Obviously.

I was cleaning, but could go no further. Obviously. I’ll pick up my robe later.

We watched a Cecilia Bartoli concert from 1988 last night. Dylan mentioned she’d toured through when we were in Boston, only found out after sold out, and prohibitively expensive anyway. I was thinking of bemoaning how expensive concert tickets have become, far above middle income affordability. And how classical music concerts once had cheap seats, and were popular at all levels of society. But that’s misleading. How many people ever heard Beethoven’s 5th in his lifetime? As many as hear it on any given day today?

Music is much more available now, of the best quality. Music for most people throughout history has been mostly self made, to make work easier, - so repetitive and simple. The more complicated music was for festivals, the rich, for religion.

Pop music is just commercialized work songs, and we don’t even have to sing or play instruments.

This is not a matter of good or bad, just a different version of the same function.

Found a weed whacker for $5 at a yard sale. This will make garden care a bit easier next spring.

Mulligatawny

Our first meal delivered from a local... not sure what to call it. They have diverse chefs and use refugee farmer’s produce, support other local businesses. Twice a week, one meal to share, but from different cuisines. I’ve tasted some of their food before, a couple of catered events, and a couple of local street fairs. They had a pick-up a meal offer, but not on a day when I could reliably get there in time, after work, through the worst traffic. But they recently went to a delivery option, which I found out about at said street fair, along with a tomato bisque taster cup that I licked clean. Anyway. A fair price, and a first step for some to create the range of restaurants to come. There is a market here, because so many of the dominant religion go out into the world on missions, and return with a taste for a great variety of foods.

Dylan had the soup, because it had garlic in it. I really can’t tolerate the stuff. So I had soba and tinned trout with some of the chutney, and the samosas. Which is how we figured it would work, shared and supplemented. But inspiring us to eat differently.

It’s so easy to get into the same old foods, and lose interest in eating at all. Wish I could enjoy some part of cooking, most I tolerate, don’t mind, but none of it is a pleasure. Even ordering off a menu is my least favorite part of eating at a restaurant. Planning one for home is hard. I don’t much like grocery shopping, preparing or cooking are simply jobs needing doing. Eating a good meal is lovely. Then I have to clean up. This place relieves me of the chore two meals a week, and gives me ideas for the rest.

Each day has a main ingredient, poultry, pork, vegetarian, fish, beef(lamb,veal). We went for the poultry, vegetarian days.

It smells wonderful in here. I still have a bit of chutney left, which I will certainly eat.



We tried to see the movie, but the sound was broken. So, I got the book. Read it in a day.

Too

What the...?

Feeling odd and unsettled. Lot of that going about.

Work is slow, weather is still hot, mood is murky, feeling heavy and vague.


Haven’t eaten much, and although I know I should eat better, I’m struggling to eat at all.

Cats snuggling earlier, and I had to shoo them off, in no mood to be touched. Fed little black stray, Mr. Kenny, petted him a little, which he tolerated, barely, because there was decent food on offer. I know how he feels.

Sun is too hot, angle too sharp, glare too intense. Too many little tomatoes to be picked. Raspberries in small amounts are better, nice addition to morning cereal.

Too much.

Change is imminent. But what will come? Trial and renewal. It’s all a test.

Pro

I can shelve books.
Stoke a coal furnace.
Serve coffee.
Write and record a radio ad.
Segue between records.
Splice tape.
Troubleshoot a microfiche machine.
Speak in front of an audience.
Clean a medical office.
Clean a foot whirlpool bath.
Audit a college class schedule.
Direct crowds to toilets.
Sell symphony tickets on the phone.
Conduct surveys.
Teach ballroom dance.
Drape a patient to State standards during a massage.
Give a massage.
Pose for a life drawing class.
Run an industrial buffer.
Change clothes quickly.
Iron clothing.
Clean an oil heater.
Apply and remove a plaster splint or cast.
Apply a fiberglass splint.
Remove sutures or skin staples.
Apply band aids or numerous other dressings.
Prep skin for a sterile procedure.
Mop a floor.
Run nearly any machine given proper instruction.
Spike IV bags.
Hold a hand.
Tighten a screw.


And get paid to do so.

Polish

We salvaged this small double slow cooker. But it was so hard to read. So, I took the cheap nail polish to the dials. Planning to make tomato sauce with my midget tomatoes.

Thirty

So, thirty years ago I was waiting to start Basic. I’d signed the paperwork, raised my hand, given my fingerprints, attended a couple of drills, and was in a low grade panic. It was the way to get money for a return to school.

My first PT test was dated 15 Oct 1988, so I think I went on 7 Oct. Dylan helped me find what army papers I had, my enlistment was 25 August. A peculiar time. The soon to be ex was not happy, but only on his own account. I didn’t realize how much would change. So much I couldn’t see from there, but I leapt out into the void regardless.

Met Dylan thirty years ago, although it’s fuzzy for me. One of a multitude of young men in green with very short hair. Little did I know.

This is an anniversary of that liminial time, in between, the unknown stretching ahead.

Should have the House paid off in 30 years, less now.

