One Wedding and a (Narrowly Missed) Funeral, part 1

This is going to be a long post, so people with a short attention span beware.  I’ll split it up into two posts, but they will each still be pretty long.  The reason is twofold.  The first being the fact that it has been nearly three months since my last post and the second is the sheer volume of happenings that occurred in said timeframe.

To begin, my sister-in-law, Octavia, and her fiance, Jason, got married in mid-October.  My wife and I were both in the wedding party, as were our good friends Amanda, Adra, and Chris.  So we all drove down to Burnet, TX to spend the weekend at The Avonne, which is a part of Log Country Cove.  This place was absolutely breathtaking!  It was a huge, beautiful cabin right on the water.  We had a private beach, pool, and outdoor hot tub.  It even had a private sauna house.  The weather was perfect, and most of us spent our days in the pool and our nights in the hot tub.  Of course there was plenty of alcohol consumption taking place as well.  We arrived on Friday afternoon, unpacked our stuff, and went into town for dinner and supplies.  When all ten of us walked in that liquor store, the clerk’s eyes lit up like he had just won the lottery.  He was pushing anything he could on us, and we definitely bought our fair share of supplies.  Then we all ate at a little home-cooking style restaurant that apparently has been visited many times by some celebrities including Willie Nelson, Pat Green, and Chuck Norris.  The food was pretty good, and we all had a good time.  Afterwards, we all went back to the cabin, and most of us proceeded to the hot tub where we stayed until well past midnight.  Speaking of midnight, because we were so far away from any big cities, the night sky was more beautiful than I had ever seen it.  You could see every star with crystal clear precision and they looked like they were about one hundred feet away instead of thousands of miles.  On Saturday, I woke up before everyone else and poured myself some juice because I don’t drink coffee, and went outside to the deck to enjoy the country morning.  I saw a blue heron out in the water, standing on a fountain head which was turned off at the time.  I went inside to get my camera, but as soon as I got to the gate to go down to the water, it flew away and I never saw it again until the last day we were there.  So instead I took pictures of the cabin and surrounding area, and then finished my juice alone on the deck with the morning breeze and sounds of nature all around.  Of course, this didn’t last long as the other guests began to wake up and the ladies were nice enough to make breakfast.  It  should be noted that this was Texas/OU weekend, which is normally a HUGE deal for me, but I was having such an awesome time, I didn’t even make it to halftime before I was outside enjoying the pool and we grilled up some hot dogs and brats on the poolside grill.  With the wedding being the following day,  a lot of the guests began to show up throughout the day, with each one commenting on the beauty of our cabin and grounds.  So, we took a break from the water activities to mingle with the visitors, and after they all headed back to their hotels, we logged more time in the hot tub until the late hours.  The next day was Sunday, the wedding day, and tons more guests showed up.  It was a busy day, with everyone hustling and bustling to make sure everything was in order and the music was right, and the chairs were setup and the pool area clean and whatever else needed to be done to ensure a flawless wedding.  The wedding was nice and quick and then we all sat down to eat dinner for the reception.  Slowly, the guests began to leave, and eventually we ended up in, you guessed it, the hot tub.  We definitely got the most we could out of the hot tub.  We were planning on driving back on Monday, and letting the bride and groom have Tuesday to themselves in the cabin, but they invited us to stay with them, and who were we to turn down another night in paradise?  So on Monday, we went exploring the grounds of the entire property.  We rented paddleboats, and went down to where the lake opened up.  I took a hike around the edge of the inlet and back through the woods.  Of course, I hadn’t told anyone where I was, and they were out looking for me, but no one was mad in the end.  That final night, we logged more hours in the hot tub and went inside to play Jenga, but with alcohol as the punishment for knocking the stack down, which eventually led to quicker rounds as people started to get a little tipsy.  The next morning we packed everything up and made the trip back to civilization, much to all of our dismay.

