I went out on my sundeck for a smoke the other morning. Sundeck? Pah. Raindeck, more like it, here, this time of year. But it was brilliant sun out there today, so maybe we'll have a few more good days, weeks before drear sets in for the winter. But, as people around here keep reassuring themselves, at least you don't have to shovel drear.

I've been smoking exclusively outside since last Christmas when my daughter went ballistic and threatened to go elsewhere if anybody ever smoked inside again. That measure alone has reduced my consumption of evil weed by close to two-thirds. Where I once consumed near a pack a day, that pack now lasts almost three days. Snuffers which allow extinguishment after only a couple of requisite puffs also help. Take note, Schmutzie.
Oh, I know I've posted before about being a Hallelujah ex-smoker, but those attempts lasted mere days, a couple of weeks at most. But I am a Halellujah reduced smoker. Three 20-cig packs a week is better and cheaper than six or seven, especially when they cost about $7.00 per pack.

So I'm out on my sun/raindeck at about 6:30 the other morning, lighting a smoke in the drizzle and dark. It's a big, lovely deck, except for that one corner where carpenter bees (wasps, hornets?) have established colonies between the deck surface and and the roofing below. I don't know why the builders of this place decided to plank the underside of the sundeck with gorgeous Cedar, too expensive to replicate now, but it wasn't a bright idea. Haven for insects, and the deck mushy in that corner.

I light up, first smoke of the day, look across the river through obscuring trees to the road a half-mile away, watch glimpses of car headlights entering from side-roads, try to figure out just where my house is situated relative to the Quarterway hotel/pub/racquet club, as I've been doing for over twenty years. Still can't quite figure it out. A bit left, a bit right, a hundred yards up or down.

As I peer through the trees and beckoning dawn, a shape wafts overhead, not twenty feet above, so close I can hear the whoosh, see the huge, broad, square wings, the trailing tip-feathers. My first instinct was "big fucking crow", but I knew immediatly that instinct wrong. Too big. Too square. Too much whoosh.

Bald eagles nest all around here, mostly on adjacent Gabriola Island, but I've never before seen a pre-dawn hunting eagle. I'd have caught a flash of white had it been a mature bald eagle, even in that pre-dawn, but there was nothing but black against almost black, and a whoosh I'd heard before just outside my open door when an eagle chased a blue heron to the water not a hundred feet away, was dragged down with it, beak emerging a minute later, then massive body, then soaked seven foot wings beating the water as it tried to take off, a hundred yards, more, wings beating unbelievable spray, barely gaining altitude as it lifted, reminding me of nothing so much as that ancient footage of Howard Hughes' massive Spruce Goose lifting, finally airborne.

I wondered what that dark overhead shape meant, that flash of black Poeing just above my vision. These things always mean something, don't they? A sign? A portent? Keep your tiny dogs and cats inside?

Three days have passed since that vision, and I now know it's meaning.

It's all about pigs. My wife's office has confirmed the first case of Swine Flu on the Island. Well...maybe not the entire Island, but at least in her workplace, which means she will eventually get it, and I, and the entire family.

I'm reminded of the Grim Reaper visiting Bergman's dinner party and the skeletal finger pointing to the seafood. "Did you leave this out for a while before you cooked it?"

Our vaccines have been left too long in bureaucratic wasteland. We were promised h1n1 vaccines by late September, early October, but excuses ranging from lab screw-ups to benign mis-timing now shovel pig-shit on prescient eagles and kids die await, and the vaccine takes three weeks to immunize after application.

In this land of plenty, ideologue government now measures health with a teaspoon.

Interesting.

Just the other day I was fishing in a spot I had just discovered, new to me, beautiful, perfect water, had it to myself. Then this massive heron takes off from quite close to me up a side channel - closest I have ever been to one. I don't think he saw me because he was lumbering up and in no hurry, heading right towards me until he finally banked off and headed downstream.

The interesting part was his size. He was huge. I am willing to say he was easily twice the size of any heron I have ever seen, maybe even three times as large. Literally. He was bigger than a golf course Canada Goose.

Talk about your Spruce Goose, that is exactly what he looked liked as he passed - I expected to see little portholes in his side with little people peering out.

Here's some data on the flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/

Cigarettes will do a lot more to kill you than swine flu will.

I quit smoking almost 20 years ago using the (unplanned) incremental method: quit for as long as I could, then smoked as little as I could, then quit again as soon as I could, etc. It took a few years, but the day came that it just didn't seem worth the trouble to go out to buy another pack of cigarettes. Keep trying. You will succeed.

