Memnison Journal

…this one to Northwestern, for the ‘radical biopsy’ which will essentially cut out my  lefttsalivary gland and some related tissues to see what’s going on in there.  I have my suspicions, but this should be resolved over the next two weeks of tissue studies and whatnot.

My greatest fear in regard to the actual surgery is that there’s a major facial nerve going through the area they’re working on, and I DON’T want that screwed up.

I had to shave my beard as prep for the surgery, which was a difficult process; as noted before,  I grow it not out of fashion, but because I have absurdly sensitive skin that doesn’t like razors.  Meredith wanted to watch the process, much like a gaper’s block on the highway wants to watch that five-car pileup.  She *hates* me being beardless.   Thinks it’s unbelievably gross.  There were before and after mugshots taken of me with and without the beard…and a new set to be taken after the surgery.

The surgery is supposed to be mid-morning on Monday, and I have to stay overnight in the hospital.  Susan was making a snark tonight about my  grand hospital tourover the lastsix months…trust me, I am not thrilled by another hospital stay.

See you on the other side…

People turn in guy who’s been having sex with his picnic table - on DVD. Three of them. I will assume he wasn’t making the DVDs for later; no reports on whether he was playing soft music in the background.

Apparently this was done in mid-day on four separate occasions across the street from an elementary school.  In the middle of January and February in Northern Ohio in the nude…cold weather doesn’t seem to slow him down, I guess.

If onions, leeks and garlic aren’t strong enough for you, try this stuff.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar’s value is dropping so fast against the euro that small currency outlets in Amsterdam are turning away tourists seeking to sell their dollars for local money while on vacation in the Netherlands.

“Our dollar is worth maybe zero over here,” said Mary Kelly, an American tourist from Indianapolis, Indiana, in front of the Anne Frank house. “It’s hard to find a place to exchange. We have to go downtown, to the central station or post office.”

That’s because the smaller currency exchanges — despite buy/sell spreads that make it easier for them to make money by exchanging small amounts of currency — don’t want to be caught holding dollars that could be worth less by the time they can sell them.

I am…

I am the straight guy who looks on with pride and joy at his best buddy celebrating twenty-five years of love with the same man who is so good for him.

I am the guy who came out to the entire school in his senior speech
and got a standing ovation for his courage.

This came last  from Shelleybear. Please pass it on, and help the bravery of those who will stand up for themselves make a difference.

More shots from the camping expedition this last weekend, this time on my Flickr account.

Susan picked up a set of cheap things at a sale at Borders to keep the kids occupied on upcoming trips, and one was a set of nail colors.  Of course, the twins consider themselves fashionistas in their own manner, but for some reason, Meredith Ellen (my daughter’s twin sister) decided to paint her nails black.  When she saw my raised eyebrows, she told me: “I’m not a Goth, you know.”

The mind boggles.

Youtube: Mere and Mer attacked by vicious, milk-deranged lambs at the Kentucky Down Under shearing shed.  (Mere in red shirt, Mer in white shirt.)  Rated XC for Xtreme Cuteness.

Meredith Ellen the milkmaid, in the Kentucky Down Under shearing shed.  When Mere took her turn (after the cut) she complained about the lotion on the teat making things slimy…

The twins with baby lambs they’ve just fed, in Kentucky Down Under’s sheep shearing shed.

Being unable to get around very well is a PITA all over the place, and especially on vacation. Wheelchairs (unpowered) are fine for travel on flat surfaces, but not up and down hills of any sort. I was lucky because the folks at Kentucky Down Under helped out with their own golf carts and whatnot to get me in and out of bad situations, but Susan was whipped trying to push me around in the wheelchair. Walkers also don’t do well on inclines.

We do, however, now have a handicapped placard on the van/SUV that can be moved around and used, so long as I’m in the car.  Let’s just say that Kentucky isn’t very handicapped-oriented, and parking places were very limited.

The Mammoth Cave area is loaded with tons and tons of tourist traps that don’t necessarily have a thing to do with caves…and they all look relatively cheesy to me, but I’m a horrible critic of such places.  Tons of junk shops.  Goofy / miniature golf under all sorts of names.  A knife store with a $1 special which must have been made of tinfoil.

