Cracks

This is my current worry. Must learn how to use concrete. Front porch already had cracks, but the winter was harsh, and it's looking much worse.

The compost pile thrives. I think the east section will not get enough sun for strawberries. And the salvaged mulch from the neighbor's long grasses, cut down when she moved, are seeding all over the back section. Long grasses will be just fine, let the bugges and wild creatures live back there, and I'll put the strawberries in with bought dirt next to the newly opened fence. They'll get plenty of sun there




Further experiments. Never know what's going to take. The lemon balm is spreading nicely out front, the mint that limped along last year thrived under the leaves and is vigorously pushing up now.

I so want to just start planting right now. I know it's too soon, not a good idea, but the urge is powerful.

If you have not visited Nancy Ruth lately, she has some potent writing up. I hadn't been in a while, as she took a break.

Neighbors

Yes, Moby wanted to go OUT this morning. Out the door, and Mike & Spike are in front. Spike has stopped, and is staring intently at Moby, who is walking straight out to this rather excitable, but small, and leash-held, dog. Moby sniffs noses with Spike, who is apparently quite pleased. Apparently, next door neighbor dog is To Be Greeted. Moby walked back a bit and sat half turned away, quite enough, though, thank you. Spike would like more interaction with his new friend, but has to be contented with my ruffling his ears. Spike must be greeted on his walks when I am visible.


Spike.


Mike & I both surprized and delighted. It only took a year.

Mike rescued Spike from abandonment, tied to a fence in the neighborhood. Not a dog person, has a couple of cats, one of which - Sebastian, is mostly an outdoor, fed stray that deigns to be inside at times. Spike doesn't seem to mind. He's good with cats, cats are good with him.


Moby and Sebastian have stared at each other occasionally.

I'm glad we can give Moby some outside life here. A bit of fresh air, dirt under his paws, grass to eat.

Need a yin yang of a cat and a dog curled around each other, with a small cat in the dog and dog in the cat.

PS: Today, Moby sunning himself, Spike too excited, Moby hissed. Not that upset, moving toward him, but definitely not best pleased with the doggy excitement. "You interrupted my nap, dog!"

Turnaround

The sun comes in quite strong in the evening. Moby approves. I see all the dust in the corners.

Cat's don't really have to worry about where their eyes don't go, they just twist.


I think I have successfully killed the lawn. Putting something in it's place that looks better is going to take some time. Planted scarlet flax and poppies. Red Coral has also been suggested. Sunflowers and cosmos will come next month.



I was core monkey yesterday, which means I'm the resource nurse, the lunch lady, the runner and general dogsbody. If anyone needs to leave early, I'm the relief. It makes for a fast day, if tiring and sometimes confusing. As in, I answer the phone and don't know what room I'm in, "Hello, OR ... um, three? No, sorry, 5." Not entirely oriented to place or time on those days.

In room #1 is one of our more notoriously cranky surgeons, the scrub a nurse who blows hot and cold, but can be very cranky and snippy, and the circulating nurse is very picky - and especially snarly yesterday. Then, because surgeon didn't have a resident, the scrub core monkey that I think-not-much-of, scrubbed in to help on that first case. I stood with our Aide - who runs the supply core - and we agreed that at least they were all in one room, all the most prickly people.

Late in the afternoon, when room #1 was finished, the anesthesiologist insisted we break out the last case from #4 into room #1 to save turnover time. The nurse finishing OR #4 that still had the case to go shifted away from her was not terribly broken up about it, although I assured her I could see that tiny tear of bitter disappointment forming in her eye.

None of us felt very bad about the prickly pair. Ha. They had the only room going when we left. We helped them to do a very fast turnover first, and I'd given both breaks in the afternoon, so no guilt. When prickly nurse snarled at each of us, separately, a last time, we smiled, waved, and snuck out.

Made a pile more origami bunnies, left them all over the place.

Hoping for a good spring soaking this coming week.

OK, one more. Shows the brown undercoat.

