Playground

I was really looking forward to this today. So much so, that I prepared for it.

It was down to nineteen degrees last night and in the end, I decided to sleep in the car. With the rear drivers side cleared (well, it got cleared,) at maximum recline, I’m starting to be comfortable with sleeping in the drivers seat. I am in the drivers seat at the moment, with my blue and yellow blanket folded under me, electric blanket tucked in over me, and I feel rather laid back straight and comfortable.

When I stirred awake sometime after nine thirty, I realized I hadn’t urinated in the night. This is the equivalent of an infant sleeping through the night I suppose. Not that I can’t roll over and pee while sleeping in the car- God knows, I’ve learned to do that just about anywhere now that I can get a bit of privacy.

Top on the list of proud portable pissing moments, I would have to say was a few days ago. However cold that last night sleeping on the picnic table was, (twenty five?) I remember unzipping the mummy bag at about four am to reach for the urinal.

Usually, I unzip the bag, throw it open, lift my right knee as I roll to my left. At the movement I unzipped the bag an inch I knew I was not going to open it fully- no way was I exposing my cozy flesh to the freezing air. I reached out my arm to find the urinal on the table seat to the side of me. Finding it as quickly as I could, I drew it inside of the mummy bag and zipped it up quickly.

Gladly the cold night woke my mind fully. No chance for mistakes. There is not much room inside of a mummy bag, that is kinda the point. However, given the options, there was a path forward to maintain warmth- if I was willing to risk disaster if I made a mistake. I could just imagine dousing a half a liter of piss inside the bag now, while perched atop an industrial steel picnic table. Leaving myself to exit, soaked fully (last month I was wearing just my shorts and t-shirt in Mathis, now I was fully dressed with jeans and sweatshirt too.) Ha, then having to to dig dry clothes from the camp bag while being turned into a popsicle.

If the dry night air hadn’t woken me fully already, the idea of the wet night air certainly did. As carefully as could be, I unzipped, lifted the knee as much as the bag would allow and added in a little ab flex for good measure as I aimed up and to my left- waiting for the sound of the trickle splashing in it’s contain before I released the stream. Waterfalls and trickling brooks.  Finished, I didn’t trust it at all, waiting for last minute surge.  A few shakes and backed it out.

Containment.  The was the next trick and keeping the container in the fully upright position (remember it’s located down at my waist) while I maneuver it towards the five inches of unzipped zipper up at my shoulder.  I suppose I could use a few hundred more words to really decribe the choreography that occurred there that night in my mummy bag.

Kind of like that scene with Micky mouse directing the mops and brooms that moved with his magic- yes, I have just two arms, yet inside that mummy bag, they moved with symphonic grace. The container exited the bag with it’s contents interacted, was gentle placed back on the seat, and my arm (certainly recovering from near frostbite) pulled back into the mummy back, zipped it, velcroed it inside and out, pulled taut the face string and inside string (pulls tight a shroud keeping the drafts out from the lower part of the bag) and went to work warming my arm and going back to sleep.

Where was I? Oh, this morning I woke realizing I had not peed in the night.  Next, I was pretty happy I had decided to park and sleep on the south side of the lake, as I was able to park directly next to the bathroom there.

Let’s pause.  Bathroom?  What makes a bathroom?  A bath.  This room does not have a bath.  Or a sink.  It does have a toilet- that it has a seat perched atop a twenty foot vault.  A permanent port-a-potty, a vault toilet.  Wonderful thing, never clogs. A funny breezy sensation when using it as the vaults below have plenty of fresh air ventilation from the smoke stack looking things rising from them.

In anywise it was sunny too, and not very breezy today actually.  I stepped out of my car with out even putting on my shoes to use the restroom.  Lord.  It was cold.  The other morning was a twenty five degree windy blow on my ass.  This was a slow nineteen degree chill rising up from a dark vat of chemically not frozen yet below freezing human feces.  I must admit the ventilation system works; the rooms do not smell bad at all.

Cold.  There are moments of your life that can redefine that word.  That word was redefined for me this morning.

This whole place is cold and that makes everything harder.  Even eating and drinking. Yes, I have plenty of food, yet even now I’m skipping dinner.  Yes, I could still pull out the stove and fry my steak.. yet, it’s cold out there, I don’t even want to open the door.

Skipped meds again, other than muscle relaxers.  My body is a bit sore, it always is, so I’m not sure if I’m any more sore from the accident yesterday.  Yet my leg, my leg.. my left leg has been feeling good.  Feeling strong.  It’s still got it’s stutter, yet it really likes the adult playground here in the City of Jal.

This is my third trip on the jungle gym.  No it’s not a jungle gym, though that does sound more fun.  This outdoor adult play structure is awesome,  it is fun.  I want to do it every day, or twice even.  Yet, I’m stopping at once a day. I think normal exercise is supposed to be three times per week.  Yet, I can’t say that I’m doing this at an aerobic pace and I’m certainly not even doing the full one to two sets for my basic beginner level.

So, since I’m kinda ‘half-assing it’ I feel okay doing it everyday with its seven tenths mile walk. And my leg has been feeling good, strong as I said.  Yet also, other than the play structure, I have been very sedentary.  Literally, I’ve sat in my car all day except when I got out to exercise, cook and eat, and use the bathroom.

While eating (some dinty Moore beef stew with Walmart French bread and a Mountain Dew) lunch, the apparent resident of rv slot number three walked over to say hi.  A brief conversation, I asked how long he’d been here, as the sign proclaim a three day limit, and I’m stuck until Monday at least.

He said he works in the town over, twelve hour shifts, fourteen days straight driving a dump truck in a sand mine, then spends his next seven days off living in his car in rv slot number three.  Apparently there is a low degree of enforcement of the time limits this time of year, and even in the busier seasons, getting a place to park isn’t an issue he said.

Sadly, the guy in the yellow car in slot three was polite and excused himself as I was eating my lunch, before we had a chance to trade names- or for me to say anything really myself for that matter apart from the first question.  Was nice to at least have a wave, hello and a smile shared with another. Adds a little bit of cozy to this place.

I was able to get some good work done, and I found myself very happy with the State of Michigan.  Easy online access to my vehicle registration. Between that and my insurance, it only took about ninety minutes to secure a pdf of each onto my desktop.

With my current pending appearance on or before March twentieth at nine am, I was hoping to take care of this quickly. I thought I’d be waiting for some one in Jackson to mail me a proof locally from the SOS. With the online forms on my desktop, I called for directions to clear this all up.  Monday morning nine am.  That is when the magistrate comes to town each week.

I have all weekend in Jal.  This is really making my think about jail.  THINK about it.  When I was in jail last time (in two thousand and one) there was a guy that walked and walked and if he stopped he did pushup where ever he was (the jail then was a large open room with fifty or sixty bunks) until he felt he could walk again.

I asked him why he didn’t just relax- I was essentially on a ten day vacation there, I slept until they brought me food and then I napped until they brought me more.  He though, he said he didn’t want to be in jail, yet if he was, then he intended to be stronger when he left.

I didn’t THINK much about that then, though I did think about it about enough to make a note of it in my jailhouse journal.. photo’s coming soon, maybe tomorrow.

Okay, time for me to rest. More work to do tomorrow.

I want to be stronger when I leave this place.

Time to rest.