Went to a fun house party last night, hosted by a neighbour two houses down the road from me (Jared and Stephanie).
They have bought a house in a new 'hood, and are moving out of this rental house here in Aro Valley – so this was a "house cooling" party, a last hurrah before they totally pack up and shift in a couple of weeks.
Like any good party, heavy drinking and merriment ensued ... in fact, it was well under way when I arrived about 9 pm.
As a wily veteran of many such events over the decades, I like to take note of the drinks of choice vis-a-vis the age of the folks doing the consuming. (More specifically, how much and at what rate of speed the cute single girls are consuming ...)
People in their 20s generally drink beer and sweeter hard liquor mixes – here in New Zealand, that's usually Jim Beam or JD watered down with coke for the lads, and the sheilas seem to like gin and vodka mixed with "lemonade" (Sprite to anyone in other parts of the world).
More mature types go for wine, or hard liquor drinks that aren't sweet, or quality micro-brewed beer.
Last night there was a bigger age spectrum representing. I was likely the oldest at 52. There were a few 40-somethings, and a heavy percentage of 30-ish types. Some early to late 20-somethings were there too.
There seemed to be far more people of all ages drinking hard liquor – many bourbon, gin, vodka and rum bottles populated the kitchen "bench" ("counter" for us North Americans), and a decent blended scotch lurked there too.
I brought wine (an excellent NZ pinot noir, White Cliff) and mostly stuck to that until I ran out – then it was onto the half-bottle of Lake Chalice Sav Blanc that sat abandoned on the bench (also excellent).
The conversation was clearly alcohol-fueled, and the volume of said chatter rose steadily as the drinks were pounded down. (Some cute girls were really railing down the gin at alarming speed ...)
Pretty much standard fair for any gathering.
Now we come to the "I should have realised it was time to go when ...." The tell-tale signs that creep into partygoers' behavior indicating new and untapped levels of self-humiliation are about to ensue ...
There are obvious ones like "fell down, heaved my guts, passed out".
There is dancing on surfaces usually not meant for dancing upon. There is the wearing of silly hats, or things on your head that aren't usually hats.
But before that happens, there are some funny transitions from "sober" to "gunned up and getting absolutely sloshed".
Some of the girls were trying on the hostesses' cheezier 'fun' outfits (faux-leopard-skin prints of tops and skirts and such). A fur coat was passed around, and every guy who tried it on affected a "Pimp Pose" ... Jared had several costume changes of his jacket of choice, from a demure and classy dark wool number, to a bright green, fuzzy, outrageous and cheezy thing that resembled a bath robe ...
Fake accents were deployed to tell jokes, loud and rambling story-telling ensued, raucous laughter punctuated stories that weren't all THAT funny ... the rate of speed of drink consumption escalated exponentially (more gin, girls? Mwa-hahaha!)
Then came one of the first signs of the Drunken Apocalypse. "Guitar Hero" was unveiled on the TV/sound system, plastic guitars were dispensed and eagerly grabbed up by folks in the room ... as were microphones. This was to be a version of karaoke and fake guitar playing that would not sound good.
For me, I knew it was time to go after I seized the mic and heard myself asking for the Journey song "Don't Stop Believing". (A point of high comedy in the mover "The Losers", which I'd just watched) ....
But did I leave before embarking on obviously doomed and failed scheme?
Of course not.
The song started, another guy with a voice as deep as mine joined in on the mic, and we attempted some sort of wretched, tormented, abysmal "college try" to match Steve Perry's high-octane falsetto vocal (while others whacked away on the plastic guitars).
To say it was heinous and atrocious would have been an insult to heinous and atrocious things the world over. It was far worse.
Even the guitar players (all guys) attempted to sing along. What resulted was akin to 1,000 bagpipes being played by asthmatic and deranged demons being roasted on the eternal flames of hell.
Indeed, it was time to leave. Perhaps on a midnight train, to anywhere ...
Thanks for a great party guys! Looking forward to the house-warming at the new crib!
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Fortuitous circumstances, odd coincidences, and old-time 'sea captains'
Monday morning here, on Queen's Birthday long weekend. It's foggy outside and in – it's a bit rainy (but very warm for early June) and I'm a bit fuzzy, following a fun dinner party with my neigbours Clare and John last night.
New friends are fun to meet – especially when they are close neighbours here in my new 'hood.
I met Clare a couple of months ago, on the bus coming home to our respective aeries here atop the Aro Valley cliffs. Then the next day she was walking their hound, Jake. We kept running in to each other on walks to and from work. Then one day two weeks on the bus, she invited me to Sunday dinner on this holiday weekend. A great time and fantastic meal ensued (Moroccan lamb stew!) and fine red wine flowed.
The other guest, Chris, had lugged along a couple of shopping bags full of interesting knicknacks he had amassed from cleaning out cupboards in his rental house. It was a pile of unrelated small crockery items, some Irish pottery/crockery, mustard and tea containers, a few more recent glasses, two cheesy plastic 60s vase-type things, and some mystery items.
This collection was bestowed on me as I left (apparently there had been lots of other bags of swag turning up at Clare and John's house, and they decided to share this one with me).
