d.i.y.

A Father's Vocation...

I always love it when one of my kids — or even someone else’s! — wishes me Happy Father’s Day. I don’t suppose any dad is holding his breath about it, or thinks less of the kids who don’t pass him the wish that year. It’s optional. Hey, I’m happy waking up to have another day!

Challenge

Lots of sappy stuff is written on Father’s Day, though mercifully not so much as on Mother’s Day! Nobody quite manages to define a dad in spite of all the forced trying. Yet it’s simple: Dads fix stuff.

Today was my day to fix the toilet seat. It was loose and wiggly. The seat is held onto the giant porcelain bowl by a 5/16th inch bolt. On the underside of the porcelain shoulder that the bolt goes through there had been a fat plastic washer and then a nut to snug the washer up against the porcelain. The washer broke and fell off. The nut could not be tightened sufficiently to hold the seat steady. Looks like a job for a dad!

The good dad prepares his equipment. I needed a new washer to replace the broken one. More than that, I had developed an ardent desire not to have to do this repair often — in fact, ever again. You see, I already had to get down on the floor on my back and creep in between the cupboard and the giant porcelain bowl even to see what was going on. It may look roomy in my not-to-scale drawing, but don’t believe it! First I got down to see the scene. Then I got up, got a needed tool for turning the nut, got back down, wormed my way again into the available crevice with both arms close to breaking off, turned the nut, discovered that it would never in the wide world get tight no matter what, and wiggled out again.

It’s what we do. We fix stuff. It’s because we love you.

Solution

So, yesterday or a few days before, I had gone to the hardware store to buy a few urgently needed supplies. Oh, you may not know about this. There is always at least one more trip back to the hardware store. In this case, i had estimated the bolt size at 5/16, let the helpful clerk show me a similar toilet connection and prove it was 1/4 inch, and so brought home the 1/4 inch gear — the wrong size. Hence the second trip. No hard feelings.

The plastic washer that used to snug against the underside of the porcelain shoulder of the bowl was broken and had to be replaced. I got a big rubber washer to do that job. But that wasn’t enough to ensure that I would never ever ever have to do this particular repair again. I also selected a lock washer to go on the bolt between the rubber washer and the nut. Are you following this?

The nut squishes the lock washer against the washer, which in turn is snugged (I love that word!) against the porcelain. The lock washer locks, meaning that the $#%%##$^@ nut won’t come loose!

Ah, but that isn’t enough for the doughty dad who, by dint of vast experience, knows full well that things which cannot happen often do happen!

Hence, the overkill. You simply must overbuild anything you build so it will stay built, and by the same token you must exercise extreme caution to assure that other stuff will stay put the way you want it. This is a dad’s credo. We live by it or we die by it.

In this case, the credo of overdoing requires not only the lock washer but also the second nut. Yes, the second nut. That’s the nut that gets tightened up against the first nut constantly reminding the first nut that it’s job is to stay tight and not to come slippy-sliding back down the thread of the bolt getting all loose and wiggly.

Then of course the good dad does the same thing on the other side of the bowl, because if one side goes bad, the other side can’t be far behind! Indeed, in this case, the fat plastic washer was already well on the way to shattering and cascading merrily down onto the floor, to be unknowingly swept out with other trash.

Were it not for the good offices of a good dad, that toilet seat would be wiggly right now! But now, oh yes, now it is as solid as a rock!

Happy Father’s Day!

Mountain Cut

Breaking my silence…

Were you wondering? Maybe not. Anyway it’s two months since my surgery, and I feel great! I’ve been like a hermit for eons, not even (gasp!) blogging!

This is my only painting since The Big Incision. I’ve had one pretty good session at Thursday Night Drawing Group.

Is this painting bizarre or what?! It’s just what came – and it was very insistent! Pretty big, it’s 5½ feet tall, a hair under 4 feet wide. I plan to roll thick dowels onto it top and bottom, make a scroll of it, hang it by a thread.

Oh, so MUCH of what I do hangs by a thread!

This mountain theme has been persistent; they’re like parentheses around my surgery. I hate to be obvious, but it truly has been quite a climb; and the view from up here is fab.

Random news items: I’ve been reading a lot – reviews may come soon. And I’ve been thinking, thinking, thinking, and writing a lot. This looks like either nothing or a long term project, so don’t hold your breath for blog chapters!

Carroll had dinner out tonight, so I made a thick juicy porterhouse steak for myself: scrumptious! And a salad including crumbled Bulgarian feta, which is the world’s best feta. Try it, you’ll love it.

Over and out.

Drawn (and quartered??)

OK, it’s over, I’m back, and I’m feeling good….

I had major abdominal surgery Monday, January 25.

This pic is me just back from hospital, about 12 pounds lighter, looking like death warmed over. I’ve improved since….