I love Gabriola Island - it's exquisite. Especially for a Floridian. I was there during April one year and it was the exact same weather as our Christmas weather - I kept expecting to see twinkling lights and hear Christmas Carols.

We live off the beaten path and I, too, have been privy to some of the circle-of-life hunting (mostly at dusk) of our resident Red-Tailed Hawks, Osprey and Bald Eagles. The adults eschew our manicured areas and grassy clearings. But the juveniles seem to see it as the predator equivalent of the food court at the mall. They virtually congregate atop the bird feeders and above the pond.

Good job with the cigs.

You've got both in your part of the country.

Enjoyed this piece very much, Doc. Wonder if I could presume upon you to post it on the BOTF as well? Your old friends -- and need I remind you, your original readers? -- would enjoy seeing this one and having a chance to comment upon it, freely, there. Thanks so much, Doc. And see what you can do about cutting out the smoking totally, please. It might not be too late -- yet. SN/t.

I think I've said this before, but I'll say it again.

I always read you and always enjoy your posts. I don't often reply as there is usually little I can add.

Today is different.

1 - We have two swings in our yard. One my dad made out of cypress. It overlooks the golfcourse like front yard. That is a beautiful view when I have freshly cut the grass. The other overlooks the wooded back yard and is also very nice. II made it out of native cedar, dropped by Hurricane Ivan and ripped into lumber using my tools. The back swing is nice, in that we can occasionally sit there and watch the deer or turkey feeding toward the back of the property. Both swings are mounted on heavy treated timbers that I set in the ground and the bolted equally heavy cross pieces in place to support the swings. My dad's comment when he first saw them was, "Are you certain you used thick enough timbers, son?" Then he laughed and asked how I winched the timbers up in place to be secured with bolts. The truth is that we enjoy both swings and are watching the carpenter bees drill their way into making swiss cheese out of those timbers that were such a pain to hoist up there. Our standard joke is to brush the wood chips off the swing seat and as we take our places to rest and enjoy the view, wonder out loud whether that last hole is the one that will cause the support timber to break under our weight. I am amazed at how round the hole is that the bees chew through the wood. The wife never complains much about them, but she did not get involved in putting the cross timber in place. One day last year,s he came to me and showed me a hole in our front door that one of the bees had chewed. Now, that one upset her.

2 - I feel that I must warn you, Cigarettes killed Fred Sanford's father. Fred said he got run over by a tobacco truck.

3 - Eagles are not so common here but I know where two or three make their homes. Mostly at larger lakes in the area, but also (one) adjacent to a catfish farm between here and Starkville. We do however have a Great Horned Owl in the woods behind our house. I like to sit on that back swing at night and listen to Him/Her Hoot. That is a hard to place a value benefit of country living. One night we were seated back there, not talking much, when a massive dark shape with a four or five foot (imagined) wing span quickly and silently swooped through the trees on our property. Scared the begeezes out of us. I had no idea there was an opening through the trees he could have used, but evidently he knew that it was there. I wonder how many barn cats from our neighbor's horse barn have fallen to that Owl.

4 - I went to my primary care provider yeaterday for my semi-annual physical checkup visit. This is the fall examination, which is the better of the two. We have a gentlemen's agreement that only in the spring will I allow him to stick his gloved finger up my (well, you know). Anyhow, he knows that I am in the drug business and so we discussed health care issues (pending US congressional disaster/godsend) and H1N1 status. Lots of folks say they will not get it (healthcare insurance or the vaccine), but I am not one of them. The vaccine I am allowed to choose and I choose to take it. Universal healthcare is an "I have a dream" thing and I am not smart enough to figure it out. I do say that I would be willing to accept whatever healthcare and retirement plan that Congress has voted for themselves. Regarding the H1N1 vaccine, we do not have a supply of it here yet and so I wait for a November vaccine delivery date to see the clinic nurse to get my shot. My physician said that last week, he saw between twenty and thirty patients with some sort of respiratory/fever/aches/pain affliction. He is one of six doctors in the office and so I figure the several hundred doctors in Meridian are doing a brisk business seeing suffering influenza patients (pig or other). I have a pediatrician in the Sunday school class I teach and he has not lost anyone yet. I have an elderly care physician in th eclass also. He has lost more than one, but he treats really old people and we all know that you must die sometime, of something.

My doctor and I both I know that most of the sick people he is seeing are sick with some sort of influenza. Maybe they are not showing a response to eating pork BBQ, and maybe they are. I know that I will get the vaccine when the next supply comes in, because I absolutely refuse to stop eating pulled pork on a bun with BBQ sauce and cabbage slaw. Even if BBQ is a vector for the H1N1, you gotta love it on a bun.

