where is Duke Bushido?

[Duke Bushido]

Back home as of last night.  Down to fifty-ish percent of living cardiac tissue and 40 percent of normal cardiac output.

 

Next one is probably the last one,but hey-  it isn't here yet! 

 

Did learn how to stop getting harried and over-worked hospital staff from asking "is there anything else I can do for you...?" Even when they know they are already late for six other things.

 

"I don't know, young man.  How's your heart and what's your blood type?"

 

 

Edited August 18 by Duke Bushido

[BoloOfEarth]

Hmmm...  sounds like it's almost time to get your brain transferred to a robot body and begin solidifying your plans for world domination.

 

On a more serious note, Duke, I hope you take good care of yourself and your ailing heart.  We don't want to lose you.

 

And if you can afford it, I suggest stopping by the hospital ward with a sandwich tray or something like that for the harried hospital workers, as thanks for taking good care of you.

[Duke Bushido]

I don't know, Bolo....

 

I mean, "robot body" has a subtle "immune to lots of things" sort of vibe that seems counter to developing skills....

 

I mean, what is the point at getting really good at something dangerous if remaining mediocre in no reduces your odds of survival?

 

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

Yeee-haaaaa!

 

My buddy  Jack (in Florida) sent me a text this morning., he is able to drive again, including getting in and out without assistance.    He had a major stroke a few months back, and has thrown himself into working full-time toward recovery.  His therapist commented that he had never had a patient so fully and dilligently work toward recovery.  Jack made no secret that he was either going to get back on his bike or die exhausted.

 

One of my brothers leaked the heart attack to him.

 

I told him not to even think about it and to focus on his recovery.  I absolutely promise to stick around until we can take a ride to anywhere he wamts to go. 

Edited August 18 by Duke Bushido

[Cancer]

Duke, take the best care of yourself that you can, if only for the sake of those who love you and will miss you when you're gone.  I'm real familiar now with how those folks feel.

[Duke Bushido]

Wow-!

 

Thank you, Cancer.  I, uh...   I don't know what to say...

 

That--  seriously, genuinely-  that....  That really means a lot, Sir.  I don't know that I deserve it, but thank you.

 

 

And, if anyone wants an update...

 

Took a couple of walks yesterday.  Those who know me in person know that this is ridiculously abnormal behavior for me (long story.  Suffice it to say that I am not lazy, but extended walking poses non-heart-related problems for me), but I have got to get my wind back, or at the very least figure out where it is right now so I have a starting point.

 

Anyway, I thought my wife had gone upstairs to rest earlier (she wasn't feeling well), so I snuck out and went to work cutting up the tree that dropped a few days ago (the one I had to cut the top half out of to go to  work). 

 

Being conscientious about the noise level, I decided to start working on it with the buck saw instead of the axe.  Minding my wife's concerns more than the instructions I was given, I worked left-handed.  To fully appreciate this, let me try to explain just how right-handed I am.  It is _more_ than my dominant hand.  For the bulk of my daily tasks, it is my _only_ hand.  The clutch lever on a motorcycle is operated with the left hand.  If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't need the damned thing at all.  Even then, most riders will use complex and delicate digital manipulation to finesse the clutch carefully and mindfully through the various friction zones and regulate the delicate balance between wheel speed, horsepower, and torque.  Me?  My left fingers curl like bending a shovel into a hook and then I pull back with my shoulder.  My left hand has trouble with doorknobs.  My left hand is a fulcrum for lifting and carrying things that my right hand will not fit securely around.  My left hand is a hindrance and a handicap and I should be recieving some sort of stipend for putting up with it.  There is a reason I refer to it as my sandwich scoop and little else.

 

To be fair: it isn't deformed; it isn't injured; it isn't weakened for any medical or mechanical reason.  It isn't even, in traditional superstitious fashion, particularly "sinister."  It is just really, _really_ stupid.

 

The upshot of all this is that after thirty minutes of sawing away, I had not even gotten halfway through the trunk.  I had managed to get about eight inches into the tree. I was also exhausted to the point of being unable to catch my breath no matter how deeply I gulped and my legs were wobbly.  Stupid uncoordinated left hand. (To be fair, the new heart attack probably played a part in that, too.)

 

I switched to my right hand (I probably should have mentioned that they went through my right wrist with a large-bore catheter and apparently, that doesn't heal as quickly as you might think) and in ten minutes I had managed to get six inches deeper into the tree.  Only three more inches or so to go, but as I cut, the tree would shift and roll and bind the saw, so screw it; I went and grabbed my axe.

 

And six solid chops later, my wife was standing on my  head, screaming bloody murder.  "Put that damned thing down or I swear to Buddha I will take it and remove that hand myself right before I stick it axe and all straight up your-"

 

"Fine!  Damn!  I'm almost done; what's the damned problem?"

