TWANG! JUPITER!

 48 of #100daychallenge

St. John's Wort blooming for first time.

Damn if I didn't get another spider bite. This one is on my right hand ring finger. It is somewhat swollen and very red. I was prescribed antibiotics for last week's spider bite but did not pick them up because the bite was not as serious. And, of course, the pharmacy is closed today. This will keep me slightly on edge, but I will live.

Later.

Spider bite finger swelling up and very red. Maybe I should ice it. Of course, Janet has a doctor's appointment in the morning which will get in the way of going to urgent care again. Maybe I will just go get the antibiotics which were prescribed for my foot spider bite and keep an eye on it.

I ate some spaghetti with ground beef. It tasted good when I was eating it but now I feel bleech. So greasy. I almost never eat beef, maybe a hamburger once or twice a summer. Not sure why it is affecting me so much. 

Patrick and I did a yoga wall class this morning. It was really good, but I anticipate being sore tomorrow. I am so glad to be getting back to my own practice. A week from Monday, Heidi's classes restart, although not at Kava (everyone cries). I will soon be up to four classes a week as a student and four as a teacher. That is probably enough yoga to get restarted.

After class, we drove into the depths of the INLAND EMPIRE to pick up a new old dining room table (the last one having been a dud). Trump country. Meth country. There was a lot of traffic and screwy directions from Waze so we were in the car a long time. Fortunately, I had thought to pack my Bose Bluetooth as Patrick's car doesn't even have a cd player. That made for some nice conversation. 

Patrick was describing his high school music wars with his brother, Stevie. Stevie was a fan of jazz fusion and progressive rock. Patrick taunted Stevie my calling his music "twang, Jupiter" wherein a chord was hit, resonated, and then a Brit would say or sing "Jupiter" ... heavy, man.

At any rate, the table was good for the price. The people had grown up around here, a couple of years younger. They tried to engaged us in some California bashing but we skillfully demurred. The son had meth mouth and I was horrified, trying not to stare. And I thought my teeth were bad. 

I like this from Ephron's book, describing dealing with alcoholics.

Being hyperalert is a lasting thing. Being a watcher. Noticing emotional shifts, infinitesimally small tremor that flit over another person's face, the jab in a seemingly innocuous word, the quickening in a walk, an abrupt gesture—the way, say, a jacket is tossed over a chair.

Delia Ephron, Sister Mother Husband Dog, Etc. Penguin, New York, 2013

I think I have experienced that more at work where there was dry alcoholic behavior if not the actual stuff. And I think women feel this in many situations where they wonder if they are safe or if they will be sexually assaulted or hurt at any moment.

Plus more excitement from Garden Land. The photo above is of my very first Brooks Cherry! I doubt it will ripen enough to be consumed, but my arborist doubted that it would even fruit as it does not get cold enough. I am just happy to see it. 

THE MATERIAL

The ration between the material Cornell collected

and the material that ended up in his boxes

was probably a thousand to one.

— Deborah Solomon, Utopia Parkway 

Whatever is done

leaves a hole in the

possible, a snip in

the gauze, a marble

and thimble missing

from the immaterial.

The laws are cruel

on this point. The

undone can’t be

patched or stretched.

The wounds last.

The bundles of

nothing that are

our gift at birth, the

lavish trains we

trail into our span

like vans of seamless

promise, like fresh

sheets in baskets,

are our stock. We

must extract parts

to do work. As

time passes, the

promise tatters

like a battle flag

above a war we

hope mattered.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Grove Press, New York 2010