So I should be sleeping, clearly, it being the wee hours, and yoga class bright and early tomorrow morning. Fortunately my driver is getting plenty of sleep. Kitty is sitting next to me on sofa trying to show me how it's done. Unfortunately my stomach has gone way bad and I don't seem to be able to get enough ginger to fix that. Maybe tums. Next step is to try the lying-on-floor-with-legs-up-the-wall inverted pose which Susie (the yoga teacher) has recommended for calming the body and nerves.

It is horrible that by the time I start feeling generally okay, it is evening and I am sitting on the sofa. Watching CSI, or whatever. Then when I get up in the morning feeling stiff and sore again it takes hours for my body to start feeling reasonably human, after the various drugs I am taking get carefully balanced. And damn I am just takin my prescriptions and then taking more until I am actually functional again. I'd complain about the weather rolling through except it's so lovely, eighty degrees every day while the squill and snowdrops and crocusses and early daffodils cautiously get to blooming. And what is anyone going to to about it anyway.

Walking every day is not a total piece of cake under these conditions (have I told you about My Condition?), so I'd like some martyr points for keeping up with that too. Like, at least I haven't started seriously considering a wheelchair or scooter, although having a comfy chair available at all times would be awfully nice. I've cut back on the pace a bit, just to be comfortable. In general I like the adventures I have every day on my walk. Like seeing where the groundhog lit off for across the back alley, which is under a shed a couple houses down. The canada goose catching up with his fellows at surprising speed as they call back and forth across the neighborhood. Whistling to the cardinals, even though some of them seem to have new versions of the old traditional calls. I've planted some seeds in pots under the cold frame, so we'll see what comes of that.

To start out with the bad news, I woke up this morning feeling so lousy that the long road trip we were ARE planning seemed like a really bad idea. Have I told you about my condition? (that would be a search term were I properly indexed) Mr S has refrained from pointing out more than twice that not getting out of the house until noon or later would seem to contraindicate a more strenuous schedule. Many hotels require checkout before noon, I note. But he hates traveling, so how am I supposed to go anywhere for the rest of my life? Alone?? as if. That's why I'm supposedly trying out other traveling companions. Once I get up I can be out in ten minutes if necessary, although it is seldom necessary. But I have lately worked out that I am trying to learn to exercise some control over the travel: not to just go along with someone else's program, and not to have to plan every meal and stop myself with the other people's possible pleasure in mind, which is like a job rather than a vacation.

Now I'm back from my walk, it seems more reasonable. Maybe that's just the drugs kicking in.

I found a book in the Little Free Library on Colby St, The Friday Night Knitting Club, which I brought home since I didn't have a book in my bag and the general concept seems strangely familiar, like the Jane Austen Book Club (both the book, and the club) (and there was the movie too). (Hey, we could be a movie.)

Today I started reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Yesterday I read The Boy Who was Raised as a Dog by the doctor (Perry) who is a source and character in one of Andrew Vachss' books (where I got the reference), all about neurodevelopmental therapy for traumatized children, and despite the title pretty upbeat -- that kid actually came out of it okay. Fascinating stuff.

In January I read very nearly all of Andrew Vachss' work. Now waiting for the last to arrive from Powell's (Free Shipping!) so I can read that one, that isn't in the library system, and then the sequels again and get the rest of them back to the library already. I might re-read Pain Management again which is the one I started with, from the library sale, which attracted my attention for obvious reasons. Obvious around here anyhoo.

The new barista at Cargo, Max (who was won over by my Wild Rumpus coin purse), told me about his winter camping trip. Actually he said "stay warm" and I said "wool" and then he told me about going out to pick fallen branches for firewood out of the snow in the dark with a headlamp and a German shepherd puppy following him. Good times.

Yesterday's yoga class was as usual excellent. For that matter Monday's T'ai Chi class was excellent, and friendly, and I touted the Yoga for Chronic Pain class to a couple of new people there who are never going to do any other kind of yoga.

Then yesterday's walk was also excellent. I saw a big hawk land in a tree right by the bike path, and we stood around for ten minutes or so watching each other, until it took off to pounce on something in the grass without success and then glided up the creek to another tree. All photos with my iPhone were terrible.

It was a wonderful sunny day hitting 50 yesterday. I walked out to the Arboretum boardwalk, and started kicking all the melting packed ice off the boards, instead of tippytoeing over it. This was Range Of Motion exercise for adductors/abductors with a little weight added, plus balance work on slippery boards; also if I were a kid called Playing In The Snow. You know when you kick a big slab and it breaks loose, yay! Except I felt so socially useful as well. Mr S says I should bill the Arb for snow removal. Cleared the whole stretch from the entrance out to the lake platform, which should be dry today, but none of the side trails.

The papermaking session Tuesday afternoon was also enjoyable, although four people is really too many in my basement, very close quarters. I gave random lectures on papermaking history and techniques, without charging a dime, with hands-on demonstrations. Made some more pulp paintings myself, and JJ brought non-dairy chocolate pudding for our tea break. My outrageous stockpile of used art papers and junk mail is slowly being processed, with a little help from my friends, every Saturday afternoon, and some of the doo-dad supplies too.

