Spring break in the country

I was restive and grumpy about being unable to actively participate in the Saturday protests. The Hands Off actions were well represented in this shithole state while I and one other person sat at a picnic table in a sunny, nearly deserted park and aired our mutual grievances. Inside, I still want to run through the oval with a flamethrower and damn the furniture.

Sunday, I got out ahead of the storms and landed here in the country to spend Spring break with Charlie. Forty-eight hours of rain and personally, twenty-four with some kind of upper respiratory nonsense. 

The sun is out now, the too-early heat and humidity gone with the storm, and I'm on the upside. The kid and the kitten are working their magic.

Speaking of same, this morning's cards. One on the draw and one that snuck out with her. A message that I need to get back to the book. My characters are bored with my foot dragging. 

Ms. Nibbler is still the tiniest fur-snake I've experienced. As bold and aggressive as a leopard and this one WILL eat your face. 

Mr. Smooth. 

One moment, wise beyond his years, the next an ordinary ten with his fears.

I'm not sharing much with him about current events these days. Adults who know right from wrong in positions of trust and accountability seem to be at a loss for dealing with the moment-to-moment insanity of the current regime. 

Who am I to sanitize or summarize for a child I love? He's only just fastened on to Harry Potter.

Where's a real wand when you need one?
 

Telltale

 I was tired before I drew them.

 It's good to have a green light. The path has been there all along. 

Sleep, now.

I will yield for a question...

 

...while retaining the floor.

He's still standing. There's been help. It's been eloquent and emotional. 

Since it's not his style, I did a lot of cursing for him as I listened and watched more on than off since before sunrise. 

I listened while I made my very first General Tso's from an actual recipe. Almost delicious.

Listened in the car when I went to the post office. Reported to the counter people, "He's still talking."

It was good to witness some uplifting history being made instead of the appalling shit that's been the daily fare for 72 damn days. 

This is the nursery pot where I plant the "nearly dead" I get from the big box store half-price racks. The poppys are a first. A little lavender, a strawberry plant, those pansies. All of them were in rough shape. Then we had a nice 24 hour rain and cloud cover. 

All will be well.

The second needle party for my back is early tomorrow. I am not looking forward to it. 

This needling is a pleasant distraction.

A singular day

At some point in the night all three cats are on my bed. 

Some web thing said they were gathering my negative energy.
Poor bastards!
And thanks.



No surprise that the never-clearly understood nuances of using blogger are eluding me tonight. I've hit upon the right order of pill-taking to make the overlap useful. Anyone who's ever been prescribed a steroid pack, six day course of prednisone will attest that they usually kick in by the middle of the first day. For me, it's day three.


A deep change of input also lifted this day out of the tedium of convalecsing.

This felt like a terrible waste of energy, but after three starts, I finally got the letters right. Twice I scrawled out ftd, which has a nice flow, letter-form wise. 

Third time's a charm, but I kept my distance from the intention. I'm gonna need some signage for my 4/5 picnic. If you're in the neighborhood, please join me. I'm going to get a picnic table at a park close to home. About 1230. I'll bring snacks to share. Lunch for me. Bring my stitching, my music, some 50501 signs. My big mouth. Join me. I'm working on a stand-up routine that would probably put me in facebook jail. but fuck 'em. Email me for details. 

He should be denied memory of any pleasure, past, present, or future.

I spent some time in the studio. The morning light is irresistible. Fierce. The big tree hasn't leafed out yet and I get the full blast from the east from 8 to ten or eleven. It makes it hard to focus on any one thing. All is illuminated. There's the tower of UFO and the Basket of Almosts. The desk piled with tax papers and three books bristling with sticky tabs of editing.

There are still pages of handwritten notions to commit to the computer. Tomorrow I'll dictate a few. Can't make a whole without the parts.

Midmorning, I spent two hours actively watching and listening to A Complete Unknown. Quite the trip getting sucked back to high school and the certain knowledge that one had to take a stand. Viet Nam, Civil Rights, clashes of culture. I weaned off the Beatles to the Stones--from sweet to nasty. But threaded through it all, Bobby was my first poet. Even before Paul Simon. 

I shied away from folk music because my parents, a lot of parents, co-opted it rather blindly. Puff the Magic Dragon still makes me gag. '

Dylan's music was my secret. Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde, and Nashville Skyline--If it wasn't for Planned Parenthood, "Lay Lady Lay" would have started more surprise lives than Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra together. 

 I would hear a song on the radio. Take notes. Go to the record store, read all the lyrics and NOT buy the record. I needed to have his music foisted on me by one radio station or another so I would pay attention. Anyway, the movie is well worth your time if it was your time, or you're curious about how some of the world once was.

Meanwhile, people were getting real work done. I was happy to know that this mower made it through another hard year of work and a winter of terrible neglect.

I'm looking to reimagine this in cloth to work on at my picnic. I have the red and white part already. I'll have to cook up a dyfest for the right blue. a few of them. on light linen. The text must be true, but that lettering needs help. 

Finishing off the day with a good reread. It's been too long since I've cracked any kind of craft/tool book.  Wtf do I think I am?

Have a great weekend. 

Good company

It was glorious out yesterday. Today too. Brisk and breezy, so I'm enjoying the sunny patch on the rug like one of the cat posse. 

