Last night my youngest realized she had a tick stuck on her a half inch below her left earlobe. My disbelief was quickly put to rest by the sight of this little flat thing normal to her face.
After a few moments of her freaking out and us scratching and screeching around like a bunch of monkeys trying to figure out what to do we laid her down on our bed next to the light for a closer examination.
We swabbed the tick with fingernail polish remover and alcohol, but no release. We pulled at the tick with tweezers gently to tire the tick into releasing. No go. We heated the tweezers in a lighter and gently pulled at the tick. Not a chance.
A call to her grandmother produced no additional insights on how to remove the tick. Finally after enough branding and lancing the tick began to disintegrate and I succeeded in pulling it off my daughters face.
We could not find a satisfactory magnifying glass to ensure the tick had come out clean, so I swabbed the red dot on her skin with alcohol.
My wife changed the sheets on our bed while I inspected my little one's bed for ticks and pronounced it clean. I convinced my wife we could do her sheets in the morning.
* * *
My father and I have visited our plot of land out in the country several times over the last few weeks. On some of these visits we would take a chain saw and look for fire wood to bring back to Austin for our cold spells.
The best logs to cut are either up or down, but at least a year or two dead, barely starting to rot in a place or two and are not juniper/cedar. This last trip on Monday is not to get firewood, but rather a collapsible dog cage. My father drains the tractor of coolant in anticipation of the cold weather we started having yesterday while I take a landscape tool and vigorously swing it back and forth on grass to close to the yard fence to mow with the tractor.
I had brought a pair of gloves, but when I think it is about time to put them on, I notice a little bit of blood on my palm near the ring finger. I stopped work and collected a few fire worthy logs on the back porch and over by our grilling slab.
We return home and I add my few logs to the stack of wood I have nursed in anticipation of the cold weather to follow this 80 degree afternoon.
* * *
It is after 8 PM tonight and my wife asks if she can go meet a female friend who is having marital problems. The request turns into a marathon phone session instead and by the time my little one has a book in hand to read in bed, we discover the bed has no sheets thanks to the tick incident the night before.
I realize my little girl can't sleep on her bed and she can't fall asleep on our bed as that is where my wife is holed up trouble shooting her friend. The only logical place is out on the sofa in front of the fire place.
We've had a fire going since last night, but not big and roaring. I've been nursing the pile of wood up, now I nurse it down. The wood is good; it burns slow and gets by on two logs for several hours before adding a new one. Some of it may be oak, but I can't tell what the almost perfectly cylindrical stuff is.
I add a big Walt Disney mangled looking medium sized log on to two other half burned logs. The fire has a deep layer of ash. Embedded in the ash is a healthy sprinkling of coals. I wonder if the thick bed of ashes prolong the coals.
By now the lights are off and even the preteen has settled on the U-shaped sofa. There it is in the dark: ash, coals, layer number one of half burned logs and layer number two of unburned Disney log. They all glow giving a presence like a condominium set on a mountainside.
* * *
The fire means something to me beyond the campfire metaphor, the extra cold outside and the anticipated conversation people are known to have with them.
As a boy under 10, my Dad and I would go visit his brother out in the country. My Uncle lived in a shack and I slept on a cot by the fire. He had an old dog that drooled on my sleeping bag at night. I have enough of these memories that I am back there tonight with my kids next to me. But my kids are not with me there at my Uncle's. I wonder if my kids will someday want a fire in their fireplaces so they can commune with this moment.
My uncle was not a Great Man of Society at this time. But what made him great to me during those early years and visits to his ranch was that he always had something cool he wanted to show me. Whether it was how to make fake thunder, make real beer, fire a cannon, heard cattle, bale hey, drive the fence, shoot oversized guns or reload shells; he shared that with me and my Dad.
And make really cool fires that told a story by how many ashes there were, how many burned logs and unburned logs, how large the flames were and how many decks of logs there were to the fire.
* * *
So I told my kids to watch the flames of this fire tonight. There were more glowing logs and coals than flames. I asked them if they could hear the fire telling a story and if they wanted to share with the rest of us what it was.
I started first and peered into the fire. I saw a long skinny tall flame and so told a story about a tall man. Above the flame was another fatter flame venting to the upper left. The skinny flame looked off balance, so my story told of the tall man who was unhappy and went out into the world to find answers to questions he thought would make him happy. The man comes back with answers to his questions but is still not happy.
I see four little flames to the right of my tall skinny flame and explain to the kids the tall man found a wife and had four kids. My flame dies and so does my tall man who goes to heaven.
My tall skinny flame reignites and my tall man's spirit comes down to earth to visit his grown up children now. I wait for the flame to die again while I fill my story with family reunion.
I remember Little Big Man and decide to bring a rain cloud over the tall man. A drop of rain hits his face causing him to blink. My tall man's spirit decides he is a solid being again and gets on with the rest of his life with his family.
My children say the fire relates other stories with flatulence and test tubes laced throughout.
By now we are quiet and the upper deck log has caught fire. A few minutes pass and my youngest has fallen asleep. My preteen has kept vigilant watch on me waiting for me to release her from this madness so she can go to bed in her room and talk to Mommy since she didn't get to while she was on the phone troubleshooting her friend and look for clothes for tomorrow and ….
