RECKON IT READ

Yesterday was full of lost hours or jumps in time. 1 P.M. became 3:45, 10 P.M. became 12:40 A.M. while I was doing what? I had an insomnia scare, but instead of thrashing about, I chose to get up and take some sleeping medication rather than risk falling back into a negative Circadian rhythm.

It's quite overcast here today. The heat level is just below that which might make it uncomfortable. There's only a 20% chance of rain, but another shower or two would be so nice. I can hear Janet coughing in the backyard. Garden gazing is certainly preferable to listening to more endless awfulness about Donald Trump.

Why do I have such a bad feeling about this? My main reason must be that I imagine this is how Hitler got his start.

I'll go work on the monthly bills while we still have money.

Later that same day.

Jeebus. Life is frustrating. Verizon sold all of its business in California to a very crappy provider, Frontier. Of course, this is bound to be fraught with problems, so that wasn't the unexpected part. And even this current exasperating experience of having to call repeatedly after getting disconnected and endless wait times is not exactly surprising. The worst part is having them want me to go to the outside box and screw the cover and fool around with the fiber optic cable. I'm willing to unplug and replug in things in the house, but when I have to start rooting around for tools and bringing down the whole system in the house, I draw the line.

Okay. This isn't what I want to be doing, but on the positive side, I think I got all my mother's doctors appointments for the next month in my calendar and hers AND I switched my car insurance to this address, so that will save us a little bit of money each month.

Janet has been very wifty today. Yesterday, her eyes were red and swollen. Fortunately, her regular doctor's appointment is on Friday so we can see what's going on. She's coughing quite a bit, too. Perhaps it is just allergies as this area is on high alert for that, and our jacaranda tree has dropped blossoms all over the front yard, much to the annoyance of our bad next-door neighbor.

See how positive I am? Making good use of my wait by writing.

Much later.

Janet's aging and vulnerability took center stage today. Everything in life seems so transient and insubstantial. Then again, what is substantial? Substance? The hour is too late and laced with gin to dive into that, plus I would likely not end with the benefit of an answer should I query myself on that too hard. And I suppose I will better understand the substantial when my mother is gone.

At this point, I am on the good side of 1 A.M. so I should hit the hay (the hey!) as best I can, stop this all-too-human, all-too-large line of questioning. Meanwhile, Death Letter plays in the background.

I got a letter this morning

What do you reckon it read?

It said the gal you love is dead

I got a letter this morning

What do you reckon it read?

Said "Hurry, Hurry because the gal you love is dead"

Well I packed up my suitcase

I took off down the road

When I got there she was layin' on the cooling board

I packed up my suitcase

And I took off down the road

When I got there she was layin' on the cooling board

It looked like ten thousand people standing around the burial ground

I didn't know I loved her 'till they began to let her down

Looked like ten thousand people standing on the burial ground

I didn't know that I loved her 'till they began to let her down

You know it's so hard to love

Someone that don't love you

Won't get satisfaction

Don't care what you do

So hard to love

Someone that don't love you

Don't look like satisfaction

Don't care what you do

Well I got up this morning

The break of day

Just hugging the pillows

She used to lay

Got up this morning

The break of day

Just hugging the pillows

Where my baby used to lay

TORN FROM DREAMS

Janet wrenched me from the depths of a complicated dream with the underlying, recurrent theme of house and homelessness. Part of the dream had to do with the Volny family and the selling of the Holbrook house two years ago, although in that section, there was kindness, love, and gratitude. The future was the fear and fright looming just ahead.

The sleep was one of those one doesn't want to be torn from. My psyche is still there, duking it out with neurosis. I am only partly awake though I have had a triple espresso and run several errands. 'Tis likely the only remedy to get my sleep and waking selves reunited so that I can go forward is to take a nap. There are bills to be paid, spider mites to annihilate, work on the second volume of Monsterwood, tomato soup to finish, and maybe some needlework to do.

I haven't had much embroidery time these last few days, although I did start knitting a new scarf. When I was out in Palm Springs with KH, I found a not-very-good scarf made with some beautiful and expensive wool, so I took it apart, soaked then dried it, and am knitting it up again. This snap doesn't do it justice. Meanwhile, it will soon be too hot around here to touch wool. I had to have a knitting project to work on while Peter and I watch Versailles. There isn't enough light in his living room for close needlework.

I SPENT SEVEN

Lordy! It is amazing, as I have undoubtedly said before, to get a good night's sleep!

I did have a productive day yesterday (note that in your calendars for celebration next year). The first serious round of spider mite annihilation took place and though there are still some, in general, the plants look a lot better. Also, I figured out how to use the Bug Blaster much better. The eggplant, one of my favorite plants, had an infestation as well, so that is cleaned off and has a new support. There was a lot of tomato staking to do, not to mention untangling branches so that I could actually get in there with the bug blaster. Before and after photos? I'll think about that. It is so bright out in the yard at this time (noon) that everything would be washed out. I did harvest more tomatoes, an eggplant. There will be some broccoli and probably the first artichoke later this week. Having never grown one before, I am not sure when the right time might be.

I also started on the tomato soup.

Boiling water to get the skins off.

In process. They are so beautiful.

I have set up a work station on the patio where the freeway noise is louder, but I can see the roses and the sunflowers. Emmylou had to be dislodged as the patio table is her new favorite place to sleep. There is room for her too.

So, yes, gardening was pleasant and productive. The back wall areas that were a French drain for the pool were cleaned out and some of the rocks removed, but not nearly deep enough for any serious gardening. I did get some new plants in, though there is, of course, much more to do. The new bed on the north side has new dirt, but needs to be dug in and mixed with the old soil. I might need to have a conversation with my main gardener dude, Sebastian, about working a bit more on that. Seeds or plants??? The jasmine I planted there, beneath my mother's bedroom window is doing very well.

