12:39 am late night post

Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:42:39 -0500
From: Mark Stinson
Subject: 12:39 am late night post

12:39 AM

Its 12:39 AM and I’m just walking in from an evening adventure so let me tell you about it. I have to back up a day or two  so it all makes sense. Earlier this week I organized some of the Angels to deliver things to those that need them. I have burned my candle at both ends all week so I decided to take a break. I went to see my oldest son Tristan participate in a wrestling match at Chatham Central. I took my daughter and little one and out we went. It was a long night of wrestling and as my luck always has it Tristan was the very last one. He was in the 215 weight class against a big boy from Ledford. This boy was a state qualifier 24 wins  and no losses. Tristan is a sophomore that’s not even ranked. I suppose this fella figured he would walk all over Tristan and be done quick. Tristan didn’t give him that satisfaction but gave him a fit and made the match last without being pinned. The match was almost over with Tristan in a slight lead on points when this boy flipped Tristan and put the end of his elbow in the back of Tristan’s neck and tried to pin Tristan to the mat. Tristan turned red in the face but got loose and stood mostly up. Since he wasn’t completely straight up the opponent was able to cradle him and won the match on points. If Tristan had stood up completely the boy couldn’t have cradled him and the match would have went into overtime. I found out moments later Tristan couldn’t stand up straight , well not for long anyway. I got him home and he was depressed because he got beat. I explained the simple fact that to hold his own like that with a state qualifier was a good thing even if he did get beat.I was proud of him. He wasn’t beat on being pinned ,, he was beat on points gained during a full length match.  He complained of his neck being sore so I put the blue menthol gel on him with a dose of Motrin and he went to bed.
Since I had taken a break for a few hours ,, everything else went to ,, heck ,, in a hand basket at 100 mph. I had to make phone calls to run down stuff that didn’t show up , run down people that needed stuff that weren’t home and find some things that got shipped in the opposite direction. That kept me up till well after 2 am.  I hit the bed and was up at 6:30 getting kids ready to go out the door to school. Tristan was stiff necked and just looked bad. I asked how he felt and he looked at me and replied ,, like shi taki mushrooms. I understood completely. I was running on fumes and tried to lay down to get some rest after they left but that didn’t last long either.  I had a friend get stranded and I had to fish a starter out of the junk pile to rescue him. I got in about lunch to get a call from Tristan that he wanted to come home he was hurting. I went and collected my oldest son from school and brought him home to discover a knot on his neck and a bruise at the base of his head where your neck starts.  I made a few calls to figure out what to do for him then  things got hectic while I got a migraine. I finally got organized and took Tristan to the ER. We discovered that when the wrestling opponent elbowed him in the back of the neck he jerked a few muscles and possibly ligaments out of place. By 4 am Friday morning Tristan was in a neck brace with pain killers when we walked in the door at home.

Ok after such a long stretch of lack of sleep one would think I would have tried to sleep late. I made it till 10:30 when the phone went to ringing and had to go out the door yet again to get mama’s meds from town. I had to find two wandering Angels and some groceries. I chased down a few things that needed to be delivered by the wayward Angles and sent them on their way. By late Friday evening I had retrieved a raggedy drum set I hoped to repair for Tristans Christmas. I swapped off some scrap and fixed another starter ( must have been a bad week for starting cars ) to get the drum set. I was up late trying to repair the brackets on the drums and doing some grinding when a silicon carbide cutting wheel exploded into dust.  I was already feeling my age and every joint I had was sore so I didn’t move out of the blast radius quickly enough. I got an eye full of debris so I calmly went to the sink , washed out the eye ,, put in some drops and decided to quit for the night. I went in and the little  one had a tummy ache so I had to get him settled. By 3 am my eye was scratchy so I couldn’t sleep. By midmorning it was red and by 3:30 this afternoon I had blurred vision so I got my trusty mirror out and looked carefully to see a pepper sized black dot just below my pupil on my eye.  Ok ,, another trip to the ER was in order and after arriving at 4 pm I was dispatched to Alamance Eye clinic in Burlington at 9 pm. I managed to drive to Burlington and arrive without killing anyone which was a major accomplishment with just one good eye and the fact I had no earthly idea where I was going. The after hours doctor on call put me in a chair , numbed my eye ,, again ,, and cut the tiny piece of silicon carbide out and I was a happy camper. My vision almost returned to normal and I could actually read road signs on the way home.

Ok its now 1:18 am and you would think I would be sleepy. Well ,, I’m so wound up and my eye hurts so bad ,, but in a good healing way  that I cant sleep.  Now ,, since we are all up to speed on my little adventures over the last few days lets ponder on something. Life gets hectic ,, it takes turns and detours but if you know where your going you will still eventually get where you set out to go.  I set out to do two things at Christmas every year ,, put Angels with those that need them and find stuff for my little ones. If I can have a week like this and still stay on track and be in a Jolly Merry Christmas mood ,, why cant everyone ?   It doesn’t take much thought to make someone smile ,, nor does it take your entire income to give a little.  I don’t care how bad you think it is ,, it could be worse ,, so smile ,, tell someone Merry Christmas ,, and mean it ,, you might even catch the holiday spirit  😉

Goodnite  Mark