Month: August 2007
Focus, Daniel-san
You know what’s hectic? Getting a thousand things on your mind you want to accomplish, only being able to accomplish a fraction of them because you’re depending on other people, and not starting on other things because you lack the focus to follow up on your thought. It’s maddening.
It’s good to be thinking straight again but it’s horrid having so much I want to get done and only being able to do a fraction of it before I burn out.
up in oak
I have something else I want to talk about just because I’m sort of impressed by how things have gone… Another’s improbable journey to success without really trying (much).
I have a fetish for acorns and trying to grow saplings. I’ll admit that right now and you could probably search this blog and find other posts talking about it. I’ve tried pines before, to no avail, but after messing with laurel oak acorns the last 2 years I can say I can germinate a oak sapling pretty far. The only issue that comes up in the end is where the hell should it be planted? Who wants it?
Case in point, I grabbed one acorn from a neighborhood oak tree just a block from my house last fall on an impulse… This was November or December. It hadn’t fallen off the tree yet and was still green… I decided to take a chance and stuck the acorn in a six inch pot… I didn’t make a big thing about trying to get the acorn to germinate and when it didn’t emerge in a short timespan from the pot, I started to write the plant off entirely. I placed it on a shelf outside my house and let nature take it’s course. It’ll happen or it won’t.
Yet January came around and a small sapling germinated from the soil. Pleased, I took care of that little sucker and by the time March rolled around, I decided to take another chance with the plant and move it into a new pot. A large pot at that – 2 gallons. From a six inch pot to two gallons seemed like an improbable jump as I’ve never tried it before. That’s another reason I did it. To hell with the risk. The potting soil I used wasn’t store bought — well, it WAS regular, store bought potting soil but it came from plants that had died around my home. Waste not, want not and all that.
I transplanted the young sapling — three inches tall at most — and presumed I had put it at risk because the soil could be contaminated or filled with bugs or something.,.. I didn’t write this tree off but again – I hadn’t put it’s best foot forward in my decision making and was careless.
Or was I?
It’s late August now and the sapling in question stands nearly 30″ tall in that 2 gallon pot. With it’s size, I know it needs either a permanent home or another pot upgrade ASAP and yet I am shocked and thrilled alone at how well this plant took off. I’ve never had an oak sapling take so well, and there is a need for a tree in my yard (as we cut down an Indian Rosewood last year that was a nuisance – and remains so in it’s role as a stump that won’t die). I’ve talked to family about planting it out in front of my house and they are receptive to the idea though not jumping up and down at the concept. It’s still a little shit plant and still needs to develop… but it’s a risk worth taking if someone wanted this thing and to plant it in a permanent home now.
30 inches and another “expansion” sprout on the way. I’m thrilled… And I’m thinking I need to buy some potting soil to try this again with another acorn this fall.
the fallout
So where was I?
Oh, yeah… Dwelling on inevitability. Surgery. All that joyous stuff that makes life grand for me. August 7th, 2007 was an extremely surreal experience in that my focus had to be elsewhere instead of impending doom and gloom (thank you Oren Koules, Jim Sherrin and Doug Maclean). Surreal may be a strong word for it. A grand, welcome distraction might be a better phrasing. Having a friend come over to spend some time with me and further distract me only aided to things.
The next day was no better – wanting to deal with that story and yet lying in a hospital gurney most of the day while waiting an angiogram: the pre-operative procedure as bad as I dreaded (but with a great staff of physicians trying to deal with my issues and some medical breakthroughs since my last angiogram that kept me from being bed ridden).
You know, I feel like I’m being shallow in the details but at the same time — there weren’t many meaty details before I was trucked off to the ninth floor at Tampa General Hospital where I stayed overnight before surgery. Besides pain issues with thanks to the angiogram, everything went swimmingly.
And how can I properly term my stay at TGH besides saying I was surrounded by good omens and positive energy? Days previous to surgery, I’d gotten a religious card sent to me with the only Patron Saint I identify with. It’s sorta grim but after I learned about him (and wrote about a poem where I invoked him) I didn’t see it as an ill omen as-so-much familiarity. I can deal with familiarity.
When I got to the ninth floor, who greets me warmly but an old friend from High School who works as an Registered Nurse on the floor? It was good mojo to see her, realize who she was and have come right up to me and say hi.
Another thing that was positive and yet drenched with negativity was a nurse I had overnight who I couldn’t understand due to her accent. She was warm, pleasant and tried her best to overcome things and I found myself mad that I had gotten frustrated with her.
A week to go
It didn’t hit me until yesterday. July’s over and my operation is scheduled for August 9th… That’s next week.
So much I don’t want to do, so much I want to avoid, so much I want to be irresponsible about… and no time for it.