I'm going over the pile of swag now, as my hangover slowly fades away ... trying to determine the function and form of some of the things. I've made a wee movie and I'm sending it to my sis Kim to see if she can ID any of the mystery items (I'm purposely avoiding using the term "random" here, as that is consistently used incorrectly when the language manglers mean "unusual", "odd" or "strange" ... and that malapropism is a juicy topic for another post.)
Among the many conversation arcs and loops swirling around the table last night at the dinner party, I learned some of the history of Clare and John's house. It was built back in the late 1800-early 1900s, by a "sea captain" who designed the original structure like a ship ... with several doors (allowing for many avenues of escape, perchance?), and some hidden cupboards and such. He must have been a fellow of diminished height, because the doorway arches were considerably lower than me, and the architectural standard of 6'8" ...
They thought the sea captain was a rum-runner, and perhaps other booty, treasure and ill-gotten gain had also passed through his home.
In the 70s, famed New Zealand actor and musician Bruno Lawrence lived there, and the house was HQ/Ground Zero for his creative collective, BLERTA.
The copious quantity of wine and great food didn't allow my brain to twig to the last time I heard Lawrence's name until this morning – I'd met his biographer, Roger Booth, at a gathering a year or so prior to this. Roger had a copy of the book Bruno: The Bruno Lawrence Story and gave me a signed copy.
Now I need to find out more about this mysterious "sea captain".
Nothing like a bit of sea-faring history and mystery! Yarr!
New friends are fun to meet – especially when they are close neighbours here in my new 'hood.
I met Clare a couple of months ago, on the bus coming home to our respective aeries here atop the Aro Valley cliffs. Then the next day she was walking their hound, Jake. We kept running in to each other on walks to and from work. Then one day two weeks on the bus, she invited me to Sunday dinner on this holiday weekend. A great time and fantastic meal ensued (Moroccan lamb stew!) and fine red wine flowed.
The other guest, Chris, had lugged along a couple of shopping bags full of interesting knicknacks he had amassed from cleaning out cupboards in his rental house. It was a pile of unrelated small crockery items, some Irish pottery/crockery, mustard and tea containers, a few more recent glasses, two cheesy plastic 60s vase-type things, and some mystery items.
This collection was bestowed on me as I left (apparently there had been lots of other bags of swag turning up at Clare and John's house, and they decided to share this one with me).
I'm going over the pile of swag now, as my hangover slowly fades away ... trying to determine the function and form of some of the things. I've made a wee movie and I'm sending it to my sis Kim to see if she can ID any of the mystery items (I'm purposely avoiding using the term "random" here, as that is consistently used incorrectly when the language manglers mean "unusual", "odd" or "strange" ... and that malapropism is a juicy topic for another post.)
Among the many conversation arcs and loops swirling around the table last night at the dinner party, I learned some of the history of Clare and John's house. It was built back in the late 1800-early 1900s, by a "sea captain" who designed the original structure like a ship ... with several doors (allowing for many avenues of escape, perchance?), and some hidden cupboards and such. He must have been a fellow of diminished height, because the doorway arches were considerably lower than me, and the architectural standard of 6'8" ...
They thought the sea captain was a rum-runner, and perhaps other booty, treasure and ill-gotten gain had also passed through his home.
In the 70s, famed New Zealand actor and musician Bruno Lawrence lived there, and the house was HQ/Ground Zero for his creative collective, BLERTA.
 |
| Bruno Lawrence |
The copious quantity of wine and great food didn't allow my brain to twig to the last time I heard Lawrence's name until this morning – I'd met his biographer, Roger Booth, at a gathering a year or so prior to this. Roger had a copy of the book Bruno: The Bruno Lawrence Story and gave me a signed copy.
Now I need to find out more about this mysterious "sea captain".
Nothing like a bit of sea-faring history and mystery! Yarr!
Sunday, June 5, 2011
A decade in New Zealand
Not long after I got here in 2001, I wrote a "What's cool about living here?" sort of article for fun – and then a bit later I managed to convince my good mate Steve Pecar, then-editor at the Mississauga Times, to publish it (or parts of it ... it was rather long).
A decade later and all of those things still amaze me, and make me happy.
The kicker line I used was "It's like they invented a country just for me!" I've spent all 10 years living in various parts of Wellington. I really like it.
Why?
The positive aspects far outweigh the negative ones ... and the negative ones are so minor, I don't care about them.
What's it all mean to me?
Geography
Wellington's a harbour town, like Vancouver. Welly's surrounded by mountains (smaller than Vancouver, but still, nice looking mountains). And of course a lovely scenic harbour. If you spend a bit of time and get a place to live with a view of these two things, it beats the bejesus out of just about any other view in any other city or town. It's better than looking out your window and seeing flat fields, the apartment building next to you, snowbanks, or all the other cookie-cutter houses next door.
Wellington's in the centre of the country. Getting anywhere in New Zealand is a quick flight (no more than an hour or so). And since I moved here, competition in the airline industry makes it dirt cheap to fly around – as little as $29 one way to Auckland, for example. And even cheaper if you're quick enough on the instant seat sales.
So hopping around the country to check out new places (for a gringo visitor like me) is cheap and fun, and not too time-consuming.
