Wise Cracks | Lin Ennis

Preparing for Rotator Cuff Surgery

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Lin Ennis

My supraspinatus repair surgery was two weeks ago yesterday, and while I did a lot of research to understand what that was and what the rotator cuff looked like, I was primarily interested in how to get ready to live for six weeks without the use of my right (dominate) arm and very little use of my hand.

Get Your Body Ready

I took advantage of an opportunity to have a highly-skilled trainer at the gym where I work prepare a pre-surgery exercise protocol for me. He worked up a list of possible exercises, then took me through them to gauge my ability to do them and my pain levels. He then modified his choices and gave me a sheet with pictures and progressive goals for the maneuvers. I cannot post them here, because that is his livelihood–even gym employees do not get professional training for free. If you’re near Sedona, Arizona, I highly recommend a consultation with Roger Scharnhorst at Snap Fitness!

Do your shoulder exercises, and everything else you know about being fit–walk, do lunges, take your supplements, etc.

Stuff You’ll Need

Recliner to sleep in for two to six weeks. I was able to borrow one through Facebook. Set up your bedding, a table lamp, drinking water, phone charger, etc., for what will seem like “where you live” 24/7.
Wipes. Two different men who knew what I was facing whispered to me, “wipes–your new best friend.” If you’ll be going to work, or anywhere outside your home, you’ll want a supply of individually wrapped flushables. (Don’t use sanitizing wipes!) I chose Dude Wipes, Single Moist Wipes, with Aloe Vera .
Since you won’t be bathing or showering for at least a few days (2 weeks for showering), I recommend using wipes as frequently as possible, just to stay fresh.
Slip-On Shoes. If you don’t have comfortable–and safe–slip-ons you can wear everywhere, convert your athletic or tie shoes to slip-ons more economically than buying new shoes. I chose FeetPeople Curly (or Twister) Shoelaces because of the wide variety of colors. I got red for work (uniform colors) and grey for walking/hiking. Curly laces can be adjusted for a snug fit all the way up the vamp, and stretch when you put weight on your foot, maintaining even pressure. I will probably continue to use these because of this comfort factor. (Don’t just loosen your ties to covert to slip-ons. You cannot afford to stumble, trip or fall during your recovery!)
If you wear socks, I recommend footies. Pulling regular socks up with one hand is time-consuming and no small amount of frustrating.
Button front shirts in 1-2 sizes larger than you usually wear, preferably wrinkle proof. The shirts do not need to be large enough to go over any part of the sling–just large enough to offer no binding or resistance on your shoulder. You can buy Velcro shoulder shirts that attach at the shoulder, but they need to be hand-washed (you have only one hand) and are an unnecessary expense.
Pants, including underwear if you like, usually a size larger, that you can pull on and off with one hand, usually your non-dominate hand. Nothing to say you can’t go with a skirt or kilt, but you will not be able to work zippers or waist-high buttons. Pockets are good. I lucked out with one pair of sweats I found that had a cargo pocket, left side only, perfect for credit card, cash, and a couple of Dude Wipes!
Battery-operated toothbrush. We have a water pic, but I decided cleaning and drying it, putting the bits away daily, was more than I wanted to do. Just a quick brush for $5-$10. And tooth powder or paste you can get at with one hand. (You will have the use of your fingers, with no arm movement, so you can hold that cap and twist the tube.)
Shampoo and conditioner in pump bottles you can operate with one hand.
Bath gel in a pump. Net mesh bath ball similarly useful.
Hair product accessible and useable with one hand

Of course, your needs and your knowledge of yourself–and how much help you expect to have 24/7–may cause you to modify this list quite a bit. These items have helped me, some more than others. Please add your experiences and comments or suggestions below.

Next episode will cover preparations beyond “stuff,” things to do in the weeks leading up to your surgery and subsequent 6-week immobilization.

My New Succulent Garden – Part 1

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Lin Ennis

Taking a break from writing about sales and marketing, I’ll talk about another passion, a set as it were: creativity, building something, trying something new, working with my hands, solving problems/inventing solutions…and the list goes on.

I posted pictures on Facebook of my cinder block cantilevered succulent garden. There was a hot, barren corner of the yard that just sort of faded into the neighbor’s’ shrubs and a newly sprouted gray thorn bush. (ouch). I didn’t have water over there, though I added a drip system when I learned succulents need a lot of water in the summer. I haven’t grown them before, so let’s hope I don’t drown them.