We were home exactly two and a half days when I suddenly developed an excruciating pain in my upper abdomen.  It was one of the worst pains I’ve ever felt in my life and nothing I did gave me any relief.  So, I had my wife drive me to the E.R. around 10:00 that night where I waited to be seen until almost 6:00 the next morning.  They ran their tests and drew blood and I waited some more.  Finally around noon, they tell me it’s probably gallstones, but the tests were inconclusive.  So, they send me home with prescriptions for pain medicine and some antibiotics around 1pm.  By 3, before I could even get my prescriptions filled, I was violently throwing up. It seemed like I was puking every hour or so and after the first three times, I had run out of stomach content and was dry heaving and puking gastric juices.  This continued all night until finally, at 6 the next morning, I went back to the E.R. to find out what was going on.  Upon arrival, they checked my vitals and my oxygen level was dangerously low and my carbon dioxide level was dangerously high.  The doctor said my carbon dioxide level was so high, I should have been in a coma, or dead.  But I had been living like this so long that my body was used to it.  In a whirlwind, they hurriedly admitted me, and rushed me up to a room.  Once in the room, I dozed off, and next thing I know, they’re rushing me down to the ICU.  Apparently while sleeping, my oxygen saturation dropped down into the 40s (normal levels are 94 and up) and I suffered a mild heart attack due to lack of oxygen.  All of a sudden, I found myself with an IV, hooked up to a BiPAP machine, and a nurse sticking a catheter in me.  I stayed in ICU for three days and then was moved up to another floor when they determined I no longer required the ICU treatment.  Apparently what was causing all my troubles was due to sleep apnea.  While sleeping, I was deprived of oxygen, so my heart was not getting adequate oxygen and was working extra hard to pump blood.  It ended up causing liver and kidney failure which was what caused me to become so sick.  So they medicated me and made sure I had plenty of oxygen and by the sixth day, I was 95% back to normal.  I found out that I have a mild blood disorder called Beta Thalassemia which makes my red blood cell count slightly anemic.  I also have some permanent liver damage, but nothing too serious.  My kidneys were back to normal by the time I left.

I got out on the day before Halloween and was still having to take it extremely easy.  I was still having the pain in my abdomen and the pain medication wasn’t doing much for it.  On Halloween, I tried to walk the neighborhood with Rusti and the kids but it wasn’t meant to be.  At the first house, Marley was scared to death, and they hadn’t even decorated or dressed up.  By the second house, which had decorated but was very kid-friendly, it was clear she wanted nothing to do with it.  I walked her home and by the time I got there I was in pain and winded, so I sat down in the garage and waited for trick-or-treaters.  Marley went in the house and laid down with her Nana.  After Rusti had walked around the block, I caught up with her and Adam and managed a couple blocks before I had to give up and go back home. I felt bad, but they understood that I was still under the weather.  Little by little, I felt better everyday.  I even managed to start a walking regimen.  By the next Saturday, I felt fantastic.  I was feeling better than I had in a long, long time.  Then on Sunday morning, I coughed up a little blood.  Then a little more, and a little more.  Nervous because of all the crap that had been going on, I went to the E.R. for the third time in two and a half weeks.  As it turned out, I had pneumonia and they kept me another three days for monitoring and treatment.  Needless to say, I was feeling equally down in the dumps because of all of it and thankful to be alive.  I found out very quickly that I had a lot of people who care a lot about me.  More than I knew, that’s for sure.  And that’s a good thing, but I wish I didn’t have to go through all that to find out.

To be continued…

Match Point

Let me start by saying, if you haven’t already done so, read my previous blog concerning the pegasus news “Music Matchmaker” project.  I gave their music editor a list of my 6 favorite bands (Counting Crows, Pearl Jam, Fair to Midland, Metallica, The Paper Chase, and Radiohead) and she responded with a list of 6 local bands that the pegasus music staff felt would appeal to my personal tastes.  The 6 for 6 is just a coincidence, by the way, not a requirement.  So with an open mind, I sat down yesterday and did some musical soul searching via each band’s MySpace page.  So hold your breath, plug your nose, and jump in feet first with me as I go swimming in a pool of local talent and hopefully find something worthwhile to keep me afloat.

The first band on the list was Denton-based We are Villains.  This blues-influenced, garage rock band surprised me right off the bat with their oddly-titled first track “Shankin’ Hands.”  Immediately, I thought of The White Stripes with a tiny bit of similarity to Record Hop thrown in for good measure.  It was a very solid effort and I was ready for more.  The other three tracks were decent as well with “Ghost” being another standout sounding like it could’ve been lifted straight off of Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy but with simpler, yet completely sufficient lyrics.  I was pleasantly surprised with We are Villains and am looking forward to checking them out live when I get the chance.

