Back in the Saddle Again... 2) Catching Up

  So now, we roll ahead to 2017 and my long-unseen Dad #1. He would come over from 45 minutes away and we'd drive around town, looking at places he hadn't seen in decades...there was a Winn-Dixie here...our family owned and operated this dairy...climbed that tree in the 1940s. Drove past my grandparents' house; he died in 1977, she in 2000.

  I did some house math at one point and learned that we'd lived 9 blocks from them for a few months. In our present house, had I known of them, I could have spent some time with my grandfather before his end and two whole decades with my grandmother.

  "Out of sight, out of mind" doesn't really help, there.

  Past some of our former homes...this shopping center used to be a pecan orchard...so-and-so family owned everything north of thius road (and so-and-so-road is named for them)...he arrested Black folks in this neighborhood, hookers in that one...in one visit, I met a step-sister I couldn't remember. We went to most of the local cemetaries so he could visit old friends and relatives, more people I didn't know anymore, if I ever did. As we wound up the ride, he'd head for the local scrap recycler to offload a bunch of beer cans--and he'd split the takings with me. From there, we hit lunch at Po'Folks, every single time.

  Being around him was just like at the various schools; I was the New Kid again, outside. Even more so, since it looks like most of the family on his grandmother's side are right-wing fundies, orange-boy supporters. They all go to the same local megachurch. Outside more for the family stuff, not being the token liberal in most social groups. I'm used to that.

  Hell, both my exes are/were conservative--and so was the one woman at a former job who showed some interest in me. I kept things friendly, since there's no way I'm getting stuck with another wingnut. Apparently that's all there are, hereabouts. Single is much quieter. Peaceful.

  Father #1 was like that--scump supporter, at least. Not particularly fundie. Definitely racist, though. At one of those Po'Folks lunches, he did the look-around white folks do when they're going to say something racist: "I'm just glad they didn't elect that"--look around--"n***er," when we were discussing the recent gubernatorial elections that put a wannabe nazi into power. Funny how he was a cop, but he's okay with mobsters in power.

  Lost touch with him when Covid came around, after January 2020. Learned a few months ago that he died nearly a year ago. I didn't know him well enough with the handful of visits, a few hours at a time, to miss him. "Out of sight, out of mind" strikes again.

Back in the Saddle Again... 1) Catching Up.

   Some cobwebs in here, but those will clean up easy.

  So...when I left off, I was about to meet my long-estranged adoptive father.

  

What I know:

  My mother married him for the first of FOUR times in April 1967; they adopted me in September.

  Last divorce was April 1973; she bailed that last time with me and my sister, and I never saw him again until 2017. I never saw ANY of his side of the family--both grandparents, whatever extended family...all gone. She stripped all the photo albums and memories--even my name. I'd been named for Richard--a "Junior"--and nicknamed "Little Charlie." Bleah.

  Knowing as little as I do about Richard, I can guess he was an asshole of some sort. Mom wasn't exactly Princess Peaches, herself. But he must have done something to drive her to strip him out of everything, right down to my freaking name. I remember taking several days to choose what I wanted it to be--and I distinctly remember wanting to be "Keven," because I was seven and they would have the visual rhyme. My dumbass sister said I couldn't because she didn't like the "misspelling."

  No idea how I ended up with "Jody." Fifty years on, I still don't like it. But I picked it.

  Sure as hell not going to revert to freaking Charlie.

  So Mom remarried, now to Husband #4, two weeks after that last divorce. Apprently this one took and her 6 previous weddings/divorces collected dust. They stayed together till death did they part. Tons and tons of pictures--but never in those old photo albums.

  Dad #2--"The Old Man"--became "New Dad," for a while. I can't say I knew any different or even thought much about my previous life, since I get very "out of sight, out of mind" very quickly. An email correspondent goes dark...I might be months or years along before I remember and think to go looking. That's actually helped me in the past--and may even be an adaptation I made to adjust to this new life.

  We had quite the migratory lifestyle, we three families. By the time of that last divorce, we left Richard at house #5. Five houses in 6 years. I began First Grade in House #6, an apartment in West Palm Beach. I walked to school.

  The house I own today--inherited--was #14. We moved here the day after Christmas: I started the second half of Fourth Grade in a completely new town, new school, new kid. I walked to school.

  NINE. Nine houses in three and a half years--just think of all those friends left behind. "Out of sight, out of mind" becomes a blessing. I don't know what the deal was. Maybe the two of them were running scams, just packed up and bailed i there was a whiff untoward. The Old Man had a criminal past. Funny that Mom left a cop for him. hahahahahaha!

Part 2 posting...soon.

Road Trip: Vinyl Fever

My first official act of 2018: made a store run with a vinyl tablecloth frozen to the roof of my car.

I'm betting none of you can say that.

Why? The car's sunroof leaks. I've been using a canvas tarp to cover it when it rains...BUT...if it rains hard or long enough, the canvas gets saturated with water and basically lets it through--and the sunroof leaks anyway.

So I got the vinyl to lay under the tarp. It's got a fleece lining so the vinyl doesn't slip. When I covered the car yesterday, it had already been drizzling. Wet roof, now close to freezing, and now there's a plastic tablecloth frozen to the car.

Stupid thing stayed there all the way to the store and back. I had to pry it loose from the windshield and fold that one little section back, but other than having it flapping like an idiot flag all the way there and back, the tablecloth didn't budge. No way I'm going to try peeling it off. With my luck, it'd take the paint with it.

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Addendum:
Looks like the thing's staying frozen until at least tomorrow. It barely broke 33, is already 32 again just at dusk.

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Jan. 2: Still there. At least now it's 41F. But at least my interior stayed dry.

Fun With your CPAP...