I got the idea for the cantilevered cinder block garden from seeing one at a friend’s house in Los Angeles. Her son took a year of architectural school and something cantilevered was an assignment–and a mother’s day gift. Linda’s patio was not a rectangle, but did have several right angles–some concave, and some convex. The garden Kevin built her was probably three feet high (my memory). The blocks were their natural gray color, as was her concrete patio floor.

Kevin directed us to the Internet where you can find dozens of ideas from the very simple to the very complex. My vision was to just have a corner sort of wall, with one leg longer than the other.

Your Design

There are two primary ways to go about building a project like this:

Plan it out on paper, to the inch
Conceive a general idea, procure the materials and start building. For this project, I chose this option.

I knew I wanted to mix in single block (half size blocks to create interest

I knew I wanted to leave half-block gaps occasionally

Though the garden is designed to face my yard, I wanted one growing pocket to extend out both back walls, so when seen from the ends or back, meaning and interest are supported

I knew I wanted it taller than Linda’s but not tall enough to look like a wall, and

I wanted it to blend with the colors of our home, yard and environment–something I believed I could accomplish with stain or spray paint

Common Block Sizes

Blocks come in almost any size and design you want. But I live in a small town, and even the building supply store doesn’t carry block! Common gray rectangular blocks measure 16 X 8 X 8.

To buy the needed materials, decide your total length. Though common gray blocks are 16 inches, like 2 X 4’s in lumber, they are really 15 5/8. However, just broadly estimate 3 blocks cover four linear feet. If you want eight feet in one direction and six in the other, your bottom track needs approximately 10-11 blocks, depending upon how you address the corner.

Some blocks have grooves on the end, which was another design element I wanted to incorporate. (The pallet of blocks at Home Depot was mixed, holding few with the grooves. Even with a torn rotator cuff, I helped load my truck so I could select some of these interesting chunks of concrete.) I’m told the groove is for rebar.

I wanted to incorporate the interesting “half block,” which as pictured also illustrates the groove I used as a design element, run either vertically or horizontally! Including this style may throw off your ever-so-precise measurements, because they are 7 5/8 inches each direction, give or take 1/8th. Where implemented, I had about a one-inch gap either on one side, or half that by centering the ‘half block.’

Getting Started

Everything I’d read said this needed very precise measuring, leveling and stacking–to the micro inch. As I dug a small trench to level my very sloped yard, it occurred to me laying down a board would make a very straight foundation. The problem was, I could not get the 8 ft. board to lie level its entire length. I decided it would be easier to raise or lower a 16 inch block one at a time than to get that 2X6X8 to cooperate!

I did, nonetheless, use a small level reader, about a 10-inch job. I read the level lengthwise and crosswise on each block I laid. Being off 1/8 of an inch on one block could make the whole project off an inch or so later on. I was not a perfectionist on this aspect, believing as I do that perfection is often the death of accomplishment and now ever more so that I am a person of a certain age, I don’t have enough time left for perfection in everything I choose to do. (In print, I still think it’s primary, but in gardens and block walls, not so much.)

To level a block, one can either pull out a little more dirt from one side/end, or push more in (even pebbles) to raise the other side/end.

As I gained height, using pebbles, preferably flat ones, became more important to insert between one end of a block to raise it level with the other end.

Carrying On

I began with 42 blocks. The Home Depot helper said he gave me an extra one. The guy I paid to empty the truck overloaded the wheelbarrow and broke one. To finish, I needed 10 more blocks, purchased at my local Ace Hardware, where they cost a dollar more but were also 20% thicker and heavier (outside dimensions the same).

Lessons Learned

Though I just declared I wasn’t aiming for perfection, after living with the garden a couple of days, I decided the east wall sloped too much, which coupled with the opposite slope of my yard appeared exaggerated. I took one wall down. I wished I could repeat the exact reconstruction—and I might have, had I taken a picture—but in the moment I told myself I’d get to enjoy the creative process all over again, just as though I’d never build the first wall.

Because of the degree of effort involved, I worked tirelessly to keep the wall online and level top to bottom as well as front to back. One block being off by a hair will throw the next block off by three hairs!