The next band up was The Destro who, in my seven plus years immersed in the local music scene, I had heard of many times, but had, inexplicably, never had the chance to see.  I’m sure part of the reason is that they tend to play with other metal/screamo/hardcore bands and I’m really not into that scene.  Don’t let the Metallica and Fair to Midland on my favorites list fool you.  The Metallica goes back to my days as an angst-ridden middle-schooler and Fair to Midland, aside from being good friends of mine, are more art/progressive/groove metal, and I’m still hesitant to throw that word metal on there.  Nonetheless, this experiment is about finding new music, so I’m game.  Within the first five seconds of “Justifiers of Malice,” I had already decided I didn’t like The Destro.  As previously stated, I’m not really into this type of metal and its low growling vocals, but I’m trying to keep an open mind, so I continue to listen.  It actually isn’t that bad and they ended up growing on me a little bit.  They only had three songs on their page, the aforementioned “Justifiers of Malice,” as well as the tracks “Beast Burden” and “Stained Glass,” the latter of which was the standout for me.  On all three tracks, the music was extremely Pantera-esque with vocals that are reminiscent of Phil Anselmo at his deepest growling times or Frank Mullen of Suffocate.   I’m glad I continued to listen because, by the end of the three song sampling, I decided I could handle The Destro in relatively small doses, but I probably wouldn’t be attending any live shows of theirs any time soon.

The third band was The Roomsounds.  I really dug them.  Through all four tracks, their influences are blatantly staring you in the face, errr…. ears.  Their first track “Snake Oil Salesman” may as well have been written by The Strokes.  It’s a decent track, but my least favorite of the four.  The following three songs, “Young & Reckless”, “Outside This Room”, and “Counting Days” are all significantly better than the first song.  “Young & Reckless” and “Outside This Room” sound like Tom Petty when he is not trying to be Bob Dylan and the latter even has quite a bit of Oasis influence to boot.  The final track “Counting Days” draws some comparison to Augustana.  None of it comes off as disingenuous though.  They just seem to be showcasing their range which I can appreciate.  The Roomsounds is another band that I will investigate further and look forward to seeing live.

Little Big Horn was okay.  I couldn’t help but feel they just sounded like Soundgarden with less dynamic vocals and heavier, darker songs.  I thought they were decent and I could check them out, but I didn’t think they were anything spectacular.  The three songs they have available are ”Prague”, “Mountain of Pills”, and “Roachtray.”

Record Hop followed but I have been a fan of Record Hop for about 5 years now.  However, this did give me a chance to break out my cd’s and get reacquainted with them which I enjoyed.

The final band on the list was Trebuchet.  They had more songs (9) on their page than anyone else, so you figure there would be a better chance for me to find something I like.  Unfortunately, that’s not the way it worked out.  For some reason, I just could not get into them at all.  After listening to the first four songs, I realized I hadn’t even noticed that I was already on the fourth song.  There was nothing memorable about the previous three.  But I stuck it out and continued listening for the sake of being fair and wanting to give the benefit of the doubt, but my efforts were not rewarded.

Overall, I’d say this was a pretty good success.  Of the six bands that were recommended, one I was already a fan, two I really liked, two others were decent enough in their own right, and only one band did I not get into.  I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who will disagree with me and will not like the bands I liked and will love the  bands I didn’t, and that is fine.  That’s part of the reason music is so great is that it connects with you on a personal level.  There doesn’t have to be a rhyme or reason why you do or don’t like something.  It just is what it is.

Make me a match.

So, I follow the pegasusnews DFW music blog, and a couple weeks ago they issued a statement claiming that based on your musical tastes, they could set you up with a nice list of local acts that you’d probably enjoy.  An odd concept, I thought, for a blog that is probably primarily followed by people well-versed in local musicology.  So I sent an email to see what happened and lo and behold, my list was their first project, posted just today.  Below is a copy of the blog, as well as a link to the blog which contains all the links for the bands listed because I didn’t feel like coding each link in.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Musical matchmaker: Chris needs some rock
By Sarah Crisman

This is the first part in a series called Musical matchmaker, where Crisman takes your taste in music and matches it with some local love. Full details about why Crisman wants to be your musical matchmaker are here.

Our first inquiry proved to be an exciting challenge, as he is already familiar with a decent swatch of local flair. That’s the fun part of this process — there is always more music hiding around the corner. Let’s see if we can’t find Chris L. some rock:

my email to pegasus
I’m not sure how you are wanting to handle this, but I’m intrigued to see what you have to offer… I’ll go ahead and warn you that the guys who run/operate/are Gutterth are extremely good friends of mine, so I’ve got their roster covered.

