three days later...

...after a tireless effort on his part and a hell of lot of loss of sleep on "The Wife's" and my part.

A simple "Sauder", drop down desk that was destined to go to a garage sale in the early spring. A perfect project for a bi-polar, manic depressed brother in law with compulsive obsessive and attention deficiency disorders.
Perfect! Better than a box of bolts, nuts and washers...

Except when you might want to get some sleep at night. Except when your tools are within reach. Except... except a whole lot of other things.

The desk, this simple "Sauder" desk had a good life. It had a pretty quality life in our home. I remember our introduction to it. "The Wife" and I went to K-Mart several years ago and bought the desk in the form of a "Sauder" desk kit. I put the pressed board desk together and J had used it up until last year to write letters on, figure out and pay the bills, etc.

I'm not fond of pressed board furniture... I prefer wood... solid wood. Though Sauder does make some pretty sturdy pressed board furniture I'm still not a huge fan. Either way, we had it and it served it's purpose.

When I was smoking cigarettes I used to have an ashtray on top of the desk... in the relative area of where you see the lamp's shaft passing through the top board. Unfortunately, I had a lit cigarette in the ashtray one day and was very pre-occupied with what I was doing. I forgot all about the cigarette until it rolled off of the top and dropped onto the drop down desktop where I was focusing on some "draft" shed plans I was drawing up for a shed I was going to build in the back yard.

I butted the remainder of the cigarette out in the ashtray and noticed the cigarette had fallen from the ashtray and burned into the top board a bit before rolling off. Damn!

I knew "The Wife" would notice it immediately unless I did something real quick. Simple fix... slide the ashtray over the top of the burn... hide it!

That worked for awhile but I knew discovery was imminent. I finally confessed before being "found out". The desk was blemished forever.

As time went on it was replaced by a real wood, antique desk. It's place in our home moved from our bedroom office to the garage... destined for a spring garage sale... blemish and all.

Three days ago I was passing through the garage with some groceries when I saw a sign on the desk that read "Save for Bill. I want this." I thought, "no problem" we can move it into his room later.

Bi-polar brother in law came home a bit afterwards and went straight into the garage without a word. He was obviously in a hurry. J and I looked at one another and I finally mustered up the courage to have a look at what he might, just might be up to.

With him we really, truly never know.

Well, he was dismantling the desk. He had removed the hinges of the drop down top, was removing the handles to the drawers and had my electric palm sander plugged in and ready "to go" to work on the burned spot on top of the desk.

"You know that's pressed board don't you?" I pointed out to him as he removed the last drawer handle.

"Yeah. But the hinges and handles need cleaning" he said.

What his answer had to do with my question was beyond me. I mean, I think I really missed something there. Confused, I thought I'd ask another question for some clarification.

"So, what's the sander for?" I thought that was a perfectly legit question being as the desk is nothing more than pressed board covered with a vinyl, wood grained laminate. Something that really can't be sanded without leaving a mark.

"Oh, I was going to sand out the burned spot."... his answer.

Just as I thought. He was going to sand the burned spot and try to stain the area with one of the many stains I have on the work bench.

"Won't work." I thought I'd try a bit of reason.

"Will too" he popped back. "You burned it. Why?" His tone had gone from "matter of fact" to accusatory... he was upset that I had burned the desk and wasn't hiding his disappointment.

"That was years ago... when I smoked. I screwed up." I found myself trying to explain a mistake I made that blemished a piece of furniture years before. He was genuinely saddened by the blemish... as if he had just had to take his dog (if he had one) to the vet after the nieghbor ran it over.

"You have no business smoking." This was said to me as he took a long draw off of his Marlboro. "You have to be responsible to smoke".

I was staring at him in amazement. I mean, I was being lectured by my bi-polar brother in law for some careless act I had done years ago... lectured!

"What the hell are you talking about? It's a desk! It got burned! I did it! I'm glad I did it! End of story." My patience ran out... what can I say. I turned from him and walked back into the house

"Don't sand it!" I shouted at him from the opened garage door. "DO NOT SAND IT!"

The door closed behind me. J was eyeing me curiously.

"What was that about?" she asked.

"Your brother is nuts... effing NUTS!!! He's pissed off at me for burning the desk. Says I had no business smoking... said I was irresponsible. DAMN, he's nuts!"

