The Hours of Night

Thursday, November 14, 2013

The Confused Man-Recovery Continues #9

The Hours of Night

The Confused Man in Recovery #9

Here I am dealing with life once more. We should join a club. It's 2 am and finally taking time to reflect on my skin cancer diagnosis. My limited knowledge tells me that there is a good chance that it will not kill me and the doctors will remove it this week, the soonest I could get a reservation, ha. I hope there is a hot tub.

The "thing" is on my nose, it became visible about 6 weeks ago. I understand that this is not the worst kind of cancer but that word all by itself is frightening. The surgery is called Mohs with a pretty good success rate (98%). God is making sure I keep Him close in times like this. I really appreciate His presence. That is exactly what our devotional (Jesus Calling) has been about for the entire month of October. I thank God for everything in my life and I will become more like Him as He teaches me not to fear but to trust and have faith in His promises.

Our trees are gone and the house doesn't look that bad, to me at least. Now it is new fence time. Did I tell you that I am listening to the Canadian Brass, they are wonderful, I love trumpet playing. These musicians are amazing. I was a music major with emphasis on trumpet performance for my freshman and sophomore years in college. It was after taking trumpet lessons the summer between my sophomore and junior year that I made the decision that I would never meet my expectations in music.

Every day during that summer school session, I would spend my spare time wondering around the halls of the Art School. I still cannot figure out why I didn't pursue getting a degree in Art. To get better at anything there is no secret, just do it and then do it some more and then more and more and more.

I am very satisfied with how much artwork I have done and had the chance to sell some of it. As long as I stay away from trying to lead my life without God He helps and guides. I have been seeing short glimpses or getting past the confusion. I am a long, loooooooooonnnngggggggg way from winning that battle. Lately ourchildren have been such a great pleasure. They are tremendous young adults. We pray that God will continue to work in their lives to guide them into having joy and feeling positive about their life. I am very scattered this morning. If you will forgive me for the shortness of this entry, I will just say hi to some of my friends. I thank God for friends and family every day.

Here is something new, I bought 85 golf balls from a thrift shop here in town for 20 cents each. Now I can play again. I understand that they cost as much as $5 or more each.

My magic mirror has been accumulating many pictures in its memory and I am going to release some of the pressure by sharing them with you.

I see Howard and Linda up in Portland, I will be emailing them soon. Need to check on his new book. Sorry it has been so long. I also see Virginia and Jim back in Kansas. Wow, have you been getting more handsome and Virginia has always been beautiful and smart. I don't mean that you aren't smart Jim but facts are facts. I don't think men would get by without smarter women as partners. I truly hope that you guys are doing OK. I also see Shirley, do you think she would deliver some of her brittle out here to California.

I'm afraid I am mixing this blog with my facebook and it is starting to confuse me again. The actual pictures of me and my exploits will be coming in the near future. I love all you guys out there in cyberland. Posted on 11-14-13

Saturday, November 2, 2013

The Confused Man in Treatment #8

The Hours of Night

The Confused Man in treatment #8

Treatment can be so comforting and with a positive side effect of clarity. Hard to believe isn't it? My confusion has become a part of me for the last two and a half years. But so it is with me. I am trying to get on solid ground and from there I will amaze you, I will astonish, I will astound you, and most of all to many of you I will surprise and shock you. It shall be my one and only task. You will be proud of me, I assure you.

Today I am home with my wife and watching six of our trees slowly come down, with a little help from Mario, Jose and Gerald. Mario works for a landscape contractor and he and his brother and a young helper trim and remove trees on the side. Deb and I didn't see eye to eye on the extent of the renovation of the outside of our house but we finally came to an agreement that she will have the last word on anything inside the house and I will have the final say when it is on the outside. My job is almost over and hers is just beginning. Now who is the smart one?

Alright, alright, in unison, Debbie, she is the smart one, no contest. Sorry Dave, you say, but that is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

As I am writing this the tree crew is almost done for the day, all that is left is the cleanup. These guys are amazing, everyone knows what to do, nobody gets in the way of the other and they waste no extra steps or effort to do anything. They are scheduled to work tomorrow on the final and largest tree we have. It will be a little more difficult because of its location, right in the middle of two houses which are only about 20 feet apart.

