Our long Independence Day weekend was, in a word, fun.
‘Nuff said.
Extra credit for subject identification (non-human). 🙂
Author: lief
Take care Johnny
I was just informed that Johnny Carbaugh passed away this morning after his long and aggressive fight with cancer.
Johnny was an inspiration for joining the LiveStrong cause a few months ago and participating in the event just a few short weeks ago. It was positive for me to help this HUGE cause in this small way that I expect to do it in the future on an ongoing basis. It didn’t, of course, directly help Johnny or his loving set of family and friends but…well there isn’t anymore…despite the positives of the event and the cause; reality, in this case, really sucks.
Johnny, you will be missed.
Testing, testing, 9-1-1.
This next post was GOING TO BE about my LiveStrong adventure but current events, that seem to happen in threes, have surpassed that post…more on LiveStrong later.
I could probably count on one hand how many times I have called 9-1-1 and actually had to say more than “this is a non-emergency”.
This week I haven’t called 9-1-1 at all but some of my closest friends & family members have.
1 of 3
Sunday night, after 24 hours of a raging migraine The Mommy finally called 9-1-1 because of strange visual symptoms. In summary, about 5 minutes later she could have been living any firefighter fantasy she may have had because three hurkin dudes in boots and suspenders were standing over the bed.
But, she had a headache, so instead they took her to the ER in an ambulance for some pictures…of her brain. All pictures came back normal.
2 of 3
At noon on Monday I took The Little Mermaids to Monya’s house for some splashing about while The Mommy had an acupuncture treatment. Incidentally, acupuncture proved mostly successful today she has taken full custody of The Urchins The Little Mermaids and at last check was somewhere near 20% of the pain experienced prior to the treatment.
On the way home from lunch La Grande Mermaid stuck her head between the bars on Wells Bridge for a better look at the fishies and got stuck.
One 9-1-1 call, three wrong bridges, plenty of worried 6 yr old tears, and two bright-red ears later the police department successfully extracted her from the clutches of the Wells street troll.
3 of 3
Then today, I get a call from my riding-commute buddy, let’s call him The Prosecutor. We were scheduled to meet at 05:45 and he informed me at 05:35 that he had a flat. I rode on and arrived at work in a timely fashion.
The Prosecutor’s next call, at about 08:00, was from the emergency room where he reported a not-so-soft landing onto the sidewalk, from his Specialized road-bike, at speed – whereby he has likely suffered a separated shoulder.
That is three and therefore this concludes our test of the emergency responder system.
LiveStrong
LiveStrong
I don’t consider myself a very empathic person.
That very sentence proves my point; I use words like “consider” and “thought”. I suppose if my speech patterns (blog patterns?) were analyzed there would be much fewer phrases like “I feel” and “I can just tell” than there would be “I think” or “I know”.
Tangent: To get any useful numbers an astute statistician would throw out my entire early childhood until about age 15 or so because it would completely skew the “I know” statistics. I said that so much my parents made me a shirt bearing the slogan so I could save my breath. Heck, I even named this blog along similar lines but only slightly tempered by 25 yrs of humility and fact checking.
The two older mermaids in my life have just started to show me what it means to be empathic, so consider this something like my entrance essay.
This morning I am up early, really early: 4AM
I only get up that early for two things: something fun and something loud.
Today it is fun for me; I am riding 100+ miles in a LiveStrong Challenge event in honor of Johnny Carbaugh who has stage 4 Metastatic Melanoma and is having one hell of a time. He is in the prime of his life and he wakes up at 4AM for the 10th or 15th time in a row not because he is going fishing and not because his wife heard a door slam but because his body is hurting him; it is screaming loud in his brain and in every other part of his body where the battle is being waged.
Getting up this early to ride my bike doesn’t feel like it’s hard anymore.
I have really only barely begun to feel what it means to be affected by cancer. It turns out that my empathy-weakness has helped to shelter my thinking self from even realizing the number of people very close to me and very close to people I am close to that have been affected by cancer.
