Friday demonstrates the range and depth of what we live, of how we drive ourselves to prepare for our voyage, while attempting to extract as much from our current culture and deal with the adverse.

In the morning, having not bathed in a couple days after working on the boat under warmer than usual weather, blasted three days by dry Santa Ana winds of the east, I wished to shower, but there was no time.  Instead of driving Bryce to 7:30 choir practice, Leslie and Bryce wanted me to bicycle to the high school musical hall where they rehearse, a six-mile round trip.  On the return ride to the marina, I swung by Trent’s elementary school to meet up with Leslie so we could bicycle back together.  But she recalled she was to bring treats to the choir, so she took off back to the boat without me.  When I arrived, she was rushing off.  I pulled the aft cabin apart and prepared for the days work.

Work took its rhythm.  My uncle and I prepared and feed work to Nick, a young man who’s been working on Kandu with my uncle for a couple years.  I explain what I want done, my uncle figures out how we should do it, and then he and I go about getting the materials into Nick’s hands so that he’s constantly working.  It’s seems efficient.  A lot gets done.  Before lunch, burritos I picked up from a local Mexican restaurant, the hot water heater I ordered a week before arrived.  After lunch, we worked out the details of its installation, quite a puzzle.  Satisfied with the plan, we moved as far along as possible before a lack of adaptive parts halted further progress.

In the meantime, Leslie helped escort Trent’s 5th grade class to the beach for a little fun before class ended at 2:20 p.m.  Bryce gets out early on Friday’s which I forgot.  I was hoping to bicycle back with him. But he knew Trent’s class would be at the beach and text me that he’d bicycle there to meet them there.  Leslie, Bryce, and Trent bicycled back to the marina.  Shortly after three, Leslie took off with Bryce and Trent.  Bryce had another choir rehearsal and Trent had soccer practice. Both practices would end after 6.  Work on the boat ended for Nick and my uncle around 3:30.  I then worked to put the boat together before Leslie briefly returned before heading out again.  She boarded Kandu before I could finish.  She asked me to pick Bryce up so she could get the minivan SMOG checked before she would pick up Trent.  She also asked me to start the rice for dinner, after I returned from picking Bryce up.  Dinner was going to be squeezed between Trent’s AYSO soccer practice and Bryce and Trent’s YMCA basketball game, which started at 8.  I finished putting the boat away, made a run to the storage unit to clear out the boat a bit more, picked up Bryce, and put the rice on just before Leslie arrived with Trent.  While Leslie cooked dinner, I took a long hot shower and splashed on some cologne. I felt clean and crisp like a freshly laundered sheet pulled from a warm dryer.  We ate a wonderful fish dinner, smothered in green olives, steamed broccoli spears, all on a bed of brown rice.  I had seconds.  Under the urging of Bryce and Trent, we threw the dishes in the sink and took off for for the basketball game.  The boys team didn’t win, but they had fun playing.  These days, they enjoy playing basketball a lot, even practice.  When we got home, it was time for bed, although the boys weren’t tired.  By 10, it was lights out.

Around 11 p.m, I started to feel some pain in my lower back. I hoped it was from moving the empty 10 gallon water heater in and out so many times, trying to find the best arrangement.  By 11:30, I realized it was probably a kidney stone.  I climbed out of bed, powered down a slice of wheat bread and some water to insulate my stomach before swallowing 800mg of Ibuprofen.  At 12:30, with the pain increasing, I hunted for and found my Percocet, a stash set aside just for such an occasion.  I took the one pill as prescribed and counted the minutes.  By 1:15, the pain was intensifying, so I popped another Percocet, 5 hours earlier than prescribed, trying to get in front of the pain.  At 1:45, I woke Leslie and told her we need to go to the local emergency room–now. This being my ninth stone, she knew what this meant and how crucial each minute was.  I dressed for the hospital, my Adidas running suit and slippers, and then vomited in the sink after hastily pulling the dirty dishes out from it.  Leslie got me to the hospital quickly.  She drives fast even when she’s not taking me to the ER.  She checked me in after the young pregnant lady in front of me wished me well as she stepped away from the ER window and around me where I laid curled in a ball on the floor behind Leslie’s chair.  Oddly I felt a kindred spirit, albeit my labor wouldn’t produce a child.  I climbing up on a gurney within 10 minutes (remember minutes count!).  The nurse introduced herself and asked for my data while measuring my vitals.  As she set me up with an IV in my right forearm, I order from her like a regular at a bar: “I’d like an injection of Toradol backed by a full bag of saline, . . . as soon as possible . . . please.”  She asked the doctor and the doctor approved.  With in minutes, the first of what would be three injections (the other two were a narcotic), vanquished my pain in a flushing wave of comfort.

By 7 a.m., Leslie and I were home again.  The boys hadn’t even noticed we had been gone.  At the basketball game the night before, a friend had text an offer to grab the boys for a play date for the whole day with her son, starting early in the morning at 8 a.m.  Leslie text an offer to bring them to her and off went Leslie and the boys as I slipped soundly into a narcotic slumber.

Just another dense day in paradise. At least it’s not boring . . . .