myna and earl and carpet carl

I am (we are) finally finally finally getting new carpet and linoleum. Carpet in the living room, linoleum in the entry and the kitchen. And you are first to see it. As you might expect, I chose linoleum that looks like faded barnboards. Poverty lingers. Had things gone my way, I'd have had the carpet changed before I moved in. I didn't post a picture of the 60's gold hi-low shag that I've lived with, decorated in spite of, for the past six years. Poor me.

So.... The carpet is called praline frieze (pronounced frizzay) I called it pecan frappe. Close enough. We are buying it from Carpet Carl at a huge warehouse because his saleswoman was really helpful and knew her business. We had to check three places because Kurt has to be a smart shopper. Me, on the other hand, will write you a blank check and trust it will turn out nice. I knew what I wanted, carpet-wise, but had to go back -- but only once -- to choose the linoleum. Once I found the faded birch floor boards, I was done. I know what I want. And the carpet already looks dirty, so I'm home free. The other carpet places weren't nice to us. I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman trying to shop. If they only knew how willing I am to spend.

Well, back to living among the dying.... last week two slipped away. We'll call them Earl and Myna. Earl had the smile of a young man, grinned ear to ear whether he knew what was going on or not. His family, simple round people, were kind to him after solving the problem of one of the relatives going after the big money. People are so wierd about money. Really. These two didn't care at all. They just got Dad what he needed, paid his bills and came when they could. Earl always seemed happy to see them. His heart finally failed him, or gave him an out. I can never decide which it is. Heart failure? Not always.

Myna was a pilot. I don't know if she lived with the same dignity with which she died, but this was a woman with Parkinson's who knew what was happening to her. She made the decision long ago to let things go at a certain point, and when the certain point came, she stuck to her guns. I have great respect for hospice, overall, but the particular agency that handled her passing was crappy. I won' t out them here, it wouldn't be right, but they actually challenged her decision to deny tube feeding. As she lay dying, she looked at the nurse, and back at her husband, and said, with great effort, "Haven't I already told you this?" I called them, complained, and they left her alone (well, not alone, but you get the idea.) Dying is hard enough work without some bozo nurse overriding advance directives in some misguided heroic intervention. So Myna found her way out. Quietly, calmly, sweetly. We found a picture of her flying: beautiful, alive, at the controls panel in the cockpit. I will remember her that way.

southland in may

Soft new green spreads seductively across the rolling hills of southern oregon, my homeland. They will be brown mid-july. Its all a trick. But there is nothing like the Applegate Valley in the springtime.

The first night we stayed at Marky's house. He made a London broil and a great salad with Yukon Gold potatoes. He is such a good cook. He says I always made red potatoes. He talks alot about his growing up years, and fondly. I shudder and hope. He is kind and forgiving. At 32 he is talking about forgiveness in ways I didn't consider until well into my forties.


Saturday night we stayed at the outlaws place. I am becoming more and more a part of that family. I feel like the children who come up when we visit -- they aren't children, really, but 20 and 30-somethings -- know me, and trust me. That feels good. We stayed in our usual little cabin and it is so beautiful there, Eliot Creek babbling outside the bedroom window, sky full of stars I never get to see anymore.

uh

I am tired of writing about the failure of my physical body.

I just signed up and paid for a weekend writing workshop. It is called "deepening the craft." I paid for it so I have to go. This means I now must fine tune the first few chapters of my book for the pros to look at. Hey wait. I'm a pro. Anyway, Even though I am bringing chapters to be "workshopped," I don't want to be caught too off-guard. And... the process kills me. But I am a writer, and must, from time to time, sit among my peers and take the heat whether I agree with it or not.

