Drinking Is Like Fur
Maia the Malamutt is enjoying her stay here in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.
After five years in Phoenix, I suppose that she should be enjoying the cold and snow. We had her fur thinned before we came up - it's not really "cold" here at 9000 feet; it might get below 20 as a low - so she's quite comfortable laying with her belly exposed to the snow, yet she's not overheating inside the condo.
Decidedly not overheating. In fact, she's been laying up against the baseboard heater.
This has happened twice this week - we'll be sitting here working, and all of a sudden the place smells like an old-style hair salon; the smell of burnt hair fills the room. Suddenly we realize that Maia is laying up against the baseboard, and the heater is burning her fur off.
And Maia is completely clueless about it.
Why? Because her fur is such an efficient insulator that she can't feel the heat of the heater, even while it's burning her fur - she doesn't feel it until after it buns off the fur, and starts on her skin - and it's a surprise to her when this happens.
Man, that's just like my drinking days!
Once upon a time, I did a good bit of drinking. Drinking insulated me from the discomfort of the world - it did it very well. In fact, my drinking insulated me so well that I was able to get into all sorts of trouble that caused more discomfort, and yet I never really noticed the discomfort, because I was liberally applying 151 rum and German beer as more insulation.
This would keep going until my troubles got to be enough such that society would intervene and take me away from the booze - by locking me up or otherwise restricting my access to liquor. Then suddenly I'd become aware of the actual pain that the booze was insulating me from, and I'd straighten up and fly right.
Eventually, though, the drinking stopped working - I'd managed to build up so much pain inside, and so many troubles outside, that it was just like when Maia's fur burns off - suddenly, the stuff I'd gotten myself into was huge, and I'd used up the ability of the booze to insulate me from it.
That was 4 May, 1985 : )
Booze isn't a bad thing - just like Maia's fur, I suppose. But, like Maia's fur, when it is used to insulate us from something that we should be paying attention to, it becomes a liability rather than an asset. When we've got so much of it that we wind up blundering into - and laying down next to! - things that can hurt is, it is a disaster.
Maia's laying over near the pantry closet as we speak, because this time the heater burned all the way through the fur - now she's licking that spot on her haunch where it hurts. Unfortunately, I was never able to cure the problems that my drinking caused me by licking them : )
At the risk of pointing out the obvious: you used to have fur. So when you would pass out next to the heater, your fur would smolder. This is probably why you are now bald. Consequences.
Lucy the Wonder Dog is smart enough not to cuddle up to heaters, and to love both me and Ethel. She also has a lot more fur than you.
I think I need to go skiing......
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Scott, if you were chillin with the Pucketts you'd have 41 days today. :-) The snow is amazing. The locals are all saying this is the best snow they've seen in March in many years. Warm days, great snow. Life is very very good.
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If only I could.....been a lousy year ski wise. Down with the flu, lousy weather, and my ski buddy had some brain surgery that canceled his season.
Going to be the lowest day count in twenty years, I'll be lucky to get twenty days in.
Woe is me..........
You can ski vicariously for me, the way I have been doing so for you guys the last five years or so. Take a run for me.
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