So much for treatment, it was boring and I knew all the stuff they were teaching anyway. I decided that I would just live life the best I could with the help of an honest, thoughtful and pleasant looking woman. Then the thought hit me, why don't I do it with my wife, Deb. She is honest, thoughtful and is much more than pleasant looking, in fact she is very attractive.

Next day. I have not finished with this blog yet. A small, soft voice talked to me this morning. It was just before we started our devotions. I know that it was the Holy Spirit. The voice and the devotional for this morning reminded me that I am to let God work through me. So that's what I did. I asked Mario if I could pray for them and right away we all formed a circle with arms around each other and I prayed for safety today and thanks for safety yesterday. It was truly God in the form of the Holy Spirit.

I don't know if it would have made any difference if I had not prayed with them but that is not my call. I am to obey when God speaks, that's it. We ask God so many times to speak to us, at least I do and I don't want to miss a blessing.

The next agenda item is to brush off my magic mirror. There are a lot of my friends that I need to connect with again. Friendships are the spice of life, next to a spouse. I just had a thought, they are Spice Merchants.

See you soon.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

The Hours of Night by The Confused Man going into treatment, #7

The Hours of Night

The Confused Man going into treatment, #7

Confusion Reigns Supreme #7

Confusion rules supreme. And none so pasteurized, homogenized and castrosized as my imagination while in its infancy. I have the dubious task of making my path seem invisible to my many, many fans. In fact, I think I have found the solution, just now. Then at the same time I am sucked back again to the confusion that I so missed but know that I must leave behind. Oh, if only I could leave it far, far behind, that would be my wish.

Lately, I must admit, I have been trying to convince you that I was not only suffering from living with only half of my meager, to say the least, brain. My brain has become so meager that if someone were to ask it for directions to the other half of my brain, it would first have to sit and rest awhile and then realize that it had been sitting on it all along. Then it would thank the one who ventured the question and drift off back to sleep and dream of thinking just once more before someone would put it out of its misery.

I fear that I have done it again. What my original intentions were, is to slowly introduce you to my novel, and I say novel because it is so long. "They" said I should tease the readers and create this artificial desire for more and more installments of my tale of fun and excitement that my readers would be lined up waiting to have more, sort of like the way women wait in long lines at the ladies restroom for who knows what, but they do seem happier when they come out. It is truly amazing comparing how squirmy and agitated they are while waiting in the line and they get more so the longer the line gets. You would think that the more popular that thing is in the women's restroom the more the women would want it, which I guess is the case. They really must be doing more than resting for you can hear them uttering an audible AAHHHH!!!!! Just before one sees them again. I have seen some women go in and out of there three or four times in a matter of several hours.

Another term or name I have heard from passing women is bathroom. I am pretty sure that they are not taking baths in there. First of all the room doesn't seem big enough to accommodate all those women who are waiting outside to get in. And I never see any evidence of a bath, no towels, no set hair, no sandals and I never hear the hum of hair dryers. I have never met a woman who can take a bath or shower without a hairdryer. Then how could it be a bathroom? How about calling it then a bathhouse. I have just had a thought, please someone keep track of that, it truly doesn't happen that often. What about calling it an"outhouse". It is out and away from all the other houses, I wonder why? And it looks like a little house. This definitely needs more thought.

If any of my female readers out there wish to comment on this mystery, please send me the answer. Already I have received a request from one of my male readers to make a comment from his point of view.

In order to be true to my directions from "they" I will give you the first letter of the first word of the"novel". "T".