Welly's also close to the Wairarapa, a fun and scenic wine region. A one-hour drive out of the city and you're in the heart of one of the world's premier wine regions. It's a great holiday getaway – snag a cottage at a winery or in the town of Martinborough, sample great wine and eat terrific food. And it's only an hours' drive away ... no customs, no lineups, no waiting. You're settled in and grinning with a glass of great wine, 60 minutes after leaving home.
Having fun in Welly is pretty easy to do too. The city is compact and encourages folks to stroll around and soak up the fun. The CBD is easily navigated on foot. It's a seaside city with a strong focus on the arts, theatre, entertainment, great dining, and of course pubs and clubs. There are festivals galore. You can spend a day moseying around Welly and easily get around to all the fun. Get too wasted in a bar and if you chose wisely to live in one of the city's many nearby suburbs, a cab ride home for your drunken ass is no more than $15-20.
 |
| The daylight hours view off my balcony – overlooking Aro Valley, out to Wellington Harbour |
My newest home is up on the Aro cliffs, overlooking a lush jungle valley (and in the medium distance, the city), with a stunning view of the mountains and harbour. It's populated by almost all of the native bird life of New Zealand (including parrots!) On first appearance my 'hood is well away from the central city. But I can walk downtown in half an hour. The cab trip home from party central is $10-12. I get home, and the only noise I hear is the birds.
 |
| Sunrise over Welly Harbour – from my balcony |
Climate
My tolerance for temperature extremes is low these days – in spite of once-upon-a-time being OK with –35º C winters and +35º C summers with unsufferable humidity (seriously: how could the Founding Fathers NOT have clued in after a few seasons of this 70-degree temperature fluctuation every goddamn year?!), when I was a kid living in Ontario. New Zealand's temperate climate is perfect for me ... never too cold, never too hot. Protip to anyone thinking of setting up a new civilisation: living in extreme climates is a bad idea!
The folks
Are those pastures really greener?
There's something intrinsically absurd about the human characteristic to think 'distance equals better'.
Or as the old saying sort of goes, that pastures are greener over the fence. Might make sense if you are a cow or a sheep, with limited reasoning skills ...
As a kid I went fishing a lot with my dad. It didn't occur to me then (hey, dad was always right until you turn 12!) but now I look back in awe at the process.
We'd load the boat up on a trailer, and all our fishing gear into the truck, and drive no less than 90 minutes (sometimes more than 2-3 hours) to a lake that was just magically known to have the most fish.
We lived about 10 minutes from a lake that was also fish-laden. But if you have a whole bunch of gear and a boat on a trailer and a nice big truck with which to lade with expensive fishing gear, lugging it all just 10 minutes away to the lake near you seems to defeat the purpose of owning a buttload of gear. Or fishing. Or something.
And away we'd go, driving to the distant lake. We'd pass guys with trucks loaded to the gunwhales with fishing gear, and boats on trailers, driving towards our lake. Clearly these guys must be nuts. The fools! The lake we were heading to was clearly far better.
Why?
It was further away from us. To the not-so-calculating human mind, distance travelled seems to equal an enhanced fishing/shopping experience.
A mate of mine from Vancouver liked to buy two things on a fairly regular basis: a new mountain bike, and new ski gear. He spent up large on the ski gear every single year.
Never mind that his annual ski-gear-purchasing was a deeply disturbing psychosis – after only having skied perhaps 6 or 7 times on said gear, he'd deem it all "worn out" at the end of the season, and another big spend-up was required for the new season (but that's a whole other crazy Blog topic). He had to travel a good distance out of the city, past several ski-gear shops near his apartment, to get this gear.
One day I asked him why, when I learned that the stuff he bought was the same brand and the same price as the stores just down the street. He couldn't come up with a sane answer.
He did the same thing with his mountain bikes. There had to be 19 stores within walking distance of his apartment. But no – he went miles out of the city to this one shop that had the best deals. Except, they didn't. Same bike, same price.
Another friend here in Welly seems convinced that buying stuff overseas results in better gear (or perhaps some sort of odd concept of a better shopping experience?) So things like hard drives and cameras and headphones and cell phones get mail-ordered.
Factor in the monetary exchange rate, and the time waiting for delivery. Is that an 'enhanced shopping experience'? For most sane guys, we once again hear Austin Powers' famous line: "How about NO, you crazy Dutch bastard!?"
(And I've since adopted another great line from Colin Farrell, in In Bruges – "Maybe I'd find it good if I grew up on a farm ... or if I was retarded. But I didn't, and I'm not.")
And uniquely, with my mail-order-zany friend, there is a high incidence of the equipment arriving, and soon meeting an untimely demise due to mysterious sessions of unpredictable mayhem (dropping, throwing, knocking over, or drowning seem to be the most popular methods of rendering said gear inoperative). Occasionally there is a slim chance a warranty covers this self-inflicted gear-i-cide, but of course, said gear needs to be sent back (by mail) to the country of purchase.
But hey. It's better.
I often get a strong vision of my dad and I tooling along the highway, driving to that far-away lake ...
Or as the old saying sort of goes, that pastures are greener over the fence. Might make sense if you are a cow or a sheep, with limited reasoning skills ...
As a kid I went fishing a lot with my dad. It didn't occur to me then (hey, dad was always right until you turn 12!) but now I look back in awe at the process.
