An' If My Wife Is Watchin'. . .

Any of you out there ever see The Red Green Show? It's a Canadian show that airs on our local PBS affiliate. I'm not a big fan of TV (a subject for another post sometime, perhaps), but I LOVE that show. I think it reminds me of growing up in northern Michigan. .

I want to do a post to bring you all up to date on what's been going on with our family, particularly those of you who dropped in on the previous incarnation of this blog, who are wondering what ever became of 1F and her baby, or 3M and his various troubles, or 4M and his, um, legal problems. But I don't have time to do a post like that right now.

So, I'll go with Red Green. At the end of every show, Red signs off by speaking through the camera to his wife, letting her know that the show's over and he'll be home soon, with some humorous (or, in Canada, is that humourous?) message. So I'll leave you with a couple of my favorites favourites, just to get you through the weekend:

(after an episode that dealt with some legal problems for Red):

"An' if my wife is watchin', I just wanna say that, when I get home, maybe you could present me with your briefs an' we could discuss a merger."

(my personal favo(u)rite, after a show about a science project gone awry):

"An' if my wife is watchin', I just wanna say that today I learned that there are some things that man is not meant to know. . . An' I'm hopin' that you're not one of 'em."

See you next week. . .

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The Couple that Does WHAT Together?

Molly and I both turned 50 this year. It's funny, but 50 seems like a taller psychological hurdle than any of the previous 'decade' birthdays have been. I mean, when I was 49, I could say I was "in my 40s", and that didn't sound so old. But there's no way to make 50 sound younger than it is. Oh, well; I can always say "you're as young as you feel," and I feel pretty darn good. I also have a four-year-old and an eight-year-old, so I can't be all that old, now can I?

Anyway, the thing with these 'decade' birthdays is that they always seem to usher you into some new medical regime; I started doing regular physicals when I turned 40. I did all the blood work, peed in the little cup, had my doc and a couple of nurses poke me, prod me, listen to this, that and the other thing, and then, when it was almost over, the doc starts putting on a rubber glove, and tells me to drop my pants and lean over the exam table. "It's time for your very first prostate exam," he said, and he wasted no time getting down to work.

The good news: I have a very healthy prostate. I also have no latent homosexual tendencies; if I was ever 'bi-curious', I'm not any more.

I'm less sure of Molly's after-40 regimen. I think it was around that time that she started getting regular mammograms, but she doesn't talk to me about it much. She doesn't talk to me much about her pap-and-pelvic exams, either, and that's mainly just fine with me.

So, this year, after the doc slips off his rubber glove at the end of the physical, he says, "Hmmmm; you're turning 50 this year. Time for you to get a colonoscopy." Hmmmm. 'Colon'; 'scope' - I think I see where this is headed, and I'm not altogether sure that I appreciate it quite as fully as my doc does.

For whatever reason, by midsummer, I still hadn't scheduled my colonoscopy. I'm not squeamish, and I don't have some 'complex' about doctors or medical stuff; I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Then, around her 50th birthday, Molly goes in for her own physical, and she comes back with her own colonoscopy order. And it's at this point that you're going to learn about another of the endearingly goofy things that make my wife wonderful.

"I've got a great idea," she says. "We could get our colonoscopies together! Don't you think that would be romantic?"

His-and-hers colonoscopies. . . No, I don't think 'romantic' is quite the word that comes immediately to mind. I'm not sure exactly what Molly is thinking, but I'm conjuring an image of the two of us lying face-down on adjoining gurneys, holding hands while the technicians poke at our hind ends. Shaking my head to clear my brain of that image, I say, "Sure dear; what the heck - we might as well just get them both out of the way, anyway."

So Molly calls the lab and tells them she wants our appointments scheduled together. The scheduler pauses for a long time before asking, "Who's going to drive? You'll both be doped up after the procedure; you'll need a driver." OK, no problem; we can get 1F to pick us up. Then the scheduler asks, "Um, how many bathrooms do you have?" Huh? Why would it matter how many bathrooms we have? "Well, when you're doing your prep work, you'll both need to have pretty exclusive use of a bathroom." Prep work? "Well, yeah, you need to have your bowel cleared out before the procedure."

Now, I'm starting to get a really bad vibe about this. Anyway, Molly says no problem, we've got two-and-a-half bathrooms, so we can each take one and still have one left over for the kids to use. Hmmm; five kids for a half-bathroom. Okay, I guess, if we really have to. So we schedule both procedures for last Friday.

Now, the prep work for a colonoscopy is outlined in two pages of instructions, which, when properly executed, will result in a completely vacant large intestine. It starts a week or so ahead of time; you have to stop eating things with seeds, like strawberries, tomatos or cucumbers. For a day and a half before the procedure, you eat no solids, only clear liquids. Two days beforehand, you make a trip to the pharmacy; the instructions give you a long list of meds to be taken on a specified schedule. In simplified form, this amounts to, "Go to the pharmacy; find the laxative aisle; get one of everything, except two of the most powerful stuff." Then go home and start consuming them, starting with the mildest stuff and working your way up. When your prep work is complete, there is nothing left inside of you.

