"Chaos and the Axis of Evil"

"The Beast" has emerged from hiding and declared his new moniker to be "Chaos" and his two accomplices are now referred to as his "Axis of Parental Evil" or APE. Their latest ploy has been massive synchronized bowel movements that we parents have dubbed APE-shit. Knowing more about them has raised my fear level to new highs. Chaos' heir apparent was recruited from the Korea's "Special Parental International Terrorist" organization more commonly called SPIT. They seem to be well synchronized in their late night assaults on the hapless parental units that hopelessly try to parent them. These two have mastered the art of driving their older sisters nuts by manipulating their nerves until they run to the parents who just don't want to hear the whining. Their training bases have yet to be discovered. Though thought to be trained in a womb-like compound, the intelligence community has yet to develop any viable information on this. The third member of the tri-axial terrorist organization has been laying low on the Peninsula, the Parental Intelligence Gathering Service, known as PIGS, has concrete information that he is training a new sibling in the fine art of Parental Sleep Deprivation. Having learned my lesson after the last assault, I now lock up the Consorzio, Garlic infused Olive Oil...Extra Virgin of course. It is humiliating for all parents involved to be duped by these well trained warriors of the "Diaper Brigade". But we are "Allies Seeking Solace Soon" or ASS'S who only want the simple life of kids who are obedient and sleep through the damn night. Winning the Lottery
is looking easier every day. Studies being conducted by the "Volunteer Organization Monitoring Idgit Terrorists" have shown parental terrorism to be on the rise nationwide. VOMIT's studies have also shown that these ankle biting rugrats will stop at nothing to thoroughly disrupt parental activities. Whether it is sleep, using the restroom, cooking dinner or worse eating dinner in a public place, they will lay the embarrassment factor on like peanut butter on bread...Thick. Recently, Chaos stood up in his chair and proceeded to demonstrate his "Firengingins siren. I truly believe a real fire engine siren would have been quieter, and would not have lasted as long. VOMIT's studies have located a sleeper cell of Parental Terrorists calling themselves "Toddlers Using Reeking Diapers" who helped mastermind the last attack on me. The TURD cell is ruthless often collecting diapers from their breastfeeding compatriots whose used Huggies could drop a bull elk at 75 yards. You can only imagine how fast these weapons of parental destruction can knock a weary adult out cold instantly. Parents Out Of Patience or POOP is an organization that has banded together to fight the constant threat of being overrun by APEshit and SPIT, we admit to draggin ASS'S all over the place in an effort to utilize VOMIT in a conducive manner. PUKE, Parental Units Knowing Everything is an upstart unit that is attempting to outsmart the little boogers.....we have wished them the best of luck. These little FARTS (funny, angelic, resourceful, toddler shits) have been outwitting a host of talented, bright and educated parents for eons. Like the snake in the Harry Potter movie you never want to look one of them in the eyes...you will never be the same! This is the only known photo of "Chaos" just after he removed one of his sisters eyeballs.
Having witnessed the horror first hand the photographer is thought to have forever put down his camera and is now weaving baskets on an Indian reservation in Northern Canada. You can see the pure joy he takes in his work, just don't look at the picture too long.

Why didn't I get the memo!!