We'd load the boat up on a trailer, and all our fishing gear into the truck, and drive no less than 90 minutes (sometimes more than 2-3 hours) to a lake that was just magically known to have the most fish.
We lived about 10 minutes from a lake that was also fish-laden. But if you have a whole bunch of gear and a boat on a trailer and a nice big truck with which to lade with expensive fishing gear, lugging it all just 10 minutes away to the lake near you seems to defeat the purpose of owning a buttload of gear. Or fishing. Or something.
And away we'd go, driving to the distant lake. We'd pass guys with trucks loaded to the gunwhales with fishing gear, and boats on trailers, driving towards our lake. Clearly these guys must be nuts. The fools! The lake we were heading to was clearly far better.
Why?
It was further away from us. To the not-so-calculating human mind, distance travelled seems to equal an enhanced fishing/shopping experience.
A mate of mine from Vancouver liked to buy two things on a fairly regular basis: a new mountain bike, and new ski gear. He spent up large on the ski gear every single year.
Never mind that his annual ski-gear-purchasing was a deeply disturbing psychosis – after only having skied perhaps 6 or 7 times on said gear, he'd deem it all "worn out" at the end of the season, and another big spend-up was required for the new season (but that's a whole other crazy Blog topic). He had to travel a good distance out of the city, past several ski-gear shops near his apartment, to get this gear.
One day I asked him why, when I learned that the stuff he bought was the same brand and the same price as the stores just down the street. He couldn't come up with a sane answer.
He did the same thing with his mountain bikes. There had to be 19 stores within walking distance of his apartment. But no – he went miles out of the city to this one shop that had the best deals. Except, they didn't. Same bike, same price.
Another friend here in Welly seems convinced that buying stuff overseas results in better gear (or perhaps some sort of odd concept of a better shopping experience?) So things like hard drives and cameras and headphones and cell phones get mail-ordered.
Factor in the monetary exchange rate, and the time waiting for delivery. Is that an 'enhanced shopping experience'? For most sane guys, we once again hear Austin Powers' famous line: "How about NO, you crazy Dutch bastard!?"
(And I've since adopted another great line from Colin Farrell, in In Bruges – "Maybe I'd find it good if I grew up on a farm ... or if I was retarded. But I didn't, and I'm not.")
And uniquely, with my mail-order-zany friend, there is a high incidence of the equipment arriving, and soon meeting an untimely demise due to mysterious sessions of unpredictable mayhem (dropping, throwing, knocking over, or drowning seem to be the most popular methods of rendering said gear inoperative). Occasionally there is a slim chance a warranty covers this self-inflicted gear-i-cide, but of course, said gear needs to be sent back (by mail) to the country of purchase.
But hey. It's better.
I often get a strong vision of my dad and I tooling along the highway, driving to that far-away lake ...
Saturday, June 4, 2011
The rules of camping
Ahh, camping.
For Canadians, it's a rite of passage.
As kids you just love the idea of being outside, in a tent, 'roughing it'. Never mind that mom & dad packed all the food and your clothes, and made sure you had foul weather gear (and you never went camping on purpose when the forecast called for rain).
Camping took on a whole new scope right around the time your punkass teenage self got into drinking and smoking dope.
Camping became "drinking (or partying) in tents". Not a whole lot of roughing it ... campsites were sought out, with amenities like showers and clean (even flushable) toilets.
The key thing here was being 'relatively close' to nature – but not so close so as to actually be in peril from hungry bears.
There is a 'firewood' rule about camping, but more on that in a sec. There is another rule about camping we'll explore first: "Always set up your tent before you start drinking heavily and forget to ... otherwise you will end up sleeping in a pile of nylon and ropes".
For example:
Here's the story behind this photo. I camped a fair bit with a few pals from the Vancouver days in the early 90s.
Dave C. (pictured above) was a guy who really liked his booze. Sadly, booze didn't like him all that much. Booze was an evil playful trickster. Booze was a jerk and a son of a bitch to him. But I'll give booze this: it provided us with many, many laughs.
Once in the early going of getting into booze, booze fooled Dave into thinking that every time he got tanked, a cute girl would find him irresistible, and he'd get to take her home and do things to/with her. Sometimes that continued worked for Dave ... but more often than not, he'd end up a ruined, unconscious mess at the wicked, playful behest of booze.
That was how we found Dave on morning #1 on a "camping trip" to Cultus Lake in BC. He is, indeed, sleeping in a pile of nylon and ropes, because he failed to heed our wisdom (and our example). We set up our tents and got the site squared away as Dave cavorted and pounded beer, mocking us for being such good little campers.
Dave continued partying into the night, and when it came time to succumb to gravity's siren song, Dave found his tent thusly situated. He fell on it and passed out (especially funny is the one missing sock).
'Preparation' wasn't one of Dave's stronger suits. Not only did he fail hard in the setup stage, he also got into the car to come camping at the start of the trip with just one item: a large cooler full of beer.
No food, no water, no juice. No aspirin for the inevitable brain-slammer of a hangover. No change of clothes.
Just beer. At least he did have them on ice.