My favorite bands are as follows (in order):
Counting Crows
Pearl Jam
Fair to Midland
Metallica
The Paper Chase
Radiohead

We were thrilled to see locals The Paper Chase and Fair to Midland on Chris’ roster. Since he is well-versed in Gutterth’s roster, we won’t offer up Slow Burners or RTB2 — though they came up in the Matchmaker meeting, and we decided Chis is quite likely to be familiar with both. They’re always worth a mention. The same goes for Oso Closo — Chris made a point to put Counting Crows at the top of his list, so we think he would dig Adrian Hulet’s vocals on the new album, Today is Beauty’s Birthday. We are also presuming that he has heard of Oso, being a Pegasus reader and all.

Based on Chris’ taste in heavier, progressive rock (with a fine penchant for melodic acoustics balancing things out), we found a mix of bands out of Dallas and Denton, some emerging, some well-established. We think Chris might appreciate taking these local bands for a spin:

We Are Villains
The Destro
The Room Sounds
Little Big Horn
Record Hop
Trebuchet

Chris, let us know if any of this music is news to you — and if you are into any of these bands, we’ll have done our job properly.

So that’s pretty cool.  Of course I know Record Hop and love them.  But I’m gonna check out the other bands and see how it goes.  Maybe there will be a gem.

Do not pass “Go”. Do not collect $200.

As you may have guessed, yours truly spent a little time in the pokey.  WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!  I know, I know.  You’re thinking to yourself, “But Chris, you are the epitome of excellence in character and possess all the qualities that I would bestow upon my own son.  What shameful trickery is afoot that caused you such undue hardship?” First of all, you must not have read this post.  Second of all, thank you for your kind words.  But alas, ’tis true.  My destitution finally caught up with me.  Allow me the chance to explain.

Roughly, one year ago, I decided I’d had enough of my job and decided  to quit working and go to school.  Upon doing such, my financial status took a Hurricane Katrina sized blow.  (Forgive the light-hearted analogy, but come on, it’s been 4 years!)  At around the same time, my vehicle’s registration and inspection both expired and assuming there was something wrong with my car (a long story, believe me) and not having the money to fix whatever it was, led to me not renewing either of them.  A couple months later I receive two double tickets for expired registration and expired inspection exactly fifteen days apart.  Not having the money to pay the tickets, I decide to sit on them until I am in a better financial situation.  HUGE MISTAKE.  I then receive notice that they’ve both gone to warrant with a couple “Failure to Appear”s tacked on for good measure.  Merry Christmas to me!  Literally, I found out the week before Christmas.  I had done a decent job of police car avoidance ever since, until this past Friday night.

The kids were at my aunt’s house and Rusti and I were off to a “Michael Jackson Celebration Party” which turned out to be a night of going out to eat at Razzoo’s and going back to some friends’ house to play an innuendo laden, suggestively-themed board game until about 3 a.m.  Not that I mind the adult board games, mind you, it just ended up having less to do with Michael Jackson than it was about which two celebrities you’d most like to have a threesome with, to which, thankfully, no one included Michael Jackson.  I had a couple drinks, but was not close to being drunk, and Rusti had maybe one, so there’s no way she was drunk, so she drove home as I was a little tired anyway. 

Unfortunately, I dozed off on the way home, and about three minutes from our house, I’m awakened to Rusti saying, “Chris, I’m being pulled over.”  Now, I usually don’t panic in these situations.  I can keep it cool and at least be optimistic.  However, on this particular evening/early morning, my very first thought is, “I’m going to jail.”  I’m positive they’ve run the plates and seen my warrants.  The officer gets our licenses and asks Rusti to step out and administers a very half-hearted Field Sobriety Test before coming and asking me to step out of the vehicle and proceed to the back.  Here it comes.  Every possible conversation that could take place between myself and this officer is scrolling through my head like a ticker on ESPN.  Angels 7, Rangers 9.  Astros 4, Rockies 2. Are you aware that you have warrants out for your arrest?  Yes.  more scores.   I’m gonna need to take you in.  Please place your hands behind your back. Okay.   more scores.

