Fireman at Home

I am the fireman, fixer of electrical and mechanical stuff and default trail guide.  Steve is the cook and holder of “the gun” and Dave is the muscle guy of our group.  We just returned from the Enchanted Forest upon finding the Lost Lake of Narnia.  I was hoping the real family fun going on here might counter events in play on the west coast.

My three year old grandson took my hand for a walk in my woods.  Like I told him he was not scared, pointing out funny looking mushrooms, animal tracks and holes in the ground.  He would have gladly taken me on an all day trek but I steered the path back towards the logging road.  We cemented our bonds the first year he came here, that magical ATV ride. I played back the the memories for him.  Years of fun, events by all who attended my evening fires, swam with beavers in the mountain stream and savored majestic mountain vistas.  At the time I thought he was closer to God, recently being born and all so maybe just maybe he had those skills to “feel the love”.  He has for two years told me he knows.  May I live long enough to help him navigate his life.  Should I tell him perils of the dark side or the heavy burdens of Knighthood.  Ah, let him be a kid in Camelot as I was for it will take love to guide him later.

Evening brought another fine meal of steak tips and corn on the cob from Steve and I started the fire.  It was a fine mix of cedar for light and oak for lasting marshmellow cooking coals.  A mattress inflator coupled to a three foot copper pipe has allowed me to demonstrate glass melting from the hardwood coals in the later evening but all in our group have already seen this.  The blower is noisy so we look toward the full moon as it lights up the stream.  One very hot year we did night swimming as I hooked up an experimental light, flooding the area with daylight.

I know.  I can melt glass with regular wood and additional oxygen but I will never believe three steel buildings imploded upon their own footprints from an oxygen deprived black smoke fire.  Regular tin cans don’t smelt in the fire, no how no way.  Steve’s wife catches a fast moving object in the sky and says “It’s your satellite!”

I look up and reply “Yeah, well all of you brought your cell phones so they know where I am.”

In total we did have some fun this year yet my psychic sense was on high alert.  There was tension in the family and she was having a real hard time with morning sickness.  All of us actually should have been at home looking for jobs but hey, I figured a couple of weeks would make no difference.  

One week at home and now the other shoe has dropped.  It is unfortunate but my daughter married into a socio-mommie dearest from Hell family.  They are tradesman and although they are good at it socio-mom’s plan from the beginning was to mortgage their retirement years by passing company debts onto their kids.  Now at the time I could not convince my daughter of these facts as she was living in their family compound and totally taken by the mother of her new husband.  Today the challenge was made in earnest.  Dave was to choose between his mother or his wife.  I had Paula, Dave’s mother pegged a long time ago as being highly skilled in the art of people manipulation, grossly self centered and had that most evil of personality traits demanding control just for the sake of producing trama in others for her personal amusement.  Dave’s father I gather just figures he has to put up with it/her.

I am left to question what did I do in a previous life to accumulate such a number of sociopathic assholes in my life?  The prospects are still unknown yet for sure a family is in ruin.  Their family compound will go up for sale or forclosure.  She and hubby are both unemployed and she is pregnant.  Strange thoughts abound.  Do I have room for them at my house?  Did Dave’s parents stash huge sums of cash from their company to retire on and will they just slink away in the mobile home and leave no forwarding address?

What is my largest pain?  A three year old is going to be tramatized and the adults who can help him are going to have their hands full.  This compound is also the Apocalyptic Horse Ranch and of course all of them will be up for sale.