Adding to the fun when he finally awoke (after plenty of photography like this ensued) hung over as fuck, with a thrashing head, thirsty as hell, and with no food, was his simpering, whinging behaviour. Also, he was initially dew-damp from sleeping uncovered all night. But that was quickly superseded with being hot and nasty-sweaty, as the morning summer sun rapidly stewed off the dew, and proceded to bake him pretty well to a beer-sodden piece of toast as he lay there (as illustrated).
He moped around the site for a while, watching us make and enjoy breakfast. He moaned a fair bit, in between offering to pay anyone a LOT of money for a drink of juice, and some aspirins. Then more money on offer if someone made him breakfast. I had him up to about $30 at that point, but I kept upping the price because he was such easy pickings.
I hadn't seen a more forlorn looking victim of a hangover in some time ... finally someone else arrived from Vancouver to join the weekend fun, took pity on the spectacle, and provided Dave with juice and Tylenol. A hit off a joint immediately followed, and just like the Phoenix, he was reborn from the eternal damnation fires of the hangover.
Moments later, he was drinking beer again, feeling fantastic, ready for fun. All this, before noon.
No prizes for predicting the outcome of the that day, and the next morning – it was a carbon copy of the first. But there was the added bonus (for laughs) during that day. When the sober new arrival offered to take us to the nearest town for more beer, Dave eschewed that too. He had zeeroed in on a campsite with some girls nearby, and didn't want to leave ... lest they get scooped up by some other guys.
This leads us into Camping Rule #2: Firewood – When you think you have gathered enough firewood to enable you to have a nice big bonfire for the night, go back into the woods and get the same amount again, before darkness falls. Firewood burns far faster than you think it will.
This rule also applies to beer. Think about how much beer you might drink in a night of hard partying, then double that amount ... because you WILL need it. And there is no such thing as having "too much beer on hand".
Then go to the store with the person who offers to drive you, and get said beer. Else ye be paying dearly at the hands of your cruel friends.
Dave of course failed on that count, and we made a LOT of money off him that night, selling him our beers, long after his dwindling supply had vanished. Good thing he carried lots of cash at all times.
Rinse, repeat, and we had morning #2 as a carbon-copy of the first one.
Another pal once dubbed Dave "Cossaboom's drinking toy", and that certainly seemed to fit. This nickname ensued following Dave's flatmate finding him a crumpled mess in front of the apartment door, collapsed in an unconscious heap, keys in hand, at around 2.30 a.m. after drinking with me in the Vancouver bars ... incapable of holding it together long enough to get the door open, to collapse inside.
The flatmate rounded the corner, saw Dave collapsed in the distance, and immediately thought: "Heh, out drinking with Cossaboom again."
There are a thousand drunken stories from the savage, uncaring heart of the city. And I know most of them. They mostly star this Dave, in various states of disrepair (and waking up with less-than-attractive women) ... and another Dave who has the dubious distinction of being the most prolific puker I have ever met.
As time goes on I will relate such stories. We have fun topics like "Firelog or chilli-dog?", "Please stop me if you see me talking to a beast", and "The morning-after phone call from a mysterious location: Help me, I'm at the girl's place, she went to work, and I have NO idea where I am".
And many, many more.
For Canadians, it's a rite of passage.
As kids you just love the idea of being outside, in a tent, 'roughing it'. Never mind that mom & dad packed all the food and your clothes, and made sure you had foul weather gear (and you never went camping on purpose when the forecast called for rain).
Camping took on a whole new scope right around the time your punkass teenage self got into drinking and smoking dope.
Camping became "drinking (or partying) in tents". Not a whole lot of roughing it ... campsites were sought out, with amenities like showers and clean (even flushable) toilets.
The key thing here was being 'relatively close' to nature – but not so close so as to actually be in peril from hungry bears.
There is a 'firewood' rule about camping, but more on that in a sec. There is another rule about camping we'll explore first: "Always set up your tent before you start drinking heavily and forget to ... otherwise you will end up sleeping in a pile of nylon and ropes".
For example:
 |
| Failure to heed the wisdom of Camping Rule #1: Set your tent up first, THEN drink heavily, results in this. |
Here's the story behind this photo. I camped a fair bit with a few pals from the Vancouver days in the early 90s.
Dave C. (pictured above) was a guy who really liked his booze. Sadly, booze didn't like him all that much. Booze was an evil playful trickster. Booze was a jerk and a son of a bitch to him. But I'll give booze this: it provided us with many, many laughs.
Once in the early going of getting into booze, booze fooled Dave into thinking that every time he got tanked, a cute girl would find him irresistible, and he'd get to take her home and do things to/with her. Sometimes that continued worked for Dave ... but more often than not, he'd end up a ruined, unconscious mess at the wicked, playful behest of booze.
That was how we found Dave on morning #1 on a "camping trip" to Cultus Lake in BC. He is, indeed, sleeping in a pile of nylon and ropes, because he failed to heed our wisdom (and our example). We set up our tents and got the site squared away as Dave cavorted and pounded beer, mocking us for being such good little campers.
Dave continued partying into the night, and when it came time to succumb to gravity's siren song, Dave found his tent thusly situated. He fell on it and passed out (especially funny is the one missing sock).
'Preparation' wasn't one of Dave's stronger suits. Not only did he fail hard in the setup stage, he also got into the car to come camping at the start of the trip with just one item: a large cooler full of beer.