Okay, why did nobody send me the memo that the "Summer of Love" never ended and that it just moved from San Francisco to Mendocino. Took the family on little camping trip up to Mendocino hoping to get away from the hustle and bustle of the Bay Area. We get to the campground late so the check-in window is closed, which is no big deal. These guys have a regular system where if you come late you just go over to the bulletin board and find your name, grab the key(KOA Kampin Kabin) and hit the rack in your cabin. No big deal really. The only difference is since the last time we were here they hired a "night crew" to assist with the complicated check-in process(see previous sentence). As I walk to the bulletin board I hear a voice then I smell the ever
pungent smell of Mendocino's Best Green Buds. This guy was fried. It was a complicated process
but he walked me through it, since there were 5 other names on the board and he was unable to locate "Bingham" amongst them...I pointed to my name to shorten the amount of time I had to witness his lack of literacy and took the liberty of pulling the push-pin out of the paperwork as I would have felt bad if this guy got hurt doing such a menial task. Now if you know me you that there if nothing better than messing with somebody who is really stoned. Had I not had the kids in the car and had it not been so late I would have made up a name and really screwed with this guy...like insisting my was (insert name here) for 4 or 5 minutes then insist on a different name, and then give him another one, changing it ever so slightly I am sure you can understand this, start with Jones, then Jonesman, then Johnson and on to Johnston and so on. When he could not find the first name, just change it a little...he's stoned and will never know. Yes, you are thinking what an asshole...and you are right. But hey, back in the day I burned......well I burned a lot. So I know from experience how fun it is to mess with and be messed with by those that are stoned, but alas the good side of me broke through and I let this guy off the hook. So we settle into our Kabin (KOA, Kampgrounds of America, like to use "K" in place of "C") off load the kids and gear and I head for the latrine when I realize the "night crew" is pulling a late nighter in one of the Kabins. Knowing the sound of those who are "tanked" I sit and watch this spectacle for a few minutes then go about my business. Around 2:22am (yes I looked to what time it was) Kai wakes me up to go outside for a little bladder relief and as I breach the door of the Kabin I am greeted with the crisp early morning air of the outdoors and I hear the night crew still going strong across the campground.

No biggy, for they are not disturbing my peace, only my dog is. Back to the rack and at 4:15 I get the warm snout treatment again so I find my shoes and the leash to take my weak bladdered mutt outside again and there is the night crew, campfire still blazing and still partying. So I sternly tell the dog to hurry up for I am tired, cold and getting a little cranky with her for not being able to hold it for more than 2 hours at a time. We head back to the warmth of the Kabin and I am out for an hour and half when my own bladder reaches capacity and I stumble out of bed as if my gray-matter has been pickled and head for the bathroom. It is dark and daybreak is just about half an hour distant and the night crew is still going. So I take a longer look at the assembled mass of people (about 8 or 9) and I start thinking these guys could possibly be chemically assisted. We are in Mendocino County and out in the sticks. This group is somewhere between redneck and hillbilly so I automatically assume there is not a complete set of teeth amongst then (yes, i'm an asshole for being judgementel...but prove me wrong!) then I remember seeing the flyer for the "First Annual Frisbee Golf Tournament at the Manchester Beach KOA." So then I wonder if they are "Frolfers" and come 8:00am I find that most of them were. Then the throngs of "Frolfers: began inundating the place for the tournament. Well Saturday night they must have been a little wiped out for they were down by 9:30pm. But their place was taken over by a group of families celebrating a birthday for a tweener. If ever I wanted to hand out Ritalin laced candy it was Saturday. Somewhere there was a group of villages deprived for the night of their collective idiots. Now as many know Shaymus is a handful and regularly kicks my ass. "IF" he ends up anything like these kids I may have to send him off to Military School. It was an interesting weekend in the campground, never before been amongst the groups I witnessed over these 2 days.

We pack up and check out, then migrate north 30 miles to the town of Mendocino. This is where the missing memo comes into play. Apparently The "Summer of Love" never ended it just moved North to Mendocino. I have not seen this many starry-eyed duds with dreads since.......well, since the last time I walked down Haight street in the city. I really do not understand the theory behind being hopelessly dis-sheveled, homeless and  psychologically lost by choice. I must be gettin old. Oh well.

As I stated this was a family trip so the child I have now dubbed "Chaos" was with us. This was a tough trip for my little man and I felt bad for the little parental terrorist. Friday night, having never camped, slept in a bunk-bed nor slept in a sleeping bag, he crawled out of bed  in tears calling for "Mama". What he said next was a line for the ages "Mama, I'm having problems". Now it is hard not to laugh at a line like this but he was really disturbed with his new surroundings and was having "a problem". All in all it was a fun trip that as always was too short, but we came home with some good memories and a few bottles of good wine from Navarro Vineyards, which we always stop at because they sell bottled grape juice that is the best and just happens to be on the way home.