Personally I still think the rafters in the basement should be painted white, just for the visual lift, down there in the Short People's Basement. Mr S always points out what an insane amount of work this would be, but this time I gave him the Kirby manual for setting it up to apply paint and also implied he might not be the one doing all the work, or all at once.

Cloudy today, (and still above freezing) so the local groundhog could NOT see his shadow, at whatever time they roused him, unless from klieg lights brought in for photo op. According to ancient northern European folklore this should mean early spring, except in this neck of the woods another six weeks of winter WOULD be an early spring. Maybe ours has been shipped by jet stream a quarter of the way around the world. From what I hear.

Been watching the Daily Show regularly, which is far more entertaining than the straight news, although Jon Stewart doesn't actually have to do anything with the Republican circus except play clips and make funny faces. La commedia es stupenda

A couple Fridays ago I was sitting in Zuzu's cafe, the one right across from the zoo. A group of parents were talking outside, and little after three in the afternoon a bunch of kids got off a schoolbus, met and came inside. Zuzu's is a very child-friendly cafe, with toys and games and ice cream and excellent chocolate chip cookies, as well as a selection of beers for the amusement of their elders. Also comfy chairs and a sofa. Only a mile from my house.

The small table where I sat was at the end of a row of small tables next to a long upholstered bench, where I was reading. As their orders were filled, parental units and seven- or eight-year-olds began to sit in a group at the tables next to me. I gathered that this Friday meeting is a regular event. But it was a long weekend coming up, with Martin Luther King Jr Day on Monday. The kids knew all about the holiday.

One little girl began explaining who King was. A boy put in that he had been killed, maybe in an explosion, but was quickly corrected. Then Rosa Parks came up. They were not too sure whether she had sat at the back of the bus, or the front of the bus, but they knew it had been important. The adults provided answers as needed. Our eyes met, and we smiled at each other. What the man called a table of brotherhood. These Madison children didn't know what the back of the bus meant. Thank God Almighty.

It reminded me of when I was that age, when I lived in the Boston area, in the lily-white suburb of Newton, far out on the MTA line. At that time I was hardly aware of the events in Boston proper, although I heard of desegregation, and the news about forced bussing, the issue of school integration, and something about riots, whatever those might be. Later I read more about it. It doesn't seem that long ago. Fifty years.

Prepare all sliced materials etc mis en place

Saute 1 yellow papper sliced
1 lg sweet onion sliced
3 garlic cloves pressed
1/2 tomato sliced
in 2 T butter & schloop of olive oil
cover to reduce, stir & brown
Add 1 pound shelled and cleaned jumbo shrimp (16-20 ct)
with tsp (schloop) of hot sauce
sea salt & ground pepper
Stir fry
Add 1/2 cup chardonnay
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp capers
1/4 tsp ground ginger (or you could grate fresh and cook with onion &c)
and 2 cups cooked mostaciolli
Partially cover to heat pasta & reduce liquid
Sprinkle heavily with grated romano
stir & add more romano
SPOON INTO BOWLS AND EAT!

A nice fresh bread would have been good with this too. But. Do I know how to cook now.

Cat has done faceplant in my lap. This restricts my mobility but at least she squeezed in with the laptop.

I realized I have not been keeping my minimal diary-type calendar thingy, the list of my tiny accomplishments generally in single words. Walk. Read. Laundry. Made jelly. That kind of thing. The result is that I've been feeling useless again. So while I plan to change my carry bag (once this cat gets off my lap) and include that teeny notebook, here is today.

Read. Walked to KB's and back. Swept front steps there. Put potting stuff away. Put dried herbs away.

Maybe more slicing apples for dehydrator a little later. After take out.

A squirrel that leaps across crackling leaves
is not the old one you saw here last year.
Time passes so dependably. We grieve
as each remembrance interrupts you here.

The university students are not
the students you remember from before
or friends who fell away, you see again in thought,
but souvenirs of those you see no more.

These fallen leaves are not those you collected
in your youth, but were just new last spring.
So whirls the world, before you have reflected,
but after leaves a timeless pause to cling

and still recall those dear ones lost to time
while breathless moments on the path you climb.


(Yeah, yeah, its kinda strained at the end, but I've only been working on it two days. My way of coping. Mr S' friend and shop partner Uncle Mat has been in an ICU for a couple months, in Hawaii, and yesterday they finally pulled the plug on the ventilator. It took a few hours after that. Mr S is busy taking care of the shop and house and phone calls.)

And if so, Dear Reader, we are both apparently sitting in our rooms with our computers instead of enjoying the giddy social whirl, or the highly stimulating intellectual discourse. Me, I just don't have enough spoons to engage with conventions in the round-the-clock fashion I used to do. Ah I was younger once.

I expected this to be more of a hotel vacation than previous cons. But I have done pretty well with my primary goal of having some actual sit-down conversations with individual friends, instead of all hit-and-run in the hall on the way to something else more important. Also, went to the couple of Class Panels and added to my comprehensive stash of notes on the subject. Succumbing to brain freeze on my own time, with the usual teevee.

