You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
Lovely flowers on the waterfront in Monterey.
What did I learn today?
That the alter stone at Stonehenge, that they thought came from Wales, actually originated from Scotland, 466 miles away.
What made me happy today?
Some lovely cod bites and a Guinness on Monterey Bay.
Yesterday’s weirdness is tomorrow’s reason why. ~ Hunter S Thompson
Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: Surgery Dreams
Surgery day is coming up quickly and preparing for surgery is of course taking over my life in every way possible. It eats up my work days, my email, my schedule but most of all it eats up my mental energy. Everything I do, every decision, every thought somehow ties back to my surgery, the fear, the recovery, etc…
So it came as no surprise last night when my upcoming surgery finally invaded my dreams and man they were some surreal damn whoppers. The first dream I just walked into the hospital and strolled into the operating room and there was my surgeon, restocking flyers on a shelf. He was surprised to see me and quickly moved to cover up the chunks of wood on the counter. So I asked him is that the wood they’ll be using in my legs? Because for some reason, apparently in my dream in addition to heart surgery they were going to cut my leg bones and put wooden spacers in my legs to make me taller. I immediately realized I hadn’t considered the pain I’d have walking and how it was going to fuck up all of my preparations and I happily woke up, rolled over and ended that one.
The next dream, I walked into the hospital and back into the operating room again and my doctor and I were chatting and I remembered that I had to actually check-in through admitting. So I left the operating room and went up to admitting. It was a total cluster, going to multiple people each who sent me to another person and another. I finally get to someone and they tell me they have to go to lunch. Finally someone takes me to an office to check me into the hospital, they give me a band on my arm and send me to my room. So I go up to my room and I see it’s a share room and eventually I decide to leave my stuff and then someone starts hammering on the door. I let him in, he’s looking for someone so I decide to leave. But then I decide to go back to my room, but the elevators won’t go to the right floor. Suddenly there are massive numbers of suites and I can’t find my room.
The next dream I’m in the operating room on the table and I have my sneakers on, and this pisses off the anesthesiologist and he rips them off my feet in disgust. Suddenly, there’s another table right next to mine with an enormous middle eastern dude on it. We’re like an inch apart, he’s completely naked and basically a Ken doll. He’s just chatting away to me about random shit and I realize the sheet I’m under has blood all over it, then I woke up.
Three surgery dreams in one night, I woke up in a seriously confused state of mind and was happy to get up and get my day started. But surreal is definitely the term that applied, feel free to go nuts with the psychoanalysis in the comments. ~ Rev Kane
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Three Questions, April 22, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
A gorgeous white flower, all by itself while on my walk today?
What did I learn today?
They have found the rest of the mass of the universe. For a long time astrophysicists have puzzled over the mass estimates for the universe, they were always 50% too low. Turns out they hadn’t properly accounted for the clouds of hydrogen mist. These things are absolutely massive in size.
What made me happy today?
We interviewed a new teacher today and he did an absolutely amazing job, always makes me happy to find a new teacher with skills and passion.
The ogres and witches and giants of fairytales stand in as metaphors for those obstacles that we all face in our own lives. ~ Kate Forsyth
Three Questions, April 21, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
A lovely red flower that I saw and photographed out on my walk.
What did I learn today?
I learned that in folklore traditions a house with a purple door means a witch lives inside.
Someone went under a dock, there they saw a rock, it was a rock, it was a rock lobster ~ The B-52s
Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: Prepping for the small world
So, 17 days to surgery, lot’s of preparations to do. So many little things to get figured out, set up, arranged. Then of course, since they rescheduled my surgery and rescheduled my pre-op appointments, I had to redo my final blood tests again. So this Friday they pulled another 12 tubes of blood out of me to repeat all of the tests they just did two weeks ago. Next Monday I get to do my final appointments and then hopefully I’m a full go for my surgery.
There are two options right now, one is take it easy before the surgery, the other pathway is to do as many things as possible before the surgery. The second path seems a bit pessimistic to me, as if I’d be trying to fit a bunch in because I don’t think there will be, or I won’t be able to after the surgery. I’m taking a more optimistic approach. Not completely doing nothing, but doing a few things I really enjoy prior to my surgery date. So this week I’m taking off down the coast to a couple of my favorite places and doing a whale watch. The first part of the week I have to start prepping my sub for the three month journey on the SS Insanity that I captain, I won’t be upset about not working for three months.
There are so many little details I’m attending to, little things that you would never consider. Like pulling on a shirt won’t be easy, so I needed button up shirts I didn’t have. Bending down and tying your shoes will be difficult the first couple of weeks so I had to buy slip on shoes. I’ve re-arranged my home, moved things I use a lot, like this laptop, to a place that will be easier to get to and use. Setting up a camping chair that I will have to sleep in the first couple of weeks until I can comfortably transition to the couch and finally, hopefully by week four, gloriously back to my very comfortable bed.
Not being able to life any weight I’m getting CD’s out to put on the stereo so I won’t have to lift the albums I keep them in. I’ve set up my wireless buds on the counter near the laptop. Getting my audiobook membership renewed and stacking my queue so that I have books to listen to. Trying to find ways to be able to keep myself amused for the first couple of weeks.
I’ve been rewatching the Handmaid’s Tale in preparation for the new season that just started. There’s a part where a character gets shot and they say, “pain makes your world real small.” I’m prepping for a couple of weeks of a very small and hopefully slowly expanding world. ~ Rev Kane
Easter is meant to be a symbol of hope, renewal, and new life. ~ Janine Di Giovanni
Three Questions, April 20, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
A pretty red flower on my walk today.
