Damp

In a deep drugged sleep when the front rippled through, missing the thunder and lightening. Both of us woke to Moby's frantic mews, so unusual both of us leapt from dreams to rescue. But nothing seemed to be wrong, he wandered around, flopped down to be petted. No idea what time. D put on the alarm for himself. When it chimed at 0600, my work wake up, it interrupted a dream of an unwanted party. I reset the time, opened a few windows to the cool, damp air, and crawled back in. Soothed by fresh air, I sank deep. Vaguely aware of D kissing me before leaving for work. Emerged to the blessings of a bright grey wet day a couple of hours later.

No drama with this weather, more of a welcome wet blanket over a smoldering fire.


ND, who follows these things more closely than I do, says we likely do have swine flu, since that's the only strain making the rounds. Of course, he thinks it should be called the Swahili Death flu. Works for me.

Unease

I knew this night would be like this. Reluctant to go to bed, after so many bad nights of congested sleep. Sure enough, the coughing came with horizontality. And the winds blow in dust and unease, with my eager anticipation. Finally took drugs, which I'd been hoping to avoid, wanting my gut and sleep to normalize. Instead, more nyquil, and hot tea to ease incipient asthmatic wheezes. Not real asthma, but after a few episodes of exercise induced wheezes over a lifetime, the symptom is familiar. Deeply unwelcome. Pretty sure I've got it soothed. I keep checking the noaa radar, watching the powerful line of the front encroaching. This is going to be a doozie.

I rather hope.


Sleep I'm less sure of. But I usually sleep well, and every now and again, everyone has one of these nights. Touching how D offers warm concern at my occasional difficulties. Given that he suffers so from insomnia more often than not.

Weather

Moira once told me I was the only person she knew for whom talking about weather was not small talk. A great gift to have such a perceptive and attentive friend. To me, weather is an elemental passion. I once walked to work in tornado weather, one set down just across the river. Wild wind, driving rain, green light, just amazing. The nights at Fort Riley when the thunder bounded over the plains and I woke, sitting up, with my heart racing before I even heard the booming, the whole barracks rattling, then on fire with the lightening from the next volley. Terror stripped of it's fear, no room for shoulds and morals, no ideas or tenderness, just raw reality.

When the trains stopped at Park Street, and I ran through the dark morning of horizontal gushes of rain to work, the solid world no longer on offer, only this oceanic intrusion into once familiar sidewalks, I struggled to push through, hoping to break the surface somewhere. Even cold, wet, out of breath, out of air, at that moment, I would not have traded exhilaration for a safe, dry cab. Ten hours later, I'd have traded anything for dry jeans to get home in, but that's annoyance and chafing.

I remember walking in the desert behind my brother's house in Phoenix, in July. That immense heat that pressed into me, squeezing me out of my skin and out to the hazy horizon.


Walking to school one day when the car wisely refused to start, when the high that day would be -10F, the air crackling.

So, I wait for the front to hit, sometime Tuesday night, Wednesday, roaring in and erasing all mortal plans.

Pause

Sunning. Got a problem with that?

Head

Ok, NOW the congestion begins. It was waiting to make it's big entrance. Ta DAH!

Gnah.

Out

The cloud has lifted, still foggy. Spent a good ninety minutes in the dentist chair. Old crown, over an abscessed tooth from sixteen, seventeen years ago, porcelain chipped. One of the more painful moments of my life at that time, when an army dentist took pity on a Saudi-buddy with no insurance, and did a bit of low cost work to clear the pus and repair my tooth. Turns out my current dental coverage is going to pay at 100%. I didn't know they ever did "special offers", but apparently they do, for a six month period. I was prepared to pull the problem child, but on consultation, I'm getting it fixed. Again. Mouth half numb, lips raw. Some rot underneath, so maybe just as well, maybe why I've been dragging. Better out than in.

Never had dental insurance as a child. Taken a couple of times when very small. Then when my parents did have dental, and I was 17 and had a half dozen cavities needing repair. Got braces as well, a few excess teeth pulled, and an end to quite a few headaches. Then many years with no more dentists. I've never had any particular fear of them. The local always worked well, and the worst bit is still just reclining in stillness, not biting down, raw lips and swallowing the nasty prep stuff. Gah, bitter. Oh, and listening to dentist's taste in music. I try to be a good, cooperative patient, seems like good karma.

