• As I wait for the beekeeper

    I came home early from work today – it was a gotta go situation. I was giving a training for a small group of volunteers doing a workshop this weekend and I was starting to lose my voice. My boss was in the group, and when I appeared in his office afterwards he simply said, “bye.”

    I was at home sleeping, giving my body more energy to fight off invasion, when a familiar buzz woke me. It was the kind of buzz familiar to our race for many generations – likely thousands of years. It was the kind of buzz there may even be an evolutionary advantage to working as a fail-safe alarm clock.

    There was a bee in the house.

    I killed it and lay back down.

    There was another bee in the house.

    I killed it and lay back down.

    There was another bee in the house.

    I looked out the window.

    There was a swarm on the other side.

    “Holy crap!” Was my first thought.

    “How the f— are they getting in here?” Was my second.

    I went outside, near the window where I saw the bees. They were swarming near the electric meter.

    “Click” That was my brain, as the gears snapped into place. Does your’s make noises like that? Maybe I should have mine checked.

    It’s probably not a big surprise, but that’s where the electricity comes into the house. It’s where the main breaker is inside the house (in our laundry room), on the other side of the wall. It’s on the other side of a door from the window where the bees kept appearing.

    So I went back inside and slowly cracked open the laundry room door… and found A LOT MORE BEES.

    SHIT.

    That’s when I called our exterminator.

    “I’ve got a problem with bees in our house.”

    What kind of bees?

    “They look like honeybees.”

    They’re good for the environment. We can’t exterminate honeybees. You’ll have to find a beekeeper.

    “Do you know where I can find a beekeeper?”

    Check the Yellow Pages.

    “You’re kidding, right?”

    No. I’m not kidding.

    Since we don’t get a phone book anymore, I pulled up Superpages online.

    The first number I called was disconnected.

    The second number I called went straight to an anonymous voicemail (no greeting, just the operator reciting the phone number). I didn’t leave a message.

    The third listing had a web address.

    “Oooo, now we’re getting somewhere! Why didn’t I check these folks out first?” This time I actually got an honest to goodness human being. I was so shocked I forgot why I was calling.

    “What is it you guys do again?”

    Are you ok sir?

    “Never mind. I’m having a problem with bees… honeybees in the house.”

    Long story short, I made an appointment for this evening with a licensed wildlife expert to safely relocate our honeybees… unless they were the Africanized variety – in which case they would exterminate them (and I would curse Terminix for their apparent cowardice).

    Then I called Cheryl with the news, and she freaked out even more than I thought. You see she’s allergic to bee stings, so I knew that would freak her out. But I committed what turns out was tantamount to a mortal sin by not committing the guy’s name to memory (I’m terrible with names).

    There’s a professional relationship I can’t explain involving multiple stints in jail – with a dude who was a beekeeper (and just so you know, it was the beekeeper who served time in the pokey).

    So Cheryl was a little nervous being around for several reasons.

    As it turns out we’d planned to go to Orlando this weekend to stay at my sister’s place, in part to go to a birthday party. So Cheryl packed the kid’s stuff a day early, albeit in grocery bags, since the luggage was in the bee’s room at the moment, and headed over to her parent’s place to spend the night. Only now I’m not sure I’m going – you know, the whole sick thing. Then there’s poor Beth. She’s been moaning about wanting to throw-up for the last few hours, so who knows what her status will be.

    This has been a classic evening, and I’m still here. Sick. Waiting for the beekeeper – and possible ex-felon. Come on, how unlikely is that last sentence? No matter what side of the fence you’re sitting on, that’s gotta make you chuckle a little, right?

    …and he just called. The bees in St. Petersburg (the other end of the county, an hour’s drive away, at sundown) are keeping him longer than expected. He thinks it would be best to reschedule for the morning, when the bees would be more active.

    It doesn’t matter much to me. I figured I’d be home sick anyway.

    Bees! Go to your room!

  • Guilt, meet thy maker

    A while back I wrote about a call I received in court on a really bad day. It invovled mistaken identities, my mother, and the possibility of cancer. If you recall, there was an instant when I was relieved it was my mother – because it meant it wasn’t my wife. I’d made a choice, consciously or not, and it made me feel terrible. We all make them. I don’t think we can help ourselves. I think my guilt came not just from realizing I’d made it, but from letting it be known.

    So what did I do then? I recounted my mistake online for the masses dozens handfull reading my blog.

    Ah, but you’re my therapy, and the price is right.

    The last post I briefly discussed root causes. Today’s (wild ass guess at a) root cause* is lithium toxicity. My mother took lithium to treat bi-polar disorder for 20+ years. A little more than three years ago, right before I was diagnosed with leukemia and my dad had a little trouble with his heart again, doctors detected partial renal failure/deficiency in my mother. This was (partially) a product of the damage the lithium did to my mother’s kidneys over the years.

    In hindsight, I wonder if the anxiety of this news led her mind, on top of everything else, to its rapid decline that summer/fall. From what I know of renal failure, it’s not something your kidneys ever recover – it’s a downward slope. The only question is: how steep?

    Well, that was three years ago, and while her mind has improved (relative to a year ago) her kindeys have not. She seemed to be getting along, though none of us (her kids) knew exactly what her kidney function was. It’s not something we ever though to bring up, and I honestly don’t think she’d have known anyway. That’s what the drugs and a two year break from reality do to you.

    Well, I’ve led you to the dot. Have you connected it to it’s friends yet?

