up close from a depth of 107 feet. Then we had lunch at a famous local place called Guy Harvey's. Food was excellent, but the house music was about the most horrible, but hilarious soundtrack...EVER. First, there was a local Caymanian artist doing a synthicizer and steel drum version of a Captain and Teneal number called "Love will keep us together." Not to be outdone, another local artist provided his soulful reggae-elevator fusion take on Steely Dan's "Do it again." This was music to die a slow death to, the kind of music you would expect to hear through the loudspeaker at the Montego Bay Wallmart. We couldn't get back to the beach fast enough!

Our last full day was perhaps the best. I took Pam up in a parasail from which we could see the entire island. It was magnificent. We even saw a turtle on the surface, lime green in color, lumbering 300 feet below us. For a minute I thought Pam would cry, she was so happy.

This morning, we both got up extra early so we could spend some time on our beach, wrenching the last few drops out of our time here. I went for a run on the beach. Pam snorkeled some more and saw another turtle. After she went in to shower and pack, I swam out to the fifteen foot float that was secured out a ways in front of the hotel beach. I laid on my back and closed my eyes, rocking gently in the soft current. What a week this has been, I thought. Best money I have ever spent.

The World at 5 AM

For the second consecutive day I have awakened at an absurd hour. Yesterday it was 5:30, today 4:30. Man was not created to be awake this early. It is unnerving, and deathly quiet. Both nights I have slept well, and both nights I retired later than usual. Still, once my eyes pop open, there's no going back. So, I brew some coffee, start reading the news and an hour and a half later it's still too early to be banging about the house since my wife is up there enjoying the deep, peaceful sleep of the just.

Lucy is not impressed with me at the moment. She's been sleeping on her downstairs bed of late after her life-altering encounter with our bedroom ceiling fan. Pam accidentally turned it on a few weeks ago when Lucy was laying on the bed and the poor girl nearly killed herself fleeing the room in terror. Before that Lucy had decided that sleeping in the bed with us was just about the greatest thing ever. No more.  She enters our bedroom with extreme caution these days, keeping a wary eye on the five-fanned menace overhead. Anyway, the last two mornings I have stopped to pet her after coming downstairs. She seems puzzled at my presence as if to say, "Dude...what's it, like 4 in the freaking morning??" Still, obeying some centuries old instinct, she begrudgingly follows me about while I putz around in the kitchen, then sits at my feet at the sofa. When I ask her to jump up and lay down beside me, this is apparently a bridge too far. " What? You expect me to leap? At this hour?" She's had enough of this foolishness, and disappears.

There are advantages to being an early riser, I'm told. Lots of time for reflection, reading, and prayer, not to mention all of those worms that we early birds have the monopoly on. Speaking of birds, there are a couple outside having a raging debate about something. So much for the deathly quiet. Back and forth, back and forth, it's quite intense. I wonder what they are saying to each other? Is it a conversation or an argument? Sounds like one of them is pissed. "How many times have I told you look before you poop??!!"

Today is my last day of reality for awhile. Tomorrow morning Pam and I will be flying out to the Grand Cayman Islands for seven days, celebrating the first anniversary of our 30th wedding anniversary. I haven't looked forward to anything quite so much as this trip in a long time. Maybe that explains my early wake ups. But today will be long and stressful with all the last minute stuff that you have to do before leaving town. I've got an important appointment to start my day, then it's twelve items to check off my list including things like:

1. Make sure you call Capitol One to let them know that you're leaving the country for a week.

2. Go by the bank and draw out some cash.

3. Get all of your traveling papers ready.

The greatest thing about this trip, besides the fact that I will be spending it with the most beautiful and amazing woman in the world, is the fact that I won't have to pack one single solitary pair of long pants. Let me tell you something, if you're going somewhere for a week that doesn't require long pants, you are going someplace...niiiiiice!

Ok. Great. It's finally 6 o'clock.