Easter

Made origami bunnies this afternoon, waiting for our last case to start. Still weren't the last case, though. A day to mind the gaps. One surgeon done, waiting for another who started late in another room. When we overlap, we save time by removing the turnover time from the equation. When we gap due to changing surgeons, especially this one who is not speedily efficient, the staff waits. And waits. So, I began folding.

Easter has never been a loved holiday. In my home, it meant a week in church. More than a week. Every day of school during Holy Week, we started the day with Mass. By Easter Sunday, I needed the bribe of chocolate just to console me having to wear dressy clothes and sit on hard pews so long. More of a disadvantageous trade off than a treat.

One year, my old Easter basket was brought down from the attic, and my mother discovered it had been useful as a nest for mice. I didn't really see why they couldn't just clean it up and use it anyway. My mother was not about to countenance using a mouse-shit basket for my chocolate. Still, it was a very nice basket.

At some point, when solid chocolate bunnies got hard to find, I asked instead for a chocolate block - which had become a thing. My mother loved putting in the malted milk chocolate eggs, and whatever else struck her fancy. When I was very, very small, my brothers would lead the morning search for the basket, as any hidden eggs belonged to them, but the basket was for the baby-sister. As I got older, I was perfectly content with simply looking out the back porch, knowing it would be there in the cold. And a lot of chocolate would be sequestered in the plastic grass under the chocolate bunny.

I bit off the ears first. Then popped off the eyes. No sense being watched. Or listened at.

I have TJ's chocolate, dark with almonds, in a bar, these days. When perfection is achieved, stop searching.

Just glad of spring.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my house? I love my house. It's my home.

Murdered

Pissed off. I hate authors who murder their characters. Not if a character is murdered within a story, but when the author is bored, going for a cheap emotional yank, and kills the character for no good reason. I call that murder of a character, and it's one sin I can't forgive in a writer.


One book of four was good, unfortunately I read that one first, so I kept hoping the rest would be worthwhile. Well, no.

I have a few rules for murder mysteries, modern ones anyway. Agatha Christie and her ilk set up these tropes, others made them passe.


1. Rare female murderers, especially for a violent crime. Women rarely commit murder. Instigate it, sure. Poison someone, maybe. So, out of ten police investigated murders in a book series, I'll accept one female murderer. When it's 50/50, it's just lazy and wrong.

2. No killing off the main investigator's love interest, especially not in the last chapter, especially not by the killer him/herself. While the investigator is running to help.

3. Easy on the coincidences. One person finding both bodies - maybe do that once in a whole series. More than that and it's just a bit silly. Likewise too many other matters of chance, instead of steady investigation.

4. Easy on the number of murders. One motivated murder always followed by more to cover up the first - no. Especially if the first murder could more likely be considered manslaughter or even accidental. Mass murderers are another not-that-common a thing.

5. No murderer committing suicide at the end, just to keep everything neat with a last moment confession.

6. No amateurs. Unless it's a once in a lifetime thing. Keep it to the person responsible for brining murderers to light, building a case.

7. No cheating by withholding vital factual information until the last pages. Or, not as a regular habit.

8. If you want to write a travelogue, or a series of character studies, write a novel without a murder.


I could do more, but these are the ones relevant to the recent series. I did not finish the last one, and I care not a bit how it resolves. Damn that author.

Turtles

Marriage is not the institution it was when my parents married. When being a bastard had some kind of meaning other than just being an awful person. When women had to marry if they were pregnant - because keeping a job often wasn't an option, married or not. When a woman needed a man to get a credit card. Because men on their own were pitied, as well as suspected of being swish, and were expected to have a son to carry on the name. When people were routinely called Mr. Mrs. Miss - not first names. And that last name mattered. When a child who wasn't clearly only one nationality, or genetic type, would be rejected by the family they didn't look enough like, or both families they didn't look enough like them either. When marrying someone outside your "race" was illegal in many places. And frowned upon everywhere. When women had to carry a child to birth, or risk her life on an illegal and unsafe abortion, and contraception was unreliable, often illegal, always a bit difficult to obtain. When living together was "shacking up" or "living in sin" instead of a common, normal phase of a relationship.