Alright, have fun and I will see you next time. David Freidman alias David Friesen alias Davie from the Crocket Davie's. I promise to try to get out of my habit of using you to get rid of my confusion. From a Recovering Confused Man, "oh the clarity is too bright out here". Take it away, take it away! END

The Hours of Night by The Confused Man #6

The Hours of Night

The Confused Man #6

So what is it that makes you so confused, asked the pediatrician. I can't seem to find the bathroom when I need it and when I yell for mommy, the neighbor comes outside and turns the water hose on me. That's not very nice is it? "Well", said the doctor, "sounds like you deserved it". I think I should start looking for another pediatrian now that I am 60 years old. It's not that I am too old for him, it is that he is too young for me. Just to show you how young he is, he crawled into the exam room when I had my appointment and got out his box of crayons and his nurse gave him a picture of her in her bathing suit for him to color. In my chart. Can you believe it. I've never seen those pictures before. Why wasn't I told about this? I looked for myself and there was also a picture of me in my birthday suit, yes, that's right, in my BIRTHDAY suit. And it wasn't an appropriate picture for a medical chart either. The longer I looked at the chart the more pictures I found. He couldn't even stay in the lines. There was also one of my wife. It was much more fitting, it was a picture of her delivering our first child to the hospital. They wouldn't let us have the baby in the hospital because our baby doctor was just that, a baby doctor. But we had to bring it to the hospital because they didn't think it was our baby. That's a laugh, with all the pain I went through just to get her in and out of our fishpond and onto the dining room table to deliver our son. You would think that would be enough.

I have not had much luck with my doctors. I shouldn't say that exactly. I am lucky to be alive after 50 some years of having him as my doctor but I've had my share of bad luck too. Luck is a funny thing.

By the way, I am making up all the dialogue that the doctor is saying because it sounds better than; baba, gemme, dada look I made a stinky.

Now back to the blog at hand. If you remember my last award winning prose when I was telling you about my inappropriate sitting and the resultant sickening sight into my magic mirror. OK lets establish the fact that it was you and you alone who caused my untimely sitting by you purposely deflecting my attention away from the mirror and to that picture you showed me of those two people wrestling. I couldn't even tell if they were really wrestling or just acting, like those professional wrestlers on TV.

I think it would be prestigous of you to come back again tomorrow. Maybe then we would have time to sort out the good from the bad and if we wanted to we would go back to bed, I mean I would go back to bed. I am in need of some rest. I fear that my confusion is getting worse. Bye for now.

To those of you who are really trying to understand me, thank you.

The Hours of Night by The Confused Man #5

The Hours of Night

The Confused Man #5

This blog is for all the people out there that are out there and who know it. I shall not identify you any more because you already know who you are. I am listening to the Canadian Brass, they are very good in a certain Canadian kind of way.

It would be a good reality show to have the Canadian Brass play a concert at the Corner Gas Station and have the lead actor be Mama Cass. But first they would all go to Mass since Michael Fox conveniently left them off the show's VIP list without even one seat between them ("seat" is a nice way to write butt. I know what you are thinking, this is some kind of Rhyme but I assure you that it is not. I can say with total inequality that I have no intention of using these words for that purpose.

People are such bottom sitters, the first ten minutes of the show was only fighting with Maury Povitch (sp)for the last seat in the third balcony with Sassquawach the wonderdog. To nobody's surprise they were on the wrong show. But alas it didn't stick and they are all back to their unusual usable tricks.

The most famous of them all is the trick of cutting the audience in two and leaving them to find their own partners, such indignity to someone else's top half while having a desire to be someone else. Only one trouble and the cast members can confirm this. Why can't they find the answer they are looking for. The cast members are trying to figure the trick out and put them all back together in the right way.

Surprise, surprise, but who should arise from the ashes of the previous show but none other than Rachel who was just passing through. Alas another surprise came from the house where we all lived at one time or another. He will take total responsibility for his failure to come down the chimney, but instead, it was the old gas man himself accompanied by Bassman the spokesperson for BassMasters fishing boats.

My (bumm) is getting tired of waiting for Miss Cass to find the one and only key for the massive single holer outhouse built in the middle of the third carpool lane of the new freeway that has just been completed in and out of our city that doesn't even have one person with the last name that rhymes with Lass, which is very unusual in this day and age of rapid transit and horses that are twice as big as dogs of the same size.

