I've #4

You would have thought i was on a redeye flight, there was only a handfull of folks were joining me today.. "god this is great." There was noone seated in a very co0mfortable perimeter. If i should suffer another undetechtable sizemic event, somehow this large space between them and i, i thought of as a contingency line. Heh! Who knows better?  I suppose it was a way of putting my mind at ease. To let some of the extra clinched butt cheek energy to let its guard down. And that is a ton of energy.  Everyone has been through ths "shard" senario. "But to not feel anything, to just have turds fall unanounced." That coupled with my toe's, feet,legs,nuts, unit! "Now rectal issue,s! Fuck!! The small little burning pain, the one that showed up for the banyo party! It never went away, to my dismay it incresed and man,did it burn. It kinda felt like a red hot shard of steel had been shoved up my yin-yang..To be honest, that particular pain was way more familiar, more familiar than i even wanted to remember. Much less share with anyone. Another odd phenominon In the life of Chris Reid. When i was around 27, i began to get these rectal pains. They would last 2-3 weeks and they HURT LIKE HELL. At first all i could think was "Dude, do you have fuck hemroids!? No way! No way man!"  I knew it was somethig more when i began to eat Advil like gummy bears for days! then weeks,and finely months before i could get the pain to stay away. And yes i did my share of ripping of Hemroid CREAM, OINTMENTS,  Heh!! I even ripped off some of my mom's hidden stash of suppository's. Talk about some embarasing shit! And none of it did anything except make me feel like i had been camping with a gay guy. So from 27 on, i would get these serious pains. accompanyed by some serious fatigue, about every year and half ta two years. The pain was sometimes crippeling. I remember thinking to myself one day "So this is how death begins". The shower no the tub is really all i wanted to think about. Although i was wondering how Duane and the job at the"Lovie" property was comming along. Then i thought about JD and his job in Sugarhouse. All i can do is see what tomarrow brings.
When i finely made it home, i did find my tub and it seemd to make me feel worse. Super weak and light headed. Had some chow and went to "awake"

"Boise want's you back. They sold another big one after you left yesterday. They called last night" "Holy shit!" poped into my head all sorts of loud, i had to spit it out to sound like the plesantly supprised holyshit, not the dreadful almost pissed holyshit that wanted to roll out. This was part of my dream. "I sure hope Tony aint thinking im flying outa here tomarrow." "No, Toby wants you to drive up there on monday. Boise's giving us the Kabota, we need you to haul it back with ya. Fuckn Dave! He's probibly the best Sup they've ever had in Salt Lake. He's got this uncanney ability to answer a question super fast in almost insulting fashion, were it not for his super mellow demenor and ability to finish with a warm grin. Youd never have known he told you to blow yourself.  "Toby? Now thats a first." I was accustomed to having travel request's roll through the corporite and branch Mgr channels. "Wow Dave, if travel can go through the Supervisors now and you can procure tickets yourself....Fuck this Boise shit! let's go to amsterdam!" "Well, with me being married and all, i dont think i can do that right now." "Pilgram" Followed by my little chuckel. Dave also had the John Wane thing going with his speech that i just loved and i could not resist  busten his balls about! Like, in my mind i herd Dave say "Well-ahh! I recon were a gonna send ya ta Boi-se PIL-GRAM! Oh-ya yer taken the truck! now get otta-here!" "Does Tony know?" "Well i guess" Wow. Tony had been the original branch Mgr in Salt Lake and had recently been promoted to Corporite Mantenance supervisor. Historicly Tony had to be in on everything, or he just wasnt happy. Being promoted to corporite i imagined would include a higher degree of micro management atleast for awhile. And not being in the loop of my port to port status...feathers would probibly be ruffeled. Not my problem. "K, so monday im otta here agian. So what do we got goin on for the rest of the week?"