Broken out, wrung out, but hanging in there.


Recurring nightmare of my teeth crumbling getting reinforced.

Mucous

Began writing a long essay that twisted into an illogical knot as whatever virus this is took over me. So, Moby managed to sit on the keyboard and somehow pull something out... well, you get the image. He's a very resourceful cat when he feels the need.

The worst part of a cold, when I was a kid, was always the congestion. Never could understand where all the snot came from. Of course, it's from the circulatory system, pumping out serum and white blood cells and debris, pushing the cells apart and swelling up the mucous membranes. Clear or white for allergies, yellow for viruses, green for bacteria - the only one needing antibiotics. Sleeping on one side, then turning over to let the other nostril open up for a while. Stuffing a tissue in the down nostril to keep it from dripping. The raw skin of my nose and upper lip. Cold sores.

None of that, this time. Chills, profound aches, overheating, muzzy head, dry coughing, lassitude, sinus pressure, sorest throat, but no dripping. Stayed home, and on the couch, Monday. Got through today, thankfully a short day, and aside from the quick trip to the dentist, planning on resting tomorrow as well. Let the healing catch up.

Going to lie down now. Seeya later.

Off

Other Food Dude seems to be off her food.


- moby

Tailings

sittgin by Food Dude getttign scritcched its godood but my tails bugggging me tonight you eever have thattt whhen you tail just buggggs? and you just ggooota chase it make itt be still and itt stillll just buugggs



(Moby blogs)

Pizza

Yesterday was exceptionally long. Medical student helping move a very large patient, out of ignorance or misunderstanding, left me pulling a whole lot of weight in a bad way. After a moment to assess how much my back hurt, I taught him how it needed to be done in future. Home late. But D made dinner, (wonderful soul) and D, Moby, and broiled chicken and sauteed peppers greeted me as I dragged in. I soaked in a hot bath, then slept. Today felt like swimming through tar. Only ran a half hour over, mostly because the last room was just finishing, and it means a lot when the second-to-last-room's staff helps clean up the last-room. Really a lot. So, we did. Only fair, really.

Pizza tonight, both of us worn by the short week gone mad at the end. Cheese with pesto, excellent choice, I thought.

General

Generalized ickiness, nothing of any importance. Read an entertaining book of no importance. As well as The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which left it's mark on my soul in the same place it did when I first read it as a girl. With the additional medical knowledge of nutrient deficiencies. And as I ate my angel hair pasta with marinara from a jar, I felt something hard grate on my tooth. And it turned out to be my tooth. I've broken another one. This is generally disturbing, my old nightmare of my teeth crumbling in my head coming true. Is this age? Disease? My own ill nutrition, or lack of childhood dental care?

I went in today, my normal day off, for but three hours, to cover lunches. Much needed, as there were two people missing, one for a funeral, another an injury. I'm not the only one having a difficult week.

Cleared out the shower head with vinegar. Vacuumed up the tissue shreds all over the floor, from the laundry. There is always at least one tissue that goes through any load.

Downpour

Moby relaxed intermittently, as the storms gathered. Then he took to the closet or dryer, until the next bit of scary rain or thunder.

Watched it approach from the south.



Got some heavy rain, pouring down. While Moby cowered in the closet, a few small birds found the seed. I thought about bringing him out. But we leave him in there when he's hiding.


About the same time, before the next storm, a woman walked her rat. Aw.

Frump

I'm feeling a bit guilty, mostly about feeling smug and superior. I really need to leave fecesbook alone. I really do. Especially the search feature. Which, really, is about all I actually use. Not my kind of site, but since next year will be 30 years since high school graduation, and I missed the 10th and 20th through no fault of my own, it's my way of leaving the door open. And I'd have liked to, not reminisce, I hate nostalgia, but acknowledge, allow for contact. That was the whole point for the account there. I post pitiably rarely, according to at least one "friend."

So, I searched. Found my sister-in-law. As a gawky and sturdy child and teen, next to her pretty blonde willowyness, I felt a frump. She married my oldest brother when I was seven, and she represented all the fragile beauties that seemed to attract such admiration, including mine. Took me a good number of years to come into myself, to know glamour for what it was. And a few more years to appreciate the value of strong bones.