Molly chose her bathroom, and I chose mine; if we needed to talk, we called each other on our cell phones.

Friday morning, we show up at the lab and check in. They give us the hospital gowns open down the back (well, what did you expect?), take our vital signs, and hit us with the 'happy meds'. Apparently this is a procedure that goes best when you're not quite fully cognizant of what's going on.

The techs come for Molly first, and wheel her off down the hall, while she cheerfully waves and chirps, "Wish me luck!" A half-hour or so later, I hear her giggling as they wheel her back to the waiting area, and we pass each other in the hall as they wheel me down to the lab room.

They roll me on my side, and there's a TV screen directly in front of me, so I can watch the colon-cam pictures while the doc goes spelunking in my large intestine. It's sort of bizarre to think that the cave on the TV is really somewhere up inside my own ass, but the 'happy meds' make it so that there really aren't any associated physical sensations, so it's sort of like a weird out-of-body thing going on.

The procedure went really well - they found one tiny, benign 'polyp', which they snipped right out while I watched on the live-action butt-cam. Other than that, I have a clean bill of colonic health. And Molly's intestines are even healthier than mine. Which I'm sure you're all happy to hear.

When they were finished, they rolled me back to the waiting area, where Molly was waiting for me with dreamy eyes (either she was really, really into the whole 'romantic' thing, or the 'happy meds' were slow in wearing off). The final stage of the procedure involves 'expelling' all the 'air' that had been pumped into our intestines to keep them 'open' for the colon-cam shots. I will say that Molly's intestines are tuned to a somewhat higher pitch than mine are.

So there you have it. I don't know, maybe Molly was right - maybe it was more romantic than I expected it to be; a real husband/wife bonding experience, you know?

Naaaaah, I don't think so!

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Taking Care of the Boss

I haven’t posted any stories from my work life before now; mostly because my work isn’t all that exciting. My job is what they call, in the engineering world, an FE analyst; in layman’s terms, we’re the guys the other engineers think of as nerds.

Now, the Conventional Wisdom on How to Get Ahead at Your Job includes the idea of Taking Care of the Boss – make him look good to his own bosses, cover his ass when you can, and see that he’s never embarrassed on account of something you’ve done, so that when he gets promoted for doing a good job, you’ll be in line to take his place.

Anyway, when I was young and fresh out of college at my first ‘real job’ (back in the days when engineers still wore ties to work), my boss was a guy named Alex. One of the other guys in the group who reported to Alex was a crusty old guy, a Navy veteran named Bill. Bill was just a couple years from retiring when I started there; he and Alex had been working together for a long time, and had developed a kind of symbiotic relationship.

One day, I was scheduled to be in a meeting that Alex was supposed to be leading, and Bill was in the same meeting. Just before the meeting, Alex, Bill and I were gathered outside Alex’s office, and Alex heaved a heavy sigh. “I really don’t want to be in this meeting,” he said, explaining that it was pretty much a useless meeting, and besides, he wasn’t really prepared for it.

“No problem,” Bill said. “I’ll take care of it.”

Alex looked at him quizzically for a second, and we all went down the hall to the conference room for the meeting.

When we got into the room, and the other attendees were all there, Alex called the meeting to order, and the small talk settled down. While we were all waiting for Alex to ‘officially’ begin the meeting, Bill let loose with the loudest, longest, most odiferous fart that I have ever experienced in my life. We all just sort of stared at Bill in awed, open-mouthed silence, until finally Alex said, “Good grief, Bill – did you shit?”

As the noxious cloud spread through the room, someone suggested that maybe it would be a good idea to postpone the meeting to another time, and Alex quickly agreed, rescheduling for a week later.

I was walking back to my desk afterward, and as I passed by Alex’s office, Bill was standing there, and I heard Alex say, “Thanks, Bill – I owe you for that one.”

Bill answered, “No problem.”

And that was my first, best lesson in the Art of Taking Care of the Boss. . .

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OK, Let's Try This Again. . .

I've decided to give blogging another shot, and see if I can do it in a more rational, less all-consuming way. We'll see if I can, but I'm confident enough to give it a shot, anyway. . .

Actually, I've kept up with my blog-friends during my hiatus, and commenting on your blogs is practically indistinguishable from keeping up my own blog. As my comments started getting longer and more involved, I started thinking that I should just post them on my own behalf. We'll see how it goes. I probably won't be posting every day (or even every other day), and I probably won't be leaving quite such long posts as I did before, but that's probably all to the good, anyway.

So - I'm happy to be back in Blogworld. Let's get this thing going, shall we?

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Just by way of review, or bringing some of my newer visitors up to speed, let me do a quick (?) rundown of the Cast of Characters in the Jones family:

Me, Desmond Jones - Recently turned 50. I call myself a serious Christian (God only knows how really serious I am). Over the last 6+ months, I've lost 80 pounds. I was adopted as a child, and have met both my birth-parents (and two half-sisters).