One of the triumphs that came from completely rebuilding that section was creating a double height vertical growing space which I really love.

I also experimented with making the corner stout, as with four blocks in a pillar, versus spare–only two. I liked the stouter look, and wanted a focal point.

Planting Pockets

I’ll get into the how-to’s of creating the planting pockets (how do you keep the dirt in there?) and the circus of learning by trial and error in part 2 of My New Succulent Garden.

Posted in Blog | 237 Comments

Titling

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Lin Ennis

After settling on a good title for your epistle, you need to look at “titling.” In film and movies, titles refers to the design and presentation of the words on the screen before the content is delivered. Is it raw and woodcut or stenciled? is it sleek and artistic? What you will never see is gentle or weak.

I’ve seen the same “too soft” choices made on store fronts for businesses. The typeface might be clever, given the nature of the business, but if you cannot read it from the street while driving 35 mph, it is completely and totally useless. In fact, it states clearly, “You don’t ever have to look at me again because I have chosen to be inscrutable.” Script is the worse! Italics, also bad, though seldom chosen. Strokes that are too thin are often selected and thus fall into the “Please don’t pay attention to me” category.

Here are sample messages typefaces (fonts) typically communicate:

this is a joke; don’t take me seriously.
this is for children
strength
authority
trustworthiness (think of banks)
friendliness
teamwork
news
facts
horror/fright
military

…and many, many more. I’ve spent hundreds of hours sorting through thousands of fonts—many similar but because of copyrights and trademarks so almost microscopically different. Often a slight change stimulates a different guttural reaction in your reader/market. Associations with that font elsewhere–especially in media such as TV, movies and comics. Strokes that suggest this but not that.

Different fonts for a summer camp for kids than for a university’s keynote annual event for other educators and trainers.

People (amateurs) tend to choose what they like—or what they think will stand out from everyone else—without realizing they may be disengaging their very own target market.

Be brave and seek professional assistance—and not at a “print” shop unless you detect a high level of skill. A successful marketing person is even a better choice than a good graphic designer.

After all, you’re looking for results over style, right?

Please enter your comments and questions below.

Posted in Blog | Tagged bookcovers, fonts, typefaces | 719 Comments

Describe It or Sell It?

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Lin Ennis

It’s fun to listen to someone else’s excitement about their upcoming book release, new business opening, or art show hanging. I’m full of questions about the direction the person is going, what gave them the idea, and mostly, “How are you going to market it?”

That’s where the conversation goes silent and the entrepreneur/artist pulls up some credible sounding wishful thinking.

Had a wonderful conversation recently with a woman who’s just coming up on completing her book. She’s throwing her title test out to the people around her—and she has a large network; though, I don’t know how many she’s reached out to. Here’s her idea for a title: TOPIC (her topic, the book’s topic), described in 2-3 words.

Several friends suggested she turn it into a question. I don’t remember whether it was a how or why question, but solidly a question. For example: WHY TOPIC or HOW TOPIC? My outburst was “No, no no, no no.” (Was I clear? <smile>) The problem with a question is it causes the person to go inside their head, look off to the side (or wherever they look for answers), and try to figure out the answer for themselves. Not buy the book!

While that might be a sweet and generous and possibly even humanitarian thing for you to help people do, it does not give the essential instruction, “Buy this book. Don’t think about it. You know you need it—you want to understand this TOPIC. Buy it.”

We continued some chit chat and I tossed out a question I copied from a highly-skilled coach I hired many years ago when I started my own small business coaching practice. The sample question he proffered, that I repeated to the author in front of me, was, “Why is the sky blue?”

She glanced to the side, went inside her head, forgot about the book jacket in front of her. And was smart enough to say, “I see what you mean.”

I’m not one of her closest friends, and have no investment in whether she takes my advice or not. But she experienced “the question”; she felt it. Going away from the decision at hand into trying to figure out the answer—without buying the book!

Robert Kyosaki is well-known for a statement he made when hiring a ghost writer for his first book (Rich Dad, Poor Dad). The candidate promised she could write the best book ever. He said, “I don’t want the best book. I want the best-selling book.”

Your title needs to:

resonate with your target market; tickle them where they are interested—where they live
suggest hidden secrets (especially if a how-to book) or unique pleasures
be slightly mysterious to stimulate wonder/curiosity, but do not stimulate a search for answers outside of the book

And please, please, PLEASE do not try to describe the entire saga, story, or mission in the title.