I don't know what has gone on with her the last fifteen, twenty years, being out of the loop. I know she was dealing with some hip fractures a while back. But in her photo, one she chose, presumably thought flattering, she looks a lot more than nine years older than I am. And there is an eleven year old inside of me feeling vilely satisfied.

On the other hand, I also found my nieces, one with a photo. (I'm not about to contact any of them.) She wound up with her mother's white rose endurance, the genetics that gave me a powerful nose, and the roundness of my mother's Irish peasant stock. And the tender hearted seven year old feels bad, wants to give her a hug and sit next to her so she won't feel alone. As far as I know, she has all the friends she wants, but seven year olds have a limited view on this.

Sometime next year, after the 'Reunion', if there is one, I will delete the account completely. It's only feeding some of my worst prurient impulses. Which usually just run to nosiness, and in my job that's an asset. I do try to keep it at work. I don't think my friends would call me nosy, precisely because I channel it into professional use. As for the residual vanity... ah, well, we all have to accept certain flaws.

Serene

Sometimes, he just has to attack the rug. Lest it get uppity. Doesn't seem to have done any real damage, yet.





Other times, he just gazes out serenely.

Overnighter

Both of our pairs of feet itched. We got in the car, and went. Just overnight, because we are deep-down-homebodies, and we don't like to leave Moby longer. He pines. (Which is both true, and an excuse.)

We once did this fairly often, in lieu of a real vacation. If we looked to have margin in the savings at the end of the month, we took off to whatever overnight spot we could reach, often midweek, since I usually worked weekends. In Boston, we'd take the train up to visit our cousins in Rowley. The past few years, we just haven't gone. Tired, in pain, feeling more financially fragile than when we felt rich to have leftover money at the end of the month. Well, and our own bed is more comfortable, our own apartment better than the motels we can afford.

The real reason was the urge to take out D's little telescope and get away from the light pollution and see stars. This worked out moderately well, sky clear and moonless. The Milky Way was discernible, and D could resolve Jupiter to a disk with two satellites. Heber is still a smallish city, but since it's role in the Olympics* (that I referred to as The Troubles) it's grown, as has the whole valley. People and their lights are everywhere, spreading across mountains, spilling into every crevice. Which is why, despite taking the camera, I got no photos. Every mountain vista scarred by ski resorts and condos.

We got home this morning, and Moby greeted us calmly, no complaints or mrrks. I take this as a good sign that he knew we'd be back. Wasn't going to worry for another day yet. His food dudes do this once in a while, but not to worry. He even ate while we were out. The past is fading for him, it's ok to eat, even if we are gone, there will be more food. There has been for the last five years, and he's finally beginning to trust that.

Good to go, better to come home. We are not natural travelers. I loved to visit aunts and uncles as a kid, and the family said of me "Have suitcase, will travel." Mostly, that was a matter of not feeling safe at home. A change meant peace, usually better food, and a peek at something closer to normal. Now that I'm most loved, here is home, I have no other impetus to wander, looking for better.

My back took it all very well, which I also take as a sign of stability regained.



*2002, winter. We lived midway on the line between the opening ceremonies and medal ceremonies venues, and could see both. On the other hand, we had a magnificent view of the closing fireworks. Waves of white explosions over the snow covered mountains. And a very bad semester for D, whose college was closed to serve as headquarters for security. But I digress badly.

Ok, ok, and we made a video of the Torch run. Well, our view of it. Right in front of our apartment. D gets full credit. I got called in to work, and was a bit disappointed I would miss the one event we could really see. Turned out, I wasn't missing much. But he got out the camera. Once I saw it, couldn't stop laughing. Reminded us both of Bambi vs Godzilla.

Hamster

Completely disoriented, disturbed sleep, knowing I had to get up for a mandatory meeting at 0700. Not like I went to sleep at my usual time, having friends over is more important. Good to talk with friends and not worry about when to go to bed. Just as well, since nothing would've have stopped the hamster-wheel thoughts spinning and squeaking in my brain at 0400.