It's forcing a constant stream of air into your nose.

You quickly learn to close the soft palate at the back of your mouth.

If you don't do that and your mouth is closed, you get a mouthful of air and look like Dizzy Gillespie blowing his horn.

If your mouth is open, the air just comes out there (path of least resistance). This is why people who sleep and/or breathe through their mouth get a different mask from the "elephant" one I got.

Here's the fun: if you know how to play trumpet or other brass instruments, you know how to "buzz" your lips together. With a CPAP, you get infinite sustain on that note!

If you know how to whistle, you don't even have to blow. Just put your lips together and let the ol' Snortmaster 3000 do it for you! Look Out, Roger Whittaker!

It's low pressure air, so you're not going to be very loud.

But the techs who look at your machine's data stream later might tattle to your doctor about you not breathing properly while you sleep.

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Something to keep in mind: careful where you put the machine. It "breathes" the same air you do. So if you have it in, say, a bad spot near your bed and you (for example) break wind, that stupid thing will draw it in, filter it, and blow it up your damn nose.

Funny-not funny.

Fujimi's 1:24 Escudo 3-door hardtop.

Suzuki's Escudo is also known as the Vitara, Sidekick, and Geo/Chevy Tracker.

$22.61, free shipping from Japan, via Amazon.

Box was kind of squashed top-to-bottom, but heavily bubble-wrapped. There's plenty of space inside the box, so no damage there.

Molded in bright fire engine red; clear headlights, windows, taillights; satin silver wheels. Rubber tires. 1 small sheet of decals (Suzuki Escudo and Vitara emblems and dashboard).

Looks like an easy build. The plastic's of good quality, not soapy looking.

Very nicely molded--no flash on the body, which is bagged separately from the main parts trees.

Low parts count. All the interior detail is in the dash (radio & other controls and dials), seats, and shifters. But there's no floor or sidewall detail at all. There's a big pit behind the back seat where the fuel tank is. If there was no center console, you'd have a gaping hole over the transmission, as well.

No engine detail. The entire interior and underbody are molded in one piece with separate suspension components.

Can be built as left- or right-hand drive--just a matter of which dash you put in. Thought that was a nice touch.

About the only moving parts are the steering and wheels, which press on with little rubber bushings so the car can roll.

4/5 for lack of engine and interior detail--but only the one point off because I knew what I was getting ahead of time. A few hours with some sheet styrene and felt can take care of the lack of interior detail. Adding something like an engine compartment and opening hood would be much more ambitious than I'm prepared to be.

I do plan to paint it to match my own Tracker, inside and out. Too bad the kit's not a convertible.

Signal Transmitted, Message Received...

Things that are weird:
 --Meeting the first man you called "dad" for the first time in 44 years.

--Learning that your mother up and fucked off to Palm Beach with her boyfriend in 1972, taking the kids and whatever she could carry, while that man--her husband--was attending training in Georgia for Church's Chicken.
...and 2 weeks to the day after the divorce was final, she married Boyfriend.

--learning that she screwed him out of $10,000 by typing her own name into a deed for 40 acres of land deeded by his parents to him.

--learning that you've got a plot of several relatives in the cemetery down the street. One of them is his grandmother. I have a picture of her and my mother, with an infant me in mom's lap. She died the year after I was born.

Turns out my mother was a conniving bitch who sanitized everything pre-1972 out of our lives and cut my adoptive father's parents off.

This isn't really a surprise--well, the conniving part wasn't. She had a hell of a reputation in local Creek Indian  circles. Maybe I'll try to find someone willing to talk dirt up in Atmore. Bad blood with the Poarch Creek folks, something about her and some legal paperwork she did for them.


==

So. Yeah. He came over from Crestview yesterday and we sat and talked for a couple of hours or so. I showed him pictures and gave him a couple of me around the age he last saw me. I learned that he was a cop from the late 50s till 1995 (aside from those 2 years with Church's Chicken). Drove community transportation for another 21 years.

We have a lot of catching up to do.

CPAP Elephant.

I've been using one of these for the past 3 weeks. Not nearly as fun as this guy makes it look.

I got saddled with the CPAP thing after a couple of sleep studies showed me having a high rate of anomalies.

I got saddled with the sleep studies because I've been feeling exhausted. My main doc figured I wasn't sleeping enough, or not sleeping right, or whatever. He prescribed Ambien and referred me for the studies.

Screw the Ambien. I'm not having TROUBLE sleeping so much as having trouble maintaining it. Ever since Aorta Day 7 years ago, I sleep at most 3 hours at a time. Maybe I'll go back to sleep in a few hours, maybe in 12 or more. I never know, but once I'm awake I'm wired awake. I went from doing 8-9 hours overnight to "who the hell knows when?"

So. This CPAP thing is supposed to help me sleep better--hold my soft palate open in back.

So far, all it's doing is waking me up after an hour or so feeling like I'm suffocating.

"That's normal," the discussion groups all seem to say. "Stick with it."

"That's normal," the medical company's 'coach' tells me during his weekly call. "Stick with it."

"That's normal," the medical company's respiratory expert told me. "Stick with it."

When I've had all I can take and make it stop breathing at me, the little bastard machine at the other end of that elephant nozzle shows me how long it was forcing air up my snout, then shows me how this session rated against yesterday's. I've got to do a minimum 4 hours in every 24.

There's no slacking or cheating, either. It listens to my every breath and snort, writes everything down, then calls the medical company each day to tell them about it. The medical company makes up a report and sends it to Medicaid.

Nobody likes a tattletale.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I was calling this thing the "Snortmaster 3000"...now I'm leaning toward "Puffaluffagus." Or "Huffaluffagus." One of them was funny 10 minutes ago.