 

"Are you stupid-?!"

 

"Just the left hand-"

 

Is it contagious?  Has it spread to your #$!ing _brain_-?"

 

Maybe.  A little.

 

"What were you _thinking_?!"

 

That if I used the saw I wouldn't make enough noise to attract your attention-"

 

And in that moment, as things tend to happen when your life is God's personal comedy channel, the tree cracked twice- once softly, but with a crisp pop, then again with a violent tearing noise, and then it fell to the ground with what, in other circumstances, would have been a satisfyingly-ground shaking thud, followed by creaks and pops as the various limbs sorted themselves out or failed under their new load.

 

"Really?  You thought I wouldn't hear that?!  What was your plan for _that_, genius?"

 

"Move rapidly to the back yard, then round the house just in time for you to see me running out to the front yard and look very confused while asking you what happened....?"

 

"What-  are you #%$/ing _serious_?!"  She pointed to the Johnny Pag (one of my motorcycles).  "Did that crap work when _that_ thing showed up?"

 

"I have plausible deniability-"

 

"And a title with your name on it!"

 

"It was abandoned in my yard-"

 

"By your _brother_, who helped you unload it!"

 

She jabbed me in the stomach with the axe handle.  "This thing has _two_ ends on it, you know....."

 

"Yes, it does."

 

"Get in the house."

 

"And do _what_, exactly?"

 

I don't care!  You are on lifting restrictions-"

 

"I wasn't lifting-"

 

"Are you trying to #×÷$ me off?  Is that what you want?  To go right back into the hospital...?"

 

I was quite conscious of her phrasing, and took note that she did not say anything helpful, like 'with another heart attack" or "bleeding from the radial artery."  She also hadn't ruled out "axe-related injuries."  She just stood there screaming and waving the axe around with a surprisingly comfortable single-handed grip while her other hand had a firm grasp of my shirt front....

 

To be fair, I am pretty sure that under better conditions, I could have easily taken her--  no; I wouldn't have _done_ it, obviously.  I married her because she is strong, not afraid to be mean (I have, so far as I know, only met one of you folks in real life, but let me state for the record that... Well, I can be a handful to deal with.  I _need_ a strong angry woman to keep me alive), and smarter than I am, at least with regards to my own actions.

 

"Are you done?" She continued.  "Do I need to actually beat you with this to make you stop?"

 

I surveyed the tree.  "Nah.  I'm good.  I can limb it up later."  She whacked me across the rear with the axe handle.

 

"Damn it, get you @$$ inside and take it easy!"

 

I didn't bother mentioning that given as how it had taken such a ridiculously long time to cut down one tree, I _was_ taking it easy and headed into the house, admitting defeat (except for the tree now being safe from falling on someone or something; I had managed to get that done).

 

"Good.  Sit down and- I don't know... Pick up your phone and play on the internet or something; just don't _work_!  You want a drink or something? Ice water?  Cold coffee?  Has your appetite come back?  There is chicken salad left; I can make a sandwich...."

 

"That...  That actually sounds pretty good" I said cheerily, hoping the ragged edges of my breathing weren't audible.

 

"Okay. Go sit down and I will make a sandwich.   Oh, hey- you want one, too...?"

 

I laughed, which caused me in my current state to starve for air and double over to support myself on my knees_

 

"I _knew_ it!  You damned fool, get inside and cool off and go play on the internet or something!"

 

So here I am, playing on the internet and eating a chicken salad sandwich.  Now, as a rule, I don't _like_ chicken, but there is some crazy magical phenomenon involved in sandwiches...  Why is it that they _always_ taste better if someone else makes it for you?

 

 

Anyway, thank you again, Cancer.  I do not know what I have done to earn the concern of relative strangers, but it is....  Comforting, somehow.

 

 

 

  

Edited August 20 by Duke Bushido

[Rails]

Duke, that story _alone_ makes me like your wife!  I'm laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes.

[Duke Bushido]

Thanks, Rails.  You're in good company, Sir!  I like her a lot, too. 

 

I almost hate telling these stories.  No one who ever meets her believes them.  "But she's so sweet...  She's so quiet....  She's so nice..."

 

Yeah.  Tick her off enough, and she's a Hienlien woman, just like that!

 

So.....  Yeah; I did pretty good, I think.   

 

 

[DShomshak]

The story reminds me a bit of one of my gaming buddies' anecdotes about, hm, episodes of dubious judgment. The rest of us have suggested he should collect them in a book to be called Never Iron When You're Naked. I wonder if the two of you are related. Do you have any kin in Eastern Washington?

 

Dean Shomshak

[Duke Bushido]

Not so far as I am aware, Sir, but half of my family hails from Alaska (the other half from Sommerset County in Maine, by way of Canada.  Oddly, most of the Alaskans hailed from Ireland, several running from hangings), so it is quite plausible that some spread from Alaska to the Lower Forty-Eight and settled in Washington.  That isn't a big jump, after all.

