Augmentin Blues

Friday, May 11th has been marked on my calendar since the middle of winter. Wait, that's soy sauce. Underneath that, it's circled. May 11th marks the day of my annual getaway weekend when I drive out to the east end of Long Island to open up the beach house. Just me. And the dogs. I have a similar getaway weekend each October when I shutter the house closed, but the two weekends are as spiritually dissimilar as night and day, hot and cold, SPAM and... some other meat product not quite as delicious as SPAM.

The work week leading up to Friday the 11th was zipping right along - I managed to squeeze in a couple of go-lives, blow off a handful of conference calls and ignore those coworkers who tend to make me double my high blood pressure meds (in other words, everyone).

I went to bed Wednesday night looking forward to getting through that one last day of work, then hitting the Belt Parkway, Southern State and yes, even the LIE. In case you're unfamiliar - no one looks forward to driving that stretch of road.

I woke up around 12:30 AM Thursday, which is nothing unusual, but I had a slight chill. So I stumbled around my pitch black bedroom until I felt something resembling a blanket. I threw the washcloth over my legs and went back to sleep.

1:30 AM. I'm shivering now. Shivering is certainly a good indication that something may be wrong health-wise, but what made me know for sure that I was in trouble was the flurry of nonsensical thoughts coursing through my mind:

"If text is left justified, you can probably get more words per page, dependant on the font. Of course, it's up to the typesetter to determine exactly the alignment and layout of the page. Helvetica, Arial, Times New Roman.. all feasible options, but I don't know if any of the..."

I interrupt myself: WTF are you blathering on about? Oh God, I have a fever. To me, this is the worst part of having a fever - I babble inanely to myself. It's like being stuck in a room full of Realtors. I grab another washcloth and throw it over my legs. The inner babble continues:

"Rather than redoubling our efforts, why don't we just quadruple them the first time?"
"If someone tells me they believe nothing I say, can I quote them as saying I'm incredible?"
"If I dream of Jeannie turns my shoes with wheels in the soles into a size 32, would that be a Major Heely?"
The fever worsens and I get very little sleep. At 7:00 I manage to send the text message "Mike Sick" to someone on my cell contact list. I'm not quite sure who I sent it to, but don't really care.

This is the last thing I'm sure actually happened. For all I know, I'm still lying in bed and not even writing this. I may have a fever of a hundred and four. I might have malaria. Jeez, that means the dogs haven't been fed or let outside in days... if it's even been days. Sure, I see them sitting on the floor looking at me as I type this, but are they really?

Real or imagined, I grind ahead though the weekend.

The Requisite Call from Work
I was making myself angry imagining the call from work knowing that someone out there was in possession of a text message on their cell declaring "Mike sick". Sure enough, the phone rang and the message started, "Hey, hey, Mike, I see you're out sick on the calendar, but Betty called and..." * delete *I slept through Thursday.

The Drive
Friday morning, after taking my newly prescribed Augmentin, three Advil, 2 Sudafed, two DayQuil, two puffs of Albuterol, one Emergen-C vitamin supplement, two cigarettes and a cup of coffee, I throw a weeks worth of clothes into a duffle bag and toss the dogs into the car. They think we're going to the dog run, so it's an hour and a half before they realize we're not and settle down. They're not very bright. It's about this time that I realize there's been no traffic. None. I'm not very observant. I've made it to the Southern State in an hour and a half. Now, for anyone that's ever driven on 287 South/ 440 East, across Staten Island, through Brooklyn and to the end of the LIE knows this doesn't happen. (And no, I'm not even going to address how 287 south suddenly becomes another highway going in a different direction) We make it to Greenport in under three hours.

Nessie
We haven't been at the beach 5 minutes, when I stretch my legs and look out at all the docks in the "crick". The water is smooth as glass and there are very few boats in the water yet. I'm looking at my next door neighbor's dock to see if it suffered any winter damage, when *doink* something rams into it with enough force that it shakes and sends wave ripples to the other shore. It was something unseen. Under the water. I walk down to the end of our dock hoping not to see anything. I don't.