I spent quite some time this afternoon lying down, and making more notes on how All Hell Broke Loose here in Madison, right under my personal nose. It appears I can talk about that pretty much any time, even though I haven't written much about it since the first week the Hellmouth broke out.

But it's nice to know you're all out there. Now I am going to the Guest Of Honor speeches. Maybe I'll even wear a dress.

Next stop, should I make it that far, is the study, with the watercolor project stage for small edition book. But I get ahead of myself. It is possible I have already used my allowance of spoons (energy) for the day.

On the other hand, the living room carpet is nice and clean, although still somewhat damp, instead of being spattered with drops of kitty's sticky medicine and other spots of somewhat food-pellet hues. It looks pretty good for a change, and there is even room on the sofa between book boxes for me to sit with the laptop. I've kind of blocked the doors, which is helping to keep Mr S and his boots out of the area as he arrives home from a Fine Day Out cutting and burning brush and covering himself with dirt and soot. As one does.

The only reason I got this done was that kitty woke up unexpectedly from her nap and went to investigate the Out. I had to whip out the vacuum which makes a horrendous noise she hates, and following the Flylady's advice, just do the middles and not obsess. This still involved moving a dozen pairs of shoes and a couple boxes of books and bags and the entire coffee table (heavily loaded) which slid into the dining room. Then as long as the floor was clear, and kitty was still out, I knew it would take just a few minutes to change the hoover into the carpet cleaner, which I have done many times before, and it really was worth the exertion. I even had a new bottle of carpet shampoo on hand. Then kitty came in and located her box, and then didn't want the sofa feather pillow oh no, had to have all the things piled on her chair removed so she could sleep in her sunny chair. As one does in the afternoon.

Unless one is contemplating putting away the vacuum cleaner and its parts, and finding places for all the stuff that was previously on the floor. And the carpet is still wet. So maybe now that I've had a bit of a sit down I'll try the study after all. Open some windows in there too. Today is nice and sunny, the first open windows of spring. Crocusses full-blown on the south wall, and tulips just coming up.

I know I haven't been posting much, but man, too much has been happening. It's all I can do to process day to day.

Woke up this morning from a bad dream. It was like a horrible distasteful movie but fortunately as soon as I woke up it was gone. On the other hand I was hurting all over my body, just the usual (have I told you about my condition?) so no wonder, thot I, that I was having such a bad dream.

Got up to take a pain med to kick off the day, and within minutes had gone through a long detailed thought process comparing life as we know it to some bad dream that one might want to wake up from. Everything fell on me, from the twenty-three-year-old cat in failing health, to my mother getting the word today on her chemotherapy, to the millions of people in Japan presently victim to earthquakes, tsunami and nuclear disaster. Also don't forget the governor of my state who is dangerously insane. How do we get through the days? clearly formidable defenses are required for normal human functioning. The Buddha nailed it, with his teaching that all life is suffering. Left foot, right foot, breathe.

A couple of other things besides delusional thinking occurred to me that work. Making jokes about how horrible can it be. And eating good food together. Like that fellow K-Pax says in the movie, The fruit alone is worth the trip.

Honestly, I was just sitting there in the middle of February, reading five or six vampire novels in a week, that I was going to tell you about.

Then things got strange. I'm going to try not to say they can't get any stranger (oops) because every time I do, the strange meter gets overloaded again and has to be recalibrated.

It's been like a big civics lesson here in Madison, for all ages, for the whole last month. I've turned into a news junkie again. And then I got started on a link round-up of all the various most informative things I have been reading, like a weblog ya know, and my browser history is all saved up for the last two weeks, but it's such a fucking chore I'm not going to do that right now either. The culmination last night of five to seven thousand protestors storming the barricaded Capitol to shout SHAME! SHAME! at the legislators who passed a bill they had the votes to railroad through but then didn't even bother to do it in compliance with the open records law... nice videos. Today a very few got to practice their non-violent resistance to being dragged bodily out of the building, and the young newsman who tweeted last night that he had to climb in a window for his press access showed us video now of an empty rotunda.

Have fun storming the castle!
Think it'll work?
It'll take a miracle.

And I've actually been up there a couple times a week -- "show me what democracy looks like". Took the bus up to the Square today (which was an adventure in itself as the last time I rode a city bus here it had a letter on it instead of a number), walked around and knocked on doors and had various adventures. Sigh. Saturday we have a tractor parade up there! but the weather may not be the best. Legislature's not in session now for the rest of the month I think. Nice work if you can get it.

Then there was the whole thing about my mom out in San Diego going in the hospital to have a splenectomy last week, at the same time that they were moving to a retirement village, but the doctor decided the operation had to be right away. So I have talked on the phone to several family members that I have not talked to in literally years. Another long story here. Stress much?

As I always say, I am easily amused, and this is all by way of explaining that my circuits are pretty well fried. I keep up the walking, go to tai chi class now AND yoga. Breathe.