Our brothers go off to war

When I was little, my mom had a faded photograph on her dresser that was cracked and rolling at the edges. It was of a handsome man in khaki green standing next to a old Army jeep. That man was my uncle, her baby brother. My uncle had gone to war in Vietnam, and, she said, was never really the same ever after. He went to fight in an unpopular war, and although he may have come back to his home country to scorn and derision from the populace, he never lost the love and respect of his family, his sister.

My baby brother left this last weekend to go to war. To go and fight in another unpopular conflict. He has been once already, and he is not the same carefree young man I remember. He likely will never be again. But he will remain in our hearts, and he will never lose the love and respect of his family, his sister.

I salute you, brother. Take care of yourself and come home to us.

The toxic vagina of doom

Warning: Gross-out Alert! Those of you family members who don't want to think about the Walskes having sex, do not read this post!

The sun had not even risen above the furthest peak this last Saturday when Dear Hubby and I had to, er, "get it on." I'm sorry, people who like morning sex are just weird. People are not attractive and good smelling in the morning, and those are two ingredients I require in order to have sex. So, why, might you ask, would I be engaged in such activity before being appropriately showered and good-smelling? Much less before having my morning coffee? Let me tell you a little more about the fascinating world of infertility! One of the litany of tests required to determine what might possibly be going wrong when two otherwise healthy folks are not able to reproduce is the Post-Coital Test. So, basically, the premise here is to see what happens in the vaginal environment after "the act."

Suffice it to say, Dear Hubby's sperm never had a chance inside the toxic vagina of doom. To quote my doctor, "all vagina's are acidic." Well, apparently, mine is really acidic. So acidic in fact that sperm cannot survive. Here's how this "sperm to the egg" process is supposed to work in an ideal non-super-acidic environment: semen is alkaline as is fertile vaginal mucus, the kind that is produced when women ovulate. This protects the little swimmers on the mean streets of the vagina so they can make it to their goal: to party with the egg. But on my mean streets? The sperm get beat down early, and partying with the egg is but a pipe dream. My best analogy here involves the Lord of the Rings. See, the sperm are Frodo and Sam, and the egg is in Mt. Doom. The goal is to get Frodo and Sam across the toxic land of Mordor. And in this case, Frodo and Sam don't make it.

So now what, you might ask. Well, as it turns out, there may just be a really cheap, non-invasive, old-wives' kind of remedy for this here situation: baking soda. Yes, you heard me, baking soda. For those of you who remember back to basic high school chemistry, you may just be able to recall that baking soda dissolved in water makes an alkaline solution. Alkaline is the opposite of acidic. And if the goal is to tone down the acidic environment of, well, say, a vagina, I suppose one might do so with an alkaline solution.

So next month, Dear Hubby and I have to, again, have early-before-the rooster-crows sex and do another post-coital test. But next time, we're supposed to add, um, a baking soda solution to the mix beforehand. And then, I guess we'll see how Dear Hubby's swimmers do.

The Old Man's demise

This summer, we bought the house we're now living in. When we toured the house, there were several features that made it "the house we had to have." One of those quirky features was an old pine tree in the front yard that had bent itself over and then over again in an effort to get out from under the huge cottonwoods and get some sun. We named it the Old Man.

Now, for some back story. This last spring and summer in Oklahoma was one of the driest on record. It just didn't rain. And not only that, we hit 100 degrees just about every day in July. There was a severe water shortage, and watering restrictions were put in place. And then at one point, just when we thought it couldn't get worse, two of the town's water mains broke. In consequence, we didn't water this summer.

Some stuff died early, like the annuals in the window boxes on the front of the house. But what surprised us was the Old Man. When we bought the house, he didn't necessarily look good. We knew that there was a fungus attacking the local pines, but we figured he, like the majority of the established pines, would make it. I guess the drought was the last straw for the Old Man, however. In August, he died.

My dear hubby and I hemmed and hawed about how to handle taking down the Old Man. We wanted him to be respected in this death; we wanted to ensure that his ashes went to fertilizing new plots of growth, not be shredded up and forgotten. So we decided that we must do it ourselves, even though several business cards were left at our front door by tree removal services. So my husband assembled a crack team of tree removal experts, and this weekend, we laid the Old Man to rest.

**Hubby's Input**
Although I would NEVER contradict my wife, I do have one clarification to make. When she said assembled a crack team, she simply forgot to conjugate. It was more that I assembled a cracked team.

*Photo coming soon

The first bloke to show was the guy who is now renting our old house. There's a long and obfuscating tale that goes along with him, including pending legal action on who really owns a dog, he or his brother. That will have to wait for another blog...or five. Needless to say, I was glad to have his help, even though the only reason he showed up was to play with the chainsaw. He was quite the trooper, showing up after a long night of drinking and frivolity. Granted, I probably shouldn't have let him operate heavy machinery in his state, but the ensuing work sobered him right up and the consumption of large quantities of water kept the hangover at bay. I'm sure he's in "very much" pain today.

He and I cleared the lowest branches on the trunk. Those familiar with felling trees will remember that when the tree first comes down, if the lower branches hit the ground first, the tree has a tendency to roll as it falls. Looking at the view of the house above, you see I had to keep the Old Man from hitting the light post on one side and cracking the driveway on the other. Lets call it, "between galvanized steel and a hard place."

We cut up the cleared branches and waited for my best friend, the Hobbit (yes, that will require more blogs as well) to show up. He, too, had spent the night carousing. Only, less drinking and more losing money at poker. He said he was going to bring some guy with him to help. I didn't know he meant literally. Seriously, this guy's name was Guy. Guy was actually a great guy to have help. Guy was one of those guys who knew exactly how to handle a chainsaw, probably a farm guy. Guy was a guy's guy. Does your head hurt yet? Ok, I'll stop.

With the new infusion of testosterone, it was time to bring down the Old Man. The notch and back cut were made. The Old Man made one last bow and then laid his old bones to rest. It was sad to see him go. He landed right where we had hoped. A kindly old gentlemen to the last.




















After that, the real work began. Clean-up. I don't' know if I've ever seen that many pinecones. Otherwise, nothing overly remarkable, just a lot of cutting, hauling, and raking to try and get all the pine needles in a pile to be mulched. We plan on using every last bit. The trunk and branches were cut up and stacked to be dried. The sticks and twigs will make great kindling. Some of the nicer pinecones, with sticks and needles attached, will be sold for holiday decorations. One last harrah for the Old Man.

Once we got everything cleaned up, we had to take a picture. We were manly men doing manly things. And then, we washed our hands.
















Ah, the valiant crew poised here with their chosen implements of tree removal. Surprisingly, the Hobbit was not as efficient cutting through the gnarled bows with his crosscut canine. However, the yard was amazingly clear of sticks.