Poison Ivy, Jesus, and Leprosy

I'm not a regular church-goer (or even an irregular church-goer) but in preparation for Christmas I do break out our children's Bible and read it to my kids at bed-time, and we were just getting to the verse where Jesus heals the leper when I thought of a way to make this a bit more real for them, so I pointed out that my wife's horrible case of poison ivy was similar to leprosy (perhaps leprosy-lite?) and that it would be nice if Jesus was around to lay hands on mommy and heal her suppurating wounds and then I read them the story and their reactions were ridiculously close to my own thoughts and certainly show that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree: Ian said, "That's not real, that's fake, that couldn't happen," and I told him that we can't be sure because the story is very old . . . but it does seem rather unlikely, and then Alex-- who has never heard me utter these words-- said, "I don't really like stories about crazy diseases because then when I go to bed I start thinking about them and how I might have them," which is exactly how I feel about such stories and the reason I don't read books about medicine . . . but I told him that he doesn't really have to worry about leprosy these days and that poison ivy is a far more pressing matter.

I'm Back, Back in the Sisyphean Groove

The futility of reality has rudely interrupted my idyllic summer: after bailing Hurricane Irene induced sewer water from 2 AM until 7AM, we finally got the basement dry . . . but then a deluge sprang from the shower drain, and despite our bucket brigade, we could not lower the tide, and so all our previous labor was worthless . . . we had to admit defeat and carry my mother-in-law's furniture and belongings upstairs; the next day, while we were cleaning up, my back neighbor-- who lives at the bottom of the ivy covered hill behind my house-- motioned me over and very nicely explained that her husband thought that my stone-henge wall project was slightly over the property line and asked if I could move some of the rocks in case "they wanted to build a fence in five years" and though I was extremely pissed off at this, for reasons I will explain shortly-- I remained civil (I knew her husband-- who I've never talked to-- put her up to it) and I never mentioned that I had to tear out our original wood fence because their ivy engulfed and destroyed it, despite my attempts to trim it from our side, and I also didn't mention the countless cases of poison ivy I endured clearing out their weeds and vines and jungle-growth-- for the last six years, without even a "thank you"-- and despite the fact that my stones are clearly on the original fence line, which -- I checked the deed-- was build a bit inside our property line, and despite the fact that the rocks are to: 1) keep the hill from eroding 2) hold my mulch and top-soil in place 3) provide a beautiful border for the row of arbor vitae I've planted-- of which they will get a better view than me-- and 4) these stones will provide some physical buffer that will block the spread of their ivy, a buffer that I can stand on so I can do their yard-work because they have NEVER weeded this ivy bed or trimmed the ivy, despite this all this, and despite the fact that all my mother-in-law's furniture and household goods from the flooded basement were on our porch being dried and cleaned, despite all this, I decided to be diplomatic and roll a few of the giant rocks a up the hill a bit to assuage them . . . though as soon as I find some even bigger boulders, I'm stacking them atop the ones I have so that they slowly slide down and crush their ivy . . . and in truth I'm actually glad for all this pointless labor, because it is mentally preparing me for the endless waves of essays that my students will soon be handing me, from which there will be no respite until next summer.

It's Been a Day, A Birth Day . . .