 

Looking off a bridge into the Pacific, above that is a window above the front door of Navarro Winery and to the right looking into a row of grape vines in the Anderson Valley. Further up is an old barn on the side of the road heading towards Mendocino. Kai on the lookout for any fallen food and my two little hams on the porch swing of our Kabin.

Toddler Terrorists and Parental Terrorism

It is always nice to talk to other parents who are being parentally abused by their toddlers. Shay, up and ready to party at 3am the other morning had apparently been telepathically communicating with at least two other fellow terrorists according to my sources. He, up at 3am, and his two cohorts in crime up at 4am. This coordinated attack was cunningly carried out against PTPP (parents too pooped to party) forces, troops whom were caught woefully unprepared. The assault, which was delayed until the PTPP troops had entered a deep slumber, was carried out with sniper like skills. Communications were severed, two toilets had been backed up with diapers and I was succumbed again by the old Olive Oil trick Shaymus applied upon me previously. This time he layered the "Consorzio Garlic Infused EVOO" across the top step of the stairs leading from the sleeping quarters. I was groggy, weary and looking for a missing 3 year-old I could hear upstairs. Knowing his propensity for terrorizing me I should have been forewarned but my parental instincts were telling me to search for my little twerp. I smelled it but was too groggy to subvert the trap. As I reached the top step, breaching the upstairs command center my foot slid rearward with such force I inadvertantly kicked myself in the ass and I slid, bounced and rolled down the stairs onto the landing. Indignified,
humiliated, and just plain pissed off, I could only picture myself as Joe Pesci in Home Alone. With that thought running rampant through my gray matter I began nervously looking for swinging cans of paint when the odiferous putrified aroma of a "Schitt Grenade" assaulted my senses. My little terrorist had layered diapers all over the landing I had just "splatted" onto. Drat! I hate being outwitted, especially by a 3 year-old. I cleaned up this little mess created by a person I now refer to as the "Shay-Beast," then stepped into the shower to "detox" my epidermis. Easing into a hot shower for a quick cleansing so as to continue my search the beast launched phase-two of the
assault when he managed to turn off the hot water supply.
Yelping like chihuahua that had been stepped on I fell through
the shower curtain onto the bathroom floor. Lying face down
in the bathroom twenty years after I quit drinking, once again
humiliated, I rolled onto my side to hear Shaymus say "lubby-doo daddy" and then, to add insult to injury Melanie asked "what the hell are doing on the bathroom flloor"....aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