 

 

Who knows?

[Ternaugh]

21 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Not so far as I am aware, Sir, but half of my family hails from Alaska (the other half from Sommerset County in Maine, by way of Canada.  Oddly, most of the Alaskans hailed from Ireland, several running from hangings), so it is quite plausible that some spread from Alaska to the Lower Forty-Eight and settled in Washington.  That isn't a big jump, after all.

 

 

Who knows?

 

I'm from that region of Maine, born in neighboring Kennebec County.

 

Dad's side of the family has been in Maine for several hundred years, Mom's side apparently came in from Quebec a little more recently. My Grand-Mère claimed to have been born in Maine, but my Grand-Père used to say that there was a convenient church fire, and we "got 13 new citizens that day!"

 

I found out shortly before Mom passed away that the church fire was very convenient, limited to a few pages of baptismal records.

[Duke Bushido]

Yep; that sounds about right for the region: do what's practical, and damn what's legal. 

 

In Sommerset, there is a little town called Starks.  Without hyperbole, I am related by blood to every single living person in that town-  even the African American guy.  (Yes; last time I went, there was only one non-white person living there).

 

Very similar situation (though not as thorough) in Circle, Alaska.

 

So waited until I got to Georgia to get married.  Seemed....  safer, somehow.....

 

 

 

[Bazza]

I maybe the odd one out, but I assume a person who goes under the name “Duke Bushido” has read The Book Of The Five Rings and found himself..  

[Doc Democracy]

31 minutes ago, Bazza said:

I maybe the odd one out, but I assume a person who goes under the name “Duke Bushido” has read The Book Of The Five Rings and found himself..  

 

That is so painful it makes me weep.... 😪😪🤔

[death tribble]

37 minutes ago, Bazza said:

I maybe the odd one out, but I assume a person who goes under the name “Duke Bushido” has read The Book Of The Five Rings and found himself..  

Having met you in person, I can assure you that you are odd.

[Duke Bushido]

11 hours ago, Bazza said:

I maybe the odd one out, but I assume a person who goes under the name “Duke Bushido” has read The Book Of The Five Rings and found himself..  

 

Seeing as how this was the moment I learned about a book called The Book of the Five Rings, I must report that no, Sir; I have not.

 

Should I?

 

For a very quick synopsis:

 

"Duke" has been a nickname since my drag racing days: I used to race a ridiculously over-built Ducati.  Every night, as the final scores were  going up and being called over the PA, they would fall more-or-less the same: all the Japanese bikes in the top slots; all the Harleys in the bottom slots, and, in the words of the announcers, "and there's the Duke, right in the middle." Eventually, "Duke" meant either the bike or me, and when I finally switched over to brutally-powerful Kawasaki triple, I discovered that "Duke" stuck with me, and has followed me throughout the rest of my life.  If you called my job or anyone other than the woman I did marry and the one I thought I was going to forty years ago and asked for Darin, even my siblings would have to think a minute and half of them would assume you had the wrong number. 

 

Fortunately, I was racing in the eighties, so I was in the south.  Had I been up north or out west, I would just as likely be Duck Bushido.  (the brand is "DUH-kah'-tee" everywhere else;  it is "dew-KAH-tee" in the southeastern U.S.)

 

The "Bushido" thing is simultaneously simpler and more complicated, but suffice it to say it is the result of an amusing-at-the-time joke made on a night out with friends to celebrate the occasion of three of those friends receiving their Doctorates in Philosophy and preparing for their new lives at whatever K-Mart would have them.  

 

There was considerable cheer and twice as much beer and I quickly came to realize that philosophers do not all recieve their legendary tolerance for intoxication, so maybe I should have gone further than "Intro to" and whatever the next course was (I had never wanted a philosophy degree; I _did_ want at least one formal course in critical thinking, and in Georgia, at least in the eighties and nineties, that was where you found it.  And hey- it couldn't really _hurt_ the Psychiatry degree I wanted, could it?).

 

I was already "Duke" to most everyone at that point (seriously- at my wedding, the preacher said "Do you, Darin-" and I was confused for just a minute.  I don't hear that name often), and when the conversation turned to philosophy (which, I confess, is _much_ more fun at a table full of drunken and freshly-minted philosophers), it eventually wound it's way to the serious work (well, "drunk serious," which is a riot for those of you not familar with it) to attempting to categorize the various patrons (in terms of schools of though and behavior) into particular ethical standards, based entirely on their dress and drink choices. 