Children of single parents are just children now. Pregnant and married women are not routinely fired from their jobs. Women can legally handle their own finances. Men can be gay, or live alone - although I think the pity and suspicion might actually be worse these days. I don't think I have ever been called Mrs. D-lastname, at least not un-ironically. I can't remember the last time I called someone Mr. Anything. Children with well mixed genetics are accepted by all but the most recalcitrant bigots. Obviously different-looking couples don't get more than a second look. Contraception is routine, abortion is still a problem in a lot of places, but with decent contraception that is less of an issue. Still dealing with the economic/insurance side of that, and the churches are still digging in their regressive heels. Women are making their own decisions.

This really has all changed in the course of my mother's lifetime. Can't expect people her age to get over that easily, especially if they don't want to. Especially if they indulge in gilded nostalgia. And we have a ways to go to break down the assumptions and stereotypes. And that is just in this country, other places are still a couple of generations behind, and unwilling to adjust. Other places are doing better, leaving us looking crotchety and priggish - which is quite true.

And this all comes with more responsibility, more work, newly discovered problems. I think this is why the gay marriage issue looms so large for so many. It was so deeply buried underneath all the other issues that affected the vast majority, no one not directly affected even realized it was there.

This from The Onion, and flask.

Underneath that will be other problems. It's problems all the way down.


It's turtles all the way down.

Civil

This is not the first time I've written about this.

Marriage should be a religious ceremony, a rite, a ritual, a sacrament. And it should have buggerall to do with the legal/social meanings of "marriage" which could easily be called something else. A civil union, or registered union, Betrothal sounds good to me, but whatever. Any two consenting adults could get a license for Betrothal, with all the rights and privileges now given to "marriage." Fill in the forms, attest to it before a judge, that's it. Marriage as a word will no longer be considered a legal definition. Children from an unlicensed union will be considered the children of "unmarried" people, with the same rules applied. Each person in a Betrothal is a spouse, as "wife" and "husband" will be considered social terms, not legal ones. No state can tell any church who it can or cannot marry. The church will not be free to criticize who the state will recognize in a civil union.

It'll never happen. Too reasonable, obvious, simple. Not in this fool country.

Stonehenge

Our own celestial calendar. Mid-March, and the sun comes right through at about 1920. That small post-it note has been there since last year at this time.

Everything

D moaned when we heard the spattering of icy snow against the windows last night. I figured, I don't have to drive in it, probably won't have to shovel it, suits me fine. March being March, is all. Quite cold, but nothing like the midwest, or Michigan when I was small. A mere frosting, nothing to complain of.

Let myself get irritated yesterday. Nurse in charge of one room, repeatedly ignoring me, or just not listening after she asked me a question, spoke over me, then asked me again what I had clearly said. Tidied away items the scrub and I had set out to be used. A hindrance, and oblivious and repeatedly wrong - objectively so.

"Um, this is a left arm."
"No, it's right."
I get the schedule, "Left."
"But this is (the patient before)!"
"No, it's this (name of next patient.)"
"Oh." Leaves.

I get everything back to where I'd already gotten it before she came in to help me. This is how the whole day went. Scrub, P, wondering at me as we are leaving, why she wasn't in there to start the last huge case. "There wasn't anything else going on!" only one room running. I have to say, well, probably just as well, considering how much "help" she'd been all day. At least we had each other, and we trust each other's skill and attention completely.

Kept the music going all day. White Stripes on one of those online streaming sites that creates a mix. Not my favorite band, at first the guy sounded so much like Sony Bono singing I really didn't like them. But as I get further from the one singer, I find I can like the other. Or his voice has matured a bit. That surgeon likes that mix, and I kill songs that are overplayed, or too far afield (heavy metal or hip-hop-autotuned-to-death.)

With music, I like variety, a strong melody, and a bit of an edge. Too soft gags, too hard and it blasts. Too much the same and it goes through my head eternally. Which is why I do so enjoy They Might Be Giants. Enormous playlist, variety.

