Grate

It’s been a few days over a year now since my mother and I published (with much assistance) in book form the first year of the original blog. The first pages of that book are still alive in real life inside my mind even from over five years ago. Recently, I had a dream in which my friend who passed away this last summer (the one I met in prison and lived with on the outside) was with me at my current place of employment, telling me he had a choice to make. He could go back to prison, or go back to working at the laminating factory we worked at together when we got out. To both of us, this was a true dilemma, and we never did get to a solution before an alarm went off in my head.

 For some unknown reason, I have been waking up well before 5am for a few weeks now. I’m not tired; in fact I feel quite refreshed, and most days I even stay up well past my old-man bedtime of 8:30. I’ve spent a few mornings at the gym before work—just me and the cotton balls. Some days I play with Roofus outside then bring him so he can piss and shit. And some days I lay still and contemplate my next move in life.

What should I do? Should I actively try something new, different, and challenging? Should I try to refinance the house? Should I try to break the land-speed record? Or, should I just enjoy what I have for a while? Doing or trying anything ever always costs money. My minivan isn’t very fast, and my credit probably isn’t yet back to a point of being able to lock in a good rate on a new mortgage. I’ll probably still try.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. This year, Amanda and I are cooking the feast for our neighbors. (I will do the cooking, Amanda will probably drink wine.) They were kind enough to host our wedding, and they don’t have family around these here parts, so we decided to stay local on account of both of us having to work the day before and after the holiday and fix them a proper meal.

Tomorrow, I will deep fry a turkey in peanut oil, make amuse bouche with black garlic and Indigo Bunting—a delicious bleu from Deer Creek, and make a mashed potato dish with black garlic molasses and bacon. I will try desperately not to set their house on fire while frying the turkey. I will use common sense and if that doesn’t work, I will use a fire extinguisher.

I’m excited to host our first Thanksgiving (although technically not at home.) And I’m more grateful than ever for the people, things, and feelings I have in my life. 2019 has been without question the saddest and happiest year of my life. I married my best friend, lost my best homie dog, lost a great friend, a great aunt, and Amanda lost two grandparents. We got a new dog, lost a rabbit and a cat, and for Halloween, I put a wild-wacky-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube-man on our roof. All of our bills are paid, we have food in the cupboards, and the girls are doing amazingly well in their respective schools. I am so fucking grateful for my life I could just shit. I love this thing, and I want to keep it.

In order for me to keep what I have earned through my program of recovery, I have to give it all away. Of course I don’t mean the house, kids, and the wife. I mean the knowledge that got me all of these things. This I will continue to do through bringing meetings to jails and institutions whenever possible, and writing this blog which—for the most part—tells that story of a washed-up, unsuccessful drug dealer that turned his life around. At one point, I had my first day of sobriety. Somebody has that today, and is capable of doing amazing things. If you know that person, encourage them to become something, and to share their journey with others.

Tomorrow, be kind and loving. Be grateful and humble. Be thankful, and be generous.



Or, start your neighbor's house on fire.

Hazards

It feels foreign to me sitting in front of my laptop. I haven’t typed any words about my life in nearly a month. A lot of my energy has been taken up at work, especially in the past three weeks. I have taken on a special assignment, and it’s been the most difficult undertaking in any of my professional endeavors. I have written a HACCP  plan.

The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point plan was established by Pillsbury for N.A.S.A. so that astronauts could bring food into outer space with them that wouldn’t make them sick. It is as technical as you might think anything developed by scientists would be, and I had to use all two years of my high school education and take a 16-hour online course to get it right. I hope I got it right. The application for the HACCP plan through the Minnesota Department of Health is 25 pages long, and this is all just for one process: ROP. Reduced oxygen packaging is a method used by many wholesale manufacturers of whole meats, and by some restaurants that have the ability to legally do so through the plan. It is essentially, no, literally, vacuum packaging meats that we process into steaks to increase their shelf-life. Some bacteria can grow in an anaerobic state, and we have to assure the health department that we have taken every necessary precaution to ensure the safety of the consumer.

Twenty-five pages is just the application. In addition to the application, I had to include a hazard analysis, a list of control points and critical points. I have to document my training and my subsequent training of others. I have to document the calibration of our thermometers, the temperatures of the meats, the places we store them, and the days we process. I had to install data loggers in the storage areas which continuously record temperatures and are uploaded on to my computer at work which I then print off and keep for a year. All of these documents must be kept for a year and always be available for inspection. I have to verify that the documents are correct.