I chose to undergo this surgery, because I wanted to be a whole person again. I knew it would be tough: I had the same operation 11 months ago under emergency conditions, which couldn’t quite finish the job (too risky). It took me five months after that one to choose going through it again.

Pre-op

Operation

Guts

I prepared for it a month: physically (diet), but especially mentally and emotionally, projecting myself into my future self newly healed and whole again. Which was the point.

Bigger and Badder!

Carroll suggested visualizing the institution, which has me sprawled on a gurney wired up and I.V.ed to the max, as caring for me, not imprisoning me. Good idea.

I spent a full week in hospital. Sunday, January 31, talking to the surgeon doing rounds about leaving the next day or two, she said, “Well, you could go home today if you want to.”

This pic is after several days at home, a couple of pounds heavier, appetite good, food good, loving care. It says, “I’m back! Bigger and badder!”

Home! I was well cared for in the hospital, but it remained an alien, stressful place especially at night: no one around, huge empty spaces, eerie lights and sounds, a blank canvas for bad dreams and half-waking paranoia.

Home heals. Don’t ever let anyone tell you home doesn’t matter, it’s just a place. Please: it’s home.

Drawing

Today for the first time since the surgery I did some art – these 6 little pics to tell some of the story. (All are done with India Ink on 11” x 7½” 140 lb hot press Fabriano paper. Oh yes. Ink applied using my favorite ½ inch thick stick, found in my yard.)

That art imagination and energy are visiting me so early in my recovery is amazing! Last time, it was MONTHS before any sign of artistic imagination re-appeared, much less the energy to DO something!

It took a lot of energy. It tired me. AND it fulfilled me, it made me feel good, and it was most healing!

Last time, it was not until i went to New Zealand 6 months later that anything really happened for me in art! Then, finally, a lot poured forth.

This time, not only am i up to something art-wise after lesss than 3 weeks, just look what’s happened with this little self-portrait: I’m completely absorbed in making the drawings, not thinking of myself at all; and I’m younger and better looking….

You can’t really beat that. I mean, come on! Art! It’s magic!

Climb It!

IT’S A TOUGH MOUNTAIN TO CLIMB, AND THE VIEW FROM THE TOP IS TO DIE FOR!

Looking ahead, less than a day to go, surgery about 9:00 a.m. PST tomorrow. I am calm and confident, looking forward to the event and – most of all – to my future self, whole again in body and wiser in spirit for the task successfully accomplished!

This painting grabbed me by the lapels this morning and demanded that I realize it on paper. The vision of a mountain crag first emerged for me in 2002 on a painting trip I took through Oregon (stopping first at Mt Shasta). It has been haunting me closely these past months, beginning in New Zealand, then in Baja.

Apparently this is a mountain that I need in my life and that, just now, I need to climb.

I’m buckling on my gear, and I’m ready for it. I welcome it! And I will rejoice in the view from the top!

Dread of Surgery

Monday Jan 25th I go in for surgery. Five days in hospital, some weeks to recover. You can read more about it below, if you want. First, the art!

I’ve been preparing for a month in all sorts of ways for this operation. A couple of days ago, two watercolors insisted on becoming visible, and here they are.

Outcome Optimism

The first is “Dread of Surgery.” It’s tiny: 7½” x 5½”. I don’t suppose it needs explanation, and anyway I have no words to add.

The second is “Outcome Optimism.” I need to work on these titles: they are uninspired! But accurate. This one is 11” x 7½”. Again, what you see is what you get.

For your amusement (and mine) I include here also what’s on the BACK of each. It turns out I used paper recycled from a recent culling of my old figure drawings.

The back of “Dread” especially – a Funky Figure – I feel is perfect to accompany the dark “Dread” itself. You surely don’t think it’s an ACCIDENT that it was back there, do you?!?

Funky Figure

The other one, the back of “Optimism,” is totally random.

Medical TMI for the curious/those who love me THAT much:

This is the fix-it follow up to emergency abdominal surgery I had eleven months ago, in late February ‘09. I knew that more remained to be done, but it took me five months to come to the point of being able to imagine CHOOSING to go through that surgery again. Now I’m getting ready to do it (clear liquid diet today and tomorrow).

“Whole person.” You might think this surgery is merely about having a whole body – but believe me, its reach is broader. And on all those levels, I am very stoked to be doing this, anticipating HAVING DONE it and being all fixed up again, the way I was before.

Recovery was slow before – I’m fully back really only the past couple of months in terms of energy; creativity was back in late August, September in New Zealand. Recovery will be faster this time because I’m not going into it sick and near death. Also the anesthesiologist heard my pleas and hit upon ways to keep the various drugs at minimum amounts to do the job. That will help: recovering from the drugs was part of what made it hard before. I’m hoping for fewer (or no!) paranoid hallucinations on the opiates and no cognitive losses once back home, unlike before. I’m an optimist: I think I’ll get all that – and more that I haven’t thought of!

Thanks for listening!