(Emmylou thinks having me sit at her table is good only if I pet her head and face. She reaches her paw over to my hands on the typewriter to let me know when it is time for more.)

Peter and I watched the first two episodes of Versailles. The history does not seem accurate to me, however French history is not my strongest suit. I did request Nancy Mitford's bio of Louis XIV, The Sun King: Louis XIV at Versailles from the library. Another intellectual tangent is about the last thing I need.

Perhaps reading was one of the contributing factors to my better rest. I am more than halfway finished with Small Town Talk, so I read started on the recent Pulitzer-prize winner, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life. (I have never surfed nor have I particularly wanted to, but I love to stand out on the point at the Lighthouse in Santa Cruz and watch, especially after getting a little baked.) Lili (with whom I had a nice long chat over the weekend) says that Small Town Talk is all over Woodstock, featured in the bookstore windows and all. As I spent so much time there last Fall, so many of the places mentioned are now familiar to me and I think that adds to the overall enjoyment.

Later that same day ...

I walked into my mother curled up on her bed with Merle singing You Always Hurt the One You Love. I guess he had been biting her. Janet is stepping up her sugar game and has plans for full-sugar root beer floats.

Okay, back to my bad staying-up-late ways. Why does the Band's refrain "oh you don't know the shape I'm in..." keep bouncing through my head?

Go out yonder, peace in the valley

Come downtown, have to rumble in the alley

Oh, you don't know the shape I'm in

Has anybody seen my lady

This livin' alone would drive me crazy

Oh, you don't know the shape I'm in

I'm gonna go down by the water

But I ain't gonna jump in, no, no

I'll just be lookin' for my maker

And I hear that that's where she's been?

Oh, out of nine lives, I spent seven

Now, how in the world do you get to Heaven

Oh, you don't know the shape I'm in

I've just spent 60 days in the jail house

For the crime of having no dough, no no

Now here I am back out on the street

For the crime of having nowhere to go

Save your neck or save your brother

Looks like it's one or the other

Oh, you don't know the shape I'm in

Now two young kids might start a ruckus

You know they feel you're tryin' to shuck us

Oh, you don't know the shape I'm in

ONE MORE CHIMP

Beaming with apparent normalness.

The one-two (and maybe more) punch of loss comes up at various and unbidden times. The instant of apprehension, of recalling and reliving that loss in a vital moment is a heart-dropping shock, all over again. When I, on occasion, peruse older posts and see pictures of Cooder, I melt while mentally screaming that I want her back, that this can't be so. Emmylou, Scotch, and Vera Paris are all fine kitties, but nary a one of them is so attached to and focussed on me.

Vital: (1) absolutely essential or important; needed by your body to keep living (2) full of energy, lively.

Needed by your body to keep living.

And I am emotionally revisiting, if not reliving, Stuart's last couple of weeks on Earth. The moment when I received Lili's email that Stuart was going into hospice care. The howling, inside and out, anticipating his loss and thinking about his pain. Counting down until the day arrived and he was completely gone.

Le prochain jour

Why should a new table make a difference? After much agonizing at Costco, Janet and I decided on a four-foot folding table to have on hand on the patio should we decide on another bbq or such. She rather wants to have a church party. I suppose I should encourage her. Except that I will have to be here. I don't mind helping organize, just the socializing. However ...

I finally moved the table out of the car and onto the patio. Now that the pool/ping-pong table is gone, I can reach the (regrettable) overhead light (florescent) and actually see. The table raises fairly high and is just right for me to stand and work. So, I listened to the damn Elvis Costello memoir (almost done now) while I drank vodka and curacao (not very good) and tended to my much neglected hanging baskets. It is great to have some workspace outside, particularly when it is so clement.

My late-in-day productivity did not lead to a wise-person's early bedtime. Oh no. Instead I was up well-past 2 A.M. listening to cover versions on the A.V. Club website, some of which are interesting. And then reading Small Town Talk: Bob Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Friends in the Wild Years of Woodstock. (I won't be typing that title again, so remember Small Town Talk.) Oh, and sipping gin and cranberry juice. Much better.

My first artichoke!!

And now, back into the spider mite fighting phase!! I end up getting pretty wet with this jet spray that knocks off the bugs. But tomatoes are my cause! I have enough now to make a small batch of fresh tomato soup!

Is it a bad thing when you have a Steely Dan song featuring Michael McDonald song in your head? Bad Sneakers? I didn't even know the name of it.

Five names that I can hardly stand to hear

Including yours and mine

And one more chimp who isn't here

I can see the ladies talking

How the times are getting hard

And that fearsome excavation

On Magnolia Boulevard

Yes I'm going insane

And I'm laughing at the frozen rain

Well I'm so alone

Honey when they gonna send me home

Bad sneakers and a Pina Colada my friend

Stompin' on the avenue

By Radio City with a

Transistor and a large sum of money to spend

You fellah, you tearin' up the street

You wear that white tuxedo

How you gonna beat the heat

Do you take me for a fool

Do you think that I don't see

That ditch out in the valley

That they're digging just for me

Yes I've gone insane

You know I'm laughing at the frozen rain

I feel like I'm so alone

Honey when they gonna send me home

Bad sneakers and a Pina Colada my friend

Stompin' on the avenue

By Radio City with a

Transistor and a large sum of money to spend

You know I'm going insane

Yes I'm laughing at the frozen rain

And I'm so alone

Honey when they gonna send me home

Bad sneakers and a Pina Colada my friend

Stompin' on the avenue

By Radio City with a

Transistor and a large sum of money to spend