By the way, my Cholesterol was fine @ 158 with high density above 40. My prostate enzymes were around 1.46. Breathing was fine and clear, The old re-valved hart still goes lubclick lubclick. There are no new skin cancer concerns and the scar from the last one looks nice. I wanted a pirate scar, but my plastic surgeon buddy said it was bad for his business and refused. I have a Medtronics heart loop monitor in my chest and he noted it was still there. My thought was, "Where else would it be?" All in all, I am a medical wonder. Absolutey in the best shape money can buy.

I'd reread thsi for errors, but

West Littleton and over on the east side, various ponds around / in Inverness near that golf course. Have seen them about 2/3rds the size you are describing. Amazing, surprising, wonder-making. Came over to ask you if you would please take an extra minute when posting Over Here and make a duplicate post Over There on the BOTF? Your fans miss you & since we have been made to feel so unwelcome over here, we're not likely to read you as much. And that is our loss. Thanks, Sarve.

(But no thanks for blowing this major snowstorm down our way. Have you skied yet? ) As always, Your Neighbor Down the Hill, T.

making this thread even better.

smoke that goes with the beer-buzz onset is the very first smoke of the day, and preferably outside. You notice things. And you notice things too. You made me want to light up.

Around twenty years smoking for me; I quit cold turkey eighteen months or so ago. Can't say I was glad about it, or even that I've felt better, except in the abstract. But since being introduced to them literally outside the store on Fifth Avenue in NYC, I smoked only Nat Sherman's, and hence the cost savings has been a boon. Pah.

watching an eagle chase and osprey to steal the latter's breakfast. We were busy watching the osprey dive and the eagle came in from behind us, right over our heads. Wrote a long post on it on the old, old Fray (not the one we don't go to anymore, the one we can't even access anymore), I'll have to see if I can dig it up.

eom

When I quit smoking a few years ago, I was looking for a support group, meetings like AA where we could bitch about how much we needed a cigarette while mainlining vodka just to take our minds off the (imagined?) need.

Well, the only 1 available in my area wasn’t available because they didn’t have enough people to justify meetings. After I told The Baptist Health Thingie person, whom I was asking help from, that this was indescribably ridiculous and that she should think about fucking herself, I smoked about half a pack. So, thanks.

I got on Zyban and the Nicotrol inhaler. And on a very specific quitting program whose name eludes me now. I set a quit date 17 days from the program start, used the inhaler a little, and cut back on the smoking.

I cut back gradually. Because the last time I tried to quit, I got on the Zyban, used the patch, but didn’t cut back. Not 1 bit. In fact, since I knew I would no longer be able to smoke, I wanted to get in as many cigs until the last possible moment that I could. And boy did I ever. [cough cough cough… … sorry]

Bad move.

The variable the second time was the inhaler. Awesome. Analogous. Pure, wonderful, undiluted, sweet, sweet nicotine pouring into my soul and flowing through my system like a perfectly executed main course, but without all the death-enhancing side dishes, filling me with the abiding comfort that all would be right with the world. At least for a bit.

Anyway, so I tapered off, and as the fateful day approached, I was WAY down. And thanks to the Zyban, I didn’t seem to be the least bit anxious about it being 11:30 at night and that I only had 2 cigarettes in the house.

But I needed something. I needed others’ pain. A very dear friend of mine who battles his weight had decided to return to Weight Watchers meetings because he said that was the program he was on when he lost and kept off the most weight for the longest time. We talked about it and it seemed only natural that I go with him. Cigarettes were to me as food was to him. So it was settled.

Weight Watchers meetings happen thusly:

You weigh in. If you’re still at your target weight, the meeting’s free. If you’re not, you have to fork over anywhere from 15 to 30 smackers. I didn’t of course because I’m not technically “in the program”. Then there’s the official meeting. The leader, and in our case her name was Rose Marie, asks how we did, how much weight we lost, what kind of week we had, if we had any quick questions about last week. I.e., !!!THE WHINING!!!

After !!!THE WHINING!!! would come “the sermon”, a short discussion of weight loss topics with a message, a message that invariably involved The 5 P’s: Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance. The 5 P’s. Catchy, really, and applicable to a vast array of behavior modifications, whether it’s trying not to jam an entire German chocolate cake into your mouth at 10:30 at night, or attempting to allow you the strength and resources not to say, “Fuck it. Give me a carton of Camel Lights, like, yesterday, or I will tear your head off.”

