Trim Tram Donovan

Buck in the Custodian Closet

Two paintings in my bedroom. One I created and one that was given to me. Not certain how feng shui it is, but they are facing each other, almost opposing. One painting seems organized and formed from structure while the other comes from a storm of chaos that must have some direction that it was going. I can look at both of them and appreciate what both of them is saying. But my painting speaks to me more. There is some nostalgia in looking at it. The creation and the way it lays to canvas and becomes something that you made from scratch. Even if it's been called by one friend who is a painter as "not good", it still does what I need it to do. Hang there and amuse me.

******

Over the past ten months or so, money's been tight. Single dollar bills along with five's and ten's have been put into a coffee cup in order to help save $600 to sign up for 2011 Ironman Wisconsin. Even in times when I had to sell off things to pay for gas or food, the jar remained untouched. It's been tight but I knew there might be relief in sight. Being part of a divorce and the cost involved as well as the adjustment into the cost of living by yourself takes its toll.

I sold my triathlon bike in order to pay rent. The buyer asked me why I wanted to sell it and I told him that it was "just too much bike. I just need a road bike." It was a true statement but it's not why I was selling it.

Without a bike and a athletic base workout that was severely laking, I still had my coffee cup full of cash to sign up for this race in September of 2011. At least I had the registration fees.

I took the kids to early registration, thanks to my volunteerism with Ironman Wisconsin. We got into the Monona Terrace where registration took place on the floor below. The kids and I take the escalator down to find the room full of people who were registering.

Our whole trek to this place is being mult-tasked with Franny's stories about middle school. There are times when she can talk about people, places and things for as long as she has breath. Ian stumbles along, holding my hand. Sometimes needing to be carried. Something a 5 year old should be trying to quit. And during Ian's struggles up or down, Franny continues with her stories.

We make it to the front of the line after waiting and we approach the registration table. Franny quiets down and Ian stands by me while I answer a number of questions. They are simple and she asks for my money and I give her my debit card. Seems less dramatic now. Maybe I should have brought the mug and the cash for the full effect.

We left the building and the kids were quiet and so was I. We held hands. I wondered how I could get a bike and when to start training. I wondered how I could train with the schedule I have now that I'm a part time single parent. I wondered what challenges were ahead of me this time.

*****

Franny stood next to me at the computer while I showed her an article about her school. DEER FOUND INSIDE BADGER RIDGE MIDDLE SCHOOL. She was in awe of the idea that right after she left, this large mammal snuck into the school and found its way into the custodian's closet. Her eyes large with shock and amazement, wondered how this could happen and laughed about it.

The next day, I picked her up from her friend's house after school when she got the case of the chatties again. She spun this tale of the eight point buck that made its way into the school by smashing the windows. The large male deer felt stuck in the outside since it wandered into a courtyard. It looked for ways to get into the windows and couldn't get into the building. It thought that the windows would provide escape. When, in fact, getting into the building would only provide four walls--enclosed into brick walls. 

As it cased the windows, it found a window to smash into and got into an empty classroom. When it walked into the hallway, it was scared frozen since the hallway floors were so slippery. It would slide and slip for a momentary attempt to walk. As one teacher grabs a broom, he slowly walks closer to the buck. The onlookers are told to stay calm and still while they are in their classrooms. He is in a static position with his broom while the deer is relatively still. The young and old onlookers stayed in the doorway, watching.

The teacher extends the broom and gains contact with the deer. The deer sees this but is frozen on the slippery floor. He starts pushing and gains enough torque to slide the animal on all fours across the floor into the custodian's closet. He quickly shuts the door and traps the animal.

Soon after, he called animal control. They came to the middle school and ushered the buck to an exit. On the exit, it ran like it was running away from something, never looking back.

"How were there kids still there?" I asked Franny since this occurred after school was out.

"There were clubs and activities going on," She told me frankly, "Why would it want to get into the building?" 

"Maybe it knew that if it had to go where the people were, so it can be helped. Sometimes we know that the bigger challenges lead us to where we want to go."

Franny nods her head and smiles, "Ok....."