J continued to stare at me. Her expression hadn't really changed.

"And your first clue was? Honey, he has paperwork certifying he's nuts." she answered, matter of factly. "And you did burn the desk with a cigarette... which was a bit irresponsible."

My mouth was agape. I was staring at J as the words came out. Unbelievable. A cigarette burn from years ago coming back to haunt me. Something told me I wasn't going to hear the end of that little incident anytime soon.

"It's got to be hereditary. It just has to be" I said.

Just about that time I heard the palm sander start. It's high pitched "whir" sounding out as the sandpaper pressed against the pressed board and vinyl laminate.

I looked at "The Wife", at the garage door, at the sliding back door and decided I'd go prune the pear trees in the back yard.

The sanding went on for hours, days. Sanding, pounding, nailing, drilling... days! All hours of the day, all hours of the night... finally, yesterday at around 5:00 p.m., thirteen and a half hours after I was awakened by bi-polar brother in law's footfalls as he passed by our bedroom door on his way out to the garage to resume work on his project... after three days of tireless labor on his part he completed the restoration project.

The garage door opened.

"Come look at it. I fixed it." He announced to me.

I gave up arguing, was too tired to be angry. I just wanted peace. I went into the garage and looked at his project. I really didn't know what to expect but thought, with all of the hours of labor he was putting into this pressed board piece of crap he had probably created a china hutch or something out of the materials.

Nope. He'd simply mounted a real piece of pine onto the top, drilled a hole in the pine, the top of the desk and in the back then mounted a desk lamp to the middle of the desk. That's it. Nothing more. Three days to do that. Three nights of 3 hrs of sleep for me. Nothing more.

"What do you think" he asked me proudly.

"Wonderful" I answered. He really didn't want to know. "Let's go in and roust up some dinner now."

We both walked into the house. He, his chest pushed out... proud as punch, grinning from ear to ear.

Me... a bit more educated. Another day.

...I'm so damned glad I quit smoking. Sooooo glad!

I'm not responsible enough to smoke.

That was made painfully obvious to me.

health and common sense...

...it's all relatively simple.

I received the following information in an email today. It all makes sense when you really think about it.

HEALTH QUESTION & ANSWER SESSION

Q: I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true?

A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it... don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.


Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?

A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.


Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?

A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the latter out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer and Whiskey are also made out of grain and Vodka is made from potatoes. Have you ever had a bad Rye Whiskey? Damn... BOTTOMS UP!


Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?

A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one. If you have two bodies and two fats your ratio is two to two, etc. Get the picture? This isn't rocket science we're talking about here people!


Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?

A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: Exercise = Pain. Pain... Bad! No Pain...Good!


Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?

A: YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!!... Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?


Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?

A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.


Q: Is chocolate bad for me?

A: Are you crazy? HELLO ..... Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around!


Q: Is swimming good for your figure?

A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.


Q: Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?

A: Hey! 'Round' is a shape!


Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets. And remember...

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Merlot in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride"!!

the house is still here...

...and so is my dog.

My dog was a Christmas gift from "The Daughter" and "The Wife" over five years ago. A Chihuahua.

Now I'm 6-01, 225-230 pounds and have lived a very "macho" life. I've been known to "scrap" with the best of them. Five years ago I got this little tiny Chihuahua, not barely six weeks old. I've always been a Labrador Retriever or Springer Spaniel person because I used to duck hunt and because I bought those types of dogs... Labs and Springers.

Well, just before Christmas in 2001 I was looking around in the paper for a Springer or a Lab. Just looking... commenting on how much they were... nothing serious. "The Wife" picked up on my looking and plotted with "The Daughter" to keep me from buying a big and hairy dog. Little did they know that I really had no intention of buying a dog... at... the... time. Right at that moment. Maybe a month or two afterwards... after Christmas but not right then.

So, I wander out to the living room on Christmas morning, we begin opening gifts and I get a dog bone... one of those little rawhide thingys that'll ball up in a dog's intestine and kill them. Yah, one of those. Another gift I open is a dog bowl. A very small dog bowl. Then there's the socks, underwear, jeans, computer game and finally, I opened another box and there were three polaroid pictures (yeah, we still had a polaroid then and we found film for it). The pictures appeared to be of a brown and white bat or rat... I wasn't sure which... staring at me with real, real, real buggy eyes. A tiny labrat type rat. This little thing was sitting in the palm of someone's hand.