You know, useful little mental tools to help you stay out of jail, even. Yup. That’s truly The 5 P’s. Rehabilitation. Tough love. Prophylactic promises.

After “the sermon”, Miss Rose Marie would take some questions, talk about some new, tasteless Weight Watchers products, and then dismiss us. (Not “tasteless” in that sense. Just tasteless. I came to learn that there is a renowned Weight Watchers Soup that is so bad, the Weight Watcher Indians in the mountains sing a ballad about it. And I won’t even mention the infamous fat free hot dogs that can allegedly remove all of the flavor that was already in your mouth. Hmm… They need to think about marketing them as breath mints.)

We went religiously, every Monday at 5:30 p.m. to about 6:15 p.m. Very manageable.

I remained pretty quiet most of the time. Except once. These meetings were helping me. So at the end of 1 meeting I announced that I had very much appreciated their inclusion of me in their meetings because their problems and difficulties were very much akin to my own, and that in order to thank them for their support I had brought a small bushel of my home grown tomatoes for them to take home and enjoy. It was a particularly bountiful and delicious year for “the red orbs of culinary delight”.

They suddenly became very quiet.

Let me say that at our meetings each week there would be roughly 15 to 25 folks there, some regulars and some new faces. The vast majority were women, mostly those in their 40’s and 50’s. And when I stumbled to the front to present my bounty of “the perfect fruit”, I wasn’t prepared for what awaited me. You see, tomatoes are 1 of the many things that have “0 points”, which is Weight Watchers code for “you can be up at 3 a.m. and eat as many as you want and no1 can do a fucking thing about it”. Weight Watchers assigns point values to certain foods, and depending on your weight, you’re allowed so many points a day. Foods that have 0 points is Weight Watchers heroin.

Tomatoes are also very good for you, and a lot of the time it’s hard to get fresh, good tasting “little filet mignons of the vine”.

Which is to say that total and complete anarchy and abandon broke out. And faster than you could say, “That ‘soup’ tastes like tepid water from a dog bowl mixed with grass clippings,” those ladies were tearing into those tomatoes like a pack of starved hogs. 4 killed.

Most of the time (all of the time) I kept my mouth shut, though I had from time to time so wanted to get up and get involved. 1 night the sermon was about vacations, and how we can use the 5 P’s to help us behave on them. So Miss Rose Marie asked, “What activities do you associate with vacations?” Having recently come back from “The Redneck Riviera”, and noting the immediate silence in the room, I really wanted to stand up and say, “Vacation. Hmm… Vacation. Let’s see… What activities do I associate with “vacation”: alcohol abuse, drug abuse, sexual intercourse, kind bud, drinking all day on the most beautiful beach in the world and then cramming fresh deep fried shrimp down my gullet like a brown bear during the salmon run…”

But I didn’t. And I think you’ll agree that that showed a remarkable degree of restraint. Thanks.

1 time Miss Rose Marie opened the meeting and asked us all if we’d been drinking a lot of water, which clearly is key to the Weight Watchers mentality because they say, “DRINK A LOT OF WATER!” so much. But it’s true. That’s when I wanted to say, “Oh, yes, I’ve been drinking lots and lots of water. I was very good about the drinking of my water this week. But it’s a special kind of water to which has been added hops and barely and stuff and then it goes through a distillation process…”

But I didn’t because I didn’t think they would have thought that was funny. Drinking beer, and alcohol in general, is 1 of the better ways to gain weight quickly.

Another particular meeting began straight away with !!!THE WHINING!!! 1 regular meeting attender was this horrible older woman, bitter as the day is long, angry at every1 and everything. Miss Rose Marie asked us how our week went, and Miss Bitterstein von Hatefulberg started right in: “I haven’t lost weight in 3 weeks.”

Miss Rose Marie: “Well did you use all the tools we’ve learned? Did you measure your food? Check the point values? Drink your water? Have you been eating breakfast? Breakfast is crucial.”

Miss Bitterlina Angryton: “Well I tried to but I would get busy with something else and get hungry so I’d just eat what was around. And I really don’t like water; I like condensed milk. And I’m not hungry at breakfast, I’ll skip lunch, and save up all my points for dinner. I stay within my points. Why am I not losing the weight?”

This is the point at which I wanted to stand up and yell, “Because you eat too goddam much, lady. Mystery solved. You’re saving up all your points for 1 meal. You can’t do that. You have to use your metabolism to help you burn calories. And you’re probably not even counting your points correctly at dinnertime anyway because you’re too effing lazy to read the label, get out your diary and measure shit. Jesus Effing Christ! You keep this behavior up, and you’re gonna be looking like LuLu Roman from Hee Haw in no time.”