When I tell someone they are my favorite band, and they respond "Oh, I hate them." I know what I am dealing with. Wow. If someone tells me "OH, I LOVE Journey!" I will make a non-commital response, but I won't say "Really? You have terrible taste then!" I think it, but I would not say that to them. And people who have a knee-jerk, vocalized, hatred of TMBG tells me that they have only heard the couple of (relatively) popular songs. Ana Ng, Istanbul (which is a cover anyway), Birdhouse, and then say they hate their voices. I think it's like hating Bob Dylan's voice, and thinking he only sings Blowin' in the Wind and Subterranean Homesick Blues. Have you ever seen a book of his collected songs? It takes a couple of thick ones, and I expect he's still writing more. Bob Dylan and John Linnell are incapable of stopping writing songs.

Oh, I thought everyone did Bob Dylan songs better than Bob, too. Until I really started listening, and heard Oh, Mercy. Oh, my. His voice has an authority (literally) that transcends whatever tonal deficiencies he has. There is more to a song than being pretty, and you can 'hear the words.' If they really want to know the words to a song, look up the lyrics and read them. Otherwise, just listen, it's a whole experience, not a lecture with a test at the end.

This is all akin to people who look at a painting to show something. "I can't tell what it is" is a criticism of an illustration, not of art. If you can clearly see what it is, look harder, if it's great art there is more behind it, and the obvious - obscures.

All my life, I have searched for new music, old music, sounds that stretched out and spread across the ordinary. Old hymns and world music, Johnny Cash to Sleeper Agent, Nancy Griffith and The Go Go's. Three Mustafas Three and The Clash and Gogol Bordello. I would never turn my nose up at a song, or a band, without giving them a good listen.

"Art changes, it doesn't get better." Sr. Wendy Beckett.
"If it sounds good, it is good." Duke Ellington.
"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi." Peter Schickele.

Ewe

I don't mind scrubbing in. Used to love it, because I was good at it. Lots of concentration, very interesting work. Engaging. As I get to do it less, the muscle memory loses it's facility, and I forget names of instruments and don't learn all the new toys. My eyesight is not what it was, and I have difficulty focusing. That, and general surgery is different from orthopedic scrubbing. The first I could still do very fast, in my sleep. The latter is more recently learned, and less thoroughly, so I'm just not as good at it, and never was. I don't want to go back to big belly cases, but I will never be as good at fractures as I was at bowel resections.

One of the weak points to scrubbing is whomever is circulating. Today, it was a matter of inexperience, and bad taste in music. If I ever hear the Halleluia song again, or It's Pitiful... oh, correction, You're Beautiful, or Over the Rainbow on ukelele, again, I may have to kill someone. Horrible, overplayed, whiny... . All I asked was not to hear Coldplay, which to her meant Journey was preferable. To me, Journey is Coldplay a few years back. Blech.

One of the sappy tunes played was a cover of Imagine. A song originally played rather slowly. The cover -- even slower. Lugubrious. I craved a version by a punk band. Sex Pistols, or Madness, those are versions of Imagine I could get behind. Really fast and furious. If The Clash ever played Hey, Jude, I might be inclined to listen. As long as they didn't do all the nananananaeheyjudes.

My eyes are dry and tired. It snowed madly this morning, whiteout conditions as I drove up. Sunny and clear by the time I left. March. Lions and lambs, sleeping lions and enraged ewes.

All about work this week.

Robins

We went out in the mild rain, Moby not bothered a bit. He wandered and sniffed, as he does. No sitting down for a meditation, though. Robins on the garage roof, not best pleased at another cat around. When I straightened out the blanket, he watched closely and seemed to decide that this was a Very Good and Interesting place to sit.

March in this part of the world. Some raking, some weeding, possibly some snow yet. I wait and watch and apply anesthetic.


Our spice shelf. Needs a bit of variety and exoticism, but not bad for all that. Fresh would be good, as well. Will have mint, and may try rosemary and basil. Ginger is apparently very difficult here, save in pots, but easy to buy at the Indian grocery. I may try one year.

Ocean

"I love the beach!" said the surfer, littorally.

Had the chance to set up a complex case and do most of it, on a lunch, today. Lovely flow of competence moved my hands, fast and sure. Another scrub lunch, and again, that sense of ability, that had been slipping lately. Resource, also known as a core monkey, today. Opening supplies, restocking, breaks and lunches and general assistance, clean up, turn-overs.