And a fascination on the Amish, by all that’s holy.  Big signs saying NORTHERN AMISH FURNITURE - there’s a separatist Southern Amish group I don’t know about that chews tobacco?  And - Amish Mattresses - using latex and memory foam??

I did find a nice used book store in Horse Cave…the kids wanted to check it out after lunch.  There was a sign on the front door: ALL UNATTENDED CHILDREN WILL BE GIVEN A MOCHA LATTE AND A PUPPY.  The Merediths saw that, backed off, brought me over, and then asked about the mocha (a favorite of Meredith Grace’s) and the puppy.  The guy behind the counter, much amused, said the machine was broken and the puppy already went home.

The trip was also good for getting a measure of the twins vis-a-vis each other, and especially in sizing up Meredith Ellen and what she’s like at close quarters.

She does not have the same charge-ahead personality that Meredith does; she’s quieter, far less raucous, and more likely to think things through before acting. She’s also a very black and white sort of person; while Mere will go for fantasy stories, ME wants something that is more reality-based and this-did-happen sort of situation. (While other kids were going on about a person in a cartoon character outfit, she said matter-of-factly and scornfully ‘It’s just a person in a suit.’) God help you if she ever catches you in a lie.

Meredith Grace has been talking about becoming a journalist or a writer when she grows up; I think it’s likely that Meredith Ellen would take after her daddy and become an engineer. She has that kind of view of the universe, to my mind.

She can’t handle scary stuff at all; Meredith Grace can, to a greater degree. At one point, not long ago, she was making a remark about horror DVDs she saw at the store, and said that they scared her but fascinated her at the same time. Eeek! But at the same time, she can compartmentalize that off into not-really-real, and I dunno that ME can.

They’re both radiantly beautiful, the more so when they’re not trying to be ‘on stage’. The more ‘natural’ they are and true to themselves, the better off they are. Both can be incredibly sweet kids, very helpful and nice.

Both also have a bossy, obstinate streak, and can get seriously mulish. With Meredith Grace, I don’t get mad and yell, but she’s well aware when Daddy Is Serious and Don’t Mess With Him. She also doesn’t try to sneak around on stuff; if she wants X, she’s pretty up front about it.  However, if something’s upsetting her, she may not (as her sister is more apt to do) openly talk it out with a parent; she bulls through and gets cranky until something explodes and SISSY-anguish comes out, say, when it’s built to intolerable levels.  Tough kid.

Both consider each other their Best Friend, and you have to say ‘outside the family’ as a qualifier to get a different response.    The twin bond is something that goes way deep, a need for each other as a peer and a friend, someone who is the only other person who *understands* things.

Luckily, neither has really encountered racism as such; Meredith Grace was reacting over all of the talk in the news over racism as if ‘that’s ancient history, dad’, as if we were all talking about the finer points of Al Capone, Model Ts and the Charleston.   There’s been some ‘you’re not really properly Chinese stuff’ that came from culturally Chinese kids - a tiny dusting at Meredith Grace, and a bigger dose at Meredith Ellen.  But otherwise, the biggest insult to Meredith Grace by someone calling her a name would be ’short’, which riles her no end.

As usual, the greatest complication in getting the twins together is that we live so far apart - and that the parents are absolutely necessary to be present in the process. Since the kids are eight, and VERY attached to their families, especially their moms, the trick is to get twin A to place B without a lot of expense or tricky negotiations of schedule. In our case, our leave time has been eaten alive by my medical misadventures, and in the other family’s case, their jobs can sometimes very strictly circumscribe their available time.

For example, if we schedule a visit, you have to make it time-worthwhile for everyone. The kids have to have enough time to play with each other, and get months of miss-you out of their systems. And frankly, if you have to pay for the expense of two or three family members going at the same time, at about $250 per person for airfare, the idea becomes to get the most bang for your buck that you can get, time-wise. So we’re always talking about a Wednesday or Thursday to Sunday visit (Mondays as well, sometimes, but that’s a bad day for the other family).

And if Meredith Ellen comes up here (or we meet in the middle), you have to add in Ally as well to the transport and other costs as a given. She’s five, and VERY close to her folks, and she goes if Meredith Ellen goes.