I had to create something called a Process Flow Diagram. I don’t know how to make shapes with the Word program, but I learned. I even made arrows, almost all of which pointed in the correct directions. I explained in great detail every step of a piece of meat from the minute we receive it at the loading dock—including all of the potential hazards (biological, chemical, and physical)along the way—to the moment we remove it from the package for cooking.

I am not a scientist. I’m probably closest to a doctor, but Amanda doesn’t think that’s funny. I’m not a college graduate or even a high school graduate. I got my G.E.D. sometime in the 1900’s and I have yet to use the algebra I had to study to take the test. But I still took on a project that the Department of Health recommends you hire out to scientists, consultants, and people who have previously submitted plans of their own. My certificate tells me I am a HACCP Manager, but I am definitely a HACCP greenhorn. But I did it, and I’m incredibly proud of myself for doing something that looked impossible from the get-go. Today I submitted our application and all supporting documents and a check for $363, and I have to wait up to 30 days to hear from whether I did well enough to have the plan approved.

If the plan is a go from the MNDH, they will come to the club and I have to walk them through the entire process, and essentially show them that I know what I have written and can implement it. The health department always scares me a little. I’m always afraid that I don’t wash my hands for long enough when they watch us, or that I don’t pick my nose at the right time. But at every establishment I’ve ever worked, we always pass, and another day is done.

Life at home is going well. Tonight I have three girls over and there is more screaming and chaos than normal. Ella has a friend from school sleeping over and Emme needs constant attention. I’ll end this post by saying that I really miss writing, and I will try to find more time to do so in the near future. In the meantime, please address me as Mr. Dr. Scientist Maertz.

I say good day.

Feasts (Two Different Ones)

Last night Amanda and I went to the Phantom Feast which is held in Bad Manor, on the property of the Renaissance Festival. About a month ago, we went to the Feast of Fantasy, in the same building, on the same property. The two shows are very different, and both incredibly entertaining.

The Feast of Fantasy is a performance filled with belly dancers, fire eaters, sword swallowers, and the like. It is a six-course dinner with banquet-style service for which I would provide zero Michelin stars. It’s not about the food, it’s about the exhibition.  It’s fun, it’s funny, and it takes up three hours of an otherwise boring Sunday afternoon. This is the second year we attended, and we will certainly go back again. At the end of the show, they hand out $5 discount cards for the Phantom’s Feast which we wanted to attend last year, but we could not.

This year we did. The show starts around 6pm as we are all guided inside of a cozy room where the roughly 100 of us sit down in our assigned seats (our backs were to the decorated stage seen below)  at which our salads and desserts are already set. The salad is decent, and so as to not risk anything happening to my dessert like say maybe a ghost steals it, I devour it. The show begins with Jimmy (also the host of Feast of Fantasy) reading a Shakespeare verse, then telling some stories of the alleged haunting of Bad Manor and the property. Of course, at the proper times, some of the audience is startled by banging on the walls. Could it be malevolence? Perhaps.

Jimmy told his well-informed stories of the history of the grounds, and apprises us that the property sits atop a large quantity of silica sand which, of course, is small crystals. Crystals hold energy, it’s literally what they do, and it’s said that good and bad spirits alike haunt people at night. And in the day. They don't sleep or care about light. It's all at night for the living humans, and night makes things scarier for us. Living humans seem weak.

I offered to show Jimmy on the doll where the bad man.... Nevermind. Amanda was selected to participate. When Jimmy touched a part of the doll, Amanda reacted with the same limb. It was pretty cool.

Now, I know, it’s a show. But I kept an open mind. Last year I remember thinking randomly that I had not been to a funeral for a loved one since childhood. This year we have been to four funerals and we lost our dog. It’s been a tough year for loss, but I am equipped to deal with these stresses in an adult fashion, and I don’t think I’m at any risk of relapsing over anything that happens to me or others; I have a solid foundation and a great group of men in recovery that keep me grounded.

But..

I love things that make me think. Wonder, maybe, is a more appropriate term. I believe in God in that he speaks through me or others and that it is part of my program of A.A. That doesn’t mean I believe in a God, your God, or heaven or hell. It just means that I use the term God a lot when I say my little prayers, and when I really need the universe to look after somebody. Some of us in the program call it Good Orderly Direction. G.O.D. I like that.