Goose Lady
The dogs rode patiently in the car for nearly three hours, with very little backseat driving. I look at the clock in the back porch and see that it's five minutes to three. The first thing I need to do is take them for a walk around the point. One of the perks of being at the beach when hardly anyone else is there is having the freedom to let the dogs run free, which I do. As I near the tip of the point, I see a figure across the water waving her arms and signaling to me. I hear bits and pieces of her shrieks. "Goose!" "There's" "Nest" "Goose!"I tried to telegraph my "I really don't care" shrug across the water."yes, Goose" "nest" "there!". I resort to Plan B - pretend I don't see the crazy woman performing scenes from The Karate Kid a hundred feet from me. Wax on. Wax off.

Dock Debacle or...

Bedacle
be·da·cle (b-däkl) KEY

NOUN:

A sudden, disastrous collapse of a wharf or other boat storage area; a rout.
A total, often ludicrous failure during pier installation.

The only dreaded part of my spring ritual is reassembling the dock. This involves hoisting the 300 pound ramp off of the floating section and reattaching it to the end of the fixed pier. The only way I can get onto the floating dock is to wait until low tide, which makes the lifting distance that much higher, but my legs that much dryer. This year I have the added benefit of feeling lightheaded from all the medication I've been taking. I procrastinate as long as I can, but the clock now says five minutes to three, so it's time to get to work.The first thing I notice is the 3/4 inch thick bolt that pins the ramp to the dock is missing. I take a quick measurement and buy a 30 inch by 3/4 rod at the hardware store. I'll need to drill holes in it once I have it in place, but this is best done when I'm sure where to drill. The lift itself is a thing of engineering beauty. I attach the winch to a 4"x4" beam I've spiked to the top of two dock pilings and begin to raise the ramp slowly. I'm sure not to go underneath the beam because I've envisioned the scenario where the whole thing falls on my head and it's not pretty. Finally I get the steel eyes lined up and insert the new pin. I unhook everything and stand on the ramp to survey the situation."Hmm", I think to myself, "that pin is a little shor..."
The pin falls out on one side and the ramp quickly flips 90 degrees sideways. (This is a scenario I hadn't envisioned) Somehow I find myself dry, but hanging precariously onto the inverted ramp. I'm impressed that I didn't go for a swim and make staying dry my new goal.I finally manage to make it back onto the dock, a little bloodied, but dry! I win! I spend the next 20 minutes wrestling the ramp back onto the floating dock, to the amusement of anyone watching, I'm sure.Neighbors from a few doors down arrive once the dust has settled, to ask if I need any help. All this does is confirm the fact that people had been watching."No... I just wanna go inside now."

Who drives these things?
It's five minutes to three, so I take a drive to the IGA supermarket (If you can call 6 aisles a supermarket) to buy dinner and rice cakes. For the third time since I've been out here, I follow a Maserati driving very slowly. It's been a different Maserati each time. Now, I think it's been about 20 years since I've seen one of these things, and this is the third one in two days. For some strange reason, I think about the Flintstones each time I see one. I add DayQuil to my shopping list.

When I return home, I take the dogs around the point and once again the Goose lady is flapping furiously at me. I contemplate having eggs for breakfast tomorrow.

Do you mind, I'm sleeping
I was in a deep sleep Saturday night/ early Sunday morning when a woman's voice asked me, very clearly "Are you sad?"Dammit, no, but now I'm cranky. Couldn't this wait until morning? I refused to answer and she didn't ask again. I forgot to get her number.

TMI
Sunday I found it a little difficult to walk due to a large bone bruise on my right thigh resulting from yesterday's bedacle. But I was dry!It was five minutes to three on Sunday, so I called my 83 year old mother to wish her a Happy Mother's Day. I think we spoke for about twenty minutes, but my mind was still frozen by her remarks early on.
"My implants are really bothering me. I may have to go back to the doctor to have them checked."
"uh-huh."
"Mostly the left one. It's very uncomfortable."
"uh-huh."
"I was afraid something like this would happen when they put them in."
"uh-huh."

After the call I doubled my DayQuil and decided not to drive home that afternoon.

I took the dogs for a walk around the point. It got to the point where I would feel something was amiss if the Goose Lady was not out flapping at me. She was and all was well.

As far as I can tell, I made it home Monday at around five minutes to three, which is also the time I left. Or maybe I'm still there. Or maybe I never left. The unliklihood of one or two of the events of the past weekend would definitely shake my trust in my own cognizance. The fact that they all happened makes me glad to know I'm still safe at home in bed. Maybe I'll wake up soon and find it's still April. Maybe then I'll have an answer for that voice.