I wondered why I’ve been talking about Basic so much, and although there are other reasons, and I did sort of recall my general enlistment anniversary, I really hadn’t let it sink in. Today, Dylan helped me find my DD214, and my first PT test was 15 Oct 1988. My enlistment was 25 Aug 1988. Thirty years. Which is about when I first met Dylan, although it’s a bit hazy. He was one of many young men in short hair and green clothes.

This is anniversary of the in between, that luminal time between that desperate move to get me back into school, and actually jumping into the deep end. My life would change permanently, and in ways I could never have imagined, because all the rules I’d assumed were in effect, would be upended and wrenched away.

Not to mention a great expansion in my vocabulary.

And a path I’d share with Dylan.

Hardest thing I’d ever done at that point. My universe changed, and I found my courage. Learned to love dawn and find pleasure in nature. Found out I was tough, and realized I was very very alone.

Plan

This is not what I ever planned to be. I considered being a nurse, along with nun, actress and pilot*, because they seemed attainable for a girl growing up back when. I didn’t really know what any of those jobs entailed, but they weren’t flipping burgers, typing in an office or working in a factory. Those seemed the worst of jobs to me. I had no idea how I was going to make a living, except I knew I did not want marriage and housewifery.

Theater would prove impossible. I figured my difficulty with math meant sciences were out. I simply took on multiple jobs, able to learn as I went, to a sufficiency. One of which was the National Guard enlistment. Just one more part time gig that might lead to full time. A library degree paid for by that was the initial plan. It happened to be a medical unit, which suggested a different direction. A nursing degree could become a real job, I’d be a officer. And not come back to the bad marriage.

I got out of that entanglement anyway, and after being sent off to Gulf War I, did not want any more army than I was already committed to. By the time I finished nursing school, I knew I was terrible on night shift, although I had several stretches of it to go. A friend helped me get a foot in the door for surgery, and I fit. I knew from the first day, I would get this. And my first time making a living wage.

This is not the sort of path that can be planned. I could not have imagined this work being what I would find satisfying, what I would be capable doing. I kept trying until I found the way through. Over twenty years, and I learn every day, I’m challenged to stay sharp and attentive. My Bad Nurse Week reminds me of my struggle, my sense of accomplishment, and desire to stay good for my patients.

I remember hearing about single nurses buying houses, and I thought, it pays enough to buy a HOUSE? I’m in! Seemed incredible then.

Still does.



*Amelia Earhart. My Uncle Walt flew small planes, and built one.

Lungs

Three days in a row is just a bugger. Not especially long, but difficult. And I have had bad equipment karma, as well as shoddy sleep. Drugged up last night, slept through, mostly, and today is better. Toe improving slowly, as is the way with injured toes. Smoke from local fires. Reading wildfiretoday.com for all things wildfire. Smells of campfire, smoke clearly visible. Not taking Moby outside no matter how much he mrrks at me. Little lungs and that much smoke is a bad idea. Not good for any lungs.

I did get out to fill the gas tank, which I do about once a month. Hit a yard sale, and minor grocery shopping. At I have a cover crop class through the community gardens at 1400. Catsoup made. Pissed upon rugs picked up and replaced, as per. I may vacuum in a little bit. Picked all the ripe tomatoes, which came to a full quart. All the volunteer Mexico midget tomatoes, unexpected but welcome.



Remembering a hand fellow’s story about a friend’s family that took her on hikes. She loved them all, but the story went that she was expected to Show up, Keep up, and Shut up. Be there, on time and prepared, don’t expect to be carried, and no whining. She loved the challenge, and the expectation that she could meet it. She was a helluva fellow, and no doubt is now a fine surgeon. Not unlike Basic, a bar was set, excuses were meaningless, meet it or not, up to you, but we won’t save your sorry ass if you can’t make it. My first taste of really being challenged, and succeeding. That I made it, knew I’d make it, was exactly what I needed. Proved to myself that I was capable and strong.

Although, I found out at the end, a number of my fellow privates, figured I’d wash out. I can see how they got that idea. But I set myself to finish, because the only way out was through. I knew, underneath, that I was a lot stronger than I looked. Meant a lot to me that I proved it to everyone, in the end.

Well, off to my class.

Bluet

Genus.As identified on inaturalist.com

Toe

Why I thought it might be broken.

Perq

So, I didn’t break my toe.

Dr. B. X-rayed it yesterday, and declared it only crushed. It’s very purple and swollen. But buddy taping it won’t help, so at least I don’t have to do that. Really lovely being able to get small injuries checked out quickly by experts, a definite perq of my work.

Charge nurse asked if I could cover Wednesday lunches. I knew today was slow, so I said, sure, and are you calling me off Tuesday? She stopped, said “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that...” She looked at the numbers again, and asked if I would like to switch Tuesday for Wednesday. I said sure. A good day to pamper my toe, and then get all my hours in this week.

Dreamed we’d found an apartment and were renting the house. Until I realized the renter wouldn’t take care of my garden, and I woke up so relieved that of course we weren’t going to rent the house. OUR HOUSE. MY GARDEN. Told Dylan about this dream, and he says, nope, nope, nope, no way, our house.