Given that yesterday I was so ill from the hormones, hemorrhaging, that I asked to get off after lunches, and they sent me at ten. Apparently I looked pretty bad. Dropping stuff, contaminated some supplies in a way I would never do normally. Not that I felt wonderful today, but so much better.

Off to read the rest of Ann Cleeves Raven Black. Read Red Bones first, and I'm hooked.

X-ray

X-ray is for X.

X-rays are incredibly useful for finding broken bones


and lost objects.

Too much, and they do a lot of damage, and early on people played with them, really strong ones, - which was quite dangerous.


Another letter not entirely at home in English, prefers to hang behind E, exercising and exiting, existing and explaining. When it starts a letter, X speaks in a Z, playing a xylophone

and acting all xenophobic.


X is more symbolic, X-ing out mistakes and X-ing Peds across the street, X to indicate which dotted line to sign on.




Zulu, yankee, x-ray.

Sulky

Kilter is off. Body being weird. My preoccupation with the end of periods has become completely unbalanced. Marked changes, not just misplaced hope.

I knew, when first told that my period meant I could have children that I did not want that at all. Have never wavered on that, despite momentary curiosity - which is not the same. Knew. Now that the option is nearly run, all I feel is relief. More when I have confirmation. Forty one years is enough.

Of course, there have been advantages. Good for the bones, the blood pressure, skin and connective tissue health. Without the hormones, well, there will be drying and sagging and brittleness. Have started the yoga I learned years ago. Just a few minutes of it to start. Feels really good, although I am stiff and shaky. Intertubes wonderful for a refresher.

March wind, no rain, only harsh and raw. Idling and vague. The garden and front yard sulk at me.

Groceries

Young patient, anesthesiologist very funny and kind with her. After she was under, mentioned that she would be a great best friend for his daughter. He talked with scrub - who has a warm relationship with her adult daughter, about how of course you like them, ideally kids are the best of you and the one you love most.

I had to choke back tears. Not envy, never that. Hearing about good, loving parents keeps my hope in humanity alive. Just a dire sadness for my own small self. That my parents never much liked me, didn't much like each other either. I said nothing, only smiled and did my job. Nothing to add, here, move along.

Cat had to go out again, walked right down the sidewalk, stopping in front of the neighbor's house. Looked back, and a guy with a large dog - some kind of poodle mix, coming along. I picked Moby up, since I knew that Spike would start up an unholy barking, and I didn't know about the walkin' dog. No problems, aside from a couple of excited dogs, but I brought him right back and inside. Sometimes, Cat is a little too nerveless for his own good.

I may just go ahead and plant some seeds, take the risk of a frost. Just a few poppies. See what happens. Front yard looks so dead.

I returned a bag of groceries
Accidentally taken off the shelf
Before the expiration date
I came back as a bag of groceries
Accidentally taken off the shelf
Before the date stamped on myself
Did a large procession wave their (did a)
Torches as my head fell in the basket (large procession)
And was everybody dancing on the casket? (dance?)
Now it's over, I'm dead, and I haven't (now it's)
Done anything that I want (over)
Or, I'm still alive and there's nothing I want to do
Now it's over, I'm dead, and I haven't (now it's)
Done anything that I want (over)
Or, I'm still alive and there's nothing I want to do

- Dead, TMBG.

π

Happy pi day. Have some pie. It's ok to be irrational.

Clinging

He really wants a hug, sometimes. Purring madly, clinging on. Enjoyed the mild March day, wandered to sit in all his spots. Got to see off a neighbor cat who agreed that a different route would be perfectly acceptable, and would just not even bother coming in that yard at all, excuse me. Strange looking black & white cat with a permanently surprized expression, a habitué of the neighborhood. Moby crouched quite menacingly, and I was there, of course on the other end of the lead, to reinforce the threat. I took him out morning and afternoon, which is good for me as well. To feel the season changing.