I say that to say this. Whether or not there are any of those things listed above is irrelevant to me. I try almost every day to not be a piece of shit, and I hope that I get a little farther away from the person I was before I went to prison over five years ago. But after losing so many loved entities this year, I keep looking up at the starts and sincerely hoping that there is something more after this. And I find comfort in thinking that Willie is somewhere in the spirit world chasing a tennis ball that never stops. And that my Aunt Jerry is up there living without pain.

Somewhere, between the last moments of life, and the first moments of death, must be a quiet place where nothing hurts, everything shines, and everybody you love is at their peak. And whether that’s just synapses firing off randomly due to a spreading lack of oxygen, or a preview of the pearly gates, that could be the happiest moment of our lives. And maybe if there is somewhere for our spirit to wander around after our body is burned or buried—or I suppose in some cases eaten by wolves or maybe even cannibals—we can have a positive impact on lives from another angle.

All of the things that gave us the chills last night were coordinated, staged, rehearsed, etc. But they all were done really well. And they all made me wonder: where do we go from here?

If it’s all for naught, I suppose we could just focus on being loving and tolerant of each other while we have this 80 years or so. And if there is actually a hell, I will regret not being more of an asshole if I have to go down there for all of my past mistakes.

Either way, no more fucking funerals, 2019.

Our hostess with the mostess, Jimmy.

Zoom in. What do you see/.

Five Days Later

I guess it’s kind of tough to stop thinking about Willie. Strange noises around the house keep reminding me of his little distinctions. Amanda was brushing Emme’s hair last night in such a precise tempo that it exactly matched the speed at which he meandered down the vinyl hallway, tapping all along with his grotesque nails. I still have his collar, and when I picked it up from the floor yesterday because Roofus had chewed it in half, I sniffed it and his distinct bouquet made me well up ever so slightly.

His loss hit me harder than I thought it would, and I thought it would hit me hard. He was such an integral part of life, and for so long he was my wingdog. He had seen my worst and best, and he kept me company when I was alone. It’s been five days since I said goodbye, and I still feel grief. It is subsiding, and I know it will pass, but it might take a little time to adjust.

 

The day before I took him in for his final nap, I visited the McLeod County jail, where I had the opportunity to bring the message of A.A. to people in an all too familiar situation. There were three of us who showed up to share our experience, but sadly, only one inmate signed up for the meeting. I guess it isn’t sad, I was just hoping for a bigger turnout. It only takes two people to have an official meeting, so I suppose we had twice the requirement, which is twice what we have on occasion in my meeting in town. And we spent the hour talking, listening, and sharing our understanding of each other, and discovering the bond we all have, and imparting hope on somebody who may not know freedom for a long time.

I shared that I felt free for the first time in years while incarcerated. I told of how I started going to meetings because of the air conditioning, and I kept hearing things that made sense, and people kept telling stories that I lived, and nobody was shocked by the things I said. People understood me, and wanted to help me. And somehow, I helped them.

It was the first time I walked in and out of a jail without handcuffs. Nobody frisked me, and nobody checked my pockets before I went in or after I left. Nobody did a cavity search even though I offered money for one, and I didn’t have to go through a metal detector. It seems that they have some sort of trust for people in the program.

 

That’s about all I have for this one. I’ll be fine. I’ve been sad before, I’ll be sad again. I know that the only inevitability in life is death, and even though sometimes we know it’s coming, it’s still a shock to the system.

Go Twins.

 

At 4:37 P.M.

Five funerals and a wedding; that about sums up 2019. If it weren’t for the single greatest day of my life, I would say this year has been tragic at the least. Today we lost another friend.

When heard a knock at my door about fifteen years ago, I had no idea who could be there as I had few friends in the area I had just moved to. I descended the steps and opened the door to a coworker holding a little puppy. He was adorable. He had a pink little nose, bright-white fur that was sparsely blotched with grey and black, especially on his head which was highlighted by a white stripe that split his face in two. He couldn’t have weighed five pounds and he was full of energy.

