The Soggy Truth That Brings Me to my Knees, Knocked down but not out
When I got home Friday night I skipped road biking because I wanted to tackle weeding the property. Because I had plans to help Ali and Shugs do some preliminary moving into their house they just closed on I felt the need to fast forward the normal sequence of events my summer weekends normally contain. I went into the task in good spirits, I knew it would be more work than normal since I was away for a week but I slapped on my headphones and headed out there.
What I ran into was an oppressive amount of work. The passing of 11-12 days since the task was last done combined with the extreme heat and precipitation had put weed growth into overdrive. For maybe the first 60 minutes I was ok as I very slowly made my way weeding some of the biggest headaches like the garden, pond area and the rock garden, which is the absolute worst.
When I first moved into the house I built a lot of landscaped areas but over the years I undid a lot of them for exactly this reason, I knew the labor involved with keeping them looking decent. I was a much younger man then and I realized this, crawling around on my hands and knees 20 years later with a sweat soaked t-shirt at 7PM in the evening really reminded me of why I made the conscious effort to contract the amount of landscaped beds/areas. Don’t get me wrong, they look nice when I am not doing upkeep on them, I think they add to the beauty of the property however I have shifted into a mode where I just don’t want to be saddled by this stuff week in and week out during wet season.
When Cindy was living here she did a lot of work outside, converting or adding additional space to the must weed list. When there were two human beings involved in this upkeep it was bearable. Now since it is me myself, and I doing the tasks it is much less so, unless I can somehow teach Elsa to pull weeds. I was out there weeding for every minute of two hours. I have had a lot of unpleasant weeding sessions in my 21 years here, this was one of the worst.
When I came back in I felt gross. After showering I sat down and edited the ride footage from Thursday night. Video editing relaxes me most of the time.
Saturday was a busy, busy day. I had created a list related to everything I need to get done before the next trip and I was driven to get a good chunk of it crossed off. After running errands, paying bills and doing a few other things I headed outside to weed whack, despite the skies looking like they were ready to barf more water. They did exactly that, driving me back inside for a little bit where I switched gears and got some cleaning done.
The rain stopped and I headed back out there. I have been having issues with the weed whacker that is only something like two years old, it has been running rough the last couple times I have used it. It got so annoying that I switched over to the Dewalt electric whacker that is not as powerful or fast as it’s gas powered counterpart. When I get some more time I will do some basic trouble shooting on the gas whacker. I’m not doing a carb teardown on the thing. I am at the point in life where instead of sacrificing an afternoon working on the tool I will just curb it and replace it, not admirable, but truthful. Time spent on things gains more and more weight with me as the years tick off.
Disclaimer this section talks about bodily functions, tastefully, hopefully. So during the day I had more trips to the bathroom than normal but I didn’t think much of it. However when this continued into the evening I started thinking about it a lot. I started running through what I consumed recently to see if anything popped out as a possible culprit. Nothing did. So instead of getting better with the passing of time it was getting worse and more frequent. It was not colonoscopy prep level but was getting damn close. By the time I fell asleep it was close to midnight. I was really tired and hoped to wake up Sunday morning feeling refreshed with these episodes behind me. I had another busy day ahead helping Ali and Shugs. It didn’t happen.
Instead of subsiding the episodes continued, roughly between 1 and 2 hours apart. Repeatedly it felt like just as I was dozing off the sensation would return. This continued all night, the last time being about 5AM. I awoke about 8AM feeling exhausted. Originally I had talked to Ali about getting up there pretty early, like early enough that I would be on the road already. I texted her and described my night. I told her once I felt more “stable” I would head up there. She said it was not a big deal if I couldn’t come which I appreciated. However that intrinsic part of my personality, the part that commits hard to promises made, wanted to keep with the plan, just on a slightly delayed manner.
I drug myself out of bed and took care of Kathy. I was very much in slow motion but I was in motion at least. I prepped for departure, the biggest part of the prep was getting the 118lb 86″ TV into the back of the Tacoma solo. It took some careful balancing combined with moderate amounts of brute force but I got it in the bed, albeit with the tailgate down because it is so huge. I loaded Elsa in the back and took off. On the way there I stopped at CVS to grab some stuff to help with the symptoms. I also stopped at DD but traded out the coffee for a bottle of water. I sure could have used the caffeine jolt but I didn’t want any more bathroom visits in the short term if I could avoid them.
I met Ali and Shugs at their new house. They had spent most of the morning at their storage unit getting it cleared out. The plan was to store everything in the garage for now. After carefully unloading the TV I helped them unload the truck as well. Ali could tell I didn’t feel great but I assured her I was good enough to continue. We got the truck unloaded and then headed back to the storage unit to get the remaining items cleaned out. The majority of their stuff was in that unit, moving out of their one bedroom apartment will likely involve less stuff.
Once the truck was loaded we headed to their apartment. Ali was giving me back two dressers that she took with her when she moved out 10 years ago. They are getting new bedroom furniture and asked me if I wanted these. I have a guestroom with not much else in it besides a bed so I said I would take them. However there was logistical discussion/decisions to be made.
Although Shugs could help me load the pieces into the truck I would be getting them off myself. The fact that I was not feeling great combined with the hernia I am sporting made me a bit hesitant. Ali said there was no rush to get them now but then when I thought about pushing the timeline further my hernia surgery on August 12th was a big red stop sign. Once that happens I will be severely restricted on exertion for something like three weeks. The end result was I sad f it, let’s load them up now.
Ali and Shugs were very appreciative of my help just as I am appreciative of them being willing to once again dog/chicken/house sit for me. I had concerns about rain for the long drive home. They came true as I drove through hard rain for about 5 minutes during the last 10 miles of the return trip. Since I was moving at 60MPH the dressers didn’t get too drenched. Getting them off the truck myself again involved some very careful maneuvering but I got the dressers safely into the garage where they will sit for a day or two to air out.
When I got back I was tired from lack of sleep and the labor. I tried to take a nap but it was more like resting with my eyes closed. I found my mind continuing to work on things that need to be taken care of before I leave. Laying there was better than nothing. When I got up it was after 5:30. I decided I wanted to get out on a quick ride to the close DD to at least get one energy burst for the day. I took the new massive EX20S once again.
I was hoping a ride would help clear some cobwebs and make me feel more “normal”. The extreme weight of this wheel is something I am still getting used to, I feel like I need to be much more cautious doing things I take for granted on smaller wheels. The ride did feel good but I still had to deal with some unfun bathroom visits during the day, just less of them.
I wrapped up my Sunday typing this out while continuing to mentally unravel both the tasks that need to be handled in the next three days as well as bigger picture, longer term ideas as well. I am seriously considering going to LA in mid-October. If I looked at this past year like it was a book I was writing, I would be wrapping upping the preface. I am confident that if I wind up in a relationship with a committed partner again, that person will be getting the best overall version of me that has existed. But, if that partner never materializes I will keep pointing my life towards events, activities, people and destinations that make me happy.