 

 

Ratatouille

There is an up and down of having a DVD player in your car along with large, beautiful screens that broadcast movies. We (I'm including me) love turning on movies and watching them. It becomes pretty easy. But while I drive, I can only listen to movies when they're broadcast over the speakers while Franny and Ian are free to view them in glorious full view, stereo speakers.

We hit a one week spell where Ratatouille played over and over again. There was a soliloquy that played after a critic visits the protagonists' restaurant and it surprised me in a very compelling, moving way.

As many people might tell you, I can cry at the end of virtually every movie. Frankly, I would cry at just about anything if it hit me the right way. When Brett Favre stepped onto the football field the Sunday after his father passed away, I cried. When Sarah McLaughlin sang "When Somebody Loves You" in Toy Story 2, I cried.

I listened to this monologue and thought how wonderful it was. I was on the verge of tears listening to it but I found that biting my tongue will help in that area.

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more."

Moving

Burping has always been interesting topic I was glad to share. I have this thing where I belch an aberration of a belch. Like what I imagine a baby Tyrannosaurus Rex would yelp, it has a certain wail to it that is high pitched and short. Burping was a topic immediately after one of these belches, "I can't burp." This shocked many people.

"How can you not burp?" was the typical question.

"I just have never really burped." 

Surprisingly, I found myself burping out of the blue over the past three months. I'm not sure what happened.

During that time, I had been changing some of my lifestyle habits. I was sleeping on the couch much more regularly. I was eating food that was in very little portions, spread over many times in the day. Increasingly, our marriage was having problems. I began moving out during the week of Thanksgiving.

I found my burp coming to me, typically, while I drove back and forth from the house . I'm not sure if it was because it was I was sitting very upright or if it was the one time during the day when I wasn't eating, so my stomach was burping and catching up.

Whatever the reason, the burp was there permanently. And I understood with my gut (get it?), that there would be no way to go back. I was stuck with the burp. 

Once the toothpaste was out, it couldn't be put back into the tube. 

Exercise has taken a back seat to a mild depression. I haven't immersed myself in the swim in long time. Runs have become sporadic but tacking on long miles--possibly threatening my body into injury. I see that. I'm trying to stop the long miles and make smaller runs over a number of days but I decide over and over again to stay in bed.

Living in a new place (and owning a new type of belch), I see that I have to change up the way I do things. I'm not sure what exactly I have to do. I guess it started with moving and now it seems to be taking on a life of its own. Giving me things and taking away things. Changing the way people see me and how I interact with everyone. I have to adjust accordingly, remaining honest.

I Was a Vampire

Explaining to some how I need "elective surgery" makes me sound like I'm getting a boob job. But I carefully crafted that phrase for three reasons:

1. Surgery = I'm going through something very serious, so I hope you'll take it seriously too.

2. Elective = But I'm not dying from anything.

3. Elective Surgery = that phrase almost demands that you not ask what it is.

That being said, the surgery was earlier referenced in my online journal so I think it's safe to give an 'epilogue' among us friends.

As the consult for my vasectomy, the doctor told me that I should wait to have it done after the Lakefront Marathon. In turn, I rescheduled and got it done a week after. To be exact, it was last Friday.

I won't go into too many details. There is way too much information to pour over. I could probably write a short book on the experience. I will reflect on some observations.

It was a very short procedure, totaling about one hour.

Everyone was extremely kind and the doctor was very cool. They talked me through the whole thing and made it very comfortable.

He asked that I take two pills before I came. One pill was for fighting off infection and the other was valium. I'm not sure if the penicillin kicked in but the valium sure did. I kept laughing like I was in on a joke that wasn't really taking place. Jeni kept asking me, "What? What?" and giggling. She finally got it that the valium was making me silly.

When I walked into the surgical room, the bed was dressed and all the sterilized gowns in one pile. The nurses kept reminding me not to touch any of the green garments because they're sterilized. Mentioning once or twice is fine but when they tell you five times, you start to wonder if they are especially fixated on your dirty, dirty hands not touching their delicate things.

The room was like any examination room. That day, it was made up, clearly for a "Vas". It had a huge tampon like thing laying where my groin would lay. The lights were pinpointed at that location as well--small round white lights that were almost setting the stage for my extremities to put on a show.