Considering that the computer has overcome the pencil in writing the most interesting scripts that the pharmacy doctor or person who is much less intelligent has ever seen, considering again that she can't even open her eyes until the sun makes an appearance from under the cover of darkness.

The prize for the longest word in a sentence that really has nowhere else to go has been announced at the Nas-car races in Toledo and we all suspected that it would be a tie between two words that no one has ever heard of before, what a Nas-T competition it was and that's why . What a singular masterpiece that sat and decayed in the cellars of the last true master of sleight of hand and his beautiful Lass who was armed with a Blass-ting capsule to make this one of the strongest initial episodes of Canadian Gas and Electric sponsors, "Come and get it while you can." By the way, there are some left. A show about how you can eat and then go away and eat again, my crass interpretation was right on. Sorry for using words that are a bit too big for you. It was never my fault that you were not born until you were 12 and missed some of the most important years of your life plus all the education. You are what the underprivileged call an idiot. This is no way to reintroduce myself to you. I am the great and powerful and benevolent Oz.

I can fly you across the United States for only $348 if you agree to stop at every city that United flies into. Once you are there it is anybody's guess if you will know the password to fly back out again and this time in a ten story hot air balloon. Only the gas that you burn will be charged to your account. But don't let that persuade you to make the air as hot as you can. My advice is to go back to sleep if you are of a mind to do it. When the gas exits your bumm, just a Canadian word for seat, you will have something to talk about.

How many bumm's does it take to fill a hot air balloon?

You won't have a problem getting the air to rise and off you go riding on the wings of your own gas. I can't stop and I am getting very frustrated with you coming to me all the time just to ask if it will be done soon and if we are at our destination yet. I never told you we were headed in the right direction to see our destination so why would you even consider going with me to the last place I would ever go. I can't figure you out, first you want this and then you don't. I am sorry to say that this blog is ready to be put to bed as they say in Calgary, where they have that big convergence of animals on the certain day when they cheer when somebody falls off the bull and lands on their rear end.

I don't even know where that is or who it was before I started writing this. I think it is somewhere above the ankles and below the bird who has just deposited a little white and orange liquid from high overhead on your left eye and it has run down your nose to your mouth and into it, just for a small taste. Not bad if you are the dumbest person in the whole world. I fear I am becoming as confused as the person who wrote this letter .

Barbara, are you up yet, Barbara, Barbara get your big, fat derriere up. Oh, look what I found when I got up from my chair where my bottom has been for the last 30 minutes. It's my magic mirror, but it is covered with the evidence of where it has been which makes it hard to see into it and see who has come to visit. If it is you, you sure are attracted to the oddest and grossest things.

I will clean it up a bit before sharing with you who it was that gravitated to my filthy mirror. Bye and good riddance till we meet again, go forth and prosper for today is the last day there will be before tomorrow comes, but don't quote me on that. If you tell anyone else what I said, send me $1 in royalty fees in a manila envelope.

David Friesen, the most confused person writing this ever.

Words from my Rhyming Project: Ass, Mass, tass, Lass, NasCar, Nas-T, Sass, Crass, blass-ting, alas, Brass, Cass, gas, sass.

the Confused Man #4 (pay it forward)

The Hours of Night

The Confused Man #4

I feel that soon I shall have to change my name. I am getting less and less confused and with no end in sight. Soon I will be like those that read this. I am sure that the numbers are getting smaller and smaller every day. But look on the bright side. I started at zero. If you can maintain this position, you will never have very far to fall.

I am going to be free of the shackles that have held me for so long. I will have a chance to introduce you to my book and my poetry. But for now I will try to empty myself of all the meaningless words and thoughts I still have left in my mind. This shouldn't take long, oh!, ouch, gee what was that, look out, Ouj, I remember that, you little, how could you, I never, wait I will do it, your the best, you're the worst, OOOh! I feel better now, how 'bout you?

Now on to more important things. I have just finished writing one page explanations of my series of drawings and the written words that focus on The Gospel of John, Miracles and Hands of Faith. After finishing the three of them which took me since 2005 I realized that they were very hard to describe. I have the three of them hanging at the North Fresno Church in the boardroom.

