Casting an eye over Christmas

Well that's it, another Christmas has trudged by and as is often the case I find myself Taking a little time to cast an eye over the whole thing and asses my gratitude.

Right here right now I seem to be getting the greatest of satisfaction from my nice new sheep skin slippers!!! Yep that's right slippers. No longer do I need to search for a mighty high, a twisted and deformed view of reality. Oh no, all I need are a pair of sheepskin slippers.

It's been a good Christmas, yes it has.

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Ho,ho,ho

I wanted to send some sort of holiday greeting to you, but it is so difficult in today's world to know exactly what to say without giving offense. So I met with lawyers, and on their advice I wish to say the following:

 

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that our country is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely
transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no
promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for
her/himself or others, is void where prohibited by law, and revocable at the
sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected
within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one
year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever
comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance
of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Disclaimer: No trees were harmed sending of this message; however, a
significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.

They know me here.

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The unusual width of his nose!!!

It must have been over two years ago when along with Mrs D, I went to our Doctor to point out Jacks eyes were not quite pointing in the right direction. In the usual way these folk do we were told in a quite possibly patronising fashion that he was fine and that in fact his eyes only looked the way they did because of the unusual width of his nose!!!

Turns out this was no the case, not at all. The poor little mite is now going to need glasses until he is at least a teenager, this I must report upsets me somewhat.  Partly because I cant help thinking if they had done the job right when we raised our concerns this might not have happened, and partly because I don't want Jack getting any stick at school because he has glasses.

In truth there is probably very little I can do about any of it. Nevertheless I still need to put in place the necessary  plans to strike down with great vengeance and anger on the first bastard who dares to call my little boy four eyes, specky specky speckerson  or any variation of the above.

Enough said

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Nativity.

Today I got to go to Jack's first nativity play and it was absolutely amazing!!! For the most part he sat picking his nose and gazing into the distance, yet in my eyes he was the most talented and wonderful child on the stage.  He's the one on the left, second row with a red scarf and what looks like a pair of pants on his head. I am a proud Daddy and no mistake. I honestly believe I'll always be that way, I hope so.

Just for a change.

It would seem I'm spending just a little to much time at the Dentist of late. It's not that I dislike the chap, in fact he's quite nice mostly. It's more a case if enough is enough.

This time round I find myself sitting here so he can asses the damage done but the Hospital last week. I guess I should be happy he can see me so quickly, yet oddly enough, I'm not. Even more strangely, I'd rather be at work. Still at least I get the chance to bolg a little.

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The greatest Christmas song ever

Thank you me.

Monday it was, bloody Monday and my mouth is still hurting like a Bastard and its Friday. I so very much want to spend some more time wallowing in my little old pit of self pity, oh yes, oh yes in deed.

However, I guess I need to be careful with that sort of thing so instead I'm gona say a little thank you for my new bike, thank you for my new bike.

Not sure who the thank you if for seeing as I paid for the thing, me I guess. Thank you me.

A mouth full of stitches

My last blog was written as I sat waiting for some dental surgery yesterday so I guess this is as good a time as any for an update. Update - it didn't go well........

The job at hand was explained to me by the surgeon as "no problem". A couple of big teeth from the back and a root that my dentist couldn't get out. Turns out the back teeth were fairly straight forward, a few stitches that I'm told will happily dissolve in time and a bit of a sore mouth, easy life eh? The root however was very much a different story.

While digging it out they somehow managed to put a hole through to my sinus. That was I must admit, enough for me. Yet some how my most gifted surgeon then managed to lose the afore mentioned root. Not sure where it went he told me, hoping its not gone in one of your lungs. Me to I fucking thought.

Two trips to xray and the missing root proved elusive enough for the finest medical minds to call it a day and send me home. Now I'm left with the oddest of feelings, a mouth full of stitches and a direct passage through my gums into my sinus and out of my nose. That and a big pile of antibiotics as I wait for the impending infection that is sure to follow.   

Its always ok.

So I made it, forty-four years old. The folks who have known me for a while will for sure understand what a truly surprising thing that is. This all happened a few days ago and as is life, I've now moved on. The novelty of hitting 44 was as it should be, short lived. The focus of my attention has changed.

Today I find myself sat in Poole Hospital waiting to go into surgery and have some teeth pulled out. Nothing major, just a quick general anaesthetic, an hour in recovery then all being well homeward bound. That's the plan in the real world, but not in my head, no sir, not in my head.

It's funny how quickly I can move on from the gratitude of hitting 44 to the mental paranoia that sits waiting patently in the back of my head. Truth is its ok, it's always ok. I sit here listening to a share on the Twelve Concepts for World Service, knowing I have a place in this world. That's ok.

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As simple and as wonderfull as my life gets.

Every minute that goes by tonight gets me just a little closer to tomorrow morning, the morning when all being well I will wake up a forty four year old. Forty four years old!!! I'm led to believe I'm gona peak any time soon, just hope I don't miss it.

So with that in mind I was talking to someone today who asked that age old question, what ya doing for your Birthday. My answer was quite frankly boring and dull.