White White White. Everything was white. Except for the sterile green clothes.

The nurse knocked and I allowed her into the room since I was stripped from the waist down and tucked under a sheet. The lights, though, were shining to where the show was about to unfold.

She told me that I would be shaved. I was not sure how much would be shaved. Now that we've put this behind us and I've had time to review their work, I see it was only the "beans" that were shaved. This puts the surrounding hair growth at a peculiar piece of the design. As she finished, she told me that she would call in the doctor.

He came in and talked me through everything. He started with my right side. This makes me think he's a lefty. When his discussion on how things were going got too visual, I asked him to change the subject. We talked about the last episode of the Office. We talked about the Brewers. We talked about his love life (ps, Susie: His girlfriend is moving to Madison soon, so now's your time to make your move). He went to the left side and things got more real. And he wanted to talk about how that "always seems to happen." I, again, asked to change the conversation.

I made no quarrel with what was happening and I suddenly became in control of what was happening. I tried to subside the anguish by singing to myself. Then I sang a little bit out loud as he made genuine visual examples, "We're making the incision..."

"Jo--June--Johnny." Captain Beefheart was there somewhere, "Harry Irene. Fell apart at the seams." But it came out in hums. Where's that valium? Where did it go? I was giggling on the drive here. What happened?

They finished. The doctor left and gave me a bag of goods and some instructions. The nurse told me to sit up slowly after she left. And she told me that after I got dressed, she'll come back in and talk to me.

I iced the crap out of my beans. There's supposed to be so much humor in it but there's something sad about it.

They attached a sling to the beans. It had a gauze pad that helped with the scarring.

Don't Let Go

Franny gets a book for just about every gift-giving holiday. We're those-types-of-parents who like to get educational gifts just as much as the action figures and play sets. About six years ago, we were in Williamsport for Christmas. Franny got the book "Don't Let Go". It's just about the sappiest twenty or so pages that tell the story of one father teaching his daughter how to ride a bike.

Near the end, the daughter tells her father "Don't let go!" But he has to let go in order to help learn to ride a two-wheeler.

I was lucky enough to see my father reading this book to my daughter before he passed away. He had trouble getting through parts of the book. He felt himself getting emotional and skipped over the parts that would make himself well up. While Franny sat on his lap, her acquaintance with this book was making her curious why he wasn't reading parts. She was completely still and looked to me in wonder why so many parts were being skipped.

Dad tried to bite his tongue and skip over the parts where the father had to let go of the little girl's bike. They eventually got through the book--probably quicker than Franny would have preferred.

He passed away four years ago.

I miss you Dad. Franny does too. Even if you skip reading the best parts of the books.

Jobs

Every now and then, my wife takes off for business trips that last weeks at a time.

Currently, she's gone for ten days on business. It typically happens every year either this time or during the month of May. She's travels to the Far East. What she does, I have no idea. She could be building trains with vendors for all I know. Of course, if it were that easy to explain, then I would grasp it and I wouldn't have this mystery surrounding her trips. It has something to do with inspecting conditions & samples from vendors who manufacture their clothing.

In turn, I'm flying solo with the kids. It seems to be going fine. The anticipation of it usually bugs me more than anything else.

When she leaves, I can finally get to work helping the kids out. Homework, food and television are usually the primary colors of our daily rainbow. But it's incredibly tiring. I walk from task to task with these kids.

I get up shower, make lunch, make a pot of coffee, Ian wakes up, I give him milk, watch "Go, Diego, Go" then "Dora" three minutes later, then "Cars" five minutes later, then Franny wakes up. He sits with her and I go get him an outfit. Do you get the idea?

My responsiblities are packed in fairly tightly. I walk from one job to another. I believe that I get down time at about 8:00 or 8:30 when Ian's in bed and Franny's watching something like "How It's Made". I'm pretty pooped and work on my third beer and some dinner.

When I'm put to task like this, I think of two things: "I can't believe that single parents do this." and "I can't believe single parents aren't allowed to legally use marijuana." It's easy for me to effort through ten days of this hectic lifestyle, but hundreds of thousands do it with (what seems like) no end in sight.

We have to get out of the house. I need to make a grocery store run. I think we need more beer.