Got it?

Please add your comments, questions and suggestions below. (And stay tuned, for more frequent marketing opinions based on experience.)

Posted in Blog | Tagged selling your book, selling your product, writers, writing | 1,140 Comments

Facebook Is Cooler than You Think

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Lin Ennis

As fashionable as it once was to join Facebook, it’s becoming equally fashionable to trash talk Facebook. (I suspect many critics remain furtive users.)

Of course, I think I have one foot in the world of grandparents who’ve joined to keep up with their grandlings, and another foot across the divide into whatever thing the youth of the day think they are into. Probably not, but that is what I believe, and I cannot possibly stop believing what I believe without believing something else that I do not currently believe. (And what would that be?)

I M M O R T A L I T Y

IMMORTALITY is the appeal of Facebook. Yes, it’s about interpersonal connections, finding your friends, catching up on their lives and giving them a thumbs up for what they are doing or thinking or saying.

It’s also about restoring lost connections, like one of my brightest students in Freshman English when I was a Freshman teacher, only about 21 myself. She was so smart! If the student could out-argue my argument on how to diagram a sentence, I gave the student the point, and Ruth did it more than once. She was fierce and brilliant. I lost track of her. When she appeared in my Facebook feed, I didn’t recognize her. She looked nothing like her 14 year old self, and I’d never learned her married name.

When she messaged me that she would be under two hours away on a business trip and would like to meet up because I’d meant so much to her as a teacher, I immediately accepted. Then wondered who she was.

Possibly a psychopath. Or a someone with borderline personality disorder—boundary issues—who will come into your house and never ever leave until you mercifully throw her out.

I scurried to research her, gather an inkling, and confirm with a mutual friend she was my long-lost brilliant Athena/Nike. Then I could barely contain myself until she arrived. We started talking and did not stop until she left after dinner, perhaps six hours later. Did not even show her our amazing house, grounds and views. It was so rich. I cannot tell you the blessing it has been to my life–well over a year ago now–to follow on Facebook as this woman, a medical doctor, has seen her mother die; husband, a tenured chemistry professor, sicken and die of cancer; her daughters bounce off to college; and continue to show up to work every day where everyone loves her, then go home and garden and can and freeze and cook and be resilient.

Legacy

We want to leave a legacy. For me, a writer, I’ve saved scraps and scraps of paper upon which I’ve written the most trite and banal poems and thoughts, since I was a wee child, hoping that posthumously I would be “discovered” and widely published. Probably because becoming a best-selling author in this life did not seem as attainable as it would be in heaven.

On Facebook, ones words are recorded forever and ever.

Published.
Recorded.
You were here.
You made a difference.
What you thought and said mattered.
And you connected.

Forever. Just ask Mark Zuckerberg.

Posted in Blog | 375 Comments

Suicide

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Lin Ennis

Lee Thompson Young

I hate it when people kill themselves. Even people I don’t know.

I’ve thought about whether to mention this week’s name or keep it generic, but I think more people might read this post if I spell out the name. Lee Thompson Young. Age 29. Sweet, gentle and full of grace, according to sources close to him.

Most recently, he played Detective Barry Frost on Rizzoli & Isles, a favorite show of mine because of the interaction between a ‘get it done’ person and a ‘this is why/how/encyclopedia’ person.

Didn’t Lee Thompson Young know people who’ve never met him would spend the day or the week or the lifetime thinking about why?

Didn’t Lee Thompson Young know he was hurting people he’d never met?

These are my random crazy, irrelevant thoughts.

I’ve contemplated suicide, but as I recall (it was a very, very long time ago), I was more interested in hurting someone else than in ending my own pain. Pain was all I knew. I cannot say pain brought me solace or comfort through familiarity. I felt tough enough to withstand pain and let me tell you: there was plenty of pain. Physical, emotional, and mental (if that’s a separate category.)

I like to say the last time I seriously contemplated killing myself, I was 16. But that isn’t quite the whole truth. Let me start with the unbelievable thought of why I wanted to kill myself at 16 and why I did not (obviously) do it.