Yesterday, I was relieved to see he spent a minute grooming and then curled into a loose ball for a nap right in the black dirt. I want to grow something in that fiber container this season. I may have to make him another one, a cat lounger. 

I also want a laundry basket potato tower. One of those tall ones with the egg-shaped holes. Straw, dirt, taters...repeat. 

I don't think I'm going to grow any herbs beyond Mother lavender behind Mr.B.   Mother Thyme is just out of frame. Not as vigorous as the lavender. It may need a bigger container. Research. 

Other things require a lot of physical work that I can't promise myself.

 And pool cleaning time will be on Colin soon. 

I have some gathering to do before the first dyefest of the year. Considering a name.

I find myself unfit for most human company lately. Growling and snarking. If I have offended, neglected or told someone to fuck off, forgive me. 

Spells are hard work.

The visitor is Jucifer. I'm not thrilled that I can't leave the doors open downstairs. He comes in the cat door, feeds his face, and strolls out onto the dyedeck to chill. He skulked off, and we took the deck back for a while, but I was overdressed and barefooted. An hour of vitamin D was enough. 

owls around

 
 This scrap has been following me around for some time. I found it tucked into a summer shirt pocket from the back of the closet. 

I've been contemplating killing off one of the characters in my story by having him blunder into a live wire. 

We saw this happen once.  A great blue heron crossed the road up ahead, high enough and far enough away for my son and I to track its majestic progress and be awed.

That awe turned to staggering horror as it came into contact with a power line. That grandeur became a lifeless bundle of bones and feathers that dropped from the sky into a deep ravine on the far side of the road. I have trouble revisiting the memory.

This shape, this iteration of spirit, came about very spontaneously. 

Message received.

From a fixed position

A bedside enchanted forest. All the houseplants want to be outside. 

Cheapo solar lights delight me. I stuck all twelve in a big pot full of some cute weed. I should look it up. On a few hours of charge, they blazed all night on the deck. I felt like I was sleeping beside a campfire...which may account for waking up feeling like I slept on a beach after an all night brawl. 

Here's the extent of my efforts today. More easy amusement - a set of arteza woodless watercolor pencils and a water brush pen. 

Something here might fall under the needle. 
 

a chill day

 After the valium wore off, I spent some time soaking up a fine day under the watchful eyes of the posse. I hesitate to speak it aloud, but ever since my neighbor across the street died, they don't cross the road and saunter up her driveway to disappear behind her house. She knew Bailey on sight and called Camilla "the chubby one". Can't prove it, but there may have been treats involved.

The procedure was routine and familiar. This time I paid more attention to the doctor's detailed explanation about what she would be doing and why. I've also been keeping careful notes on the pain diary I was given. Every fifteen minutes for the first six hours, then hourly and daily. Happy to say I woke up a 2 this morning, but I'm going to tread lightly. Not rock the back boat.

I'm so tickled with this quick and dirty logo that I whipped up yesterday from a sketch. I didn't even transfer the drawing to the cloth that way I was mindful of the placement of every single stitch. No wandering to the left or right of a line. 

Names for the show, (which is not until January '26 - an eternity) were being tossed out and I came up with 

"Warp, Weft & Wonder"...

three textile perspectives. Subtitles are always optional.

I will continue the delicious escape into writing. Spinning worlds.

Monsters mild

 

Pain is so distracting. 

As of 9 this morning, the pain in my lower back has been switched off. Of course, all those muscles have given up doing anything beyond guarding against movement (any) that might cause pain. They will have to be retrained and I fucking HATE physical therapy.  But I'll do what I have to regain some mobility. I'd very much like to walk more than 50 feet without collapsing.

I hate that this much relief is only temporary. The first two rounds of marcaine injections are to pinpoint and define the nerve branches that will be targeted for radiofrequency ablation. Second marcaine in two weeks. Ablation within a month of that. Soon. 

Going forward, anything that keeps my butt in the chair will have to be balanced with an equal amount of active time. Not an unfair tradeoff. 

I can listen to books while I walk. 

Walking leads to all kinds of things.

 

No hubris here, just gratitude

 

This morning dawned glorious. No damage here.

The local weather forecasters whipped themselves in a frenzy of Cover My Ass with a chorus of We Warned You since the middle of the week predicting weather Armageddon for Saturday night.

It was tediously ominous for a full twenty-four hours. I even decided to wrap my car against reports of quarter-sized hail two states away. I still carry full coverage on a car that's fifteen years old, but I'll bet they would find a way to screw me out of glass coverage. 

I moved my big wind chimes from the dye deck to right outside the slider to my bedroom. Big winds would wake me.

As if I ever got more than an hour's sleep. The very high thunder and lightning were incessant from midnight to dawn, but the wind and rain were run of the mill for a spring thunderstorm.

(That bright thing is Bhagdad Bazaar from 2011. It's been in the trunk of my car, a trusty beach and picnic blanket doing something useful.) 

Later I'll drape them over the law chairs to  dry out. The brown quilt needs a wash before storage and the artquilt will go back in the trunk, always ready.

This morning, I'm just having a little fun with some of Charlie's monster drawings getting goofy on a lovely commercial placemat I was gifted, along with a raft of beautiful linen clothing, table and bed linen. Gorgeous stuff full of potential.

There will be a nap in the sun later.