I had managed to procure thursday and friday formy business. As much as i my body was lobbying for a"a reduction in forces" My mind wasnt having it. No, the Wasatch Urban "colors needed to fly". And the job we were doin was for a gentelman who lived approx 2 blocks from Alex, another brother, the "cassa-nova" California kid from "San-Louis-Obisbo duuuuuude!!" Al and i had been friends ever since we worked together at Solitude then "Ski" resort. Al was also a very seasoned Fire Fighter. At one point in his carrier he was a crew member on the legendary Los Padres Hotshots. Did some search and rescue on a ship (Helicopter) in Yosimite and amongst a slew of orther things, a really well rounded Arborist. Who i have not included on this job due to cut backs. (At one point i was going to ask for my chunk of the bail out money) So presently im on his "pissin grounds" and hoping like hell he does'nt bust me. And, as fate would always, have it. As Duane was getting in position to back me up "Son of a bitch!!" He was out on his morning rollerblade, in some super wild shorts. "AL !! " I had a little splaining to-do. Agian the work we were doing for NamVet Dave (the gunny) , was'nt "major"  but it all required climbing. Truth be known, i had the agility of a tree sloth, just slow slow slow slow. While doing some surgery in  the globe willow, in the backyard i almost blew out my right knee NFL style. My lower right leg got caught in the crotch of two large limbs in the upright angle,  at the same time the other muscles i was using just...quit. My body was hanging at the end of a rope on it's own angle. I do use a flip line, but in canopy trees i use it loosely, to alow more movement. So when my muscles quit, my body wanted to swing back to 0. The knee's a hinge joint and my lower leg's the "door". My door about came unhinged!! Once agian i had luck on my side, I was able to somewhat catch myself with my upper extremity's. Still i fel what started out as pressure. Then i saw my leg begin to bend lateraly. I felt and herd a  pop. Then the dull pressure  quickley turned to tearing/ripping in the whole joint. "Oww!! Fuck!!""Shit Chris are you ok!?" Came from the ground. "Yeah"Be aware of falling turds Duane!! Bounced around in my head a little.. It hurt, BAD! I just faught through it as best as i could. When i finley hit the earth, if you did'nt recognize my distresed walk at the beginning of the day, you sure could'nt mistake it now. . Now along with every thing that has happend in the last 48 hours "I can add blown  out knee to the list!" I hobbeled around for the rest of theday in total misery. When the dusk came upon us and Duane and i, er, Duane! was down to the nitty gritty on clean up. The Gunny and his wife came out to the picknik table with a FULL bottle of crown and 4 FULL glasses. Ohhh maaan! I hate the after taste of that Canook shit. "Ok, one or two" The fames lastwords. Two...BOTTLEs! a pack of  boro's, getting paid a tour through the Viet Nam musium watching The Gunny get defiant with his squeeze and accusing Duane and i of secretly being "Charlee" It was time to get the fuck otta there before we had a real life "Privite Pile" situation on our hands. Daves wife concured "Yeah guys you should probibly go now, he gets like this" "MaMa did'nt raise no fool!! gotta tell me twice shiiiiiiiit!!"  After staggering to the "Hurse" with an illegal as hell trailer, no plates, no registration, no working trailer lights, wasted! And as usual somehow made it home.

The remainder of the weekend was a series of little jobs and instructions to Duane. " If you want hours thereis always Lovie's!  "Looviee! Would you pleazze touchh my ballzz!" Laughter.
I was to leave for Boise Sunday afternoon. For any one driving to Boise through south eastern Idaho.. It sucks. Its not like I-80 through Nevada or anything. It just sucks. This drive included a serious amout of tobacco and thoughts, emotions, feeling of no self worth, pain ultimately FEAR. All of which i compartmentalized. Keeping the moral positive. Or as possitive as i could. Or atleast thats what i had been told "Reid, thats why people enjoy working with you so much and your jobs move so quickly and efftishenty. You dont yell and screem at your helpers. Even when things are goin to shit! Your crack'n jokes."  Damn right,! Leed by example. That's not to say i did'nt have a "Mr Grumpy Gill's" to me. Everyone also knew that there was a Grizzly that lived inside  but was rarely ever seen. Atleast at work. Personal life was a whole different story. Buy the time i made it to Boise i had been throughaly overcome with pent up greif and emotion to the point of tears many times over. I always bring tunes with me to smoke my Boros to. I have the tryed and tested absolute fave's at all times. One of those is the live album "Light fuse get away" disc or set #1 For those not familer, it's a Panic album that  has Miky! workin his magic up and down the fret board. Anywhore, this album was a super comfort to me, in times of angst. When i finely pulled down that Eagle/McCall exit i was ready for a beer. Stoped at the Chevron for a sixer of kookanee. I drank 1/2 of a beer and could feel pain. So this time i stoped. This time.
The ride to work and the drive to the job was a little nerve racking as there were no results in the banyo this morning. And so began my new affection for the banyo! When i got to the yard, banyo! first thing. Nothing. 10 minutes later. Nothing! "fuck" The drive to the job included 1 stop at the gas station.For the banyo! Nothing! I was driving myself nutty! When we arived at the property. I was totaly having a hell of a time staying focused on our objective, which today were some fair sized American Elm trees on a property line. They were to the point of some serious overhang on the home owners home and some serious top heavy lean on the neibors garage and ornamental garden. I was here to go treage the seriousness of the over hanging leeds and mitigate accordingly and of course any deadwood i could see. "Looks like about threes days of work." I was conversing with Jarod Boise's climber "Really. It was bid for five." "No shit!?" It was about 2 grand on the over side. "Well, i guess that about covers expectations." Agian i was'nt under the gun. Thank god!  When i finely got up in the crown, got myself rigged in and was ready to chase down my first leed. The issue was a little worse than any of us could see from the ground. There were fair sized limbs in all of them, that had broken,due to weight stress. Unlike theyre Siberian cousins, these trees had began to heal themselvs. You could see where all the stress fractures had began to cavrenize and calus over. No pests to speek of, except yer typicl sap sucker "tatoos."  Except for the fractures, all sign's were pointing to some pretty healthy trees. I, on the otherhand was not. The first day, suprisingly, was'nt to bad. Day 2 not so good. I gained yet a new symptom. Today it felt like i had to take a leek, like every hour or so. So i would stop everything,swing back into the trunk of the tree, undo my harness, unzip my fly and whip er out. All that for a damn dribble! all day long.  We were all loaded up ready to take it to the yard, when Toby asks us 2 do some emergency work. This was not a welcome invatation in my book. My attitude was slowly changing. Day 3, complete and utter exaustion. This banyo dance i was doing was driving me to the point of needing a paded room. At lunch time i was explaining to Jarod  SOME of what i was going through and he suggested seeing a Neurologist. "I recon i should." But not yet.