Some disintegration of the sandstone foundation, and a break in the concrete of the front porch. Nothing to be done right now, but I'm aware. Maybe next year we will be able to get both fixed. A bit of quick-crete to fix the porch this summer. Planted some lettuce, we shall see how that goes. I'm betting on at least one more good snowstorm, but the weather is changing, and anything could happen. Found some light green paint for the grey concrete blocks of the backing wall of the garden. Looks much less dreary out there, now. I will add a strawberry in red spray paint in time. More digging.

Looked up last year's March posts. I was further behind, and going through more. More grief, more uncertainty, then. My hips are not doing as well this year, and my energy is down. I think I shoveled too much over the winter, and started the garden too early. Reminding myself to slow down, not expect quite so much, certainly not the week of the damn time change.

We set the clocks back on Friday evening, which helped a bit, but makes it no lighter in the mornings going to work. Impatient to try again, get everything growing. Lacking the power to do much. So stiff, everything hurting. Doing my PT more, managing. I wasn't wrong when I thought that was the last move I had in me. I could not move again. They take my body out of this house, hopefully after it's paid off. Don't care who gets it. Probably one of D's nephews, to sell and send his kids, or grandkids to college. In 30 years, the world will have spun a few times, and nothing is certain.

Sat on the porch this evening, reading, listening to the Spare Change* couple screaming hoarsely at each other. Held each other's hands, glad that we don't shout at each other. Anything worth yelling is better solved with a lawyer. But shouters get high off the rage, feed it, nurture it, blame everyone else. I kept laughing at the raw swearing. This is several houses down and across the street. If there were any children involved, I'd've called the cops. They know this couple well anyway.

Good to have a day, haven't really done nothing. Just feels like not enough.





*There is a rather infamous beggar in Boston, with a hoarse voice that carries blocks, shouting "Spare change!" To the point that he has an internet presence now. This couple sounds like him, both of them do. Hectoring and audible blocks away.

Pepper

A set of glass salt & pepper shakers, more correctly grinders, from Ikyeh, showed up at work. First noticed them on top of the running microwave, trying to commit suicide. I don't blame them, they were pointless. Have yet to see anyone using them, and no admits to bringing them in. Fugitives from justice? Well, I put them on the counter, not wanting to have to clean up broken glass on my lunchbreak.

I keep noticing a push for novelty Salt&Pepper shakers at a popular aggregate site with a shop. Is it just a form to play with, or are people actually still buying - and using that many S&P shakers? I certainly never bought any. Given a pair in a tupperware set at the shower - 29 years ago. Filled both, used the salt for a while, both long lost but unmissed. My mother had several sets, for everyday, for fancy, and a clever diner set her DIL gave her.

Very much like these, in blue.



This is our condiment selection.


I use some salt in cooking, on occasion. Not much, by the pinch. We cooked up bacon for dinner last night, good stuff, ends & pieces, no nitrates. An hour later, my mouth felt like I'd been sucking on rock salt. Not used to it anymore. Getting away from processed foods, the taste for more than a hint of salt is gone. Not a health concern, just don't use it much, don't want it, don't miss it. Do overtaste it in salted foods, certainly. Come to prefer spicy, a touch of oily, tart and savory.

The last time we were at Red Iguana, all wonderful moles and carefully mixed spices and flavors, we wondered at the presence of S&P shakers on the tables. Who would add either to those dishes? Really? Why not ketchup as well?

As we discussed this, while falling asleep last night, D tells me of Bede's possessions at his death, incense, some linen, and a bag of pepper, the latter being the most expensive. I wonder if its popularity has to do with being rare, so transportable, while staying fresh? Looked it up this year, to see if growing* it is a possibility. It's not. Not even close. I'll stick to chili peppers - they love it here.



*"Needs plenty of water, shade, humidity and heat. It takes 3-4 years before the first fruit can be harvested." - excerpt of post from Gardenweb.

Scheduled

I find myself doing what I did in college, going over and over my plans for planting like my schedule for graduating. And I wonder how many ancient farmers, gardeners, or travelers, repeated over and over the way ahead, making it poetry, mnemonics to find our way, grow our food, until it took on a life of it's own, chewing away at our worries - keeping us awake at night.