After the training, I stopped for groceries, and tried to take a less traveled route the rest of the way home. Which put me right into a school zone at 0830. Through that, and I turned off onto a construction zone with one lane open. Took me ten minutes to get to work, and over a half hour to get back. At least I had food as proof of effort. And an hour and a half of pay. Probably a wash, in that case, as I spent what I earned on comestibles.

That and the joy of watching Moby's joy at the wheatgrass. Living to make a cat happy. A purpose in my life.

1. Take care of and give D reason to be happy.

2. Give Moby reason to be happy and trust us.

There are worse reasons. Not going to insult everyone in the Universe. Alphabetically. Although it's a tempting idea some days.

Elements

Can't help it. I'm just amused by the Giants. Well, they might be giants.

Suizas

Woken in moments through the night by the aftereffects of a powerful meal. Really strong Mexican cuisine is not to be trifled with, and I expected the side effects, took precautions. Clearing out the summer doldrums, and smoke induced sinus slowness. Most of the California fire backwash blown further east, deposited on the Wasatch and other Rocky Mountains. Everything needed cleaning out.

Hot food is good for the soul. I suspect it releases loads of happy little endorphins. Enchiladas suizas as made at the infamous Red Iguana, is a potent and amazing meal. Makes living here worthwhile.

Whenever I go there, and see their large menu, I think about Kitchen Nightmares, the Gordon Ramsey show that I rather like. One of the first things (after cleaning up) that he pushes for failing restaurants, is a concise menu. And RI has this page turner, and everything is wonderful, as well as the service. They've been around a long while, in a much less than ideal location (the other side of the freeway, a block away from a plasma center, right beside a third rate motel.) And there is almost always a wait for a table, at any time of day. They have to do everything right just to survive. They do.

We've often been asked by tenderfeet what we are having. Once by a couple who might have been happier with food much more mainstream. We directed them to the milder dishes, which they found quite overwhelming. I give them credit for courage, and they might get their palates up to the challenge yet. Even I don't do the salsa verde. I'm not suicidal.

Enjoying my day off. I don't really think of it as a holiday, not as a celebration. Still, a day off work. Probably just as well, considering.

Good enough.

Rainfogmist

The season hasn't changed, but it's bunching up, tensing to pounce. Like a cat, it may well just get bored, or distracted, and wander off again, leaving us the heat and dry air for another while. The light is backing away, not so insistent in the early morning, turning in earlier in the evening, but still fiercely hot in the afternoon. Very hard to get used to this big, long, stomping summer after the obnoxious, but lackadaisical summers of my Michigan childhood. Green and oppressive, miserable and heavy, but usually damply tardy, and often left early in a huff.

These desert summers always feel too strong, tyrannical and lingering. A boring relative who won't stop shouting, and won't shut up. Autumn will be most welcome. A good rain would be wonderful. What I wouldn't do for some good east coast rain/fog/mist.

The year I spent without a winter, having been sent to Saudi Arabia at the behest of the US government, threw me off balance until the next winter. Some of my disorientation simply explained by the disruption in my location and possible lack of future, but I could feel that the lack of a few months of cold with low light unlinked me from my sense of time. Like jet lag, only on a larger scale.

In Boston, the winters seemed long enough. Some deep part of my soul craved those kinds of winters. Proofing, challenging, a climate to push against. In a way searing heat doesn't, not for this northerner.

Moby seems brighter, more engaged, odder, as the light changes. He was a velcro cat last night, staying on my ankles despite my movements. He's been staring out the windows this morning. Saw a dog walking by, all tense and wary, slunk inside as the dog passed, then curled back around, stared out from the balcony, and made sure dog had kept going.

Maybe he's just waiting for the boxes to come out, and they keep not appearing. No, not moving this year.

Furniture

We've never had good places to stuff clothing. Apartments with scant or unusable closets. Northern climates requiring winter clothes and summer clothes. Two people who are lackadaisical about folding, hanging up, or otherwise being very tidy about laundry means a constant, low level, if clean, mess. (We're pretty good about putting dirty in a basket.)

No doubt having to go to laundromats or laundry rooms means putting away is an irritating chore on the heels of a big, heavy chore, that then doesn't get done. No laundry fairies. Sadly. And worn once, still clean, articles, wind up thrown wherever. Well, don't want to put it completely away with the clean, right?