I get up to write this story, my preteen scampers away like smoke up a chimney and my fireside chat comes to an end.
After a few moments of her freaking out and us scratching and screeching around like a bunch of monkeys trying to figure out what to do we laid her down on our bed next to the light for a closer examination.
We swabbed the tick with fingernail polish remover and alcohol, but no release. We pulled at the tick with tweezers gently to tire the tick into releasing. No go. We heated the tweezers in a lighter and gently pulled at the tick. Not a chance.
A call to her grandmother produced no additional insights on how to remove the tick. Finally after enough branding and lancing the tick began to disintegrate and I succeeded in pulling it off my daughters face.
We could not find a satisfactory magnifying glass to ensure the tick had come out clean, so I swabbed the red dot on her skin with alcohol.
My wife changed the sheets on our bed while I inspected my little one's bed for ticks and pronounced it clean. I convinced my wife we could do her sheets in the morning.
* * *
My father and I have visited our plot of land out in the country several times over the last few weeks. On some of these visits we would take a chain saw and look for fire wood to bring back to Austin for our cold spells.
The best logs to cut are either up or down, but at least a year or two dead, barely starting to rot in a place or two and are not juniper/cedar. This last trip on Monday is not to get firewood, but rather a collapsible dog cage. My father drains the tractor of coolant in anticipation of the cold weather we started having yesterday while I take a landscape tool and vigorously swing it back and forth on grass to close to the yard fence to mow with the tractor.
I had brought a pair of gloves, but when I think it is about time to put them on, I notice a little bit of blood on my palm near the ring finger. I stopped work and collected a few fire worthy logs on the back porch and over by our grilling slab.
We return home and I add my few logs to the stack of wood I have nursed in anticipation of the cold weather to follow this 80 degree afternoon.
* * *
It is after 8 PM tonight and my wife asks if she can go meet a female friend who is having marital problems. The request turns into a marathon phone session instead and by the time my little one has a book in hand to read in bed, we discover the bed has no sheets thanks to the tick incident the night before.
I realize my little girl can't sleep on her bed and she can't fall asleep on our bed as that is where my wife is holed up trouble shooting her friend. The only logical place is out on the sofa in front of the fire place.
We've had a fire going since last night, but not big and roaring. I've been nursing the pile of wood up, now I nurse it down. The wood is good; it burns slow and gets by on two logs for several hours before adding a new one. Some of it may be oak, but I can't tell what the almost perfectly cylindrical stuff is.
I add a big Walt Disney mangled looking medium sized log on to two other half burned logs. The fire has a deep layer of ash. Embedded in the ash is a healthy sprinkling of coals. I wonder if the thick bed of ashes prolong the coals.
By now the lights are off and even the preteen has settled on the U-shaped sofa. There it is in the dark: ash, coals, layer number one of half burned logs and layer number two of unburned Disney log. They all glow giving a presence like a condominium set on a mountainside.
* * *
The fire means something to me beyond the campfire metaphor, the extra cold outside and the anticipated conversation people are known to have with them.
As a boy under 10, my Dad and I would go visit his brother out in the country. My Uncle lived in a shack and I slept on a cot by the fire. He had an old dog that drooled on my sleeping bag at night. I have enough of these memories that I am back there tonight with my kids next to me. But my kids are not with me there at my Uncle's. I wonder if my kids will someday want a fire in their fireplaces so they can commune with this moment.
My uncle was not a Great Man of Society at this time. But what made him great to me during those early years and visits to his ranch was that he always had something cool he wanted to show me. Whether it was how to make fake thunder, make real beer, fire a cannon, heard cattle, bale hey, drive the fence, shoot oversized guns or reload shells; he shared that with me and my Dad.
And make really cool fires that told a story by how many ashes there were, how many burned logs and unburned logs, how large the flames were and how many decks of logs there were to the fire.
* * *
So I told my kids to watch the flames of this fire tonight. There were more glowing logs and coals than flames. I asked them if they could hear the fire telling a story and if they wanted to share with the rest of us what it was.
I started first and peered into the fire. I saw a long skinny tall flame and so told a story about a tall man. Above the flame was another fatter flame venting to the upper left. The skinny flame looked off balance, so my story told of the tall man who was unhappy and went out into the world to find answers to questions he thought would make him happy. The man comes back with answers to his questions but is still not happy.
I see four little flames to the right of my tall skinny flame and explain to the kids the tall man found a wife and had four kids. My flame dies and so does my tall man who goes to heaven.
My tall skinny flame reignites and my tall man's spirit comes down to earth to visit his grown up children now. I wait for the flame to die again while I fill my story with family reunion.
I remember Little Big Man and decide to bring a rain cloud over the tall man. A drop of rain hits his face causing him to blink. My tall man's spirit decides he is a solid being again and gets on with the rest of his life with his family.
My children say the fire relates other stories with flatulence and test tubes laced throughout.
By now we are quiet and the upper deck log has caught fire. A few minutes pass and my youngest has fallen asleep. My preteen has kept vigilant watch on me waiting for me to release her from this madness so she can go to bed in her room and talk to Mommy since she didn't get to while she was on the phone troubleshooting her friend and look for clothes for tomorrow and ….
I get up to write this story, my preteen scampers away like smoke up a chimney and my fireside chat comes to an end.