I should put copies of them here if I can enlist the help of the tech person in the family. Assuming that this will indeed happen I shall begin to sign off. I believe I will put some excerpts from my writing in the next blog offering. Good morning to you and have a great Sunday. Mirror, Mirror on the wall.

Page one, boy am I hitting the artificial barrier that artists get. The writer's cramp. That's all I need. Let me bring you up to date until the cramp dies its own death and I can again thrill you with my verbal and mental dexterity.

This is what writer's call a backward story. I'll try to put all the elements of a story together into one integrated whole. Stir it up and make a pie for little Jack Horner that he can eat with his curds and whey.

The story behind the story is David, who has an excellent memory for spiritual relationships. It seems he can see into a person's soul, which makes him a valuable person to have on a Deliverance Team but not so much for the regular relationships with friends and family.

The more that David gets into deliverance and exorcisms the more he remembers about his past, particularly his life threatening illness at age 3, his coma and seemingly perfect recovery from polio when his father ended up being paralyzed. It's a sad story but the backward story is full of promise and sometimes even joy. Ya know, a person's life is jammed packed full of people. Friends, family, caregivers and caretakers. Even animals can become important parts of the puzzle of life. The story is all about how full or empty life can be and winding its way through each person's life, is our personal relationship to our God. So let's get on with it. If one of you were astute (like me) it would be very interesting to put mine and Debbie's blogs together to compare them and see how compatible we really are. But if any of you were really astute you wouldn't be reading my blog in the first place. See you again soon on the pages of the Hours of Night with a most confused writer. But one who has access to a truly magic mirror.

Signed: Mr Confused aka David Friedman aka David Friesen. END

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

the Hours of Night. The Confused Man #3

The Hours of Night

"The Confused Man", # 3

Is there anybody out there who looks like I feel? How about someone who is willing to look like I feel? Don't tell me that you are questioning the way I feel because if you are, well then I don't know what I should do with you. Can you please not attack me anymore about my looks. The girls were so mean to me when I pushed them down on the rocks. I never could understand why they treated me so badly.

I was really confused as a child--much worse than I am now. I am a new man compared to when I was in the 3rd grade. But the third grade had some better moments in it like when I stole my first kiss from Vickie. I have sometimes liked that name. Not always like so many people do, just sometimes. I have liked the name Debbie ever since I had one of her snack cakes and for the last 40 plus years. Those snack cakes were the best, moist and flavorful and full of sugar. Much more than I could handle now that I have reached the pinnacle of my life. Everything about my life now is multiplied by two or three.

I am going to introduce you to my magic mirror if I can find it. Oh, there it is, wow look at how dirty it is. It is going to take some Windex and some scrubbing bubbles to get it ready to use. Don't worry if I get your name wrong, it is my eyesight that is getting bad. Plus I can't seem to find my reading glasses. Here goes. Holding up my magic mirror I can see all my Facebook friends. There's Steve and Lois, Susan and Gary and I'd have never guessed it but I see Val and Ross. If it weren't for them Deb and I would probably not made it out of seminary. It is so good to see you all. One thing for sure, life keeps happening. Good and Bad, it never stops.

Over the last month Deb and I have been reading the devotional "Jesus Calling" and it has stressed the importance of our relationship with God and how God puts a special emphasis on it beyond the everyday things that happen to us. Not sure how it all coincides with God wanting us to ask for things we need and that we need to be proactive in our prayer life. But if we compare it to our relationships with others, our spouse, children and Christian brothers and sisters, it makes more sense for us to make that a priority too. Looking more closely I see Laura Beth, Ron, Joann and the Assurance Group members who are playing some kind of a game. It must be funny because they are all laughing. It is either a funny game or Chris is telling one of his jokes.

For next time, I will give my mirror a good spit shine and we will see what happens. So long, Mr. Confused. I have a feeling that this confusion will be fading soon if I can keep talking with good people like you.

David Friedman aka David Friesen.