1st Long House Story Slam!

[space]

Hi, folks...thanks for all the entries so far:  all excellent, in my eyes...

As I mentioned above to WhiteShadow, we're going to things runs a little longer.  Heck, the best thing to do with rules is shed them, pretty much.  

Don't hesitate to post more than one tale--I'm just a man who loves stories

I finally have a surgical date of 8/22.  That's gonna put me out of commission for a while, so to make sure we can wrap things up, I'll start the poll on 8/10, we can vote for a week, then announce results and ship prizes.

To be honest, I don't even think of this as a contest.  I've got a buncha stuff I'd like to give away, I'd like more folks to come 'round here at Spiritplants, and I love to swap stories.  

All my spiritbrothers and spiritsisters are winners, IMHO.

I'll update the prize list this weekend.  There will also be some surprise prizes for folks not placing in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd poll places.  

Breakin' the rules, breakin' the rules...

[judih]

the perfect comment floats along the river
and sidles up to tickle the incidentary branch
a fish caught, untangles
the river flows

(in other words, applause for storytelling, where we all come out enriched)

good luck in surgery - separate energy wave towards you towards that.

judih

(it's early morning - i'm involved in jet lagging - hence larger font)

[space]

Okay.

Time, gentlemen, ladies, time.

I will start a poll tomorrow night to determine our winners:  you have until then to add posts.

I will close the poll this coming Friday night and declare the winners, so I can pack and label prizes:  I'm going into spine surgery Monday, 8/22, and it will be a few months before I'm up and about again, so that's the longest I can wait.

Thank you, one and all.

[space]

Just checking in briefly, folks.  Tomorrow, early a.m., I head to the OR.  

I've spent most of the past week visiting family in the Badlands of Old Indiana:  love 'em all, but it's almost comical watching them try to balance 1) "Of course you'll be alright," and 2) "You have to visit--what if we never see you again?!"  

I've had a grand run, and the thought of checking out just seems okay--I'm in no hurry, mind you, but not fearful of it, either.   And the odds of an excellent surgical outcome are greatly in my favor.  

If there is an afterlife, I will crash the server at midnight  :twisted:

I should be in hospital about a week or a bit less.  I will start the poll on my return.  So if anyone still wants to post an entry, have at it.

Everyone, thanks for your patience and good wishes.

[judih]

yeah, space, you tell em

now, isn't there a senor sal in the crowd? Where are you Senor?


(senor......senor.....)

[VajraPirate]

I really hope your surgery goes well, space.

Do you have anyone around the might be able to let us know about your recovery? My heart's with ya.

Big Love.

[senorsalvia]

Sal here----   All is well----  This is the first I became aware of Sir Spaces' operation...   Sending healing vibes pronto----      sal

[JRL]

Breakfast at Epiphanies

We had an encounter with the "U Turn for Christ" troops on our vacation. We were camping family reunion style at this family type campground and as the week went by we noticed that the new campers all seemed to know each other. We kept guessing at the connection. "Dogs", I said. "Hunting dogs", my brother-in-law said. "Just from coming here year after year", someone else said.

By Thursday they were showing up in small busses, and instead of well scrubbed families, these guys all looked like they were on day passes from the halfway house. A U-Haul showed up with a huge outdoor kitchen.

The vibe was military, definitley heavy duty gung ho. Lots of yelling, ass grabbing heave ho's.

Early that night a couple of them came over to our campsites, big scary looking dude says "We checked with the ofice and they said you guys are gonna be gone tomorrow, what time do you think you will be out of the campsites. I looked at him and said 'Well by 12 noon" (check out time).
So this disciple of christ gives me a most menacing dirty look.

Next morning by 10 Am they had staked a claim on our campsites, and by 11 they were gathering in the street watching us as we leisurely ate our lunch and broke camp. We finally pulled out at 11:55. Would have been 10:15 without their pressure.

We moved into phase two of our holiday, a beach house in Guernevile, right up the road from the camp.

Next day, Saturday morning, I get up before everybody and inspired by the beauty of the redwoods I decide spend the day communing with the spirit of Albert Hoffman. I take a stroll into the heart of town, digging the redwoods, the sunshine, the amazing menagerie of people, and doing some mental re-creating.

Anyone that has been to Guerneville knows what I mean about menagerie. It's got three or four distinct populations, just living together in harmony. One is just regular folks, typical small town california, quite few old hippies, a bunch of obvious meth heads and hard core pot farmers, tourists, and what Guerneville is most famous for, gays.