Plant the poppies in April. Everything else in May. Could do lettuce now, but I will wait - the ground too muddy yet. Flowers would have to wait anyway. Must prevent the box elder seeds from staying until they sprout - not pulling millions of those buggers out again this year.

I slept last night, but I am very familiar with the hamsterwheeling thoughts. This is why we have recorded books playing us to sleep at night. Bedtime stories, we call it "putting on talking." Seems to help both of us.

My only photo of beloved Gigi, the black poodle who loved me, and I loved back without reserve. She lived to chase her ball, and I was of just the right age to oblige for hours.


My Aunt Alma, my brother Bill. And me.

Cheesy

Aunt Evelyn & Uncle Ernie once took me to see a cheese making place. Would that be a dairy, exactly? Not that I was that much of a cheese fan, liked it in small amounts. Milk was the bane of my childhood, forced to drink a full glass with every meal, I came to loathe the stuff. Cheese I tolerated, the sharper the better.

When they make cheese, they use milk. I knew this, but the implications were not clear. Not when I was a kid. Milk and bacteria, soured, turned, rotting milk. The stench got into my nose for the next three days. Being a well behaved child, cowed might be a better word, I tried not to breathe, covered my face, and held out as long as possible. Cheese making is interesting, it just smells horrible. Churningly nauseating. I didn't throw up, but it was a close call.

Never drank milk willingly. Refused to put it on my cereal. This caused much parental mirth and scorn, but I held fast. The only thing worse than drinking a cold glass of milk was spooning up warmish milk with soggy cereal remains. The sourish aroma wafted up from the Cap'n Crunch. To this day, I eat cereal dry, or I make hot cream 'o wheat with boiling water. With the wheatabix, I spoon a bit of plain tea on top, just for enough moisture to settle the dust. Once in a while, when I overbrew the tea a bit, I will add a few drops of milk to cut the edge. Maybe a teaspoon's worth. Less than once a month. It's not an allergy, but a mild lactose intolerance. Mild, as long as I don't drink it by the cupful.

D loves milk. I accept this, even as I don't understand it. When we were in Saudi, he kept trying to get milk, none of the sterilized stuff satisfied, tasted wrong. In the first chowhall back, his first glass from the huge stainless tank of supercooled milk numbed the back of his throat, and he fell in love. I get him milk. I pour it in his glass. I've never been able to figure out how much is right to put on his Joe's O's, but that's alright, he never expects. He is willing to make me tea, and I say thanks, those tea bags will do nicely.

When I shopped on Wednesday, I didn't realize he was low. He forgot Thursday, and yesterday as well. We are waiting to walk over and get him milk. He'll carry it back.

Were you ever sent to the corner store for a gallon of milk that weighed more than a seventh of your own mass? In the summer? Having to stop every few yards to put it down and rest your arms? And your fingers are numb because it's cold. And you know you are just going to be forced to drink it?




Planted peas today. Southwest corner spot. Everyone mentioning planting pease this week. Loads of worms, I think they like all the dead leaves. The cardboard put down last fall is nearly undetectable, eaten away, broken down.

Dread

Working the dirt exhausts me and fills me with dread, I don't know what I'm doing. Sore, aching, wanting it all to be ok. Digging calls to me, and I love the mud the worms, the hope under the dead leaves that the worms love. I've made a difference this past year, cleared out the bad stuff, given it organic materials to turn into soil. The smell of fertility, damp and rich and a little frightening.

I ache and want and despair and dig.




Hard to imagine myself ever this young. 1980.

Crystals

Ok,still too cold.
Soft earth holding ice crystals,
Hesitant to jump.




Ever get the feeling you were being watched?




Found and sent this to Ancestry Cousin.



Grandfather (died before I was born), Granny, Mother, Father, Grandma. Father's father died when he was a kid. Couldn't recall Grandma's name, it was rarely used around me. Zebre. I wonder how usual that was, or if French Canadian liked unique names.

My father does not look like a happy man on his wedding day, more like every other photo of him, cranky and sour.


Update: 06 Mar 12:20 pm MST 59˚F 28% Humidity Winds S 26 G41

Acoustic

I love this for so many reasons.