 

Eventually they either ran out of or lost interest in the other patrons (my personal bet was that they could no longer focus well enough to see beyond the tables we were occupying) and turned toward doing those of us assembled in celebration.  Based on years of references and inside jokes which in turn were based on observed behavior over the years, they decided that "Duke was clearly-" something I didn't recognize (though I remember it sounded delightfully unflattering) and one of my drunken friends rattled of a list of names of authors, historical figures, and beyond, then offered "and other of you cowboy types"  before rolling his head around in three or four circles, ending with it hanging off the back of the chair, his arms limp at his side, the remains of his beer spreading across the table, and him softly sleeping.

 

This resulted into even more heated discussion, resulting in further discussion of my relatively inflexible refusal to allow certain things to go unaddressed (I have taken more than one punch to the face for standing up on someone else's behalf, and I will go down in flaming failure at something before I give up- remember that I have been practicing the ability to draw almost daily, for nearly 50 years.  Still can't do it, but I won't stop trying ), and they declared "no; I think he's more samurai than cowboy.  Wait- can you be both?"

 

"No, non, no, noh-  _I_ think you must be a new thing; some of each, but turned into something else-"

 

Kind of tiring of the- well, not so much the game, but realizing that I was just minutes from the two of us who _did_ drink and who _could_ hold our liquor from having to carry out the nine of us who did not and could not, I quipped "yep.  That's me: Duke Bushido. Samurai cowboy."  There were a couple agreements, a couple of drunken "harumphs" of proclamative agreement.  The matter was settled, and two more of my friends drifted off to sleep and CB (the other drinker) looked at me and said "reckon it's time to pile them into a truck."

 

"Take Toby' s Cheyenne" I suggested.

 

"You know it's got a capper on it, right?  We'll have to shove them in from the end.  And they'll have to puke inside of it."

 

"Yeah, but they won't roll out trying to puke over the side."

 

"Yer right.  Help me with Maxi-" (Maxi was called that from another inside joke.  He was both six-four and an extremely rotund individual, and his last name was Padd.  Yes; this is the highbrow humor of Philosophy majors; very creative. 🙄) "-and we will split the others up between us."

 

"Fair enough" I agreed.  I paid the tab while CB raided their wallets (not as robbery; we had agreed earlier that I, as the heaviest drinker (back then) in a crowd of lightweights, would pay half the tab.  We weren't letting them weasel out just because they went lights out.  . )

 

 

Four or five years later, I got a gift in the mail.  There was a card, which, as I have been trained to do since infancy, I read first and admired with reverence.  It was from one of my Doctoral friends.  It read "to my dearest friend and defender (he was one of the people I have taken a poke in the face for.  Small guys who can't drink should have smaller mouths; really they should), Duke Bushido, who taught me that you can get nine men drunk with four pitchers (There had been six, but I think CB and I had one each, knowing we'd likely be driving)- a figure who I had not for some time remembered in detail until I saw this."

 

There was a video game (so I assumed, what with him having philosophy doctorate, that he had seen it while stocking shelves at work)- brand new, even; still in the cellophane.  It was for the original Playstation (which I had.  Hell, I still have it).  It was called "Rising San: the Samurai Gunman."

 

My avatar is a mons- a Japanese-style pictogram (sort of) of you or your family.  I can't read Kanji-  see, the idea, _as I understand it_, mind you, is using the Kanji to create a layered word meaning _and_ a photograph of sorts:  one might select an interpretation of his name that could _also_ mean "brave warrior" and be written with Kanji in such a way that the shape impression of the written word or phrase was a sword.  It is a masterful cross-utilisation of poetry, philosophy, education, artistry, and calligraphy that I could only _dream_ of attempting.  So let me start over:

 

My avatar is a piece of crap.  But there are two silhouettes visible.  The one on the left is a motorcycle. The one on the right- katana extended and dragoon hanging from his hip; frets and tassels hanging from his buckskin jacket- is the title character from that game: Zan.

 

 

There.  Now there is a thing you know.

 

Now save the link, because this is the _short_ version of the "Bushido" part, and with any luck, I will never have to type all that again!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 21 by Duke Bushido
Touchscreen-induced Typos, as always

[BoloOfEarth]

5 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

The "Bushido" thing is simultaneously simpler and more complicated, but suffice it to say it is the result of an amusing-at-the-time joke made on a night out with friends to celebrate the occasion of three of those friends receiving their Doctorates in Philosophy and preparing for their new lives at whatever K-Mart would have them.  

 

This cracked me up.  It reminded me of a comedian (I don't recall who) that talked about getting a degree in Sociology.

 

"One year later, I've got no job, I'm lying on my parents' couch watching TV and thinking, 'what book didn't I read?'.  So I went back to the college and asked them, 'What am I supposed to do with this sociology degree?'"

 

"You teach."

 

"And my students?  What are they going to do with their Sociology degrees?"

 

"They'll teach."

 

"Oh my God!  This isn't college!  It's Amway with a track team!"