Anne Marie Kilburg
Ward Zimmerman
Donagene Bell
Evelyn Pyles
Ruth Brandal
Pete Lenhart
I am sure there are more; I have only just scratched the surface. Feel free to enlighten me.
What I have seen, heard, and felt since I decided to do this ride is really only the tippy top of a very big iceberg. I thought, at the time, that I was doing this ride out of self interest and with a cause but I feel now like it is a need that has been knocking. It has been knocking so many times and only now that my learning in empathy has really begun in earnest am I able to understand what can be done, said, or felt.
So thanks to my beautiful wife and my empathic 6 yr old daughter for helping. As I see it, me and The Wee One have a lot to learn from you two.
Thanks to many donors I raised $830 that has been donated to LiveStrong so that people with cancer may live a better and less hurtful life in the future.
Now I will keep up my end of the bargain.
16 hours
16 hours isn’t how long it will take you to read this post, but it is a long post.
16 hours isn’t how long it has been since I have posted something new, it is actually much longer than that.
16 hours will be a significant sign of the times as you will come to find out.
Memorial Day 2009
The NoRen and the SoRen Zimmerman familys visited with the SoWa Zimmerman family for bike riding and fun. Did we ever.
The days were gorgeous, the nights were clear, the company was vigorous, the agenda was action packed, and fun was had by all.
We started off with a camp out after a late Friday arrival. The Men camped out, for that is what we were my friend; that night, in that cold, we were men.
The next day, with the sun on our face, and crinks in our necks, we didn’t wait long for the fugue to begin
nor the arrival of the NoRen Zimmermans.
And plans were drawn up for a bike ride in Portland in the late afternoon.
The day then was filled with frequent visits down to the “Chicken Poop”,
trampoline fun,
kitties,
and general dirt lovin’ fun,
with an occasional movie thrown in for good measure.
Nap time proved the right time to set up the bikes, fix flats, load up two vehicles, corral four blonde dust devils and hit the road.
We made for a flat portion of Springwater trail which turns out to be quite a well known route in Portland…so popular in fact it has it’s own website – I wonder how it get’s it’s internet connection…no matter…where was I? Oh yes, biking.
We left the walkers at the Beggars Tick Wildlife Refuge. Abby and Arthur in tow and Jamey G. on his own for the first time. 6.25 miles, one test ride (and one small touchdown), about 80 minutes, and 10 hungry bellies later we made our way over to La Hala.
Here we feasted like kings, or the Lebanese equivalent, let’s call it a Prime Minister. The food kept on coming and the gang kept on eating right on through bedtime.
The kids had played hard yet only one fell asleep on the ride home.
And again, the tough ones, the Men, camped; and all of us over ten engaged our trusty air mattresses.
The night was clear and cold and the stars were magnificent. There were too many satellites to count.
The next day we re-packed the cars for a bike ride of a different sort. A nearby oasis of a park, Lewisville Park served as our stomping ground.
It was good for climbing trees,
taking naps, and yes; riding bikes.
Lewisville proved to be the place where Abby learned to ride. The pedals were put on, the training wheels were off, the helmet was clicked in and
Let go Dad! I don’t need you any more.
It kinda hurts the first time you hear it but truer words weren’t spoken for the remainder of the afternoon.
After lunch we headed back to Fort Bale for a windy evening of kite flying.
These days seemed meant for just being.
Cousins on the farm,
making up games,
flying kites,
and finding snakes.
The Mens camp that night was invaded by a powerful force. Abby insisted on Camping on the Tramp! Without further instruction we turned the trampoline into a bed made for six. With good camp-jokes to keep us laughing and a view of the International Space Station brighter than the brightest star, we stayed up late and slept hard…indeed we woke up even harder.
Monday was our day to leave, but with a good breakfast and more experiments to be run from The Explosives Kit we soon learned of SuperSnot and other creations,
I need green food coloring and warm water.
We didn’t head out until noontime.
Four hours later the SoRen Zimmermans arrived home. A remarkably quiet ride with two good movies to occupy the nearly hungover Mermaids.