What did I learn today?
Reading more and more about holograms that actually are able to be touched, moved and manipulated as if they are actual objects. Closer and closer to the type of things we see in the movie Minority Report.
What made me happy today?
Biting off the head of my white chocolate bunny and enjoying some Easter candy.
‘White Rabbit’ was mostly done in about two days, the music in about half an hour. The music is a ‘Bolero’ rip-off and the lyrics a rearrangement of ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ You take two spectacular hits and throw them together, and it’s hard to miss. ~ Grace Slick
Three Questions, April 19, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I saw today?
Honestly it was a white chocolate rabbit, it’s a silly but lifelong Easter tradition I have and I had four possible stores to find one and it was store number four where I found it.
What did I learn today?
Read an interesting piece that the whole universe may actually be spinning. Apparently, I didn’t understand all the math, this solves a lot of the mathematical and physics anomalies that exist in galactic studies.
What made me happy today?
A pizza omelet, my own creation, sauteed mushrooms with pepperoni and mozzarella cheese, topped off with spicy salsa.
Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream. ~ Khalil Gibran
Three Questions, April 18, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
A cloudy windy day on the coast, but there’s something really beautiful about a windy coast and big waves.
What did I learn today?
The latest robotic invention is pretty cool, it’s a headless robotic horse that you can ride.
What made me happy today?
As long as my surgery doesn’t get pushed again, today I did my last blood tests before surgery, so I celebrated with something I’ve been craving for a time, a nice big vanilla milkshake.
Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. ~ Hans Christian Andersen
Three Questions, April 17, 2025
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
There was a pretty purple orchid with drops of dew, it was gorgeous.
What did I learn today?
I learned someone I thought was was in their late 40’s turns out is 64 years old, brother is doing all kinds of things right obviously.
What made me happy today?
In the last day I have had two people tell me how they really feel about me, and yes, it was positive and actually really touching. It’s nice to remember there are good people out there too.
But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ said Alice. ‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the cat. ‘We’re all mad here. ~ Lewis Carroll
Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: The Mental Side
I’m a long distance hiker, or at least I am when I can be. If you’re new to this blog you can go back and read about a lot of my hikes in Scotland, the Himalayas and the Appalachian Trail, even wrote a book about the last one, Appalachian Trail Happiness. When I was first prepping for my Appalachian Trail hike one of the things I read about was how the one thing people underestimate about a long thru-hike are the mental aspects of the hike. You’re about to walk over 2,000 miles, everyone gets that it will be physically grueling but people don’t consider how hard it will be mentally. One of the reasons I developed the Three Questions concept that I post on each night was to personally help me address the mental challenge of the hike.
So I’m no stranger to big challenges, and my upcoming heart surgery is certainly that. I think everyone understands the physical challenge. A five hour surgery where they stop your heart, splitting your breast bone in half and putting it back together, spreading your ribs wide apart for hours, lots of soft tissue damage and cutting. I fully expect for at least the first couple weeks to feel like I got into a fight with a rhino and lost. And every time I have that thought, I think about when I did a fight club at burning man, and fought a man the size of a rhino who eventually spiked me to the ground and broke several of my ribs and this is gonna feel way worse than that did. As I’ve written about, I’ll have help and honestly there’s not a lot you can do beyond rest, eat well, exercise as appropriate and give your body time to heal. Oh and when necessary get real fucking high on pain meds.
So the physical side is understood, expected and prepared for as best as I can. Of course theoretical preparation and the actual event are seldom completely in line, but I’m as ready as I can be. But like preparing for and doing a long distance hike, the mental side plays heavier games with you and is harder to be ready for. The simple fact is, albeit happily small, there is a chance I’ll die during this procedure or if there are complications afterward. But even a small chance of death fucks with your head. So I’ve been working on preparing the best I can. I’ve done the first step, I’ve read every damn thing I could get my hands on about the procedure, my hospital, my team. I’ve talked to doctors, nurses and folks who have been through the procedure. I’ve talked about my fears, hopes and expectations with people I trust and respect. But man it ain’t easy. And where mental issues hit me are squarely in my sleep patterns. It’s far too easy for my mind to get wound up at night and not allow me to sleep, that happened last night.
There’s a secondary issue that faces me in this scenario, I’m that guy. You know, I’m the guy people go to for advice, to solve problems, to think things through. I’m the guy you want around when there is an emergency, I’m the one who stays calm and works the procedures we were trained for just in case. I don’t get flustered easily, I rarely ask for or need help. Hell, I’ve had knives pulled on me, a pistol stuck in my face and was even shot at by the cops once, I’m that guy. But when you’re that guy people have a tendency to forget your human. They take it for granted that you’re fine, you can’t be shook up, you’re not afraid of anything. And when you’re dealing with something significant like I am, that has a risk of death attached to it, people have their own fears that they are not willing to face and don’t won’t brought up.
So last night, in a text exchange with a friend, a truly kind and wonderful person, upon hearing my surgery was delayed, referred to the delay as a stay of execution. I responded, a really bad choice of words and their response was, with your sense of humor I thought you could take it, and I can, but… And the but is, that the comment was all it took, while I’m in a more delicate than normal state, to derail my train last night, get the wheels spinning and keep me awake. One of those nights when you lay down to go to sleep and your brain says, “dude, really, c’mon, you don’t think I’m going to let that happen do you?” So I got back up and watched some television, then I read until 3AM when the rest of my body finally said to my brain, “we don’t care what you want we’re sleeping.” And no sleep throws off everything for the next couple of days. It didn’t help that the conversation happened on the original scheduled date of my surgery.
The Ministry of Happiness 