We just finished dinner, dry-rubbed pork chops, red beans and rice, quick-fried zuchinni, red peppers and onion. We are trying to eat a little differently, less food, more exercise. I actually made a week's menu: pork, eggplant parmesan, lemon-garlic chicken and salad, clam chowder, then on friday night, Mark will cook for us in Gold Hill. We're doing a drive-by visit to the fams. Mark wants to take us on a drift boat ride on the Rogue on Saturday morning, so we might do that. Then, out to Bob's for Saturday. He has a pretty mean old dog, so I'm not exactly sure if we'll be staying out there with no place to keep our pups. Duffy is mean, but he couldn't take Bandit on his meanest day. Bandit is a badass country dog. Our white city dogs just don't know how to act up there in the dirt. Just to clarify, they are white dogs from the city. Not White City dogs. Big difference. Huge.

Well, it is the final episode of Survivor for this season. We literally plan our week around this stupid show. I always have since it started, but it has anchored our married life for six years. Every thursday night is Survivor Night, which means we have thin-crust pizza from Papa Murphy's, sit and wait to see the darwinian exposition play out. Tonight, someone will win. Will it be Russell the Evil One? He could win, although I hope he doesn't. I don't know who I really want to win. I'll just miss it when its done.

motherhood

I know I shouldn't let my happiness hinge on a single phone call from my son on Mother's Day, but it does, these thirty-some years later. And he called early, so my day was a happy one.

We took Kurt's mom out for breakfast and my eggs were cold, so was the sausage, but the french toast was fine. I only order the eggs and sausage to justify the french toast anyway. My logic is complex. Live a long long time on Adkins and you eventually begin to consider things like sausage and cheese health food.

When we got home I began painting another old wooden table. This one will be off white, red, yellow and purple to begin with. It is to remain on the porch, so will be painted to match the red adirondack chairs.

So it is now two days until my shot, but who's counting?

spine needles

I am scheduled to have an injection in my spine next Tuesday. That gives me four days to think about it, or talk myself out of it, which I would if my neckshouldercollarbone didn't hurt so freaking bad. I've had the year of bronchitis, the year of the bladder infection and now, the year of pain. But sticking pins in me..... in my spine, ick. I have quadraphobia: the fear of becoming quadraplegic. I made that up.

As is my custom, I plan for the other side of this calamity, the finish line, the end of all discomfort. I look forward to the moment when I am released from surgery or whatever, at which time I will embark upon my real life, the one where I eat right and keep fit. In some countries, this is considered magical thinking -- as though one event could flip some sort of psychic switch and change me into a motivated and energetic life-magnet, with a new lycra wardrobe and sketcher tennis shoes that would stablize my core. Magically. Effortlessly. That's my mantra: effortlesslyeffortlesslyeffortlessly. Ah, if only.

While I was visiting the spine and pain center, we got to talking about women who have fibromyalgia -- now I don't want to start any blogwars or anything, so if you have it, just ignore me. Most people do. But I've never considered it a legitimate diagnosis. I think it is evidence of misery-- quite real misery-- and a penchant for visiting medical professionals. Either that or they are just too old and tired to hit the streets for dope anymore.

Whatever the case, I told the doc that I was much to young to feel so old and didn't believe in pain-as-life, or pain instead of life, and just wanted the shot. Now please. But I couldn't have it now. I have to wait four days. Four whole days. I'm not that good at waiting.

He asked me if I wanted sedation for the shot. It was hard not to laugh. Yes. I want sedation. Me and sedation are old friends.

cinco

What's it all mean? Is this Mexican independence day or what? We went out to dinner at a crappy Mexican restaurant on Division. I wish restaurants would only serve what they are good at. For instance, this place probably does great vegan food -- it has a full vegan menu -- but the carne asada, my favorite, was awful. Tough as shoe leather, flavorless, no charring, no salt, and no salt in the house. I like salt alot. Ask my blood pressure. And the salsa was watered down so much the plate was a swamp. But the plates were square, and you got to bus your own tables, so that was fun.