No food, no water, no juice. No aspirin for the inevitable brain-slammer of a hangover. No change of clothes.
Just beer. At least he did have them on ice.
Adding to the fun when he finally awoke (after plenty of photography like this ensued) hung over as fuck, with a thrashing head, thirsty as hell, and with no food, was his simpering, whinging behaviour. Also, he was initially dew-damp from sleeping uncovered all night. But that was quickly superseded with being hot and nasty-sweaty, as the morning summer sun rapidly stewed off the dew, and proceded to bake him pretty well to a beer-sodden piece of toast as he lay there (as illustrated).
He moped around the site for a while, watching us make and enjoy breakfast. He moaned a fair bit, in between offering to pay anyone a LOT of money for a drink of juice, and some aspirins. Then more money on offer if someone made him breakfast. I had him up to about $30 at that point, but I kept upping the price because he was such easy pickings.
I hadn't seen a more forlorn looking victim of a hangover in some time ... finally someone else arrived from Vancouver to join the weekend fun, took pity on the spectacle, and provided Dave with juice and Tylenol. A hit off a joint immediately followed, and just like the Phoenix, he was reborn from the eternal damnation fires of the hangover.
Moments later, he was drinking beer again, feeling fantastic, ready for fun. All this, before noon.
No prizes for predicting the outcome of the that day, and the next morning – it was a carbon copy of the first. But there was the added bonus (for laughs) during that day. When the sober new arrival offered to take us to the nearest town for more beer, Dave eschewed that too. He had zeeroed in on a campsite with some girls nearby, and didn't want to leave ... lest they get scooped up by some other guys.
This leads us into Camping Rule #2: Firewood – When you think you have gathered enough firewood to enable you to have a nice big bonfire for the night, go back into the woods and get the same amount again, before darkness falls. Firewood burns far faster than you think it will.
This rule also applies to beer. Think about how much beer you might drink in a night of hard partying, then double that amount ... because you WILL need it. And there is no such thing as having "too much beer on hand".
Then go to the store with the person who offers to drive you, and get said beer. Else ye be paying dearly at the hands of your cruel friends.
Dave of course failed on that count, and we made a LOT of money off him that night, selling him our beers, long after his dwindling supply had vanished. Good thing he carried lots of cash at all times.
Rinse, repeat, and we had morning #2 as a carbon-copy of the first one.
Another pal once dubbed Dave "Cossaboom's drinking toy", and that certainly seemed to fit. This nickname ensued following Dave's flatmate finding him a crumpled mess in front of the apartment door, collapsed in an unconscious heap, keys in hand, at around 2.30 a.m. after drinking with me in the Vancouver bars ... incapable of holding it together long enough to get the door open, to collapse inside.
The flatmate rounded the corner, saw Dave collapsed in the distance, and immediately thought: "Heh, out drinking with Cossaboom again."
There are a thousand drunken stories from the savage, uncaring heart of the city. And I know most of them. They mostly star this Dave, in various states of disrepair (and waking up with less-than-attractive women) ... and another Dave who has the dubious distinction of being the most prolific puker I have ever met.
As time goes on I will relate such stories. We have fun topics like "Firelog or chilli-dog?", "Please stop me if you see me talking to a beast", and "The morning-after phone call from a mysterious location: Help me, I'm at the girl's place, she went to work, and I have NO idea where I am".
And many, many more.
Medical absurdities
Who better to cast a wry eye towards the whole 'hospital/major operation' scenario than a guy who's last visit to the hospital was at age 3?
It was tonsils back then. 1962, and like most kids, not a care in the world. I had my stuffed toy monkey, and I got ice cream after.
Several decades ensue, and not a single broken bone ... nor a single reason to go to the hospital, except to visit those weaker specimens of humanity who were in there for some weak reason. Likely a weak constitution. Or just being weak.
Fast-forward to 2002. Same cocky guy (me) is waking up from major surgery – the rebuilding of a bizarrely misshapen foot following the discovery of my condition, and the mutation of the foot – and the beginning of a karmic session of "careful what you mock" (never mind "wish for").
Nearly a decade ensues. I've lost count of how many times I've been 'interred' in ward, mostly for IV antibiotics to attempt to put out the infection fires from this whole HSAN-Type 1 inherited neuropathy bastard thing ... not to mention at least four minor ops to lop off two toes suspected of harbouring infectious sources ... and some general hacking out of infected tissue areas on my foot.
WTF, indeed.
Jump to October 8, 2010. I'm being prepped for surgery to amputate my right leg, below the knee. I'm ready for it. I'm anticipating it ... WANTING it. I'm sick of being sick.
And I'm a far cry from the guy who used to think only weak people need to go to hospital. (Or maybe I'm just old, busted and weak?) Either way ... here I was, gladly and willingly going into surgery to have part of a leg cut off.
If someone from the future had shown up at any time between the ages of 3.5 and 42, and told me what I was going to go through, I would of course had laughed. "Not me! I'm bulletproof!"
Absurdness - I had it, in spades.
So what things made me either go "Hmmm" or "WTF" while going through a decade of hyper-focussed health care here in Wellington?