Today is my younger son's seventeenth birthday, and he was scheduled for his driving test at 11 AM . . . but first, he needed to attend a training for his summer job as a tennis instructor at the Rutgers Prep camp (with the affable curmudgeon Ted Ransom) and we borrowed our friend's car for the driving test because you need a vehicle with an emergency brake in between the seat-- which is rare in new cars, so most people just pay the driving school to use their car, which is a total scam-- anyway, I was slated to do all this stuff with the birthday boy, but first we had an early appointment with Steve the Appliance Doctor-- and his prognosis on our stove was not good, we need a $500 valve to fix the thing-- so then Ian and I drove over to Rutgers Prep and just after we crossed the Landing Lane Bridge we witnessed a car accident, nothing epic and lucky for us it wasn't on our side-- and then I took a walk on the tow road while he trained and I learned a lot-- a friendly fisherman showed me a picture of a fifteen-pound catfish he caught in the canal the other day and he also informed me-- totally new information-- that there are pike and muskellenge in the canal-- musky!-- and I saw a lot of wildlife on my walk: turtles, a big snake, all kinds of flowers, frogs, tadpoles, and little fish . . . and an herbalist, an African American dude decked out with all kinds of harvesting gear and he told me about the powers of elderberry flowers and then I asked him if the plant on the side of the path was poison ivy and he grabbed it and took a look and confirmed that yes it was poison ivy and I was like "don't touch that shit" and he said only sixty percent of people are allergic-- which seems to be lowballing it-- and I have also read that every time you touch the stuff, you increase your likelihood of getting it, so he might have to use some of his elderberry flowers on himself . . . then we went over to the Kilmer DMV, with all our documentation, but one minute into the driving test it was over-- the instructor said that the emergency brake was too loose and that we had to get it fixed and we had two hours to do so or our appointment would be voided-- so we started driving to the mechanic but I knew that was as shot in hell, so I called Ian's driving instructor and he happened to be in the vicinity giving a lesson, so we met him in the parking lot, gave him 80 bucks and he took Ian over in his car-- what a scam, but at least it worked out-- and then Ian had a fairly wild driving test-- he had to slam on the brakes because a lady ran through a stop sign and when he tried to parallel park an old man pulled up right behind him-- but he's a great driver, so he handled it all and passed and then we got to spend some quality time in the DMV-- and though we had every fucking document on earth, it still wasn't enough for their byzantine requirements-- and we had to reprint all the numbers in the little boxes because Ian crossed out a date-- and then they asked me if I had a driver's license and I said yes and that somehow was enough stuff and he got his picture taken, got a temporary license, we went to Don Huang for noodles, and then Ian went to do some yardwork for a lady across town and he drove himself-- which was wonderful-- and then when he got back, we went to the park and played some pick-up basketball with random folks and then settled in to eat a home-cooked meal of Indian food, quite a busy birthday.

Respect the Community Garden

My wife holds some position of power in our community garden. I'm not sure what the title of the position is, nor do I know the exact responsibilities. She's usually "dealing" with some garden-related issue: shared hoses and tools, mulch, water, a poison hemlock outbreak, etc. It sounds pretty taxing. 

She also has to "deal" with rule-breakers: folks who don't abide by the new social distancing rules, folks who tie things to the fence, folks who don't tend their plot . . . folks who don't respect the ethos of the garden. The community garden is a wonderful institution, and it deserves respect. I'm pretty sure she's got some muscle to help her with this, a lady who is a lawyer by day and a garden enforcer in her spare time. 

Last week, my friend (who I will call Jack Woltz for the sake of anonymity) was damn close to getting a violation. Weeds were running rampant in his plot. But instead of issuing Jack a violation, my wife made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

She told him our boys-- who do odd jobs, if anyone is looking to hire them-- would weed his garden for ten dollars an hour. If Jack hired them, the violation would disappear.

Is this racketeering?

It looks like your plot is a little fucked up . . . but I've got a couple guys who can fix that, for the right price . . . and if you need "protection" for your produce-- because it would be a shame if anything happened to those cucumbers-- we could arrange that as well. 

Jack wisely paid the boys (and gave them a little extra to curry favor). My boys informed him that there was some poison ivy in his plot as well. The boys weren't equipped to remove that. If he wants that removed, it will cost extra.

As much as my wife loves control and power, and though she wields it effectively, she swears that she's done with this position. She just wants to focus on growing her vegetables and keeping her plot neat. But every time she tries to get out, the garden pulls her back in!

Sharks and Lantern Flies Menace the East Coast

Yesterday, my wife went over our friends' house (Lynn and Connell) to help them plant some milkweed-- because apparently milkweed poisons spotted lantern-flies and Lynn and Connell have an epic spotted lantern-fly infestation, mainly because they live on a cliff right above the Raritan River . . . a great view of New Brunswick from their back deck but also plenty of tree-of-heaven, the weedy river bush that lantern-flies love-- so they were waging chemical and biological warfare, which involved climbing out onto the ledge above the cliff, clearing brush and small trees, and planting the milkweed-- and it was hot yesterday and they were all wearing long sleeves and pants to avoid poison ivy and I guess they were working for quite a while, sawing at trees and removing ivy and weeds and bushes and planting the milkweed, and Connell got out his little chainsaw to cut down one particular tree and clambered down onto the cliff, on a little ledge above the river, and my wife was working away and not paying attention to much else-- she was in the zone-- when Lynn, who was up above, yelled to her that Connell wasn't responding and she didn't know what was going on-- so Catherine climbed over to where Connell was sitting and he was lights out, pale as a ghost and unresponsive-- but luckily, we just took a First Aid course, so she didn't lose her shit . . . she shook him and talked to him until she finally got a response-- but she was ready to do some serious CPR-- and she directed Lynn, who was up top, to call 911 . . . the police were there in no time, and Connell came to and she ascertained that he hadn't eaten or drank anything that morning and then started working in heavy clothing in the hot sun-- so she made him drink some water (and poured some on him) and Lynn lowered him down some food and the police helped get him off the cliff-- Connell was annoyed that they had called 911 but Catherine was like, "there's no way I'm getting you off this cliff, if you fall, I'm not going to be able to catch you" and in the end he didn't have to go to the hospital-- it was just a case of heatstroke, but these lantern flies are a serious menace-- we've got civilians clambering around on cliffs with chainsaws getting heatstroke, so perhaps we've got to take Kent Brockman's attitude and welcome our new insect overlords . . . and then my parents told me there's sharks at the Jersey shore-- which I took with a grain of salt, until I looked online, and not only have there been shark sighting, but there was a giant great white just off the coast of Sea Isle City, the beach we are headed to in a couple weeks (but I will not forego my early morning run and swim-- if I'm going to die, then that's how it's going to happen).