Scenario: My mother had just remarried and I was home from boarding school. Age 16. She accused me of being inappropriate with her new husband. He did like me. And what’s not to like about a lithe, teen-age blond girl? He liked the way I ironed his uniforms. My mother thought she did a better job than I but got far less praise. No praise. Same with putting a dinner on the table. Me good. Her no comment.

So she had me cleaning out my closet, getting rid of all the beautiful clothes my older, and rich, cousin passed down to me. Mother wanted me to look dowdy. So I’m clearing my closet of beautiful things while she runs an errand out of the house.

We have a heavy steak knife in the kitchen. My mother hates the thin boning knife. Thinks it’s too dangerous. Feels more secure using the tarnished five-inch blade with the hefty wooden handle. I’m sure I can plunge it into my sternum or heart or something before I expire from its effects and be DOTF (dead on the floor) when she returns.

However, there’s a problem with this plan. I want to hurt her. To see her suffer. But my religious upbringing says there is no consciousness after death. So I don’t get to enjoy her weeping and bawling and rending her clothing for months because her beautiful baby girl is gone. Oh s—!

Another problem: I’m intelligent and not on medication (maybe should be) and have a clear head, in spite of my depression and anger. This is the stupidest part: As I imagine her suffering, mutilated, I cannot see myself inflicting that much pain on another person. D___!

Out of compassion for a person I am intensely mad at, and for good reason, who had no idea what I was going through, I make a firm decision not to off myself. I am mad at myself for realizing, in my own mind, that I cannot do it for reasons of compassion. Sh–!

Deciding not to kill myself gives me a modicum of peace, because I can quit thinking about ‘how am I going to deal with this untenable situation’? (Run away, fight back, disappear…the latter is what got me to thinking about suicide. “If I’m so effing much trouble [I did not talk/think in those words in those religious days of mine]), why don’t I just disappear? Then you’ll be sorry!)

But I give it up. I give in. I cave to staying alive so I won’t hurt the people around me who are hurting me so much.

That’s my story, and the event I rarely mention anymore that turned me away from suicide for once and for all.

Except 30 years later when I hurt a close friend very deeply. By then I was sophisticated enough to know most suicide attempts do not succeed. And then there’s the mess. (Several friends had killed themselves, and it was always messy.) I won’t detail my plan here, because if I do, someone will copy it and do it, and I do not want ANYONE, no matter how alone and despairing you are, to kill yourself. I will say my plan involved a complete disappearance including burying the body (mine). I do not recall how I was saved from this fate. Perhaps my friend forgave me. Maybe I forgave myself. I was old enough to know better, and I just hate hurting people.

And that’s probably what bothers me about hearing of other people’s suicides. They do not know how many people they hurt, how many people cannot think of anything else for a day or a week or a year. Did they want to hurt that many people, or just end their own hurt?

What may bother me more is realizing these people have pains and problems they believe they have no way of solving. And for every celebrity who grabs suicide headlines, there are about 20,981 self-inflicted deaths in the United States yearly that you will never hear of.

If you believe your soul survives death, killing yourself does not resolve your pain or solve your problem. You’re conscious. You have the same challenges.
If you believe you have no consciousness after death, killing yourself does not hurt the people you would like to see suffer. You’re not conscious. You cannot enjoy their suffering—and believe me, they will suffer. Sorry. You don’t have a ticket to this event.
If your only goal is to relieve yourself of existential angst and pain, find a doctor who will give you some soothing, caliming drugs. Better living through pharmacology. It works for millions of people. It might have helped my mother not drive me to the brink. Just make sure you aren’t listening to ‘old school’—whatever that is. This is a crazy world we live in with polluted water/air/food…and even genes.

You have pain? You have no idea the pains you arouse in tens of thousands of people around you if you take, what might be described, and I don’t want to be trite here, an easy way out. You do not know what is on the other side. You do NOT know this is easier. It is not.

___

Please share your stories, experiences and thoughts below.

Posted in Blog | Tagged killing yourself, Lee Thompson YHoung, suicide | 143 Comments

When Backwards Is Forwards

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Lin Ennis

People talk about going backwards when they want to go forwards like it’s a bad thing. Sometimes backward is the only way to go forward. I had to do just that this week. My Iron[wo]man watch was two minutes slow. Since I keep my watch set 15 minutes fast, and the math on that is challenging enough, I didn’t want the pressure of having to subtract 13 minutes when someone asks me the time.

