Something I don't like

I am the type of person that loves myself to a fault but I have discovered something I really don't like about myself. I can't take any common courtesy or help from someone I don't like.

I am stuck in the nine aspects of hell in the middle of paradise. Yes I am still in Hawaii, isolated, surrounded and sought after by people I can't stand. I am at a resort (with no car), where all my food, drinks, entertainment, exercise, beach time and leisure is spent with these people.

Yesterday we worked a half day and took a tour to the black sand beach. Now in any other walk of my life I would have had someone looking out after me, someone to carry my stuff, someone to run back to the room if I forgot something, someone to put sun block on my back. There were takers yesterday who wanted to fill this role and I just couldn't. I can not take anything from people I can't stand and everything from people I like. In fact I was irritated when they insisted on doing small favors me.

I don't like this about me, I should be abusive and mean to the people in my life I don't like and nice to the people I do. Instead I take a lot from the people that who are a joy to have in my life and I want them there and nothing from the people who don't want in my life but are willing to give whatever I ask for.

Absence

I awoke last night
The pillow and moonlight cast a shadow
Hunger and desire gripped me low in my body
And I reached for you
Only to be startled completely awake
With your absence

Leap before you look

In case you could not tell I had a fabulous time on my rafting trip. I enjoyed every bit of it, the adventure, the company, the partying, basically the whole thing. We had three guides, one for each boat, the female for the oar boat, the hottie for the paddle boat and Big O for the S-rig.

At night we would sit drinking in a big story telling circle and Big O was a fabulous story teller. He started every story with No shit there I was and by the end of the week I couldn’t even start a phrase without No shit there I was.

The trip was so good for me; it had been so long since I have been happy I almost forgot what it was like. The trip reminded me that I was losing myself again, losing the adventurous and a bit reckless side of me, the part of me that I really love. I am going to try to get out of the pattern of life that is making me miserable. I want to embrace the side of me that is scary, reckless and leap before you look. I am truly happy when I do.

Well I am off to Hawaii, I am not planning on blogging while gone but you never know.

No shit there I was for a third time

No shit there I was yet again riding the bull through rapids 28, 29 and 30. Now for you Cataract Canyon buffs you might be thinking I am making this up but rapids 29 and 30 just appeared this year, and as a result they are rapidly changing each week. Rapid 29 is quickly becoming one of the bigger drops on the river and by far the biggest drop in the end of the Canyon.

After the big drop three I thought I would take a break from paddling and switch over to the oar boat, but being the little adventure seeker that I am I wanted to ride the bull. The bull is the very front of the boat and you sit on it and let your legs dangle out of the boat, like riding a mechanical bull with nothing to straddle. Now our totally awesome, hard-core, amazing female river guide said I could ride the bull (the first to do so the entire rapids stretch) but I would have to get back in the boat for rapid 29, because I would definitely “swim” if I rode the bull through 29.

So no shit there I was still riding the bull into rapid 29 with the promise I would not fall out. We crested the top of the 10 foot drop and I thought on shit there is no way I am going to hang on! I huge wave crashed into me three feet over my head attempting to violently throw me off my perch on the bull. The wave swamped me with the force of a truck; the wall of water was 10 times the size of me. I held on and kept my perch mainly to show the queen of the river guides that I had game!


I was once again vaulted into celebrity status; everyone who watched could not believe I held on. I would have liked to swim but a promise is a promise. I did wind up with some wicked rope burns and a wrenched shoulder to show for my efforts but the body is meant to be sacrificed in pursuit of adventure.

No shit there I was again

No shit there I was on a six passenger single engine prop Cessna about to take off when in the middle of taxing the pilot aborted. I kid you not we screeched to a halt 10 feet from the end of the runway and 30 feet from the edge of a cliff. The pilot turned to me and over the noise of the engine yelled “I didn’t think we were going to make it!”

Runway is a generous term, more like an old forgotten strip of road in the middle of nowhere. The pilot had us get off the plane, turn it around and then he taxied back to the take off area leaving us to walk back. Walking back in the sweltering 100 degree weather I seriously weighed my options; the best seeming to bring out the girls and hitching a ride back to Moab. I assessed the probability of surviving a serial killer assault verses surviving that plane trip and the serial killer looked like the better bet.

When we returned to the plane the pilot claimed that the plane needed to cool off, hello in 100 degree weather baking on that strip of black top??? The cheerleader than said one of the greatest lines of the entire trip; “If you don’t think we are going to make it, the by all means don’t try it.” I started laughing in hysterics, hysterics because it was funny and hysterics because I was near a break down. I was scared for the first time the entire trip, off the river, out of the rapids and I was scared.

Finally I convinced myself to get back on that plane and I white knuckled gripped it all the way back. Every ten minutes or so my internal logical side of my brain would remind my fear saturated side of my brain that hanging on with all my strength would not stop the plane from crashing and I would release my death grip but a 6 foot air drop and I would grasp the oh shit handle and hang on. I spent the entire trip looking for likely landing spots in the event of a catastrophic engine failure and assessing how long it would take for rescue crews to reach us.

I will run a river any day but I will need some serious medication before I take that plane ride again.

No Shit There I Was

No shit there I was on the top of frog’s hole on big drop three of Cataract Canyon coming in sideways. Now if there is any place on the big drop three you don’t want to be in a 8 foot paddle boat is the top of frog’s hole, and no shit there I was. After scouting the hole from the top, looking at the river and knowing I could be anywhere on that section of rapids except in frog’s hole and after being told by our esteemed and super hot river guide that no matter what we did not want to end up in frog’s hole, there I was.