A Good Summer (So Far)

Summer is my least favorite season-- too hot and sunny-- but I shouldn't complain . . . as there are only two requirements for having a good summer if you live on the East Coast:

1) you don't contract Lyme's Disease;

2) you don't mistakenly wade into a patch of poison ivy;

the rest is bonus, the beach trips and the pool barbecues, the hiking and the tennis, the paddle-boarding and the garden plot . . . you can't do any of these if you're bedridden, on antibiotics, and oozing pus.

Death Be Not Proud of A Turtle

The boys and I took a trip to Sandy Hook last Thursday, and despite the rain, poison ivy and mosquitoes, we had a good time, especially out on North Beach; Ian's highlight was the dead terrapin he found in a foamy and debris filled tide pool-- he poked it with a stick and when the head bobbed to the surface, we noticed that the eyes had been eaten out of the skull-- and this grisly image must have stuck with him because on the car ride home he said, "I'm proud that I found that turtle, but I'm not proud that it was dead and had no eyes."

Gluttonous Incident 328,457

We went for a hike on Saturday morning with the kids at Woodfield Reservation, a reserve a few miles west of Princeton, and the sole reason we went hiking there is so that we could eat lunch at Tortuga's Mexican Village, the best Mexican place around-- but after a long overgrown buggy hike (and I was praying Catherine didn't get poison ivy again, she's just getting over a nasty case of it) where we had to lure the kids out of the woods with the promise of ice cream . . . they walked for over 2 1/2 hours, partly because we got lost, but we did see a big rock, Tent Rock, but it just seemed big because it had a name and because the rest of the hike was comprised of hacking our way through shrubbery, so after all this we get to the Mexican Place and it is CLOSED for lunch, and we knew it was closed for lunch on Sundays but now it is closed for lunch on Saturdays as well and we were very angry and sweaty and hungry but we remembered a little Mexican place on Route 27 on the way home so we stopped there, and in my rage I decided to exact my revenge on Tortuga's Mexican Village by eating an insane amount of food at Casa de Tortilla, which made logical sense to me at the time but makes absolutely no sense now because Tortuga's doesn't even know I cheated on them with the lesser Mexican place because they were closed and unless I write them a letter or they read this blog, they're never going to find out (although I must say, Casa de Tortilla was quite good, especially the grilled shrimp tacos and the chicken quesadilla, which was in soft bread instead of a tortilla . . . I also had a chicken taco and a ground beef taco and black beans and a side of guacamole and a shitload of chips).

Horticultural Aphorism Revision

We've all heard "leaves of three, let it be," but my new and improved adage about poison ivy is even more vital-- my son Alex learned the hard way and he's taking Prednisone because he neglected to follow this simple rule: "leaves of three, do NOT pee!"

Kids Need to Learn Stuff

Recently, I've been a font of wisdom for the young people: I coined a new aphorism about poison ivy for my oldest son-- leaves of three, do not pee-- and I gave some invaluable advice to a student of mine, who stashed his very expensive philosophy textbook on a cart in the corner of the classroom, so he wouldn't have to carry it around in his knapsack . . . I told him: never hide something valuable on a thing with wheels, hide it in something stationary . . . because the cart is gone, someone wheeled it away-- as people are wont to do with carts-- and I've asked around, but no one seems to know who wheeled the cart away or where it is-- so this lesson is going to cost him some cash; my most committed readers will recognize that this lesson about not putting valuable things atop things with wheels is the seminal lesson from this blog, the thing from which all other sentences sprung (and those committed readers might also remember that I was far less prolix in those days).