The un-common cold

Well without fail I am sick. Shut-up to everybody who is thinking they already knew that. What I am getting at is I now have the cold Shaymus has. I knew it was coming, it was just a matter of time, what with him coughing and sneezing all over me not to mention wiping his runny nose on MY SHIRT. When he is sick he wants to be all over you which I guess most kids do, but this really sucks when you are immuno-suppressed. Since my transplant I dodge sick people like they have the plague. I have to since I no longer have a natural defense system. Shay has really been into being read to lately. Now that he is sick he really wants to just sit on my lap and have me read books to him while he coughs, sneezes, oozes and drips snot all over the place. If he were not my kid I would have chased him off with a bottle of spray bleach. But I cannot so, inevitably every time he gets sick, I get sick. So here I type with a sore throat and a stuffy, runny nose hoping this one passes quickly. What has been interesting since my transplant is that I no longer get the whopping colds that make you lay low for days on end making you think you are gonna die. I asked a fellow transplant about this and he said experienced the same "dilemma" if you will. He inquired with one of our Cardiologists at Stanford who had found that the immuno-suppressed body can develope a way of ignoring some viral threats that the body is exposed to. I have not gotten sick as often as I did prior to being transplanted nor as badly. But, I have developed a keen eye for the sick, kind of a self-defense mechanism for I know I am at a huge dis-advantage. After surgery you are "indoctrinated" on the "new do's and don'ts" of life. Your new best friend is a bottle of hand sanitizer. Public restrooms are.....well, I am sure you can figure that one on your own. I will not touch anything in a public restroom. Having a vertical advantage I will often grab the top of a door, where most cannot reach, or will often wait for someone else to open the door then use my foot to hold it open.
Immuno-suppression sucks, but it beats the alternative. I always tell people I am on the right side of the dirt and plan on keeping it that. I hated having to wear a mask when in the hospital. Since most hospitals are living, breathing germ factories they are also the worst place on the planet for a new transplant. When in the hospital I used to walk up the masked ones and ask what organ they got. Most would ask how I knew and I would point to yellow mask they were wearing then tell them I recieved a heart. With suppression if you spike a fever it means an instant trip to the ER. Fevers can be an early warning sign to rejection. Any sustained or spiked fever warrrants a call to the on-call heart failure cardiologist who will determine whether it's a run to the ER or crawling back into bed. Once, I spiked a fever and was sent packing down to Stanfords ER for what turned out to be "Hell-Night."
I get there and check in like everyone else, they just know I am coming after being notified by the cardilogist. As I sit there giving my information to the lady behind the counter she notifies a nurse that I have arrived and said nurse notifies her I had been there for over an hour. So I calmly turn to the nurse to notifiy her that I "just arrived" and had not teleported prior to my current arrival. Thus began 18hrs of sheer stupidity. It started off normally, blood draw and a chest x-ray then give an oral report of what is wrong or how I am feeling...yada, yada, yada. Being a transplant gets you a few perks in the ER, like a private room if available so as to keep the sick people away from you, but on this night once I got into my "suite" everyone seemed to have forgotten about me. I spoke with an ER doc around 4:00am. notified him that my fever had been gone for over 2 hrs. Regurgatated all the info from earlier to this doc then had one of the oddest conversations with a Stanford ER doctor...ever.
"So, you have had a tranplant?" 
"yes" 
"a heart transplant?" 
"yes" 
"and where did you have this transplant?" 
"here" 
"you had your transplant at Stanford" ( all I am thinking at this point is I got Dr. Phuckin Idiot ) 
"yes, one floor up and down the hall"  (trying to supress the sarcasm)
"okay, do you have a cardiologist?"  (duh)
"yes, Dr. Hunt" 
"ummmmmm, this Dr. Hunter" (now Dr. Phuckin Idiot cannot hear)
"DR.HUNT, SHARON HUNT (i am now speaking slow for I think he rode a little bus to med school)
"yes, Dr. Hunt, is she a cardiologist?" (no, she is my fucking proctologist)
"yes"
"here at Stanford" (so now I am about to lose it for all that I can think is that she probably wrote some of the books Dr. Phuckin Idiot had to read to get thru med-school, that she is a world renowned cardiologist, from Stanford, and Dr. Phuckin Idiot does not know her. AND to top it all off I cannot take my eyes off of these stupid ass shoes this guy is wearing. they look like some kind of 70's era italian rejects that he picked up at a garage sale.)
DEEEEP BREATH
"Yes, Dr. Hunt is a cardiologist here at Stanford
"okay, uuuummm we are waiting for your labs to come back"
"they drew the labs 5hrs ago"
"oh, well we will look into where they are"
"I have to pee, really bad"
"so when did your fever start?
"yesterday, I have to pee really bad, can I use the restroom or do you want a urine sample"
"that's a good idea, we'll get you a urinal"
so 10 minutes later I get a urinal and fill it and start buzzing the nurse for another one. She arrives and tells me she left one next to the bed and I point to the one on the floor and tell her I need another one, which leaves her astonished that someone could fill a 1 liter urinal and still have to go.
They say Shit rolls down hill and it did on this night, then morning, then afternoon. I had not been seen for about 8hrs when I got up and walked outside to call Melanie to let her know I was leaving. On my way out the door I pass a cardiologist I know and we exchange pleasantries. Unbeknownst to me he was coming down to see where I was because they were waiting for me in the Cath-Lab upstairs for over four hours and were getting no answer from the ER. I eventually end up getting a routine biopsy in the Cath-Lab, which is a welcome sight since these people know me. I go to recovery and am waiting to be released when Mark, a nurse I have had in the past tells me the Doctor who took over my case now wants to "admit me" to "release me."(WTF?????) Had it not been for Mark I would have walked out the door. The one and only debacle I ever encountered at Stanford and it was one for the ages. I need some chicken soup, my throat hurts.