I'd like to hit the recline button on my trusty arm chair and watch some TV with the boy. Latter perhaps a trip to the local harvester for a bit to eat, maybe even some ice cream. Life in the fast lane sure ain't what it used to be.

Who knows, the day might not pan out the way I hope. Maybe I'll end up taking a trip to Clifton and bungee jumping from the suspension bridge. Some how I doubt it, not in these pants.

I picked up my guitar and played tonight, it was good.

I've never been a great guitarist,  or even an average guitarist if truth be told. Yet despite that I still get a feeling of ease and comfort just about every time I pick one up. Seems no matter what is going on in my little world, my guitar has the power to gently pull me away to a world of my own.

This was not always the case. I remember many years ago getting myself a most wonderful Fender Telecaster. To me this was truly a thing of desire. I always wanted one, and now I had arrived. Clearly I was set to make Robert Johnson sound like some sort of half rate strummer who could hardly play a note.

I would of course be able to do this because I now owned a mighty Telecaster. I never practised or took time to learn, I just looked and imagined how great I would one day be. Funnily enough, no matter how hard I imagined and how hard I looked, I never seemed to get any better. Nor did the amount of money I spent on the thing seem to make my playing any better. (Note to self, amend still owed to the person who paid for that guitar)

So what's changed twenty odd years on? What's changed is I no longer think I can be great at anything without putting in at least a little effort. Even then I'm fairly sure I'm never gona be much more then average in most things. The thing is, and this is an open secret, I'm really, really happy with average. Good enough truly is good enough for me now.

The end result is I get to do the things I do in life with a certain degree of satisfaction. Never needing to be great has given me the freedom to be ever so slightly outstanding once in a great while. The rest of the time I get to be mostly average and general happy. I picked up my guitar and played tonight, it was good.

Don't put your head in toilet seats

Even taking into account the job I have and the clients I work with, the call I received from Mrs D at lunch time today was odd to say the least. The boy has his head stuck in a toilet seat she proudly announced, and I can't get it off.  Mrs D then went on to tell me that she had what could possibly amount to a cunning plan. She was going to butter the boy to within an inch of his life and simply slide the offending item form his head.

A progress report five minutes latter confirmed  the butter ploy had failed and the boy was still stuck fast. Not only was he stuck fast, he was more the slightly aggrieved at his Mothers effort to pull his head off.

At this point I managed to stop giggling just long enough to spring into action. On route I dropped in to B&Q and grabbed a saw. I've got to say it took all I had to keep quiet about the task that lay ahead, but keep quiet I did.

In truth Jack didn't seem his usual cheerful self when I got home, In fact he seemed quite miserable. Despite this I resisted the temptation to leave him to wallow and, saw in hand, I set about freeing my son from the ring of misery.

Surprisingly enough it went quite well. Within a few minutes the boy was free and un marked. With not so much as a thanks he was off and that was that.  It did however get me thinking, as such things most surely can.

The uncertainty of life really is quite a thing and you really never know what is round the corner. If someone had told me this morning I would be cutting the boy free from a toilet seat by lunch time I may well have doubted them, yet I was.

I'm sure there is a message here somewhere, I'm just not sure what it is. Don't put your head in toilet seats I guess.

Dr. Bob’s Farewell Address

“My good friends in AA and of AA, I feel I would be very remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to welcome you here to Cleveland, and not only to this meeting but to those that have already transpired.  I hope very much that the presence of so many people and the words that you have heard will prove an inspiration to you - not only to you, but may you be able to impart that inspiration to the boys and girls back home who were not fortunate enough to be able to come.  In other words, we hope that your visit here has been both enjoyable and profitable.

I get a big thrill out of looking over the vast sea of faces like this with a feeling that possibly some small thing I did a number of years ago played an infinitely small part in making this meeting possible.  I also get quite a thrill when I think that we all had the same problem.  We all did the same things.  We all get the same results in proportion to our zeal and enthusiasm and stick-to-itiviness.  If you will pardon the injection of a personal note at this time, let me say that I have been in bed five of the last seven months, and my strength hasn’t returned as I would like, so my remarks of necessity will be very brief.

There are two or three things that flashed into my mind on which it would be fitting to lay a little emphasis.  One is the simplicity of our program.  Let’s not louse it up with Freudian complexes and things that are interesting to the scientific mind, but have very little to do with our actual AA work.  Our Twelve Steps, when simmered down to the last, resolve themselves into the words “love” and “service”.  We all understand what love is, and we understand what service is.  So let’s bear those two things in mind.

Let us also remember to guard that erring member the tongue, and if we must use it, let’s use it with kindness and consideration and tolerance.

And one more thing:  None of us would be here if somebody hadn’t taken time to explain things to us, to give us a little pat on the back, to take us to a meeting or two, to do numerous little kind and thoughtful acts on our behalf.  So let us never get such a degree of smug complacency that we’re not willing to extend, or attempt to extend, to our less fortunate brothers that help which has been so beneficial to us.

Given at:

AA’s First International Convention

Cleveland, Ohio

July 30, 1950

Dr. Bob succumbed to cancer on November 16, 1950.