It is my brother Marc's birthday, that much I do know. He would have been... let's see... 63 or something. He didn't live long enough. His liver didn't, anyway. Happy Birthday Marc. Wish you were here.

six moonstruck truffles

It has been six years since I married the boy of my dreams. I remember so clearly, ironing his shirt before we left for the small ceremony, a light blue denim to match his eyes and my baby blue summer linen dress. I carried flowers that Deborah gave me and even though I didn't like them, I put a bunch of roses from our back yard in among them and they were beautiful. I didn't plan a wedding. I couldn't. The move alone created enough anxiety.

Now, a Portlander and a wife, I am content in my home on Clinton Street, still fascinated with life in this odd little town of a city.

Last night we drove to Seaside and stayed in the motel we usually stay in on our anniversary. We clammed this morning, drove home, cleaned them, ate fried clams for dinner and shared six moonstruck truffles for desert.

Happy Anniversary to us.

duffy makes the front page

The first LazyDogCrazyDog Newsletter! Duffy makes the front page!

one fish two fish

The first bite was mine -- utterly unexpected, and the squeal that followed (my brother Marc always referred to it as my Hollywood Scream) was heard across the Willamette. Alas, it was a native and we set her free after what looks to me like a significant amount of suffering. No blood-letting, but still, if you set a hook in my lip and drug me upstream against my will, well, I'm just sayin'.


So, some sunny hours later, we are back home with two fresh salmon and a sunburn. Three in a weekend. Hooray. I do like to fish.



Friday night we had dinner with Vali, my cousin who I met via Ancestry.com (see previous posts) at her house. For all of my uncle/her father's idiosyncracies, her small family remained much more intact than mine did. Growing up, I have some memories of my uncle -- mostly that he was a good artist and an activist and Communist when it wasn't cool to be one. I remember his house over on Cleveland in NE Portland, a big craftsman place with a deep front porch. Inside was a fireplace and over the mantle was a painting of a young boy and girl, the boy holding mistletoe, about to kiss the girl, who looked not exactly thrilled about it. Vali had this painting. On another wall (in my memory) was a painting of a woman. Now, I know it was probably something like a hooker, with a streetlamp and signpost, a long narrow painting. Vali didn't have that one, but she had one of a blonde woman in a low cut green dress, a young man in the corner, the woman looking like she was just out of bed, the man just leaving the room. In my memory -- that of a nine year old -- the paintings were photographically real. Now, they are not so perfect. But seeing them, proof that my childhood did happen, was moving. Then, she showed me one of my uncle's notebooks. It is remarkable to me that this man I did not hardly know -- and this is one of my few regrets -- (reading along, you might think I would have many regrets, but I don't, not really, but I do endeavor not to create any as I go...) may have been not only kin, but kindred.

Anyway, during my undergraduate studies, Sociology was my major and Marxism my favorite flavor. That my uncle was a Marxist (not a communist it turns out, big difference) is stunning. I wish I'd known him. I think we would have had alot to talk about.

hookie

I am playing hookie. or hooky. whichever. I am actually staying home because my nerve bed or something is squishing out between C-5 and C-6 and my arm is numb and my face is becoming number and my brain oh my poor good brain is mush now. I am going to have a shot in my spine and it will get better I just know it. It has to. I can't ride my bike or shrug, and with my indefensibly poor attitude, shrugging is required. The primal shrug. mmm.

So I am home with the doggies, watching daytime TV and not eating bon bons. There will be a self-care end of this whole freakin' breakdown, wherein I will do what I am told, what I have been told to do for eons, and I will build myself back to my former glory. Which, truth be told, wasn't exactly glorious, but it was okay. I had moments. At least I wasn't in constant writhing pain. Now, I can't get away from it.

