BOONVILLE DISTILLERY: Our new margarita flight…pepperoncini margarita, pickle margarita, and the devil’s margarita (our classic margarita topped with Anderson Valley Pinot Noir!) each one refreshing and tasty! Come check with out!
MY GRANDSON, a sixth grader, told me a kid in his class is a furry. A what? “A furry. She pretends she's an animal and sometimes crawls around at recess.” Apparently there's a furry movement, thousands of extreme anthromorphs who don animal suits for meetings. I wonder if incompatible species mix, dogs and cats, say. I occasionally get press releases whose authors sign themselves, she/her or he/him or they/them. The she/hers and he/hims haven't replied when I write back: Is you twins?
WYNNE NORD: We have three spots left for our summer swimming lessons. Please read the attached to make sure your child qualifies. We have one opening in group A and two openings in group C. These lessons are for beginning swimmers.
PETIT TETON FARM is open Mon-Sat 9-4:30, Sun 12-4:30. Along with the large inventory of jams, pickles, soups, hot sauces, apple sauces, and drink mixers made from everything we grow, we sell frozen USDA beef and pork from our perfectly raised pigs and cows, and stewing hens and eggs. Squab is also available at times. Contact us for what's in stock at 707.684.4146 or farmer@petitteton.com. Nikki and Steve
IF A MARINE is ill, he's sent to sick bay; a marine who checks into the hospital suspiciously often is called a sick bay commando.
THAT'S ME LATELY, a constant round of doctors as I recover from an operation that ripped my throat out and built a new one an inch from the old one.
I MUCH PREFERRED the old throat with its taste buds, olfactory pipe to my nose and my voice box. Of the three, only a voice box of sorts can be constructed via a thing called a prothesis, although I've found some significant advantages to being mute, primarily the one of being spared frivolous conversations.
TASTE AND SMELL are gone. I've begun lessons in how to talk, but I'm afraid I'm a poor student, so far managing only an eerie whisper, although my two speech therapists are professionally and, seemingly, genuinely optimistic that even this old boy will someday speak again.
IT'S ALL been a learning experience, with a whole new vocabulary applied to the hole in my throat. I've got a box of HME's, an ingenious filter about the size of an eucalyptus acorn that fits into a lary tube, a brief length of plastic, and it all goes into the hole in my throat, through which I depend for life's breath and which keeps the hole open while it heals. The hole is called a stoma, which sounds nicer, I guess, than hole in the throat.
THE HME is basically a filtered plug that keeps my new throat clear of debris and prevents casual observers from recoiling in horror at what otherwise looks like a bullet wound. “Mommy, mommy! That old man has a hole in his neck!”
I'VE GOT everyday plugs, night time plugs and exercise plugs. I prefer the exercise plugs because they get me more air. I've had to regularly unplug to vacuum phlegm build-up out of my new throat but seldom at night any more. The vacuuming is accomplished via a little desktop generator to which is attached a long plastic tube which I plunge into my stoma to suck out the accumulated phlegm.
(PHLEGM NOTE. When my nephew, the redoubtable Robert Mailer Anderson, was a freshman in high school he often clashed with an excitable principal over prose “appropriateness,” and appropriateness generally. One day the principal grabbed nephew’s essay to demand, “What's this here fleg-um you wrote here?,” apparently suspecting that nephew was trying to sneak by a new wrinkle in obscenity. That principal, this being Mendocino County, quite naturally went on to become superintendent of all the county's schools at the Mendocino County Office of Education.)
I'VE ALSO GOT a lary tube, an inch of plastic pipe to which is attached the HME plug and, hidden within the recesses of the hole in my throat, aka my stoma, is a tiny piece of whatever, plastic I guess. It's called a prosthesis as mentioned above. This thing will give me voice, what quality of voice remains to be heard because so far I haven't managed an intelligible sound.
MY MARTYRED WIFE is called upon once a day to don a miner's headlamp, peer deep into the hole in my throat as she wields a tiny brush to keep the prosthesis clear of debris. This prosthesis thing that will get me talking again is so small it is not visible to me and barely visible to my poor wife even with her big time illumination via a head lamp.
IF I COME OUT sounding like R2D2 I'd rather remain mute, but I'm assured I'll eventually have an actual voice of some recognizable human timbre.