Reading + Dad = $$$$$

When my kids were looking around town for odd jobs and such, I told them I had just read in The Week that folks with DM expertise were getting paid up to $250 dollars an hour to teach adults how to play Dungeons and Dragons and I suggested that they offer this service and so they added it to their list of jobs they would do and two days ago, they actually got paid to help some younger kids make characters and get a campaign going, which really beats pulling weeds (they are covered in poison ivy) and so now they've got a taste of the good life and white collar work.

10/20/2009

So I've been using my the patch of poison ivy on my forearm as a teaching aid (if you get the answer wrong, the threat is that I make you look at it up close, but no one has been subjected to this torture . . . I guess the method works) and it started kind of gross and bubbly, but now it has crossed the line into full suppuration-- I put my arm down on a napkin and I left a wet mark, which is beyond gross and into the repugnant neighborhood, and the pus is matting my arm hair as well, and I can't stop looking at it and in some strange way, I'm going to miss it when it's gone.

The Test 93: That Girl is Poison (Ivy)

This week on The Test, Stacey presents something linear, traditional, and very important: a review of poisonous (and venomous) things that can kill you, maim you, and -- worst of all-- make you itchy and uncomfortable . . . as a bonus, Cunningham has an encounter with a mysterious man sporting thick chest hair.

Central Jersey: We Exist!

Governor Phil Murphy recently signed Bill S3206, which requires the New Jersey "Division of Travel and Tourism to re-draw the tourism map to promote Central Jersey" and also "requires promotion of overnight stays" in the newly created Central Jersey region-- so the folks in Middlesex, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, and Somerset counties now officially exist as full-fledged denizens of the Garden State . . . and now we've got to work on a slogan to promote Central Jersey so that I can AirBnB my house for lots of cash; here are a few ideas:

1) Central Jersey: no beaches but plenty of humidity;

2) Central Jersey: come for the pizza, stay for the poison ivy;

3) Central Jersey: we've got strip clubs AND strip malls;

4) Central Jersey: we'd love you to visit-- but there's enough fucking traffic so please take the train;

5) Central Jersey: we ain't Pennsylvania.

4/28/10

Whether you blog about it or not, history (and stupidity) repeats itself; last night I lay awake wondering if I was itchy because I had come in contact with poison ivy, but then I remembered something I had recently written, something I had written just three months ago, something concise and informative: "Note to self-- penicillin gives me a rash"-- apparently, though I wrote this note to my self, I didn't actually take note of it, and now I've got blotches on my arms and legs (I was going to deal with the itching and keep taking the penicillin just to avoid making phone calls to the dentist and pharmacy, but my wife said that was ridiculous and so I'm picking up an alternative on my way home.)

A Book Makes Dave Feel Emotions

I thought once we left the Southwest, I would quit reading The Lost World of the Old Ones: Discoveries in the Ancient Southwest but none of my other books came up on my library queue, so I decided to finish, and it was well worth it; I learned that the Anasazi (Ancestral Pueblo, if you want to be politically correct) didn't disappear because of an apocalyptic drought-- there was a drought, but they started leaving before that, and usually with environmental catastrophe, everyone doesn't leave-- there are always a few stragglers that remain and eke out a living, so this was a political or religious migration that cleared out these cliff dwellings and granaries and high mesa redoubts, because by 1300, the area was completely empty of human habitation and life, and that just doesn't happen . . . and so there are plenty of theories of what political/religious movement drove the migration, but none are rock-solid . . . this information may be lost in time, because it's abstract . . . I also learned about the Comanche transformation, which is a real Cinderella-story, an underdog achievement worthy of the scrubs in Hoosiers: at the start of the colonial era, the Comanches were "horseless hunter-gatherers living in small camps scattered around northern Colorado and Wyoming . . . by the end of the seventeenth century they had become the most skillful equestrians warriors and long-distance traders in North America," with a domain that stretched from Canada to northern Mexico . . . so though they've been portrayed as merciless barbarian raiders, that wasn't the case until they met several defeats at the hands of the U.S. Army forces in 1875 . . . but enough of this, what the book made me feel, unfortunately, was jealousy and regret; when I was young, I dreamed of becoming a paleontologist and trekking through the Gobi Desert in search of dinosaur bones, but then I learned that paleontology is not all fun and bones, but David Roberts figured out how to live a life that combined the best elements of adventure, writing, climbing, history, archaeology, and epic journeys-- and while he's stayed out of the academic world, he interviews the people in it, and compiles their theories for the layman and, by the end of the book, after reading about all his hikes, his overnight camping trips and raft voyages, his access to secret sites and petroglyphs in our country, all this made me profoundly jealous, which I'm not proud of, because I have a fantastic life-- full of family, sport, and adventure-- but I know that I'll never get to travel all the trails and paths through the American Southwest that he did, and-- in fact-- that I may not get out there for another decade, instead I'll be hacking my way through humidity and poison-ivy, and instead of petroglyphs, I'll be looking at spray painted tags, which someday, in some far apocalyptic future, might prove to be just as evocative and obscure as the ancient rock etchings scattered through the Four Corners region, but I'll be long dead by then (which makes me want to start doing some graffiti art!)