But you will find your own.

Yankee

Yankee is for Y.

A word from years of yore, for New Yorkers baseball,

or New Englanders, or Northerners, sometimes anyone from the US when shortened to Yanks.



Depending on how far away one yawns or yodels.


Y shies away from starting words, but frequently, slyly, humbly, tags on blindly, rearmostly.

But when Y leads, it yells and yowls in yellow yips.



Or is silent in Ypsilanti.






Zulu, Yankee.

Springish

Real rain.




Snow clearing, washing away the scummy remains.

Blugging

Dale writes about why he began blogging. Fascinating.

I don't think I had any initial illusions about what I was doing. Writing to a friend. Who is no longer a friend. I went through a phase, while doing the nanowrimo, that I hoped I might one day be publishable, make some income writing - those dreams of fortune, if not fame. Silly, but mostly harmless. Staring at all the overwrought fiction I never want to read, I eventually came to feel that the hardback novel was becoming somewhat passé, and the world didn't need another mediocre novelist. Always room for good ones, that wouldn't be me.

I have gone through phases when I get lots of comments, but maxed out at about 40 regulars. Which was nice, and a few times I've wondered if I could get enough readers to have a somewhat popular blog. Then, alarmed when I got a hundred hits in a day, and wrote particularly nasty posts just to get them to go away. Fame, when actually threatening, horrifies me. The intimate little circle, although it changes over the years, suits fine. I remember the first time I had someone reading and commenting, a stranger, I felt very strange about it. When I get less than twenty visitors, I do worry if I've become too dull, too off-putting. So I take more photos of Moby, and try to get the writing quality up again. It's a good feedback system.

I always feel strange about regulars whose bloga I am disinclined to read. I wonder what they see here. Gradually I've accepted that as inevitable, and I don't have to like their food for them to like mine.

When fecesbook emerged as a thing, I said Meh, tried it for a while and left unimpressed. Too much exposure, extra spam, not enough contact with anyone I really cared to contact that way, strangely impersonal, when email made more sense. Fostered a tendency for me to obsessively search for people I didn't even like. Blogging suited an introvert with a slow social thought process. I'm quick at work, and can often quip glibly, but it doesn't mean anything. When I want to work out my memories, I need the long process. Time to think through what I really mean, dig down to the truth at the very bottom. Find the right words.

I shall never twitter. So far on the other side of my needs and interests as to be useless. Like looking for a warm parka in the bikini department. A wool thong is not going to work.

In any respect.

Readers here come and go. A few old friends still visit occasionally, but they've pretty much heard all I have to way. New ones show up, I never know why, and I don't ask. Same as I read some blogs for a while, then feel I've read enough and drift away, only to stop in and wonder why I haven't been by more. I don't go searching very often, now and then, when the urge hits. When I check out the stats and see a new Came From site. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much. I still get people probably clicking through from a blog roll of a site I once frequented, whose owner has not removed me. So, I leave on old sites I rarely visit, in case. Just in case. You never know.

Cargo

Watching When Weather Changed History, about the South Pole rescue.

Cargo planes.

Both of us thinking about the C-130 we were stuffed onto in Saudi, glad to be out of the underground parking garage, going to where we would be for a few months. In full gear, many holding rifles, all wearing helmets and gas masks, on the webbing seats, snugged in shoulder to shoulder, knees meshed. O dark 30. No place to fall, the overwhelming roar of engines, everyone asleep after a week of barely anything of the like, no one remembers the actual take-off. Few the landing, either.

Best sleep ever.

Drippy

One room running, and did we ever make it run. Surgeon on fire! Figuratively. Got through three hip scopes and a knee in short order. Leaving us time to enjoy sun and warm air, everything melting away. The roof pouring, leaving a mess of ice and the litter I used for grit. Photos refuse to show the drippage. Cat took the opportunity to walk out himself.



Well, I just followed him as he wandered, checked out the remaining snow.




And poked around the wild corner, that will have strawberry plants next summer. Right now, it has a bit of detritus, including the old door. Sticks from the trees and hedge that will form frames for peas and tomatoes.



The world outside is draining.