The next conversation pretty much went as planned.  I was allowed to spit out my gum, and give my belongings to Rusti, and then they whisked me away to Saginaw Police Department Holding Facility.  The last image I had was Rusti standing outside the car just completely ready to freak out.  All in all, things go okay.  Everyone was nice, including the judge.  Without the money to pay the fines, my only option is to sit it out.  I was going to have to sit for 10 days, but I agreed to do Work Duty which doubles your earn rate, so I would only have to serve for 5.  Then the judge says, even if they don’t have work for me to do, I’ll still earn the double rate, and she’d let me out after four.  I ended up washing some patrol cars for about 2 hours on Sunday morning and I got to go out and do public works duty for about 6 hours on Tuesday which amounted to some weedeating and sidewalk clearing with a leafblower.  Got a little sunburned but nothing too bad, and it shaved six days off my sentence, so that was awesome.  The food wasn’t anything great, or terrible really, although I did have to force down a turkey pot pie.  I HATE POT PIES!!!! yuck.  I couldn’t sleep, but there wasn’t anything to do most of the time except sleep.  But I got through it because #1 – it was necessary, #2 – it kept me from having to pay the fines, and #3 – I didn’t have a choice!  I missed the hell out of Rusti and the kids.  I cried like a baby on Saturday when I realized for the first time I was actually going to be stuck there for four days.  At least I can say I came out a better person.  I did a lot of thinking over those four days about many things of which I will not disclose, but let’s just say I have a definitive new perspective on a lot of things.  If only I didn’t trade that damn “Get Out of Jail Free” card for Baltic Avenue…….

The sun is shining. The tank is clean.

First things first.  It is f’ing HOT outside.  100° flat.  Which after you throw in this sticky, moist (I don’t know why, but that word sounds so dirty) North Texas humidity, it feels like at least 115°.  Suffice it to say, it’s the kind of outside day you don’t experience unless you have to, and luckily for me, today, I don’t.  Yesterday was bad enough although I thought I was clever.  I dropped Marley off at the baby sitter’s a little after 8 a.m. and Adam and I were going swimming.  Let me pause for a minute to inform you that this particular concrete pond belongs to the HOA down the street.  We’re basically on the same main road, but for some reason it’s split into separate housing developments by entrances.  We are Amber Meadows and they are Willow Vista (visions of rival subdivision sporting contests are now dancing through my head.  We could be the AM Radios, and they could be the WV UT’s….think about it).  The pool area is surrounded by about a five foot high iron fence and further out, the entire general area is surrounded by a very tall privacy fence and shrubbery and other things to presumably keep passersby from being able to look in and ogle any “goodies” on display.  Adjacent to the pool area is a small park with slides and a few swings that you must go through to get to the pool.  You have to have a magnetic key card or a code to get into the pool area, which of course we did not have since we do not technically live in that neighborhood.  Anyway, we got to the pool just before 8:30 and of course it’s locked up tight.  At this point, I’m considering dropping Adam over the rail to have him open it from the inside, but I turn around and there is a man out watering his lawn, not trying very hard to disguise that he is probably looking right at us to see what we are doing.  In my head, I’ve already pegged this guy as the President of the HOA.  His lawn is perfectly manicured.  He always seems to be outside doing something to ensure that his lot is the best looking lot in the neighborhood.  The kind of guy who treats his house and land like an investment rather than a comfortable home.  What I would normally call a pretentious douche-bag.  If you can’t tell, I’m not really a fan of HOA’s.   And please don’t leave a bunch of comments trying to sell me on the finer points of what an HOA is for.  I know what they’re for, and I’m aware that when managed by an adequately human individual, they can do some good, but more often than not you get some egotistical homeowner on a power trip who is under qualified and over-worried about their portfolio who memorizes the entire charter and inspects every home in the association with a white military glove for compliance.  Not my thing at all.  I digress.  So I’m sure this guy is watching us, so I play it up acting angry, making fake phone calls on my cell phone to find out the code and trying random combinations on the lock.  With each failed attempt, I act more and more frustrated until finally I just tell Adam to come with me and we go to the park.

Not five minutes later, a lady shows up with her two young grandkids, and lucky for me, they are headed to the pool!  As if on cue, Adam says, “Dad, I wanna go swimming.”  Perfect timing!  He follows the little boy over to the gate, and I go get our towels and stuff.  The lady opens the gate and asks if we are allowed to be there because in their last meeting, they “were really going to start cracking down on uninvited guests in the pool.”  I say, “Well, my wife gave me a code, but apparently it’s the wrong one because the code she gave me had a zero in it, and there’s no zero on the pad.”  Then the lady just laughs it off and lets me in.  I think I may be nominated for an Oscar® for my performance.  We end up swimming for about 3 and a half hours and had an awesome time.  Adam kept saying it was his greatest day ever.  He even was flirting with a girl who showed up a little later with two kids.  It was funny.  I got a little burned and Adam got sunburned a tiny bit right below his eyes where I forgot to cover him, but it was fun.  We were both exhausted afterwards.  Not only had we been swimming almost non-stop since 8:30, but then as we were going to leave around noon, I see the posted “POOL RULES” sign, and it says,

4.  POOL HOURS: Sunday – Thursday 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. and Friday & Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.

We were just asking to get busted, apparently.