Is This The Best Allocation of Valuable Resources?

Sometimes when I wake up there is a white hair jutting from one of my sideburns, directly perpendicular to my head, and obviously my body labored extremely hard to grow this gravity defying strand of hair in the span of a night, but meanwhile, my knee hurts and my back is sore from swimming and I still have some poison ivy . . . so my question is this: doesn't my body have better projects on which to work, rather than to grow these hairs?

OBFT XXIII

Another successful Outer Banks Fishing Trip . . . thanks to Whitney and everyone else on this year's rather light team of fishermen . . . here are a few things that happened (or might have happened or almost happened) and some notes for next year:

1) I got hit in the genitals by a stray frisbee, thrown by Rob, who might be trying to take me out (as Rob, Whitney and I are the only fishermen who have perfect attendance);

2) best water ever;

3) we were chastised at Tortuga's for clapping and cheering too passionately for a little league baseball game on the TV . . . Jersey Phenom!

4) we learned that the bartender who chastised us for clapping too much while "families are eating lunch" was actually mad at the kitchen for not making him a sandwich and took it out on us;

5) Friday morning Jerry, Rob and I almost played tennis (and Whitney almost almost played tennis but he forgot his racket back in Norfolk);

6) Saturday morning, we actually played tennis, and while I like tennis and Jerry, Rob and I had a good time, the real motivation was my wife's face when I packed the tennis gear . . . the face she made said: all you old guys do is sit around and drink beer and maybe wade into the water, there's no way you're going to play tennis . . . and so while tennis is fun, proving my wife wrong is priceless;

7) Brewmanji . . . a drinking game that involved a bottle cap, the top of a cardboard pizza box, and a magic marker;

8) cornhole on the beach, cornhole tournament with randomized partners, and surprise cornhole aptitude by ringer Matt Rodell . . . but we did NOT have new cornhole bags;

9) we ordered entrees as appetizers at Tortugas and cut them up tapas style . . . Bajan burger bites and Coco Loco chunks;

10) McWhinney surfed;

11) Whitney brought a bucket of music . . . a stereo system consisting of a cell-phone in a bucket;

12) Whitney, in a hungover haze on Saturday, used his bottle of Red Stripe as a condiment . . . he thought he was grabbing a bottle of hot sauce, but it was his beer, which he poured all over his fish taco . . . he said it didn't taste too bad;

13) we did not pound any deck nails but Paci fixed the shower door;

14) Rob's poison ivy was aesthetically unpleasing and did not fit the beach theme;

15) next year, everyone needs to bring a tennis racket;

16) after twenty two years at the Martha Wood cottage, we finally figured out how to use the coffee maker;

17) when I got up at 4 AM on Thursday morning to drive to Jerry's house in Arlington, and Whitney and Gormley were just going to bed in Norfolk, and it took me eleven hours to get back to Jersey on Sunday . . . there's got to be a better mode of transport to get down there . . . a boat? . . . anyway, thanks again to all in attendance, Whitney for hosting, the Martha Wood cottage for remaining, and another year of good weather.

Reading + Dad = $$$$$

When my kids were looking around town for odd jobs and such, I told them I had just read in The Week that folks with DM expertise were getting paid up to $250 dollars an hour to teach adults how to play Dungeons and Dragons and I suggested that they offer this service and so they added it to their list of jobs they would do and two days ago, they actually got paid to help some younger kids make characters and get a campaign going, which really beats pulling weeds (they are covered in poison ivy) and so now they've got a taste of the good life and white collar work.

I Kept My Mouth Shut

Yesterday, at the pool clean-up day, there were a number of people who wore masks-- though we were outside and certainly crowded in any way-- but they gathered hedge-clippings and disposed of them with bare-hands, though I warned them of the poison-ivy; this was a contradictory and ironic mistake in risk-assessment . . . they should have uncovered their face and covered their hands (I wore gloves of course) but I wisely kept my mouth shut on this issue . . . I didn't want to jeopardize my guest passes and free sandwich.