You might think this is no big deal, but the + button for advancing the numbers is non-responsive. Pressing different edges of the button didn’t help. Pressing it with a firm tool didn’t work either.

I contemplated buying a new watch, but though there are a couple of things I don’t like about it, it still works. And it looks nice, when I can keep the strap tucked into the loop.

Two minutes.

I took the watch off for overnight, and by then solution came to me. I ran the minutes back 58. Then the hour was off. So I ran the hour back 23 hours (to allow for the AM/PM to be correct).

In relationships, in negotiations, in building or cleaning or doing almost anything there comes a time to take a fresh look, undo and redo, go back to the basics, and yes, sometimes we even go backwards to move ahead.

Do you have n example in your life?

Posted in Blog | Tagged backwrds, do-over, time, watch | 9,962 Comments

Helping Others Succeed

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Lin Ennis

Early this morning, I saw a bird glance off the glass door and land right side up on the mat a few feet away. I watched for signs of life. It’s head was upright, neck did not look broken. Eyes were still open—a bit. Finally a flicker of a breath. The door opening did not startle the little creature, or if it did, the bird did not let on. It sat, miniature statue-like, as I approached.

My neighbor recently told me how she came to be known as “the bird lady.” When she, or others, found fallen birds, she would hold them and gently breathe on them. I’ve never once cuddled an injured creature and believed I brought it back to life or even helped in any way. But I reached out and gently lifted him to my crouched position. That’s when I saw the first signs of “fight” in the bird. It hooked its toenails into the aggregate patio and offered considerable vertical resistance.

I held the bird close, blowing gently neither warm nor cool breath. I considered setting it on the tile table in front of me, but the early morning air was chilly and the table would be colder still. No signs of bleeding from beak or eyes. This one was probably going to make it, but fixing up a shoe box seemed uncalled for, even though little birdie still had not attempted escape.

Glancing over at the utility table, I saw a pair of garden gloves between a couple of hand tools. Perfect—not cold, not warm,something to cling to, and off the ground away from four-legged creatures. I rose, bird in hand, walked a few steps, and set the little fellow down on a canvas and leather glove, wishing it a safe and prosperous recovery.

Back at my desk, I lost track of time. When I took a break for a drink of water, I peeked out the living room window. By gum, that little thing was still sitting there on the glove! Other than its head seeming to be held a little higher, it was frozen in time. I finished my bio break and went outside. Focusing on the table, I saw no signs of my rescue. The door noise and reflective movement probably startled it. A happy moment for me.

“Fly well, little bird,” I said softly before any part of me could become possessive and want – yea need – to be the beheld savior of a thing whose life I shared for a split second in the scheme of things. But isn’t that what we always want to do? Don’t we always want to be known – and loved – for making a positive difference? Can we let go of ego and still do the good deed?

Posted in Blog | Tagged ego, helping people, rescuing birds, savior | 59 Comments

It Takes All Kinds

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Lin Ennis

We have an amazing wood stove. It’s almost as big as a 50-gallon drum—or maybe it is that big. Many people have thought it was “homemade,” but no, there is a manufacturer, Fire-View, and this stove came with the house, built in 1978.

We’ve enjoyed it the entire 10 years we’ve lived here. I’m usually the fire builder. I’ve learned a great deal about building fires, building fires that stay burning, rekindling waning fires, the properties of different kinds of wood.

To give you an idea of how intensive my education has been, we are in our sixth winter of using the wood stove as our main source of heat. This is our second winter of having a timed thermostat that kicks on for one hour each morning that the house temperature is below 65° at the set time. (Maybe we’re getting a little soft.)

For the most part, this heat has been the product of free wood. We bought a pickup truckload and a half of scraps from a firewood processing plant two years ago when an elderly friend staying with us needed the house warmer than our customary 65°. And several years we spent $20 for a permit to collect dead and down on certain U.S. Forest Service land. That is, we do have a great deal of sweat equity in our firewood.

This last year, our firewood has all been collected from people’s yards—four cords of it! Consequently, we’ve not been picky about the variety of wood. My least favorite is the diseased Mondale pines, because the smoke smells so bad. But it burns fast and hot. Pinion smells better but does not burn as hot. Juniper smells the best. Manzanita burns the hottest. We have quite a bit of mimosa, too. It’s fine when well-dried and split. Rarely do we have oak because it is protected here; even standing dead oak cannot be collected on public land. A neighbor gifted us four logs.