I have completed the menopausal year, and given my extra supplies to a young woman at work struggling financially. She was glad to have it. I found a couple of tampons in my work pouch (fanny pack) that had apparently been in there a year, the wrappers worn away to nearly nothing. I tossed those. I am both relieved, and feeling a bit fragile. Noticing more bruises and joint pain, which will not improve. I’ll do what I can to keep the slide gentle, but this is a different stage of life.

Whole new areas of learning open up before me.

As long as I don’t stub my toe right now...

Brass

At the rifle range in Basic, the closing ritual was to “police up brass.” Pick up all bullet casings. Keeping any of it was a punishable offense. We were expected to be sharp eyed and honest, and mostly we were.

So when I saw a bullet casing in the mud in the gutter as I put the trash bins out, I knew what I was looking at. Not shiny new, full of mud, I picked it up. Not that rain is likely, but leaving it there impossible. I had to make sure, got out the loupes to read the butt, “federal auto 380” then called the local pd. An officer came out within the hour, took my name and DOB, and the casing.

Much smaller than the M16A1 casings that is my only other reference. I liked target shooting, but detest guns generally.

My brother bought a rifle while still living at home. Mom insisted he completely dismantle it. He shot it into the coal furnace occasionally. He’d been jumped & beaten with a chain, into a coma, as a teen, so the urge to defend himself was understandable. But the fear my father might turn a gun on his family in a fit of rage was... likely. HE sympathized with a murderer who said, If I can’t have them, no one will, about his kids being taken away. Yeah, my childhood did not feel safe.

In Basic we also had to “police up” cigarette butts. I hate smokers.

Mormon

The garden is alive with these bugges. I suspect Mormon crickets, sending out the question to inaturalst though. Moby seems to have regained some weight and (unearned) confidence. He’s back to walking off the edge of the first porch step. Bolder moving around the garden, but he still isn’t seeing properly. I do try to warn him, which he sometimes accepts.

Addendum:


Differential Grasshopper Melanoplus differentialis

Understood

When I took microbiology a couple of decades or so ago, I came up the the NWU acronym. For Not Well Understood. Not that I personally much understood much of that class at the best of times. When Gulf War I started, and they offered those of us being activated a graceful B, I took it gratefully. I did get the ideas, but the tests were miserable, and the calculations beyond me. I suspect many of my fellow students & Vets felt the same.

I’ve been reading She Has Her Mother’s Laugh, Carl Zimmer, about the history, uses and abuses and advances in the study of genetics. Some NWUs are BU now. Better Understood. It’s a wee 578 pages of text, which seemed daunting, but his writing is clear, full of history and connections, thoroughly enjoying reading it. Lots about eugenics and the Hapsburgs, Mendel and Darwin, ancestry and hominids. Some surprising aspects, some familiar, all in well told tales.

We are the oft broken and remade bits of all who come before us. And past a certain point, we aren’t really even related to them anymore. The DNA is so changed, we are new things, though the same species, which seems such a contradiction. Ancestry is a foolish illusion. Which I already figured. I don’t like most of my known living relatives, why would I think I’d prefer my dead ancestors?

Be our own unique selves, call all kin.

Chives

Picking

We picked the lamp from the trash room from the first place we lived in Boston. Had to replace the socket, and I thought it so ugly,until turned on, which made a big difference. Today, a yard sale, and for $7,a companion table, now that we’ve rearranged the living room. Chipped plaster and poured “granite”, looks fine, really.

Cleaned and replaced the felt before bringing it inside. Moths got in the last time, on a box, we think, due to insufficient cleaning care once.

I’m learning.

Always learning.

Mirror photos, cats bathing.

Mom had this game for me, I’d walk around the house looking down into a mirror, pretending I was walking on the ceiling.

Yeah

Looking up the lyrics for Let Your Yeah be Yeah, The Pioneers, great ska song. I prefer The Selecters version, but can’t find it anywhere but our own iTunes. Anyway. About being straightforward and honest. Came across Let your yes be yes, a biblical quotation from Sermon on the Mount, Matthew, about not swearing an oath on gods name. Which is a different, related idea. Deceit often involves massive assurance that the liar is telling the truth. Which, with a bit of experience, most people learn. Likewise related to people who keep pushing for a yes after being given a firm No.

My mother explained clearly that no meant no, and pressure would not only not reverse the no, but earn punishment. I learned that lesson deeply, and never waffle once I’ve stated my decision.

I think this has been part of why I get a reputation as a bitch, and has saved me from scams and high pressure salesmen. Lost some friends, some of which probably weren’t friends anyway.

People know where they stand with me, if they pay any attention at all. This does not make me popular.

Had another damn dream about my father, never good.

Two lovely women from work stopped by on the way home for tea and a tour. They were carpooling, and it helped them time it to avoid some bad traffic. Gave them tomatoes. I really do work with some great folks.

Swarms of Lime and Bird scooters around town, more since the U classes started. I find them delightful. Dylan has no driving license, I have no iPhone, so I haven’t tried them yet. One day.

Thumb CMC arthritis improved, with brace and injection kicking in. Decline in effect.