Thursday, March 27, 2014

IT APPEARS I CAN EVEN SCREW UP SOBRIETY :-)

So, here I am, going to my 3rd AA meeting. My first at this location.

The location being Trinity Episcopal Church in Bethlehem where I was turned down for ordination three (count'm) three times and fired as youth group adviser at least twice. Maybe more. :-)

Two and a half years ago I returned as an AARP kitchen worker at Trinity's soup kitchen.

I've long since reconciled my Trinity experience and am still an Episcopalian at heart but, nonetheless, WHY DID THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN HERE?! :-)

I drive to Trinity after work and park my car in the lot. As I've done since the 1970's. I walked around the side of the building and went up two stairs to the entrance to the AA room, as I've done since the 1970's.

I didn't clear the second step.

Not having the grace to simply trip and fall down, I let out a holler, stagger around trying to right myself, and crash to the pavement - my Alcoholics Anonymous book, my notebook and my pen cast to the wind.

I hit the ground, roll over on my back and - after a quick physical inventory - start laughing like someone in an asylum, to be quite honest. (Apparently, I'm easily amused.)

ANYONE who saw me collapse in a pathetic pile literally at the front door of the AA meeting would have certainly thought I had come to the right place, if a bit too late. :-)

I was laughing, I decided, because I thought - this is SO unfair. I haven't had a drink since March 11th, two weeks ago.

No one saw me, though, and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

It's one of those stories that's too good to be true... it might have been nice to have a witness. I mean, besides God.

By the Grace of God I will hopefully suffer no worse tumble than that in AA.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Happy Birthday, Percy the Beagle

PERCY THE BEAGLE STATUS UPDATE: Today is Percy's arbitrarily determined birthday in which he reaches a guestimated thirteen years old.

He was given to me by a friend twelve years ago and, as he was a stray, his real birthday is unknown.

I determined to mark his birthday as the anniversary of the Saturday in March, 2002 where I came to own him. (Or him to own me, as it seems to have turned out.)

I can't even remember that for sure but I'm pretty sure it was March 16th.

Took him to the vet who determined, based on his teeth, that he was about a year old. He was full size, but still had a puppy face.

Between separation anxiety, an ability to eat any object that would fit in his mouth (including two 2" wood screws and the buttons off of damn near every piece of clothing I owned), a tendency to run away and being all but impossible to walk on a leash, it really was two years before I finally decided I'd not put him up for adoption.

He has at least two malignancies in his body and two more suspicious areas. He sleeps almost all the time although he certainly seems most comfortable and relaxed when he does so.

Last night I had a friend over to watch TREME and we had chicken and dumplings while he was locked in his crate. He howled like all the banshees in hell combined.

When I finally fed him a portion that was fully the same size as the one I had eaten, he all but knocked me over to get to it. He proceeded to drain his water bowl and then go in the backyard and pee and crap like a champion. Then came back into the house and begged for the last surviving dumpling which he somehow correctly determined was still beyond his sight, on top of the stove. And eventually wore me down until I fed it to him, firmly convinced he vomit the entire meal up on to the carpet.

He didn't.

He jumped up on the couch and immediately went to sleep, snoring like a buzz saw.

Now that the weather has improved I've begun walking him again and he's really loving it.

He rarely comes upstairs to my room anymore but, between me getting up at 5AM and Chester staying up half the night and not leaving for work until mid-afternoon, he is rarely alone.

He may be a dying animal reaching the end of his normal lifespan but, at least as of right now, he's living the good life.

Sunday, March 09, 2014

Bill Bekkenhuis: Sage :-)

I have decided, at the age of sixty, to take on the role of sage. 

I don't necessarily qualify, per Merriam-Webster, but it WILL look good on my resume.


And here is my gleaning for today: Young people judge their lives against what they hope to be someday, Old people judge their lives against what they might have been...


Both are illusions.


The truth is, we are who we are and - warts and all - who we we are is sufficient.


That's from the Bible, but I lack the initiative to spell it out in a learned essay.


You're welcome.



http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sage

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