So I sew, and I plant little flowers and I do what I can. I made a sock monkey for Thea, the daughter of my friend asia who is the daughter of my friend asha; a trifecta of fabulous women. It is a blue sock monkey with wild eyes and a yamakuh (which is definitely not spelled that way) instead of a hat, so a blue jewish sock monkey with a long long tail. My first original. But it was a real blue sock, not nylon, not anything else. I think, now that I know how to make sock monkeys, that i'll find some great socks at sock dreams and make something new and different. It took awhile to make, and I wish I'd taken a picture, but maybe her mother will. Sitting and sewing by hand is so relaxing.

Duffy is now attending kindergarten three days a week at lazydogcrazydog in Montavilla. He loves it there and the prices are manageable. It is operated by two gentle dreadlocked folks who Duffy seems to like and he has friends there, one is an older scotty female -- too old for Duffy if you ask me -- but if she can put up with him, I won't stand in their way. He gets his nails done there and everything. Isn't that ridiculous? He was eating the decorative baskets and the moulding around the floor at work, not to mention the table and chair legs that no one has really noticed so far.

If you were to stand way back, like fifty years -- or maybe forty -- and predict what my life would be like, you would not have guessed that I would be a nice lady with a little white dog and a little white car and a husband and a garden and a cleanish house on a pretty street.

I'm telling you, you wouldn't have.

So.... work is still work. We made grudges the other day. I thought that since the theme of the week was "forgive and forget" that we could make ugly stuffed things, call them grudges and hold them. I'll post a picture one day. I promise.

mail

All of my adult life, which began in earnest at about forty or so, I have been plagued by mail. It comes, every day, unsolicited piles of it, each piece demanding my time and attention, neither of which I have to spare. Avoidance, however, is more time consuming, mentally and physically, shifting uneven piles of shit from one place to the next, purchasing yet another plastic box to store it in until I have time to deal with it. The illusion of organization, always just out of reach.

Now, "dealing with it" just isn't that hard. I know this. I know I know I know. All I would have to do is to hold each piece in my hand, identify it, open it, scan the contents, and ususally, toss it. but do I do this? I do not. I wait months, years even, to go through boxes and bags marked "later" and "even later than that."

I'm exaggerating, as usual.

But I used to. I used to have mail bags big as the Pony Express. Great heaving sacks of unopened mail: bills, notices, refunds, advertising... you know. At one point I asked my old friend Vivian to sit with me while I opened all of it I was so scared of what I might find. There were bills, of course, but I remember one check for 85 bucks that I really needed, a refund from the electric company of all places. But the thing about the electric company is that if you don't open their bills, they'll just eventually come to your door and bring it to you in person. That was a pretty long time ago, but it was, for me, disincentive to open my mail. Or pay my bill for that matter, but that's another story for another time.

I have always been good about reading letters. And writing them. I love letters. I like email okay, but really, I miss 13 page letters from Lorretta on scraps of paper and beautiful stationery. It was kind of like a competition to see who could find the most interesting paper. I was a good letter-writer. So was Joyce, my sister in law. We wrote piles of letters back and forth rather than picking up the phone. Now, all I get is an email from time to time. And the rare phone call.

What's the point? I do have one. I just plowed through a pile of mail and it was all just crap, and I'd been avoiding it for two years, just moving it here and there, dedicating a drawer to it, a nice wooden box. But I couldn't just throw it away. I had to do my time, give it its due. Because in my piles, there are bits of writing, some of it good; there were 100 dollar bills with GW Bush's face on them, and old photographs of my neice's kids, and a great recipe for lemon curd, so I can't just toss the pearls out with the paper.

Finally getting through the pile always makes me feel like cleaning house. Freedom. but instead of cleaning, I saved my gardening overalls for another year. I sewed on about ten more patches over the patches from last year, so they should be good for awhile. They are my favorite pants. I actually wore them out of the yard today and got a few looks, but who cares. They have character.

Gardening update: Tomorrow is fuschia saturday at Freddy's. I'm taking five pots. I'm being somewhat conservative because I am also taking pots from work. I don't want to seem over-eager.

The big bowl I made last year -- the one with spring bulbs, didn't make it through the winter. I think they froze and rotted. Truth be told, they didn't do all that well over the summer. When I dug into it, the bulbs were all just gooey white muck. I replanted it with these trailing flowers, kind of a cross between evening primrose and petunias, only smaller. Orange and purple. Should be pretty. And although I built a handmade pea trellis, I found a nicer one for pretty cheap, so replaced it. It is bamboo, stretchy, and not so tall.

death of scrabble

He is gone, Alfred Mosher Butts, the creator of Scrabble, whose name, anagrammed, spells: "board flusters them". I learned this on the Sunday Morning Show and called my friend Madonna -- my scrabble partner for years. Although I know "q" words that don't need a "u", am damn good at triples and am known to pull out of a slump and make an eighty-pointer late in the game, I am not a tournament quality player. I do miss the game, though.

mmmmmmmmmmmmm

I made kabobs, or, more accurately, kebabs, for dinner. I also made white sticky rice with almonds and green onions and little individual cheesecakes for dessert. Tiny little cheesecakes with a vanilla wafer for the crust and white chocolate on top. (see previous post). I love kebabs because in the mix were 3 vegetarians and 3 carnivores and the veggies each at a different level of dedication. I just cut up bowls of marinated shrimp, beef, zuchinni, cherry toms, red onion, peppers, mushrooms and pineapple and let them go at it. The grill is big enough that the beef can stay on one side and not contaminate the other.

Grilled fresh pineapple is candy.

It was good to see my neice. She is, by far, just about my favorite family member. Just enough of a mess to feel the kinship of common suffering. We were talking about days at the beach -- the beach at McKee Bridge in Southern Oregon. Her mother and I so hammered we couldn't find the gearshift knob to drive home. We'd lay there all day, drinking cheap whiskey, smoking good weed and eating whites. We were so tan. It was our job to get dark. As an afterthought, we'd feed her two children (my son was not yet born). Their sandwiches were layers of white bread, sand, bologna, sand, butter, catsup and white bread. I made it very clear that the catsup was not my idea. Or the butter, for that matter. Then, having done our duty, we would lay back in the blistering sun, moving the blanket eastward as the sun went behind the mountains. The drive home was braille and blind luck. All of our children are lucky to be alive.

hypochondrial suicide

I give up. Now, in a long line of ailments, add a pinched nerve in my cervical spine that is causing my left arm to go numb. At least that's what I think. Again, I await diagnosis and relief as my left arm hangs at my side, buzzing like it has fallen asleep and can't get up. It isn't a heart attack. this much I know.

Whoever said getting old ain't for sissies wasn't kidding. And here's the thing -- in my mind, my body may be aging, but I'm not. The line I draw between my body and my mind is a serious problem. In the immortal words of Bob Earl: "My mind thinks it can kill my body and go on..." In my world, I can continue to live a sedentary life, eat anything that strikes my fancy, gain weight, compromise joint after joint -- knee, shoulder, neck... and the only thing that seems like a serious problem is the sad fact that I can't wear my favorite spring clothes. I remember the quote from Postcards From the Edge, as the main character is hospitalized for a suicide attempt. "Well," she said to the admitting nurse, "My behavior may be suicidal, but I'm not."

Amen.

I apologize to my friends, my readers, the gang of women who encourage me, who love me anyway; to my husband, who is blind to my many defects. This has become the diary of a fat housewife, an aging woman who has lost control of the wheel, whose body had tipped some magic balance and is sliding headlong for disability. I joke about this shit, but I do not change. I am hostage to advertisers and appetite, to fast food and excess. To the fourth meal. And the fifth.

It is a beautifuld day in Portland. I planted pansies and grace ward lithodora and coral bells. My neice and her family are coming for dinner and my husband is fishing. I am alone with the refrigerator. A deadly situation.

breaking news

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I hate the news. If I hear one more tagline that goes something like, "...and all that remained was the sound of lapping waves, and they aren't talking." I swear, I'll puke.

Since when is Victorian prose a requirement? Since when are sappy metaphors a substitute for information? Somebody kill somebody quick, or pass healthcare. Something. Anything. Give the morons something else to do.

duffy's baby picture

Is this a cute puppy or what? Now, five months later, chew marks on every table leg and piss spots on my Pottery Barn carpet, he is still a little cute.

Now where was I? It has been a long fucking winter. Not weather-wise, just gray and dreary for oh-so-long. Kurt says he thinks he has SAD. I said maybe its more like MAD. But we knew this going in.

My only complaint is probably the opposite of the rest of the country: I'm sick of working. I don't want to work. I never did. Review my life. But I have worked, and consistently in the same dreary field that inspires dismal prose the likes of which I rarely compose anymore. A list of who has died would be long and pointless. Right now, on the unit, they are relatively wellish, up and walking (or ambulating, as we say in the trade) and never a day passes without a good laugh. I think my favorite was when I was applying my skills redirecting a man who was confused. He thought he had lost his car (hasn't driven in years) needed to go to work (likewise) and I said, with a certain amount of professional brio, "Are you feeling anxious?"

Then, he answered, "Not until you started asking."

Well, flattened and humbled, we went for a walk, which is what I should have done in the first place. How would he know if he was anxious? He doesn't know who he is, let alone how he is.

(My husband just started playing the youtube of Janis singing Summertime live, arguably one of the finest musical moments in my life. Her life. Our lives. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Yes.)


We just got back from seeing Alice in Wonderland in 3D. It was pretty fun. Still haven't seen Avatar and have no real desire to. Not a sci-fi buff. And I'm not a Johnny Depp fan except for his Keith Richards interpretation, but I do love the classics.

As I was sitting in the movie, I thought about my life -- it IS all about me -- and the rabbit hole of my decision to move to Portland. There are times when I look back on the life that was: my eternal, unstably-stable first-half, and the wonderland that is my life today. I know it is a sappy thing to say, but who gets to start life over at 50? Anyone who wants to, I suppose, but I did. And although the bumps in the road have required some heavy lifting, we have done it together. And the question is, who is the real Alice?

I am.

A side note: Wouldn't it suck to be known as the chia pet bandit? I mean really. Is his hair green? Is his head shaped like a hedgehog? I'm just wondering.

oops

I blog along in relative obscurity, happily assuming my exaggerations and blathering go unnoticed but for the loyal few.

Not necessarily so. Enter Blogger alerts.

In the previous post I reviewed a Valentine's Eve performance by a female singer and noted that she looked like a librarian. Imagine my surprise when her comment posted. Apparently this was not the first time she was referred to as more studious than hip.

Not that studious isn't hip. That's not the point.

What is the point? Well, if you've been following this mess, you'll know I rarely have one. So, I found her website and emailed an apology and she forgave my faux pas. I had said that she was worth the price of admission, and that was definitely true. She was great. I was embarrassed, but happy to add another reader to the short list.

vd

I used to try to think of clever -- or at least germane -- titles for each post. At one point I began numbering them. That didn't last long. I'm now down to initials.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Last night we went not dancing, (see previous post) but out, nonetheless, to listen to some blues. My favorite thing to do other than a drive through the gorge, which isn't as fun at night. Last weekend, still in knee denial, we drove through the gorge and hiked down to Bridal Veil Falls. I love that. My knee, on the other hand, did not. I paid dearly for that little 2/3 of a mile. Duffy pulled me back up the trail.

Anyway, last night we went out to Oregon City to this crappy little bar we like (Trail's End Saloon) and a woman named Mary Flower opened the evening. She looked like any librarian in any real library (not the wanna-look-like-a-betty-page-librarian-black-hair -short-bangs-hornrimmed-stripey-socks-se portland girls) but she played acoustic muddy waters type blues. Old Mississippi real blues. What gets me are the cover bands, the bar bands, that bill themselves as blues bands but really just play the same three chords and wear sunglasses and red fedoras. That's what came after Mary Flower. Boogie Bone. Well, since my bones cannot boogie just now, we went home early, but well past our bedtime. But Mary was worth the price of admission, which wasn't much. She even played bottleneck slide.

This morning it was red roses and breakfast out with my sweetie.

mri

This coming Monday I am having an MRI to establish, to my surgeon's satisfaction once and for all, what is wrong with my knee. Again. Still. He kept saying the things that Dr's say to me. You know, the eat-right-get-more-exercise shit. Then he said it was probably gout. But I'm not a rich man so it can't be that. The things they say to fifty-something overweight women like me. He kept saying, I think this is a soft-tissue situation, which, interpreted, means something like this: "You're too fat and you've ruined your knee but if you want to do some physical therapy which I know you won't follow through with, you're welcome to waste your time. Eventually you'll be the obese lady in the Jazzy in Winco with Doritos and HoHos in the basket, but go ahead, try to change your fate." Or something like that. In November -- November. That's three fucking months ago -- My regular MD sent me to a physical therapist who charged me three grand to put ice on my knee and ultrasound it while he told me stories about celebrity sightings in Vegas and how really nice Jerry Lewis was to some guy he knew. Three grand. And he told repetitive jokes, like: What did the salmon say when he ran into a rock while he was swimming upstream? Dam.

Yeah. Three grand.

Anyway. I saw this surgeon again on Wednesday and he said, "I could try one more thing to figure out what the problem is." I said, I don't care if you stick pins in my eyes. I'm over it. My knee has hurt for so long I can't remember what its like to have two legs.

So he says, "I'm going to stick a (huge) needle full of novocaine in your knee. If it stops hurting, the knee itself is the problem. If not, its a soft tissue injury and (see above)." So I say, okay. Fine. Needles and me go way back.

So he does and it stops hurting, like immediately. Like completely. Like for about two hours I had both legs actually working. Oh it was so nice.

Now this is both good news and bad. Good that we can find out what is wrong. Bad that surgery may be in order. I don't much care.

Wasn't that interesting?

ghd

asha is in town and because asia is in the midst of home revival, we were allowed a slumber party at my house last night. What joy to sleep in and spend the morning with my friend. I am sick, and home at my doctor's bidding, but still and all, it was a timely visit for us both, I think. The chatter was wonderful and welcome and so so missed. There is nothing like a good girl friend and lots of catching up to do. That she is a writer, and prods me to produce, is icing on the cake. We all need a push. I was invited to join a writing group, but you have to pay to be in it, and there is a leader or someone who is the identified "writer" and I can't imagine paying. That is, beyond the bzillion dollars for that oh-so-useful master's degree. There was that. We had a late breakfast at Cup&Saucer on Hawthorne. I had french toast. I'm sick. I can have whatever I want. After breakfast, asia arrived and took my friend away to babysit her adorable grandaughter Thea.

I always try to post something on Groundhog's Day. It has been an important event at different times in my life, when I needed a reason to celebrate in the middle of a long, gray winter. Today, the hog must have seen his shadow, although I was not in Nebraska or Kansas or wherever flatlander's find prairie dogs. I think that's what a ground hog is, isn't it?

Today, the view up and down Clinton Street was bright, my home embarrassingly unprepared for the legions of walker and bicyclists. My dogshit yard and naked chickenwire fencing stood unadorned, absent summer's tendrils of tomato and nasturtium, ripped from the sodden ground after freezing, seeds falling here and there, willing to endure winter's face-slap, that scolding time that ensures a certain reverence for days like this, even if the shadow promises another six weeks. We delight in these fickle days that remind us of times to come, times to prepare for. The liar days of winter, where the light is not warm, but reminiscent of it; where the dark comes too soon anyway.