It was tonsils back then. 1962, and like most kids, not a care in the world. I had my stuffed toy monkey, and I got ice cream after.
Several decades ensue, and not a single broken bone ... nor a single reason to go to the hospital, except to visit those weaker specimens of humanity who were in there for some weak reason. Likely a weak constitution. Or just being weak.
Fast-forward to 2002. Same cocky guy (me) is waking up from major surgery – the rebuilding of a bizarrely misshapen foot following the discovery of my condition, and the mutation of the foot – and the beginning of a karmic session of "careful what you mock" (never mind "wish for").
Nearly a decade ensues. I've lost count of how many times I've been 'interred' in ward, mostly for IV antibiotics to attempt to put out the infection fires from this whole HSAN-Type 1 inherited neuropathy bastard thing ... not to mention at least four minor ops to lop off two toes suspected of harbouring infectious sources ... and some general hacking out of infected tissue areas on my foot.
WTF, indeed.
Jump to October 8, 2010. I'm being prepped for surgery to amputate my right leg, below the knee. I'm ready for it. I'm anticipating it ... WANTING it. I'm sick of being sick.
And I'm a far cry from the guy who used to think only weak people need to go to hospital. (Or maybe I'm just old, busted and weak?) Either way ... here I was, gladly and willingly going into surgery to have part of a leg cut off.
If someone from the future had shown up at any time between the ages of 3.5 and 42, and told me what I was going to go through, I would of course had laughed. "Not me! I'm bulletproof!"
Absurdness - I had it, in spades.
So what things made me either go "Hmmm" or "WTF" while going through a decade of hyper-focussed health care here in Wellington?
 |
| Rockin' the leg 'sans' the fake doll skin. |
- When you're on crutches, you ALWAYS get a seat on the bus. This seems mostly to be courtesy and good manners. But when I'm on crutches I have a seat on a bus, I get the whole seat. No one will sit next to a crutchy person. What you have may or may not be contagious ... but you're persona infection monkey non grata when you're crutched-up on public transit. I rather enjoyed this.
- Nurses love a patient who is mostly OK and in need of little care, except for checking of vitals and the swapping out of IV anti-bee lines. I was "Mr. Popularity" every time I went in to ward. I didn't need much of anything other than to lay there and sponge up the anti-bees, and eventually go home. Nurses would fight to get me as part of their brace of patients. It made the rare but occasional pressing of the "Nurse call" button something that was answered almost instantly every time (and it was always for something innocuous, like needing a shower towel).
- Needing to propel yourself on crutches is a really good way to instantly find out what kind of shape you're in ... and how much weight you need to lose, you sorry excuse of a fat-ass. Getting around the hospital ward was easy (back and forth to the bathroom). But go any further and you're sucking wind bigtime with a short jaunt down the hall. Once home, chairs and sofas become a much-desired target, once you've been crutching around for more than a minute. And forget about going down the block to the store. One such attempt early in the game back around 2003 resulted in about an hour to go just down the block and get some milk and bread. I did this ... once.
- Having to re-tell my 'story' countless times for many people ("So how did this happen?") gave me great practice for boiling said story down to salient points. I did find it odd that I needed to do this for House Surgeons who would be checking up on me ... too lazy to read the files I suppose.
- The longest time I stayed 'inside' for anti-bee treatment ended up being 5+ weeks. In a shared ward I went through many, many 'flatmates'. Most of them wondered why I was even there, as I appeared to be healthy and fit and just laying around for no good reason. I watched old men with hip replacement surgery come and go ... one guy with a leg amputation came and went ... and still I needed to lay there and absorb drugs. The only single flatmate I had who was in there before I got there, and who stayed longer than me, was a guy who got smashed off his motorcycle and was broken in several places.
- Being sick all the time is hell on relationships – especially for someone who is so "anti whinge" that I never talked about it much, if at all. I would just be sick and quiet until the 'being sick' part put me back in hospital. And away went two perfectly good women (and a few other short-term 'contractors') who apparently had their fill of the 'strong silent type.' I always felt, however, that they'd all have flown the coop faster if I was rabbiting on about it all the time. Seems to be no right answer here.
- Anti biotics have a strange side effect for some – an enhanced sense of smell. Every time I went on a new round of anti-bees, I became an X-Man-like mutant with an incredible sense of smell – so intense that it often sent me reeling. This is a good thing when smelling food cooking, or nice subtle perfume on a pretty girl. Not so good when smokers are near, or when I pass garbage trucks or a fish market. Thankfully my gag reflex is good, and there was never any actual heaving.
- Some people have a problem with anaesthetics (for surgery). I seem to thrive on it. No adverse effects at all ... in fact I love waking up out of a session of surgery. It's a feeling of bliss. And, I always wake up hungry! Much to the bemusement of the post-op nurse looking after me after my amputation, I woke up and was asked how I felt. I said "Hungry!" She asked: "No pain?" I grinned and answered: "Nope!" (likely due to a fun combination of painkiller drugs and a sort of nerve-damping drip line right behind my knee, that the doc hooked up about 20 minutes before the op. So the nurse dutifully toddled off and found me a sandwich and some yoghurt. I got more food once they returned me to my room, feeling quite fine (high as fuck) and with zero pain where my lower leg used to be.