This 1 I regret not addressing. Because I think I would’ve gotten a standing ovation.

But I think my favorite meeting was the 1 where I was planning to whisper various and sundry thoughts and musings to my dear friend. I sat right behind him at this meeting because I wanted to do a running commentary to see if I could make him laugh. He, of course, was unaware of this.

The sermon was about what to do if we’ve fallen off the wagon. Miss Rose Marie began with, “Okay, it happens to all of us. We mess up, we slip up and we give in. But it’s absolutely crucial to address the situation immediately so there’s no further backsliding. What are some ways we can address and correct the slip up to make sure it doesn’t diminish any of the progress we’ve already made?”

At which point I leaned forward and whispered very quietly in his ear, “Laxatives. And lots of ‘em. Quick and easy, you’re in, you’re out. It’s a punch&run swing-out to the tailback with plenty of room to run and loads of return.”

He’s a tough nut to crack, but I heard a quiet snort. So I waited it out. Miss Rose Marie continued, “Say you’re at a party, and you’ve forgotten about The 5 P’s, wherein 1 good way not misbehave at a party is too eat something healthy before you go. Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance. Well, you were running late and didn’t have time to eat anything, and you go a little overboard with the bruschetta at the party.”

So I whispered, “That’s easy: grab a feather from 1 of the table arrangements and purge in the guest bathroom. Purge. Purge like you’ve never purged before. I got your 5 P’s right here, honey: Purge Purge Purge Purge Purge.”

That 1 got the slight shoulder shudder I was working towards, so it was time to go in for the kill. And I bided my time for my opportunity to strike the death blow. Miss Rose Marie? “We’ve all found ourselves at parties where we’re very hungry with few healthy, low-cal foods to eat. What kinds of foods should we be seeking out while we’re mixing with the crowd, foods that while not yielding the most ideal of results, will at least get us back to the house in a reasonably not unsuccessful fashion?”

This was my chance, and I wasn’t gonna blow it. No sir, there’s no “choke” in MY vocab. It was perfect, too, because these starving ladies at the meeting were stumped, so I had the perfect balance of time, quiet and murmur. I made my move and leaned in slowly, whispering:

“Looks like it’s back to the guest bathroom to rifle through the medicine cabinet like a rabid dope fiend with “the shakes”. We’re looking for anything, ANYTHING that will mix with the booze in our system and help us forget about food. Hell, anything to help us forget about eating, period. Fuck that: anything that will help us to forget that we’re at this lame-ass party thrown by insensitive, waifish bitches who don’t care about anything but their skinny, boney frames, who have the metabolism of Nicole Richie. Fuck them. Anything? No? Of course you haven’t found anything, idiot. You think you’re gonna find ludes in a half-bath off the fucking foyer? Christ.”

I had achieved rapid shoulder shuddering along with quick inhalations of breath. I’d flanked his left. So I decided to send in the infantry and cut off his line with my cavalry from the right while my archers took out his infantry:

“Which is why you needed to go upstairs to the master suite bathroom. RETARD!!!

“Be on the lookout for Xanax, Zoloft, and anything with codeine in it. Percecets, lortabs, vicodin? Oxycontin? Nothing? Not even a whippit? What the fuck is wrong with these people? What are they, robots? (Yes.) Uh-oh. Looks like we might have to recon to the garage and see if we can’t scare up some paint thinner and a hose.”

It worked. I decimated his archers and cut his cavalry in 2.

Unfortunately the ladies had begun to prattle on about lowfat cheese straws, lite mayonnaise and fat free hot dogs. So the effect was lost.

And that’s when I realized my calling. I should be leading these meetings! I’d greet them with cartons of cigarettes at the door when they came in, and shower them with boxes and boxes of horse laxatives* as they left. And our new 5 P’s? Pizza! Pasta! Pork-chops! Prime-rib! PUUUUUUUURGE!!!

Finally, I’ve actually got a calling in life. Cool. It has always been in my nature to help people, after all.

(Full disclosure: I'm back up to 2 packs a day.)

For making the Roddy McDowell version of Seven Deadly Virtues ring in my head.

wants you to go post this on BOTF.

She's just busy in the toilet at the moment.

Good post Swit. Oh, and shame on you for your weight watchers evilness.

Question Time:

1 - Do you go (Have you ever gone) to TinTop Cafe in Bon Secour? Excellent Grub and good amber fluids. Pecan Crusted Grouper to die for.

2 - Where is your fav place for fried shrimp in LA? Inquiring minds want to know.