From the Back Porch

 

Hayter for September 1, 2024

Late night view from the Back Porch

            First off, it’s not cool out here. It’s toasty. Not burned toast, just lightly browned. There are a few mosquitoes out here, but there would be a lot more if Kay was here. Mosquitoes love that girl. They’re only moderately pleased with me. -- You? It’s hard to tell from where you’re sitting.

            I was with a friend last week who commented on how fast summer has moved along. In three more weeks, it’s over. It’ll still be hot as blue blazes, but the calendar will indicate that summer is gone. So, two months from now we may experience some coolness. Hard to say.

            I’m going to shine my flashlight on the cedar fence to your left, so you can see the passion vine. It’s lovely. Not passionately so, it’s got a lovely bloom. It’s a blue mum-looking flower that you’ve gotta see. – Beg pardon? Oh, my flashlight. Here goes. See! – Oh my word. I forgot that the blooms close up at night. I don’t know why. God seldom explains things to me. If you want to wait around, we can see tomorrow morning.

            We got some needed rain last week. Have you noticed that we’ve never heard the song “August Showers”? Three of the Hayter kids were born in August. This was before air conditioning, so Mom delivered us outdoors. I remember nothing good about my birth. I’m sure Mom was less than pleased, too.

            At the moment, three of you are wondering why I brought you out here. Well, before I share it with you, I need to make a serious point. Ready? -- I hate hearing people tell me about their dreams. -- I can handle maybe a sentence or two, but to sit through the details is impossible. In the words of Jack Nicholson from “A Few Good Men”  -- “I would rather you just said ‘thank you’, and went on your way.”

            So, with that behind us, I feel a need to tell you about a dream I had two nights ago. It had something to do with me being lost. I haven’t had that many “lost” dreams. This one had me stymied. So much so, that earlier this morning, I got online in the hope of finding a mind doctor who could explain the meaning of dreams. Right off, I found Kari Samuel, a specialist with the title “International Intuitive Counselor & Happiness Coach”. The “Happiness” part drew me right in.

            Right there on my screen, was a list of explanations for 13 different common dreams about being lost. And low and behold, I found mine: A dream about “Being lost in a shopping mall. I kid you not.

            In my dream, I was trying to find my brothers and sisters Larry, Susan, Dennis, Jill, and Big Al. We had just entered the largest shopping mall on the planet. It was spread out across the  boundaries of three bordering states – Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. No, I don’t know why, so don’t ask.

            We were in there for just a few minutes before I got lost and separated from the crew. I sensed that they walked away while I was looking for popcorn. Malls use to have places where you could get buy popped corn. Just like my siblings, the popcorn was also out of sight. I went all over that place trying to find my family. Actually, that’s an exaggeration. No way could I have walked across that mall in three hours.

            For whatever reason I hadn’t brought my cell phone with me. If they had theirs it was doing them no good. What was I to do, cross over to Indiana and ask them to page my brothers and sisters? No, what I did for the entire duration of my dream was to stop strangers and ask if they had seen a group of three relatively old guys walking along with two less-than-young ladies.   

            I’ve read that a dream has a short life. A few minutes or seconds. This one seemed to go on all night. I never knew if we accidentally got separated or if they intentionally left me. I had high hopes that Ms. Samuel could help me. Unfortunately, I didn’t care for her assessment of my situation..

Here’s some of what she wrote: “Being lost in a mall could be a sign that you need to reconsider your inner circle.  If you desperately tried to find your way out of the mall, your dream might indicate that you’re unhappy with your friend group. Your subconscious mind might be encouraging you to distance yourself from your group of friends. I don’t congregate with that many friends at the mall, so she was obviously referring to my brothers and sisters.

Regardless, I think she missed this one. The way I see it, my dream showed that I my brothers and sisters are distancing themselves from me! Over the years, we’ve definitely grown further apart. While I don’t care to ask any one of them to move in with me, I am missing the occasions when we spent time together. Now if any of them had a similar dream to mine, I would interpret it to mean that they wanted to steer clear of me. I’ve always had this feeling of inferiority. I’ll have to talk to Ms. Samuel about that. We’re on a first-name basis.

By the way, Ms. Samuel interpreted 13 different getting-lost-dreams. – Among them were getting lost in school, in town, in a haunted house, in a maze, in a crowd, in a forest, or while driving. Now as a teacher, I dreamt about being lost while trying to find my class, as well as getting lot while driving. 