Molly Jones - My wife of 26 years. Also just turned 50, but you wouldn't know it to look at her. Molly and I are the parents of eight children (their 'blog-names' are a combination of their birth-order and sex):

1F - our eldest; getting her life back together after a disastrous 3-year abusive relationship. Gave birth to our first grandchild last winter, but the little girl has been given for adoption.

2F - a college student; currently living 'semi-at-home' and working full-time.

3M - recent HS grad (barely). A 'troubled' kid, but brilliant (genius IQ); gave us an incredible amount of grief from age 13 to the present; moved to his own apartment this summer.

4M - All-American boy. A-student, star athlete, good-looking babe-magnet. All of which presents us with its own set of challenges (especially when it comes to denying his will).

5M - solid kid. Pleasant, good-natured; tends to get a little lost in the wake of his two older brothers, but we're learning not to do that.

6F - the pre-teen. But the teen years are coming on hard.

7M - Another brilliant, volatile kid (but maybe we'll have a little better clue how to help him cope). Earlier, I told the story of his being run over by the neighbor's car when he was 17 months old, but there are no, repeat NO, lasting effects of that accident, which is nothing short of miraculous.

8M - "I'm the baby, gotta love me."

Over the last few years, we've weathered some pretty intense challenges that we never imagined we'd ever face when we were first married (heck, we didn't imagine them when we'd been married 20 years), but the upshot of it all has been on the order of, 'What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger'. We're still here, still married, still raising eight kids as best we know how.

God is good.

Can I get an 'Amen' on that?

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What Does It Profit a Man. . .

. . . to blog about being a father of eight, and neglect his kids in the process? Or to blog about his great marriage, which suffers because he spends so much time blogging?

(*sigh*)

Sorry, friends, but I've got to go.

My behavior vis-a-vis blogging has gotten to be too much like addictive - too compulsive, taking too much time from real, important things in my life. And so, I've got to go, to attend to the real demands of my real life. . .

I want to stress that this is my problem; nobody offended me, or upset me - you've all been wonderful. It's just that the Real World trumps Blogworld, and I was starting to lose track of that. . .

It's way more emotionally difficult for me to walk away from this than it ought to be; and that's probably a measure of things having gotten a bit out-of-whack.

"To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under Heaven." (Ecclesiastes 3:1) (Those of you more in tune with the pop culture might identify it with a song by the Byrds; OK, those of you Old Farts like me who were listening to pop tunes in the '60s)

". . . La, la, how the life goes on. . ."

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Being Pregnant

Molly and I have been married for almost 26 years, and we've had eight children together. That means that she's spent six years of her life being pregnant. Throw in roughly a year apiece that she's nursed them, and that's 14 years of her life that someone besides herself has been drawing on the resources of her body. That's amazing.

I have always been in awe of the female body, and not just because of its obvious sensual and aesthetic features. The capacity of the female body to nurture within itself a complete, distinct PERSON, touches on the holy. I mean, think of it - every one of us here today came into being in the exact same way, within our mother's womb. And while I'm thinking of it, every human being who has ever lived corresponds to an act of sexual intercourse between his/her parents (OK, with the one very high-profile exception . . .)

I have often told Molly that reproducing ourselves together is the coolest, most amazing thing we could ever do. In a way, it is the biblical 'one flesh' in its most concrete form (or, if you will, in our case, eight fleshes). I mean - think of it - we're making another PERSON out of the substance of the two of us, and our love for each other. Completely awesome. . .

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The Pause That Refreshes

Just got back from five days Up North, as we say in Michigan. We had a great time - good relaxation, good fun, good family time. We really needed some good family time.

Molly and I and five of our kids (4M on down) shared a lodge with a friend-couple of ours, R (the husband) and M (the wife), and seven of their nine kids; sixteen of us, all cozy together under one roof. Our lodge was 'rustic', which meant no electricity, and pit toilets (altho we were near the campsites, which had showers and flush toilets; much to the relief of 6F)

We were walking distance from a beautiful, sandy Lake Michigan beach, and the weather was beautiful. The kids spent hours and hours playing in the lake, skipping stones, jumping over whitecaps, whatever there was to do at the lake, they did it.

One day we drove a short distance to an out-of-the-way little waterfall hidden away in the middle of nowhere. The falls were maybe about 4-5 feet high, with a little pool at the bottom. Folks were just sort of lounging in the pool, and the kids were jumping into the pool from the top of the falls. 4M and 5M and the teenage boys spent the better part of an hour trying to climb up the falls against the falling water. All very 'unsafe' and (therefore?) tons of fun. . .

We even went to a concert by a Beatles tribute band.

So, all-in-all, we had a great time. We really needed some family-recouping time, with no pressure, just to be able to relax and have fun together, and we got that. God is good.