"What's this?" I had to ask. I mean, no one was offering up any explanation.

"A dog" The Wife answered.

"Uh, uh!" I shot back, staring at the photo's. "It's gotta be a rat or a bat without its wings."

"It's your new puppy". Daughter now... and she's real crappy about hiding her sarcasm.

"Uh-Uh!" again... it eeked out of my mouth. I truly don't remember saying it but they said I did.

"Yup. All yours. A Chihuahua." The Wife again... now I know where the daughter gets her sarcasm.

I stared at the pictures and drifted back to when I was a kid. I grew up here in Olympia and I remember when the city was really starting to expand. We were surrounded by forests but neighborhoods were beginning to be built. This was in the late 50's and early 60's. I remember us being in one of the first homes built in a new development called "Thompson Place". As time went on, more homes were built there. More people bought the homes and more dogs, family pets were added to our budding neighborhood.

I used to deliver newspapers back then. I was accustomed to outwitting and outrunning dogs on my bicycle as I tossed the rolled papers onto the front porches (or as close as I could get) of each house as I whizzed by, dogs in my wake.

There were German Sheppards (King... he was mean but slow), labradors, Heinz 57's and this one particular dog... the only dog I was afraid of and the only dog that ever bit me... that dog bit me more than once... more than twice... more then ten, twenty times. All in one violent attack. Like a land pirahana he was! Got that taste of blood and wanted more. That dog was SCARY!. Yup... that dog bit me more than a colony of red-headed ants could. And it was all in one attack. Early morning... ride by on my bicycle... toss the paper... miss pretty bad. So I went back to pick it up and made a huge mistake... I got off of the bike and walked over to where the newspaper was laying. Keep in mind this was early in the morning and it was dark.

I heard a "flap". One of those "flap's" that I can identify now... a "pet door" type of flap. I had no idea what that "flap" meant back then though. As I bent down to pick up the newspaper I saw a blur... a white streak charging in from the right, something snagged my hand. It felt like a dozen rose thorns or blackberries or devil's club or something like that. My first reaction was to run like hell... so I did. I heard this gawd-awful high pitched "yap-yap-yap" from behind me and realized it was closing fast... very, very fast. My right ankle got bumped and I got stung again. Something like a killer jelly fish. Damn it burned. Then my left foot, ankle, calf. I remembered thinking I was getting eaten alive by a white blur. I had no idea what was trying to devour me from the ground up... from the ankle up until I heard a woman's voice with a heavy German accent...

"Wookie, Wookie. You get up here and leave that boy alone!"

That went on for a bit until "Wookie" had had enough of me. He turned and trotted towards the pet door.

"Are you okay hun?" The woman asked.

"I've been bit all over by that thing. What was it" I answered. I might have thrown in some rather inappropriate words for an 10 or 11 years old kid back then but damn, I think I earned that right.

"Well, you shouldn't have come in the yard. Wookie doesn't like that" she said as she turned to walk back into the opened door.

"Wookie" was sitting inside of the doorway staring at me, daring me to step into the yard again. Wookie was a friggin' Chihuahua. I've hated them ever since.

Oh yeah, as "Wookie" passed the rolled up newspaper in the yard... he stopped and peed on it.

Another Chihuahua trait.

So, I named mine "Rookie".

And damn he can be vicious if he wants to be... just not with me.

He's my little buddy... a gift from the two women in my life.

fixing the fire...

...carburetors are meant to mix gas (fumes) and oxygen. They modify the "heavy gasoline" that's found in the gas tank, mix it with oxygen and supply a delicately balanced mixture to an automobile engine that will eventually combust and cause an internal firing engine to "run". It's friggin' art!

So, take a step back to those days when vehicles could be worked on by "us"... those backyard mechanics that were everywhere. I was one of them. I worked on my cars every week... tweaking the carb, adjusting the timing, setting the choke... all kinds of crap. But damn! That was in the late 60's... early 70's. Things changed after that. Cars got electronic, computeristic... dare I say feminine. They got to the point where cars required DAILY attention... the "How are we doing today" stuff and the "What can I do to make you feel better", etc. interaction occurred daily. (I can only imagine the "sexist" label I'm getting right about now!)