SO THE OTHER DAY, one of the two unfortunate speech therapists assigned to me by UCSF, both of them specialists in my condition, skyped me with my second voice lesson, during which she asked me to “occlude your stoma.” For a panicked moment I had no idea what she was asking me to do. I couldn't recall ever hearing “occlude” said aloud, and had only a hazy recollection that it meant something like disguise or obscure, as in the recent eclipse that occluded the sun.
NOR DID I at first recognize “stoma.” My cognitive delay didn't faze the therapist. She waited patiently while I figured out she was telling me to plug the HME plug in the hole in my throat with my finger, take a deep breath and see if I could exhale an intelligible sound, make my prosthesis sing! I couldn't, but promised I'd work on it on my own. And that was that. For now.
MARK SCARAMELLA: The Editor’s reference to the grammar-challenged School Superintendant in Ed Notes reminded me of this classic from 2010 by Bruce McEwen: Boaz V. The Untutored & Malicious
PS. A few years later Mr. Barrett went on to run for County School Superintendent but lost by a very small margin to Michelle Hutchins who later lost a close election to Barrett’s female protégé at Ukiah Unified, Nicole Glentzer. Readers may recall that the nutty complaint against Mr. Boaz was prepared by the District’s tax-paid attorney and signed by almost all Mendocino County School superintendents, including County Superintendet Paul Tichinin. (Notably, Ukiah Unified Superintendent Lois Nash, in whose name the complaint was filed, did not sign.) Judge Leonard LaCasse ultimately ruled that the District’s stupid letter insulting Boaz was “an opinion and not actionable under the law.” LaCasse added, “the court is distressed that there appears to be a need for adult supervision at the District office.”
MIRANDA MABERY: Free! Need gone asap I don’t know much about it! Definitely a project motor home. Ran when parked there. Might start right up. I don’t know. Don’t have time or want to mess with it. it’s in bad shape in the inside. Message me (on facebook) if you want to check it out. Thanks
ELIZABETH JENSEN: That’s a wrap! THANK YOU to ALL the volunteers! : Misha & Charlie & Family - Nat & Noor & Family - Kathleen - Georgette & Family - Jill - Ginny & Wade & Family - Travis & Family - Jersey & Family - Brittany & Family - Nate - Amanda & Family - Libby & Family - Christina & Saturo & Family …& ALL the volunteers that came out today!
An extra THANK YOU to our local sponsors for the delicious lunch! : Boontberry Salad - Mosswood Empanadas - Lemons Deli Spread - AV Market Snacks - General Store Cookies …& ALL the refreshments to revive us in the end.
Stay tuned for the next LOVE YOUR PARK DAY this October.
It Takes A Valley!
CUTE BIRDHOUSES made by the AV Elementary 3rd grade class out of recycled barn wood. Raising funds for 4th grade school trip!! Only one left! Will go to highest offer, starting at $25. (Bidding ends Sat, May 25)
SPORTS NOTE: Fort Bragg mayor and 4th District supervisor-elect Bernie Norvell, finished 7th overall in the recent Boontling Classic, covering the 5k course in a highly respectable 21 minutes, 54 seconds, establishing the mayor as the fastest, best conditioned person ever to hold public office in Mendocino County. The Classic, an out and back on Anderson Valley Way starting and finishing at the Anderson Valley Elementary School, was held on Saturday, May 5th, and was organized by the third generation of the Colfax family, the event's founders. (Greg Sims, 90, started and finished the race, quite a feat in itself given his years.)
BOB ABELES: There’s good news on AT&T’s application to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to be relieved of its Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) obligations. CPUC Administrative Law Judge Thomas Glegola has found that AT&T’s application should be rejected with prejudice. The CPUC will vote on June 20 to finalize his decision. Judge Glegola wrote, “It is not clear why AT&T filed this Application, under existing rules, and then attempted to convince the Commission that it should ignore its rules, based on flawed and erroneous assertions regarding the law and regulatory policy that slowed down the adjudication of this proceeding.”
BILL KIMBERLIN: Back at the ranch. Since I was five years old I got such a thrill coming to Boonville and now I still do. I have written before that I think life is about going away and coming home again. Scott Fitzgerald put it this way: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
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