It started when leaving the eddy where we shored up to scout big drop three, it was the all forward command followed shortly by dig in, and then the hottie guide really started freaking out! Dig In! He screamed over and over again; panic welling in his voice with each DIG IN. All 7 of us in the boat were paddling for our lives and safety, literally. GIVE IT ALL YOU HAVE! He screamed and then it was too late, I was staring sideways down into the biggest hole I have ever seen, a Class V rapid and we were coming in hot. Fortunately 5 of us were experienced white water river rats and launched ourselves into the wave that descended crashing on top of us. The side of our raft was 5 degrees shy of vertical. I dove into the wave, which seems like a suicide thing to do but in reality it is the only way not to flip the boat and survive. Four of us threw everything we had into that wave, life and limb and the wave crashed us back into our seats.

If you survive frog’s hole (80% of the privates and 40% of the commercial single oar rigs have not) it then becomes the wildest ride of your life through a chain of erratic 15-footers into the Gut. Satan’s Gut, the huge pour-over in Big Drop three. After that it’s a mile or so more with five big rapids, and emphasis on big.

When we finally cleared the rapids we were celebrities. No one believed we were going to make it out without a call to life flight, but all 7 of us were intact in the boat and only some really interesting bruises, wrenched muscles and one hell of story to tell to show for our ride. To say the least it was one of the best moments of my life.

I worry too much

Friday

The mass did not have the physical appearance of a standard benign tumor, it contained more white tissue. Of course I won’t know what that really means until Thursday. I am also supposed to leave on my rafting trip next week. I still have not decided if I am going to cancel or not. It all depends on how Meadow is doing this evening. I pick her up in an hour and I will reserve final judgment on the trip until I see how she responds to the surgery.

Other than a rapidly growing mass on her back she seems unaffected by events. She is still a terror except when sleeping. She still loves her belly rubbed more than anything in the world. She knows her sit command and walks well on a leash. I was planning on starting her in school next month.

I can’t help but worry about this thing. The only thing I know now is that it isn’t a mast cell tumor and it is not a Histiocytoma nor did it contain a foreign object that behaved very bizarrely. I don’t even know the probabilities, is it more probable that it is malignant cancer? It really isn’t logical to worry about it at this stage. And even if it is cancer I don’t the possible treatment options. I think I am being very irrational with this whole thing. Perhaps I am preparing myself for the worst, when I lost Frodo I was devastated for 2 years. It took me that long to be willing to love something (anything) again.

Sunday

Meadow is truly unaffected by the surgery, see is still a terror.

Some light at the end of the tunnel

The pathology returned negative to mast cells, which is a really good thing. Brittany and the Vet are in agreement that they still want to remove the growth and have it biopsied. The surgery is still scheduled for Friday.

This morning I noticed that my bedroom smells like Meadow, yes she sleeps with me, and the smell is very comforting.

Thank you for all you supportive and wonderful comments. I will keep you posted.

Life comes at you fast

First of all thank you all for the wonderful reading recommendations but life has a way of taking turns when you least expect it. I found out on Saturday that Meadow has a mast cell tumor. I don’t know what stage it is, one being a solitary tumor confined to the dermis without nodal involvement and progressing up to stage IV; being any tumor with distant metastasis or recurrence with metastasis. The primary pathology is being done today and she is scheduled for surgery on Friday.

My sister Brittany was out of town on Saturday when I found out. Brittany is a vet too, but she does not live near me so I take Meadow to a local vet that she recommended. Brittany is coming up after work this evening to give me her opinion, but from our phone conversations she is in agreement with the mast cell tumor diagnosis. She also is very concerned about the tumor considering Meadow is so young and typically these tumors are only seen in old dogs.

To say it mildly I am traumatized. I can’t stop crying at my desk. My only hope it that I am overreacting and this is going to be a simple procedure and Meadow will be back to being my little terror in a week or two.

I need a book

I have been in a reading funk lately. I have not really found a new hidden gem in the pages of a book. So I have taken to reading and sometimes rereading literary classics, in hopes that they are classics for a reason. However I am still disappointed, I am not saying that the books have been mislabeled as classics but they are just not what I am looking for. I finished The Awakening by Kate Chopin recently and while reading the book for the first time in my life I thought briefly about suicide. I felt trapped and helpless; like I was on a runaway train, speeding out of control on an already laid track with no ability to change the situation. It was the foreshadowing of Edna’s suicide that I was feeling while reading and it was powerful but it still left me wanting when I finished the book.

I am now rereading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I first read this book as a child in middle school; I loved the book at the time. I can’t recall if it was from my initially reading of the book or references after it but I had morphed the part about Boo Radley into so sort of nightmare with a villain, where Boo is the villain. Given that I just started the book yesterday that might still be true but right now I just feel very sorry for Boo. I am enjoying To Kill a Mockingbird but it is still not what I am searching for, I want a book that grabs me and entertains me. I want a book that takes me away to a place full of mystery, adventure, love and happy endings. I don’t want a book that changes the way I think, attempts to educated me or gives me an alarming insight to the human condition through a simple story. Right now I can’t take a poorly wrote book either, is there a book out there that meets my needs? I am on a quest, any suggestions?