Mike (the other dad) has a screamingly full schedule, and rarely travels on these trips. I do more often, but I’ve missed several Alabama trips due to illness.

This time, the families decided on a in-between drive-to site - the Mammoth Cave area in Kentucky - at the Jellystone Campground there. We selected a cabin - a futon, bunk beds, a sleeping loft, and a double bed in a side room, with a kitchenette and a heater (a big red electrical box that plugged into the wall and had a thermostat on it - worked reasonably well). We also rented a golf cart for in-site transport - something that could second as a motorized wheelchair for me if needed.

The plan was to leave after my wound doctor on Wednesday and drive down, and then drive back on Easter Sunday. The other family got there early, and sat around for a while before we got there on Wednesday around 7 pm. (There had been quite of bit of flooding in the Ohio River valley, but we didn’t get slowed down by it.)

The major complication on the trip was that Going Camping When It’s Still Cold Out Can Turn You Into A Icicle. Thursday wasn’t much of a problem, because the kids just wanted to roam around and play, and the cold didn’t hang around in the morning. Friday was nicer still, and the kids had a great time at Kentucky Down Under. But Saturday was freezing, oppressively wet and cold and everyone hated it - and that was when the campground had a ton of activities, mostly outdoors, for the kids for Easter.

Frankly, I was amazed at the number of people out camping that early in the year. I haven’t been anything resembling camping for years and years - and I have a love-hate relationship with camping. I hate the bugs. I hate oppressively bad weather that you can’t escape. I love the fresh air, especially with a slight nip in it in the morning. I love a fire, but I’m not so crazy about tons of woodsmoke. (My CPAP and my clothing reek of smoke from the damn fire.) I love the open clear skies full of stars. I hate being in a situation where I’m trying to sleep on something massively uncomfortable and unpadded. I love a good place to sit with a hot cup of something and enjoy the peace of the outdoors.

From that angle, the cabin we had was a good compromise. The two biggest drawbacks about it were that there were no places to store things, really, and that the fridge in the thing was tiny, so having enough food around at any time for six people (three adults and three kids) got to be a problem. Otherwise, the kids found the location and the cabin a lot of fun, and used the sleeping loft as Kid Central, though as with any set of kids, Stuff Can Spread Out To Wherever.

Bug problems were nonexistent - too cold.

I under packed - didn’t bring along a proper coat, and tried to make up for it with double layering sweaters. The wood smoke from the fire pit outside (which we used every night - the junior pyromaniacs adored cooking with charcoal on the outside grill and setting fires in the pit) tended to stink up your outer clothes, and since the only place for me to really sit around the fire was by pulling up the tail of the golf cart to the fire, I ended up getting the smoke blowing into my face as it swept down the hill and down past the fire.

It was interesting seeing people doing some kind of high tech while they were there - the campground had a limp sort of WiFi available, and we saw this one guy sitting outside his trailer, mummied up in a sleeping bag and plunking away at a laptop. Or the portable satellite dish stand outside another trailer.

The campground was reasonably well maintained and staffed, and we’d recommend it highly to anyone. From what we could tell, it had a seriously loyal repeat clientèle that would come back for special weekends season after season, and were VERY busy in the high summer season. It advertised itself as a very family-friendly place, and we would certainly agree. Lots of recreational stuff.

The kids liked the golf cart for zipping around on errands in the resort, up hills and down; Meredith Ellen’s mom was a favorite driver for the kids (a little more exciting, they said) and I only got to drive the thing once - the others did most of the errands with the kids.

Another element of the campgrounds that the kids loved was that - well, you got to meet your neighbors. There was another family next door from the Cleveland area - mom, her boyfriend (with a strong North Country accent that I thought was Lancashire, turned out to be Newcastle) and two girls a bit older than the girls. They ended up coming over to our fire on Friday night, and the girls went over to their on Saturday night. Chatter-chatter. Many marshmallows were ignited and melted.

Another set of pictures on Susan’s Flickr account, taken from a day trip to Kentucky Down Under, a nice tourist trap in the Cave area in South-central Kentucky.  Sample picture below is of me in a wheelchair outside the gift shop, with the girls around me: