The Eye of the Storm

August 18, 2026

See that?

That’s the “Persuader.”

Not me.  The mallet.

That’s what Cathy calls it. She says it was described as a “must have” in the instructions to a nifty new gardening shed she is building on the side of the house but, judging from what little help I’ve been of late anywhere around the house, I wouldn’t blame her if she starts to think of other “home improvement” projects that might require “bounce resistance” technology.

My wife…

To say Cathy is a saint is to give too high of praise to saints. Let me give you some quick examples of why I say that:

• She slept one eye open on a poor excuse for a window seat in the ICU in Redwood City the entire night after my first surgery just to keep that same watchful eye on me. Throughout the night, she pleasantly reminded me to take deep breaths when the damn alarms on the respiration rate and blood oxygen meters…apparently unfamiliar with the O2 output of my slow beating Secretariat size heart…kept going off. 
• She made not one, but two…count em…two… two his and her… couch beds in the family room, with clean sheets and pillow cases each night, so I needn’t negotiate the stairs to the bedroom and so no intrepid germ might find its way from my pillow case to my sutures in the first two weeks after the surgery.
• For days, like Lilly Tomlin working overtime, she’s fielded texts, e-mails and phone calls answering kind inquiries from family and friends keeping them up to date so they needn’t worry and I might sleep.
• Since I’m restricted from driving, she’s ferried me about like Ms. Daisy driving for Morgan Freeman. First to Petaluma Kaiser to have my stitches removed; then to pick me up from my friend Mike’s house out in the boonies, and whenever necessary to get me out and about when my cabin fever starts to reach Ted Kaczynski level.
• And when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, wince, and complain that I can’t decide whether I more resemble Danny Devito, Dr. Evil, Mahatma Gandhi, or that guy in The Princess Bride who runs around screaming “THAT’S INCONCEIVABLE”, she reassures me  that, when I wear my glasses and she catches me in the right light, I’m a dead ringer for a gay Stanley Tucci in The Devil Wears Prada.

So, I’ve got that going for me.

In short, she’s an angel.

Mind you, I say that with caution. 

Why?

Not the “angel” part…the “short” part.

I normally try to avoid the word “short” in the same sentence…hell, the same paragraph…oh, who’re we kidding… in the same hemisphere…  when discussing my wife.

That is…ever since the unfortunate incident at the tail end of 7^thgrade when my inscription in her yearbook…something like “Have a great summer, Shorty”…a lip-pursed-7th-grader-hoping-for-a-kiss term of endearment that apparently sailed right over her innocent head…failed to capture the reaction I thought sure it would engender…and prompted her not to speak to me for what? 

Almost 50 years.

So, let’s just keep it sh…I mean…let’s just say, I don’t deserve her.

***

I’ve been wrestling with the right metaphor to describe this damn holding pattern between my two surgeries.

Think Rob, think. You’re a wordsmith. Work your magic.

Hmmmm…?

I could go with a sports analogy. You know…half time. Something like “It’s half time and the right brain is trailing the left brain by six.

Nah. Overused. Cliche.

How about a film reference? I could play with the word “intermission,” but the last time there was an intermission in a movie was either in Dr. Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia…maybe The Sound of Music… and since no one goes to the movie theater anymore, I thought the metaphor might be doomed before half time.

Whoops. Sorry. Mixed metaphor. My bad.

So, then I thought, how about something meteorological. 

I remember as a kid being so impressed by those pilots who fly into a hurricane. The way they described the eye of the storm. How quiet and peaceful it is. 

That might work, Rob.

Here you are, knocked around in 100+ MPH winds. It’s dark. Raining so hard your wipers can’t keep up. Lightning flashing all around. You’re diving and climbing, pitching, yawing, bouncing between updrafts and downdrafts, when, just about the time you think your wings will fall off, the winds cease, the rain stops, and the sun shines down from above.

You’re in the eye of the storm.

A beautiful sunny day, except you’re surrounded by a swirling mess of all-hell-breaking-loose.

It must be such a relief. The peace. The quiet.

But then you have to fly out… through the spin cycle.

I always wondered what it must be like leaving the “eye.” I get the “getting in” part. The “getting out” part I don’t get.

But then I don’t get a lot of things.

When the time comes to leave the eye and plow through the wall back through bedlam to get home, there must be a certain “Do we have to?”  You know…a kind of “Can’t we just stay here, ride along, and wait for things to calm down?”

“Let’s just circle here for a while.”

***

Ten days.

Ten days left in the eye. 

Then the second surgery. Another buzz cut. Another core sample. This time a matching hole on the left side, a new wire plant  to tie into the first one so we can go stereo, a tiny fire-proof junction box above the right ear for the wire nuts, and the main line running down the right side of my neck to the wizzywig battery pack they plan to plant in my right chest.

The good news is, this time, they intend to put me out altogether. Full sedation. No audience participation required. I get to fly back into the storm with instruments on autopilot.

Just knock me out, doc. If you need help, I know a gal with a mallet.

Should be a sh…I mean, brief…flight.