Now, I had no intention of being a dog owner at that point, but my coworker insisted that I at least try, so I did. And I decided to name him Willie. I bought food, dishes, toys, treats, leashes, made vet appointments, and even had his testicles removed by “laser” beam when the time came. He was a little fucker of a dog that shit everywhere, chewed my furniture, ate part of a wall, and whined incessantly. But nevertheless, I grew fond of that little guy. He was my boy.

Through the years Willie saw me evolve from sober, to drunk, to meth-head, to drunk, to sober again. He has been by my side through everything but my stint in prison, and he survived a car accident with me that even I shouldn’t have. He was a real trooper.

Three days ago I noticed some redness in one of his eyes, and I thought I should keep my eyes on it. I also noticed that he was having more trouble walking lately, and that he seemed to be lethargic more often than usual. Two days ago, I had to pick him up from his bed, and help him outside to go potty. His eye was swollen, and he didn’t look good generally. Yesterday, he wouldn’t move at all without assistance. I had to carry him outside, and when he was done peeing, he simply fell over. He wouldn’t eat, and his head was wobbly. His eye was the least of my concerns at this point, but it still looked pretty bad. I decided to take him to see the vet.

After a thorough exam, the veterinarian told me that the eye was the least concerning. What was terminal were the two large tumors growing on his upper hind legs that had cut off blood supply, and likely caused irreversible nerve damage. She said that if he lived a month, it would be a blessing, and he would be in pain, and completely out of it.

Today I made the toughest decision I’ve ever had to make. I called and made an appointment to end his suffering. I left work early to spend some time with him, and Amanda went in late so we could both bring him in together. I’ve never had to do anything so incredibly sad. I sat on the floor next to him on a little doggie blanket for twenty minutes before the vet walked into the room, shook our hands, and went to it. I lost it. Over and over I lost it. I cried and cried, and then the vet said he couldn’t find a vein so he went to get a general anesthetic, which he administered.

Slowly, he lost his movements. I realized then that I had witnessed his last meal, his last step, and he had felt his last scratch behind the ears. He had seen his last sight, heard his last sound. I held my hand on his body, waiting for the vet to come back to give him the final shot. I tried to breathe with him. I told him I loved him so many times. I cried. I said I was sorry. I kissed him on his head.

The vet came back in and found his vein and slowly injected the pink death. He took a stethoscope out of a drawer, and listened for a heartbeat. There was none. He was gone forever. It was 4:37pm.

We stayed next to him for several minutes and I said I loved him and I would miss him forever. We wrapped him up in his little doggie blanket—only his cute little face poked out, and we left him for the last time.

I’ve never been hit so hard. I just can’t stop. I want to pet him again. I want him to go get the ball. I want to hear his whine and smell his stinky breath. But it’s over now. He’s gone but certainly not forgotten.

Many of you, who are my friends, have known Willie for years. He was loved by so many, and I know he is better off now. He was my buddy. He was my friend. For over fifteen years, he was a good boy. I will never forget him and the love he showed us all.

Willie in his late teens.

Willie at the wedding.

 

Willie soaking up the summer sun on our honeymoon.

His last picture, and the last time he stood up. I had to prop him up. He isn't happy.



I know I made the right decision, but it still hurt. 

Goats. It's Always Goats.

It’s been tough finding time to write. My days off seem to be filled with responsible-parent stuff, and both of the girls are in full-swing in their respective grades in school. Ella has dance and Girl Scouts, and Emme is into mischief and shenanigans. Our home is rarely quiet, and I’ve grown to love the moments when the noise is almost overbearing. Currently they are both laughing and screaming and splashing around in the tub, which leaves me little peace to write in silence. But no matter, I love the noise because it was gone for a few days.

Ella was sick last week. And I mean an entire week. She had a headache, some nausea, and she wouldn’t eat. Most concerning to me was that she didn’t laugh at my hilarious jokes. On Tuesday I made the call to keep her at home and bring her into urgent care whey punched holes in her veins and took all of the other samples you might want a doctor to look through if you wanted to find bacteria or poison or whatever makes a child sick. We waited and waited, and each test proved nothing to me. The nurses and doctors told me of elevated something levels and high something counts but it was all gibberish to me. It took a few days to find E. coli in her urine which still—as far as we know—might not be the end of it, but it’s all we have for now.

Today is day nine of her sickness but she is all but back to normal. She’s laughing, yelling, fighting with her sister, and eating. I think we’re in the clear, but I’d rather hear it from a doctor tomorrow morning which we likely will.