Either way, the 60's and early to mid 70's vehicles were so much easier to work on.

I say this only because bi-polar brother in law's vehicle is a late 70's vehicle... if you call a Chevrolet a vehicle.

You see, his quadrajet Holley carb seemed to be a bit of a gas guzzler. Somewhere, somehow he nipped the feeder side to two jets but damn, the "stack fires" caused by the poor gas/oxygen mix were 'effing spectacular!!! I don't think I've ever seen a raised car hood fully engulfed in flames... never!

Now I'm a fire dog too. Among all of the other things I've had to investigate I've been investigating the origins and causes of wildland fires for the past 15 years and I've been investigating arson, vehicle, vessel and structure fires for the past 30 years. In short, I know fire. So you can imagine how excited I got when I was standing at the front of the '79 Chevrolet pickup that bi-polar brother in law owns when, after he pumped the gas, turned the key and ignited the internal combustion engine.

Keyword... INTERNAL.

This altered carburetor was anything but an interactive piece of a well running internal combustion engine. It actually had a mind of it's own. It spewed flame across the intake manifold... up, up, up into the sky! Engulfing the entire carburetor, manifold, valve covers and hood in flame... 'effing spectacular! Singed eyebrows and all... spectacular!

I lost a handkerchief in the fire. One of my favorites. But we saved the house... and the truck.

When I left him he was pulling the Holley quadrajet from the manifold and replacing it with a simple Rochester carb.

"Hey Bill. Roll the truck to the bottom of the driveway and work on it there." I remembered telling him.

We still have our house but the rest is history. He gave up at 01:00 hrs and I have to be "on the road" for the next two days.

I called "The Wife" a bit ago and she's saying he's waiting for my return... WHY???

Why is he waiting for my return home before he works on his truck again?

Ahhh, never mind.

it's not his fault...

...but he needs to try to help himself too. Am I wrong about that? I mean, medications aren't being taken as prescribed, he doesn't eat regularly, he sleeps very rarely and he's wandering all over the place.

"J" and I are trying to function on 3 hours of sleep each day around here. Bi-polar brother in law is currently needing 24/7 attention. If either of us drops our "guard" around him he's off tinkering on something and destroying those things he's trying to "fix". I know there'll be a day when all three of us look back on this and laugh until we're crying but right now that's not happening... the laughing part.

I have so many stories to tell... so many! They're humorous life stories that involve bi polar brother in law's week at our house. The things he's done, the places we've gone. Little mind fart journeys... we've been taken to the edge and back. We're on our second trip now and everything is getting so much more familiar. That's not good... something just tells me that.

I've been involved with a lot of strange and challenging puzzles over the past 30 years of my job and I've earned a pretty good rep solving them but this one is right up there with the best... and it's so damned close to home! Hell, what am I saying... it is home!

I have so much to learn in so little time.

I talked a bit today with a fellow from the psych ward that bi-polar brother in law was at for several days. The first thing he told me was that "J" and I are just what bi-polar brother in law needs right now. I laughed. I did. I laughed at his words because I feel nothing at all like we're what he needs. I have no idea what he needs. Either way, I asked some questions (I've been reading up on things) and was pretty surprised that he'd answer them. He told me bi-polar brother in law wants us fully aware of his medical condition. In other words, we know what he (bi-polar brother in law) knows, we're told what he's told, etc.

It's not a pretty picture.

He's got Attention Deficiency Disorder (ADD), he's afflicted with compulsive obsessive behaviors, he hallucinates, he fabricates, he's bi-polar and a bit schizophrenic... go figure.

Isn't that a mix.

"But" psych doc tells me "He's one of the brightest people I've ever met!"

Now that's really not a good mix.

Doc wants us to "work with him" a bit to get bi-polar brother in law "back in check"... somewhat productive. He told me it's a horrible thing for anyone to go through... what is happening to bi-polar brother in law. He likened it to several minds trying to run one body.

Anyway, we're going to have to "keep on keeping on" here. We're all he's got so I guess we've signed on for the long haul but damn... when he is able to help himself he's gonna hear some stories...

Some damned funny stories!

I apologize for sounding so "down" earlier... it's just so darned difficult to keep "chipper" when the gas tank is running on fumes.