Sticks

This is our first really good year for “sticks.” While my ideal definition is 1″ or so diameter and 14-18″ long, we’ve ranged far afield from that. Previously, my partner in wood gathering eschewed these, but has finally—our 10th year—realized their excellence for getting a fire going quickly and restarting a dying fire.

In the cord I stacked myself, I laid a row of split wood, then a layer of sticks. Repeat. When I met with resistance, I said, “It takes all kinds, and all sizes, to make the best fires.”

We had enough sticks this year to build a giant packrat midden, and that is what it looked like before I built a separate crib for them out of wooden pallets.

We also were gifted with the opportunity to collect from someone’s yard a great deal of old and splintering lattice. This is the most excellent kindling and can often be lighted directly. I discovered how much “appreciation” for “all kinds” my partner had finally accepted when I recently pulled back the tarp from the stick crib to see it had been refilled with not only sticks, but also handfuls of lattice strips—which I prefer to keep only for starting the fire, not for feeding to keep one going.

Happy

I am a happy fire tender now that I no longer have to go to the 1) split pine rack, 2) the juniper rack, and 3) the stick pile to gather fuel for the ideal fire. The ideal fire is made up of all kinds and all sizes of wood. The thinner it is, the faster it burns. The thicker it is the longer it burns.

Logs, or sticks, thick or thin, do not burn well alone. You need a group. Or at least two to do well. A fire is like a neighborhood or a community or town. Variety, not sameness, works the best.

To paraphrase John Donne:

No log is a fire,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the conflagration,
A part of the heat.
If a stick rolls off the the grate,
The flame is the less…

Posted in Blog | 19 Comments

How Priorities Change

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Lin Ennis

For the past year, I’ve been worrying less about big things that might be little to me. So much so that I’ve blurted it out–in public.

When the no-see’ums were plowing my scalp to harvest survival for their posterity, I sought out the strongest bug-off compound I could find in my local drug store. A couple of 20-30-ish guys behind me, wearing ‘Why haven’t you brought me another beer?’ T-shirts, searched the shelves for something less damning, any product without warnings of ‘may cause testicular tumors or death.’ I revealed rather bluntly, to myself as well as to them, that at 63, I was probably too old to die from insect repellent poisons.

Poison is a big issue, whether on the skin, ingested, or merely out there–in the air. But most poisons, including radiation from X-rays and other sources, are cumulative. One little shot, as the USDA and the FDA constantly insist, ‘ain’t gonna hurt you much.’ It’s the long-term exposure to asbestos or lead or aluminum or other heavy metals or GMO corn that kill you.

But I’ve digressed. I fingered the wound to see how much it still hurt…how sore are the edges of the gash. But the inflamed ridges are not the center of the problem.

The real loss in aging gracefully is not that you aren’t going to die from sweeping up a packrat’s nest without wearing a face mask, or that you don’t wash your hands between filling your bird feeders and having breakfast.

No.

The loss is you will not likely become fluent in another language and especially not in both Spanish and ASL.
You will not go on an archaeological dig in the Holy Land or even in Puebloan America.
You will never write down all the wonderful trips you’ve taken, things you’ve seen and what you’ve experienced with your life mate.
You won’t remember what you ordered at your favorite restaurant or whether you tried the spinach-kale version of it and liked it.

For me, possibly worst of all, is not remembering the names of the plants in my own yard. As I walk the streets and trails, I cannot help but mouth the names of what I see: Arizona juniper, Palmer’s penstemon, blue flax, golden crownbeard, silverleaf nightshade (an invasive I should pull, but they’re thorny and I have no gloves today).

I’ve expressed to people close to me that knowing flora and fauna names is like having friends all along the path. I tell the names to anyone brave enough to walk with me. Saying their names in my mind not only refreshes my memory but is a friendly Hello to these pals of mine, these buds on an journey we don’t understand on planet Earth. Do I know why I am here any more than they do?

If I’m fortunate enough to be leading visitors on a path, I tell them everything I know about said plant: healing properties, signs of when the moon is ripe for amazing sex, anything that is real and true or amusing or humbling or funny that makes these plant friends.

This is what I love about my nature-friends. I’m introducing you, hoping you will love them, too.

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