Last Saturday we took a trip to a cool apple orchard in the middle of nowhere where they had chickens, kittens, geese, goats, cows, and apples. All of these things must be touched by children, and there’s a possibility something transferred from butt to stomach even with hand sanitizer available to use everywhere.

I recall ten years ago, helping a friend move hay bales, I saw a goat standing alone in a field. Naturally, I went over to pet it, and I recoiled when I realized it was covered in its own feces. Truly, I never thought of washing my hands after that and simply wiped my hands off on my tattered jeans. The next two weeks I was as close to death as I had ever been until that point. I never threw up after the first day, but for seven straight days, I couldn’t fart, and I could only poop in tablespoon-amount increments, sometimes thirty times a day. I had severe cramping, and couldn’t sleep. I ate one pack of Ramen every day, and I spaced it out throughout the day. I rapidly lost weight, and I couldn’t drink my usual 24-pack of beer. It was a mess, but by the time I went to the hospital and was diagnosed, it had run its course and I was on the mend, and right back to drinking canned beer and whisky from a bottle.

Being sick isn’t fun, and getting poked with needles doesn’t make anything more fun. I remember being upset that they took my blood and didn’t find anything out from it. That’s my blood. They took four tubes of Ella’s blood and I don’t know if it helped anything, and I had to hold her while the needle was in. It seemed like an eternity to me, I can’t imagine how she felt. But she’s a trooper, she survived. She’s alive. Back to school tomorrow. Back to being a kid.

And Just Like That

Everything is back to square one. After three months of planning, spending, spending, and spending, the wedding of our dreams came true, and I am now a married man. Me: a married man. Just four years ago, almost to the day, I left prison with little hope of becoming anything. With a lot of hard work, some serious dedication, and a lot of help from a lot of people, I somehow landed in a normal life.

I talk a lot in meetings about what comes to people in recovery when they manage to stay sober and work the steps. I realize every time I speak, that all of these things are common for most people, and sometimes I wonder if I have the right to be proud of my accomplishments so late in life. If I had stayed the traditional course in life, my house could have been paid off by now. I would have a significant chunk in savings and retirement. And my children could be nearing college age. But I diverted from the norm and experimented—for 15 years—with a bad habit or twelve, and here I am. Do I regret my past? No, nor do I want to forget it, for it is my history that makes me valuable to others. I have had a unique learning experience, and I can use my story to divert others from my path, and I use my work in sobriety to better function around those in my life who have not had similar experiences.

Working the steps doesn’t just create value for the sober community; it guides me through life with everybody. Love and tolerance of others is my code, it says so on page 84 of the Big Book, in-between the promises of steps nine and ten. It means I have to be kind, loving, patient—in any combination—to all those I encounter no matter where I am. It doesn’t mean I am, it just means I try to be. It also means I can’t be upset when other people aren’t kind and tolerant of me. That part kind of sucks sometimes, but nevertheless I keep at it. I see value—or die trying—in everybody. I apologize when I’m wrong. And I try really hard not to complain when things don’t go my way.

There are a lot of things to do to make marriage official. Amanda has to change her name. She decided on Periwinkle Poops Tutu-Maertz. She has to get a new driver’s license, but to do that, she has to get a new Social Security card. To do that, we had to mail a copy of our marriage license to the Social Security office in Minneapolis, and then wait. It still hasn’t come. We are having her name added to the deed to the house. I am insuring all of us medically, and I’ve changed my beneficiaries (thanks Word for correcting my butchery of that word) to my ladies, so that if I die soon, they stand to make several thousand dollars. Maybe like two. Amanda is officially giving me parental authority over the girls, which is surprisingly easy when one parent has no parenting time. I did ask him for his consent, but we actually don’t need it. And there is a litany of other forms, documents, and delegations that we are figuring out after our wedding. It’s a lot, but I’m good with this stuff so we will be okay.

Life keeps moving at an incredible speed. I can’t imagine having to figure out how to include alcohol or drugs in my day, so I won’t. I keep going to meetings to keep my head straight. I’ll miss one or two once in a while, but I can always tell when it’s been too long, and I’m sure my family can tell, too. 

Here is just one of so many beautiful shots taken on our wedding day. If you were there, I hope you had a memorable day. And if you weren’t, I love and tolerate you anyhow.