    That call about the suspected tumor? I found out two weeks ago it’s in one of her kidneys. What’s worse, it’s in the better functioning of the two.

    Better is a relative term. The ultrasound report suggests both are seriously atrophied. The nephrologist in the family was a little shocked.

    I don’t have a lot if hard facts to go on, but my sister is the aforementioned nephrologist, and I have a poor man’s background in pyschology. Pooling those resources with the facts we do know makes me worry the prognosis is not good.

    Mom’s mind has shown some signs of regression, though it’s still a long way from where it was a year or two ago. I just hope it stays that way if they confirm a cancer diagnosis. Or if they have to remove too much of her “good” kidney. Or if she has to start dialysis. Or if she has to be hospitalized at all.

    I fear fragile doesn’t begin to explain what she is, physically or mentally.

    I know. One thing at a time, John. One thing at a time.

    – – –

    *I don’t mean to imply lithium caused the cancer – or even directly caused her poor mental health. I only wonder if its known toxic effects led to a domino effect starting with her kidney failure three years ago… to mental breakdown… to institutionalization.

  • Trial, tribulation, and error

    A few weeks ago, heresy showed it’s ugly face in the Kauffman household. Evil found a foothold in one of my vulnerable children. By now you know that when I speak of heresy I’m speaking of one thing: computers. Beth asked for a cheap Windows laptop.

    In the name of Jobs, The Woz, and The Lost Partner, I beseech you: where have I gone wrong?

    Because my parents were over at the time, my dad in particular, the collective shudder was almost enough to bring down the roof, bringing this insanity to a tragic end.

    This has nothing to do with Windows, evil, or my family… but I find it amusing so I had to find a way to work it into the post. There’s a buzz word at my office – one of several steadying the rungs of the mythical ladder to Tally (if you have to ask, you ain’t getting there). The one that comes to mind is: root cause. Say it again: root cause. Don’t you feel smarter just saying it? All right, it’s really two words, so maybe you just feel silly, not to mention you’re talking to your computer again. You should probably see someone about that. But back to root cause: it is one concept. Applying the problem solving skills taught in offices around the world (and yet come naturally to our species as early as the pre-pubescent years), I sought to get to the bottom of this Windows virus before it got started. It turned out it was worse than I thought.

    Beth infected my son too.

    Both of them were obsessed with the idea of playing an online game created by Sony Entertainment called: Free Realms. This game only runs on PCs running Windows.

    And before you ask, the answer is yes – the name itself is a sick, twisted joke. Entrance is free, but there are opportunities to spend once you’re inside.

    Back to Windows, and computers in general.

    Kids don’t always understand elegance, and when they do, sometimes they don’t particularly care. They don’t understand how little time daddy spends maintaining our relatively large family network of computers (none, not counting the voluntary tinkering – with more PCs than people), compared to other daddies. They don’t truly understand what the word “crash” can mean. They don’t know what a virus, worm, or malware is. They don’t know what Internet security software is.

    Well, if you recall, a few posts back I contemplated a world where me and Beth shared an iPad an my MacBook. This presented an interesting test run. My MB runs Windows Vista in the latest version of Parallels (v5).

    Vista may have been the dumbest software descision of my life (I shoulda had an XP!), but I needed something do the occasional bit of work at home and Vista gets it done (if painfully).

    With a devious grin, I unleashed my kids on Vista – or was that the other way around? Right off the bat: “dad, what is Kaspersky, and what are virus definitions?” Then of course: “dad, Windows says it wants to restart to finish installing important updates. I hardly had time to get started yet.”

    I’ll bet there are a few Windows appologists out there convinced I haven’t booted their ‘ole pal Vista since the install – thus the delays. They’d be wrong. I’d had it up the day before – with the software and definitions up to date.

    Next, of course, we had to install Flash. Always Flash. Then there was a Sony browser plugin. Then there was an executable file from Sony.

    It took us half an hour to get Windows set up to play a web based game. I think THAT should be in the Windows 7 ads.

    I was setting up my laptop for my kids to play a simple web based game and it took me a freaking half an hour. So I sent the old Bald Ballmer an email telling him they oughta fix that. So yeah, Windows 7 was my idea.

    Of course, for all I know Windows 7 could be an abomination worse than Windows 3.x – I’ve never seen it. So maybe it’s not my idea after all.

    Here’s the best part. Although I’ve muddled through Vista relatively unscathed, it’s crashed – hard – beyond the three finger salute hard (control-alt-delete), every time the kids played their game. It’s never crashed right away, so they get a chance to play for a while – enough so they want to play again – and live through another crash.

    Cheryl keeps saying they’re not going to be allowed to play on dad’s MacBook anymore, but I disagree.

    Oh, how I disagree!

    I think this is a great opportunity to learn a lesson in life, to learn how the harsh, real world works. It’s a time when very little is at stake, and there’s little to loose. Is it probably the game? Of course it’s probably the game. But what happened to Microsoft being so far ahead of Apple when it came to single apps crashing and not bringing down the whole system?

    So my simple response to Cheryl is no. I’m going to give them Vista every time they ask for it, and let them see it for the ugly piece of software it is. Then they’ll know.

    Windows bad. Mac good.

    Get a Mac.

    – – –

    UPDATE: since I started writing this post a few days ago, the kids have stopped asking about Free Realms and Windows. They haven’t moved on to new games either. They went back to the old web games that worked – on the Mac. As for myself, I’m actually considering throwing good money after bad – buying 7. Lord help me, for I am about to sin.