So I am sauntering back to the house and I see this guy, from the campsite across from us, big loud mouth older guy, I remembered him cause he had the same name as me, Uncle Joe. He comes up to me hands empty, dressed like a beach user/rafter and says, "hey can I ask you something?" I don't think he recognized me. I say with trepidation "yes?"
He reached into his filthy shorts and pulls out a New Testament. I say no thanks and walk away. I look around and realize that there are 10 or more of the dudes from the campground out doing the same thing!

U turn! Now I see they are thinking their religion is gonna save these gay people from all the happiness I see in them just walking proud and free in the town.

I continue on my way and come to this little tiny one room church, nestled in a redwood grove. For some reason the door is open, but no one is around. I look inside at the stark formality of the pews and pulpit and realize that what the xtians do is try to hold G-d in their hands, try to claim ownership of spirit. It's like that kind majik where you make it look like you created what was gonna happen any way. Like Kesey sneezing lightning, or Bob Weir stopping the rain.

I said to myself, man if you wanna see god, step out of that shack and look up. The wonderous majesty of the universe is in full manifestation in the forest, can't they see it?

I was gonna offer to try their religon if one of them would try mine, but I looked at my dwindling material and said, "Why cast pearls before swine?"

Jesus, protect me from your followers!

[judih]

it seems to me that any cosmic understanding can be reduced to a cube of tactile merchandise if that's what a person wants to do.

Take the infinite and frame it, starch it and hang it on your wall (or around your neck) and then call it by name - that's the way to deal with the incomprehensible - make it tick for a limited mindframe.

Is this not what organized religion or other cults do to the wild and endless face of things?

good story, there, jrl

judih

[senorsalvia]

Is this not what organized religion or other cults do to the wild and endless face of things?


judih

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------         Another great line from our sis :!:     --------------  Keep 'em comin :wink: ---------------- sal

[space]

haack, etc.

All is well.  I'm home early, surgery was a bang up success, surgeon smiling like the Cheshire Cat:  I feel like a well trussed roast.

Poll goes up tomorrow.

Now where's the rest of those precious percocets?...oblivion, here I come...

[judih]

cheshire cat euphoria sounds like a reasonable post-op response.
stitched up with nowhere to go? pass the pills and hope that oprah's on holiday.

welcome back to recovery land, space

[laughingwillow]

LOL Glad to see you made it through brotha space.

Pop a percocet
watch Orca loll on the beach
baster lombada!

lw

[senorsalvia]

-------- -------  Great to hear of the surgical success......  Be resolutely responsible now bruddah; no more than 3-4 times the recommended dosage :wink: ------------ sal

[space]

Be resolutely responsible now bruddah; no more than 3-4 times the recommended dosage  ------------ sal

 :mrgreen:

Yeah, 1-2 tablets every 4-6 hours as needed my ass!  Howzabouty 3 tablets every 3 hours with just a sip of 40 year old Wild Turkey Bourbon (saved for the occasion)?

You'll like this one, sal.  The day before my discharge, the surgical resident of the day stops by to say he's filling out the discharge paperwork, scrips, etc.  My beehive busy brain, familiar with hospital routine, suggests that if he gives my wife the scrips now, we won't have to stop on the way home the next day to fill them.  "Great idea!" he says.

Next day, the surgical resident for that day stops by, says, "Here's your paperwork--I see that Dr. Yesterday forgot to write your scrips."  Lo and behold! Another set of scrips!  Hee hee.  

Shame you have to work the system to get adequate pain relief.  The DEA has docs so scared about narcotic  scrips...  "Hmmm.  You are dying in terrible pain, but if I give you enough narcotic  to make you comfortable, the DEA might investigate me...sorry."  Buncha crap.  

I had a similar experience many years ago in the burn ward.  They dosed me pretty good with morphine on admission [well enough that I looked around the emergency room at all the docs, nurses, family and friends, and quipped, "I suppose you're wondering why I called you all here."], but I woke in the night in bad shape.  When I buzzed the nurse and told her I needed something for pain, she replied, "I'm sorry Mr. Space, but you're oversedated now."

Giving her my best Jack Nicholson grin-snarl, I reached up with my burnt, greasy fried chicken hand, seized her shoulder, pulled her close and asked, "Do I look oversedated to you, lady?!"  Worked like a charm.  The "Do I look oversedated to you?" became a treasured family refrain.

Needless to say, I'm feeling no pain right now, and I can already tell that the pressure on my spinal cord and nerve roots was released by the surgery.  

I'm trying to establish contact with the mojo bones grafted into my neck, but so far no reply.  I'm torn between hoping they came from some exotic cadaver of color, so Mr. Space can be just a little more funky, or from an authentic redneck, so I can scandalize 'em.

Sometime today, when the pharmaceutical mix is just right, I'll work on setting up the poll.