            Kari’s last example of lostness had to do with me trying to find Kay, only she didn’t mention Kay by name. It matters not, because my lovely wife is always within yelling distance… which is both good and bad. With that in mind, I’d best get back in the house before I get yelled at. – Next time.          

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hayter.mark@gmail.com

A bout of gout

 

Hayter for Aug 25, 2024

“An Unexpected Shot”

You didn’t ask, but last week stunk on ice. Kay already knows about it, and she’s tired of all my whining. That leaves you, my true friend. I suggest you buckle up.

It started with my ankle. It was messing up my weekly handball games with Brad Meyer. I hadn’t twisted my ankle or kicked the door frame at night while blindly stumbling to the restroom. No, it just started hurting, and Kay mentioned it could be gout. During my latest game with Brad, the guy beat me all three games. He keeps telling me that he doesn’t play to win or lose. He only plays to exercise

For a guy who isn’t concerned about winning, he sure expresses anger when he loses a point. And, when he gets off a good shot, he gives me one of those “Oh, yeah, I’m bad!” looks.

    That’s what I was up against during last week’s games. My ankle was killing me, so I couldn’t move around much. All the while Brad is trash-talking me.

            As we were leaving the gym, I told him I wouldn’t be able to play next time because of my ankle. The klutz said, “Your ankle? What’s wrong with it.” The goober hadn’t even noticed my limp. I would’ve kicked him in the rear, but to do it, I would have to put all of my weight on my bad ankle.

            That afternoon, I made an appointment with my doctor. His nurse said I had to get my lab work done first, and see the doctor the week after. When I went for the bloodletting, the nurse did a great job. She found my vein faster than anyone who ever stuck me. I couldn’t understand a word she said, though. She sounded Kurdish. She shook her head and said several words, one of which I recognized as “high”.

            Then she showed me my blood pressure reading.  High was right. That night I got an email from my doctor’s nurse informing me to take my blood pressure multiple times each day until my visit the following week. My ankle issue was taking a back seat to my heart.

            Finally, I returned to the doctor’s office, I waited in line for a nice lady to point me to the far end of the counter where I would fill out some forms. I went in the direction she pointed and couldn’t see any forms. A nice patient sitting nearby told me that there were no forms. I had to write stuff on the computer screen with my finger. I kid you not. It took me 30 minutes to complete the forms. Had I read them, I’d still be there. And I had already given them this information over the phone when I made the appointment.

            I eventually sat back down with the rest of the waiting patients and eventually heard “Mark!” I hurried over to nurse who was propping a door open with her elbow. I followed that lady down three long narrow hallways. When we entered the last room on the left, she said “So, you’ve got kidney stones?”  I told her that I had a history of kidney stones, but none now. She assured me that I did, because it was on the form. She then said, “You are Zxstpyrqte Bukspersky aren’t you?” After telling her my name, she escorted me back to the waiting room, where I immediately heard another lady standing by the computer screen, holler “Mark!” She was holding up my insurance card which she said I had left in the camera box below the computer screen.  Every card I have except for my gym card, had been in that camera box. My health card stuck around, though.

            Eventually my name was called by a younger nurse who was very polite and had a great sense of humor. She looked at her computer screen and asked me some questions, most of which I had the answers to. She said, “Okay, I’m going for the doctor, so don’t touch anything, remove anything, or sing loudly.” She was a hoot.

            When my doctor came in he was as polite as ever. Smart as a whip… or a tack. One of those. He asked about my ankle and I told him that Kay thinks I have gout. Lo-and-behold he assured me that I did. He then looked at my blood pressure chart and told me that it was indeed high, but not life-threatening… yet. He prescribed some pills and told me they were powerful, and that I should take one at night. The pill will cause me to make at least four trips to pee. (It turned out that five trips were needed, but only four taken? Whatta night.)

            After explaining my health issues in near understandable terms, he told me he was going to give me a shot for my gout before I left. He also gave me a prescription for pills in case the gout came back.

            It was a good while later when the nurse stepped in with a vile and a needle. She said, “Which cheek do you want this in.” I told her that the doctor said that HE would give the shot.

            She said, “Well, he meant me. Look, I’ve done this many times, so lower your shorts.” I lowered the right side of my shorts. She inserted the clear liquid whatever into the hypodermic and then said, “Now, how does this thing work?” – I’m telling you, the girl was a hoot.”

            The good news is that all turned out well. My ankle had improved a bunch from the shot. And two days later, my blood pressure was way down. On top of that, I’m playing racquetball tomorrow morning, with Brad. He’s not going to know what hit him. And I’ve got to tell you, his height makes him a big target.

end

hayter.mark@gmail.com