When the eagle had landed we all, save Abby, wanted naps. The Mommy caught 45 minutes, The Daddy an hour, and The WeeOne capped the weekend with a 16 hour nap (unbroken ‘cept for a midnight snack of warm chocolate milk).
It was powerful fun.
I love Mom and Mothers Day
Abby titled this post and Emma added,
No! and Dad!
Today, however, belonged to The Mommy.
We woke up, made breakfast, served it in bed per tradition, and immediately prepared to do a walk with a picnic down by the lake. The destination was a ‘Castle Turret’ near Interstate 90.
…
…
…
…
About two and a half hours later we were ready to go.
As we arrived two fundamental issues were quickly discovered with my well laid plans.
They weren’t bugs, problems, nor really even features per se…just issues that could not be deferred; there was no workaround.
Software geeks in the audience will understand and just about everybody reading this is related (by marriage or blood) to a software geek and may therefore implore upon said geek for an explanation if you care enough. It isn’t critical to the story…more like a funny little inconsequential aside Easter Egg.
Anyway, back to our day.
Two issues
- Because I have only ever viewed this castle from my bike I didn’t pay close attention to where it was…and where it was certainly felt a lot closer on a bike than where it turned out to be on foot.
- Lake Washington Boulevard is closed every Sunday in the Spring and Summer to bicycle and pedestrian traffic only.
Number two isn’t a true problem unless you intend on supplementing bicycle recon with a drive by.
As a result we ended up walking 1.1 miles each way, in princess dresses, mismatched shoes, with picnic fixins, blankets and all just to see the castle turret.
But…along the way we sure had a heckuva good time and took a heckuva lot of pictures.
We got back very tired, some of us already sleeping, and all took a nice nap.
It was a good day.
P.S. Did I mention that we took one hundred and sixteen photos in about 3 hours…I may have to look into a better way to show these off if this trend continues.
Phrenetic Phraseology
The Wee One is living the explosive part of her linguistic life right now.
I can hardly keep up with them, and the really good ones (like amn’t and noie) seem to be sticking.
Her new conjunctions aren’t stopping with simple words and she has moved onto phrases.
Yesterday when she was served a really big orange as a snack at Monya and BopOps house (even at three) she recognized the magnitude of the fruit and exclaimed with conviction,
Oh my Cow!
That suits me just fine!
P.S. This is, I think, the first time I have posted an entry about something that neither Ang nor myself witnessed. I am instead relating the story as told to me by La Grande Mermaid.
Pictures and words
I am in catchup mode, so this may end up a lot like a list. If I get clever it may turn into a story along the way but I am not holding out hope.
Emma has coined another word:
Mommie!!
Whatie!!
I want candy?
Not right now. You can have a round cheese.
Noie! I want candy.
She also calls a ‘swimsuit’ a ‘swimsoup‘.
Abby lost her first top tooth last week.
We went for a walk in the spring weather and found a bench to sit on.
Abby got a green participant ribbon at the science fair for a demonstration on how (not) to grow sugar crystals.
Lastly, I snapped a couple of good shots this morning playing Bork Uncle with Emma.
Johnny has a lot of friends
I just got back from JohnnyDeeps birthday party and let me just say,
Dang Johnny. You have A LOT of friends!
We all met at the Des Moines Yacht Club and at your wife’s behest I brought a flier discussing the LiveStrong Challenge, to show how anyone can donate to the Lance Armstrong Foundation to help fight cancer in your honor.
I didn’t have any preconceptions about how that flier would be receieved but I certainly didn’t expect to receive any cash. In fact I even forgot my wallet.
Well, it didn’t take long, just a few short hours, and the fact of the matter is your friends just donated $210 to the Lance Armstrong Foundation in your honor. I was able to do this because they spontaneously started a donation pot that went around the room and landed in my lap at the end of the night.
So I reckoned; your friends put the money in the pot now, tonight, without delay, for action. So the best course of action was to turn it over to the foundation without delay, where it can be used ASAP to fight cancer.
Happy birthday Johnny! Keep on fighting and enjoy The Tides tomorrow.
Easter Finery
By request we have the only shot together of the girls in their Easter finery.
blief 