- Pain is a funny thing. You go without experiencing it for so long, you forget how intensely it can hurt. Due to my neuropathy, I felt NO pain whatsoever for 9+ years going through all the nonsense with my foot (no sensation in BOTH feet). This was never more apparent than when my surgeon had a couple of goes at me right in ward, to trim away some pesky infected flesh with a scalpel ... my podiatrist Hilary would also merrily whack away at me with a scalpel too during my regular visits with her. But the kicker was – I went through two actual sessions in theatre without anaesthetic. Yep, I was awake for two minor "washout" surgeries. Zero pain. This got the attention of more than a few docs and nurses each time this happened! Also, it had the plus factor of me getting wheeled straight back to my ward room after the surgery (no need for waking up in post-op). Which meant a faster line back to lunch/food! (Hey, they do insist you don't eat for 12 hours before surgery ...)
- The first (and only) time I DID feel pain associated with the amputation was when it was time for the stitches to come out. Sweet fucking hell ... and there were a lot of them to remove. All the skin at the end of my stump was fully alive with nerve endings, unlike my dead-to-sensation foot that was no longer there (which was a good sign that the neuropathy hadn't re-manifested itself there). Every little pinprick to remove every single stitch felt like a wasp sting on top of a cigarette burn dipped in acid, while hanging my leg over a volcano. In August, in the Sahara Desert. Ouch.
- My neuropathy is rare and uncommon for a person who isn't a diabetic. And I'm not a diabetic. But they needed to be certain. So at the start of all this, after a neurologist figured out what the hell was wrong with me, they needed to test me for diabetes. This happened three times with three different docs over a few weeks. The first two were just blood tests that came back negative. The last one featured me consuming a cup of super concentrated sugar syrup, then sitting still and waiting 45 minutes or so, then being tested again. The answer was still "How about NO! You crazy Dutch bastard!" ... but man was I wired after that super-concentrated sugar dose! I bounced out of the doc's office ready to run a marathon, or perhaps build a bridge out of popsicle sticks ...
- One big question I found myself faced with, after realising I was about to be laying around for long periods of time after each operation (and especially with the amputation): What to do? The net occupied a lot of my time, in the form of chatting, emailing, and downloading stuff to watch (and software to play with). The concept of this Blog eventually came to me, but only after the amputation ... I was laid up for about the same amount of time after my first "foot reconstruction" op, back in 2002. But I didn't think of Blogging or keeping any sort of a diary (an absurd thing for a writer to NOT do). I read books and newspapers a bit, but it was primarily the net, and watching downloaded movies and TV shows from same, that occupied a lot of my time. What did people do in the olden days? Daytime TV would melt your brain ... and before TV, staring out the window at the barnyard animals would likely have the same effect. Even worse would be if you weren't on a farm. What would you look at then? I suppose books about farm animals.
- Lots of people ask me about "phantom pain". Do I experience it? Well, no ... but phantom sensations are certainly there. At first I would "feel" a foot still there if I stretched in a certain way. There was no pain, it just felt like the muscles in my arch were flexing as I stretched. It wasn't creepy either. Just interesting. I also feel a "nerve memory" of my foot flexing as I walk on my new prosthetic. It's a good feeling, it's sort of like having a bionic leg ... being able to "feel" how the fake foot flexes is also interesting.
- A really amusing sensation was how 'backwards-wired' the nerves in my stump were shortly after the op. The flap of skin that gets drawn up from over the calf to create the 'cap' on the stump seemed to be hooked up backwards! Touch the front, and the sensation was felt on the back ... and vice versa. That has since faded, but for a while, if I was sitting down and one of the cats rubbed up against the back of my leg, I'd feel it on the front. Odd. Not painful, just ... strange.
- People's reactions to being banged up or even crippled/handicapped are always fun to gauge. With a cast on my foot (prior to amputation), it seems most fun for folks to chat about it, or write something on it. With just a taped-up or "moon booted" foot, people just generally look concerned and stand out of your way. With a missing leg, it's more concern and some queries, depending on how well they know me. But the most fun is with the prosthetic. I went for the Robocop/Terminator look, and opted out of the fake "doll skin" over the leg. It's just the fiberglass socket and the metal pin down to the foot. Little kids are the best – they'll stare and then ask about it. Telling them I'm a Transformer or Terminator is fun. Adults though – most will notice it, stare for a second, then look away and pretend not to notice. One guy I met at the Limb Centre (who also rocks his leg "sans doll skin") said he likes to stop every so often and suddenly turn around to catch folks staring after him. Heh. "Gotcha!"
- 'Armchair doctors' are fun too – it always amazes me how someone with zero medical training (but lots of time logged watching medical dramas on TV and in the movies!) has buttloads of uneducated advice for the afflicted. I lost track of the details of most folks' 'helpful' advice over the years. It's just best to smile and nod and say things like "Wow, I'll check that out!" whenever the ludicrous advice is proffered. They might as well just say "Have you tried NOT being crippled/sick/such an amputee?"
Well then. This was a rather long post. It did occur to me that three "Getting Legless" chapters weren't too "absurdity rich" ... so this encapsulates some of the stuff that was going on during all that.
Next up: the 'firewood rule' for camping and how it applies to other things!
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