The closets here are both tiny, and largely unusable day-to-day. Having washer and dryer right here, inside, not far away from the bedroom, reduces the efficacy of the excuse, and shows we are essentially lazy on this subject. But even when we take on the piles, we find ourselves just shifting them around, since there is so little place to put anything.

So, we dug into the budget, and shopped around, and around, and around. We have a tall, narrow chest of drawers, a lingerie chest to be technical, that we got many years ago, at a local place that makes all-wood furniture.


Specialty Furniture is not posh, and has a good range of affordable, to 'Oh, if only I were rich' furniture. Looked at some really affordable chests at a regular furniture store, particle board, no slides, and decided that cheap meant cheap, inadequate, breakable, useless in a few years and in need of replacing. So, we went back to the "All-Wood, All-The-Time!" place, where we'd looked before, but didn't quite want to spend that much. Until we starting seeing what else was available.

And, well, it's Labor Day Weekend. This one was 50% off, and just at the edge of what we were going to wince at, but pay. If it was worth it. Maple, solid, drawers that will glide easily for decades, more finishing and detail than we would have chosen, a bonus, a treat for the eyes and hands. We looked at a pine one, that we'd have had to finish, would have held up just fine. In twenty years, when these both still quietly do their jobs, that extra bit we paid, will not even be remembered. Ah, well, it really is well made.




D talked to me about the relative merits of wood on the way home, generally in relation to their use in guitars, but extrapolating. Maple being used mostly for necks, because it's smooth and solid, but for the body, it makes the sound too bright and brittle. The older chest of ours is probably alder, also a guitar wood, with a much better sound, apparently.

I've never seen the bedroom so organized. We decided this is the nicest bit of furniture we've ever owned. A good flat surface for Sebastian, a lamp, and my pottery.



Oh, and it fit beautifully in our car. (Which may be a Tardis in disguise, being larger on the inside than the outside.) The guys who brought it out seemed dubious, but I was pretty sure. And it slid in perfectly. D only had to give up his leg room on the passenger side.

Sometimes, maybe usually, going cheapest winds up much more expensive. When we were poor, there often wasn't a choice, since getting that lump sum couldn't happen. Once we could manage it, we learned to get the best, preferably on sale, that we could eke out. Better to do without than waste resources on the chintzy, and ultimately, disposed of. We're watching the money carefully, but we are not what I would call poor anymore. Not rich, not even well-to-do, but we know the rent is going to be there.


Oh, and relative to the last post

Some research on cat's purrs. And another about the same study.


Closing comments, because I keep getting spam comments, trying to sell us furniture.

Red

So, last night, maybe two am, who knows, and eleven pound mass of cat bounded onto and off of my lower abdomen. He'd launched from D's tum. Hard not to feel a certain hostility at that moment of rude awakening. Even when it's followed by loud, happy purring. But while that drowsy, no chance of acting on that emotion.

A few months ago, we put in a red light in the front entryway. Red light allows illumination, without degrading night vision. D has terrible insomnia, and although sound doesn't bother me at night, light does. Likewise, when I'm up at 0600, I really don't want to wake D, in case he's had a short night. We already have a night-light with motion sensor in the bathroom, made red with nail polish, that works beautifully. The hall light hadn't been used much through the summer, but as the days shorten, it's paying off now.

So, when I got up, I didn't hear Moby anywhere, didn't see him at all. Until I went to put my lunch in my bag hanging on the front door. I'd done laundry the night before, and his towel (and my army sweatshirt) that we leave in there for him as padding, I'd tossed here. Partly because he's been known to content himself lying on it when the dryer is being used for other-than-the-cat. Smushed up against the closet door, he watched me, not moving at all, snuggled into his towel (and my army sweatshirt.) Looking very cute, so I had to giggle. I did gently admonish him for gut punching me.

I wrote to D about this, and he wrote back that two hours later "I checked, and he's still there. I was wondering where he was." He's been an odd cat this week. Talked at me when I came in today. Not unheard of, but so rare, especially during the day. Just not that vocal a cat.

So, yes, that's the right color in the photo.

Bed

Who's bed?

The bed does not get made if Moby is on it first.

That's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it.

He's been staring at us more than usual. Not sure what he wants. Maybe the pall of smoke from the western fires is bothering him, and he wants us to make it go away. We would if we could.