Out Like a Lamb

Inspirational song: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (Genesis)

A few weeks ago I expressed my love for the cute little spring weather sayings we all know from childhood. But I kept to myself how I always have a hard time believing the one about March, "In like a lion, out like a lamb." The weather at the beginning of this month was all over the place, with warm days, heavy rains, and late freezes. But today was the sweetest, mildest day I could possibly imagine. The saying came true. It was warm and sunny, the air was calm, and every one of us wanted a day of rest and play outside. After lunch, I couldn't stay awake to save my life, and I dragged the deck pillows out of storage, plus a thin blanket, and slept stretched out between two patio chairs. If ever there was an argument for investing in a hammock or chaise, it was a day like today. I wasn't the only one feeling the pull of Morpheus this afternoon. Remember the scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind when Richard Dreyfuss and Melinda Dillon drove against the flow of the evacuation routes, past livestock who had been gassed to look like they died from a chemical spill, to reinforce the government's cover story for the aliens? If anyone had looked over my fence today, it would have looked just like that. Best nap of all time.

As wonderful as all that was, I had to get back to work today. There is so much to do, I can't afford a whole day off anywhere right now. I still have lots of bedding plants that need planting, and messy beds to clear. Last year I had a horrible problem with mosquitoes and spiders, and the scariest spider, the most aggressive, the meanest, nastiest father-raper of them all, lived between my gate and chimney. She pumped her legs and thumped her web at me anytime I got too close, so taking trash out through the back became a terrifying prospect. I cleared the bed underneath her hangout today, raking leaves and sycamore pods, trimming the dead leaves off the Kimberly Queen ferns, and pulling sprouted trees. I clipped a little dead wood off the hydrangeas, and found that one of them was working its way up through the holly, above my head, in a strange, beautiful pairing. And then I found the scariest thing: four gigantic, empty pods wound into the holly leaves. These were obviously what the palm-sized spider was protecting for months while she stayed there. It took a lot of intestinal fortitude for me to get close and inspect them, while bees were buzzing loudly in the holly, making me think something big and scary was going to come out of the pods and get me. I removed them, bagged all the debris, planted a bleeding heart plant that I'm super excited about, and then spread a handful of cedar mulch to prepare in the mosquito fight. It's hard controlling the impulse to go back for yet more lemongrass and citronella, when I haven't even finished planting what I've got. It will depend on how confident I feel when I use up the last of the leftover cedar mulch and go for more.

I'm enjoying being busy, but I'm having a hard time deciding that it's okay to put this much effort into something that is only for me. In a strange roundabout way, taking a few hours to truly enjoy the space I've made, helped me feel like I'm not wasting anything. That nap proved that having a deck arrangement like this works, and is worth the having. I need to keep at it for longer this year, to protect that investment. It will be worth the fight.

Living the Dream

Inspirational song: Musta Got Lost (The J. Geils Band)

It's rare that I absorb myself with such single minded focus as I did today. Normally, I suffer from the same diminished attention span that plagues most people, the kind that took us from being interested in long movies, down to videos, down to vines. It's the same lack of focus that makes us want to check our phones while we're driving, always glance at the ads with the stupid gifs, and for me particularly, never finish a whole project. Today was very different. I had only one goal for today, and I worked at it all day. I pulled on work clothes the moment I rose, and went out and started in on that huge haul of plants from yesterday. I had to empty out last year's dead plants from containers, pitch out all the soil I can't reuse into the rock wall, and wash out pots that carried a fine film of sand from the last year. I moved some things from the front porch to the back, where I can use them more. I repotted and organized containers for hours. I even scrubbed more mold off the house with a sponge and soapy water, and swept the best I could on a windy day. My reward for a long, hard day of labor was a deck I just did not want to leave. I have wanted to live in a space like this for years, and I finally am living my dream. I knew when I first walked around this house that it was exactly where I wanted to be. The first two years we were here, the man worked to shape the major features of the Park, putting in the fence, storage shed, and young trees and bushes. He left me with a great setup, and over the last year I have been practicing my skills to maintain and build on what I was given. I've come a long way, and I almost have my ideal patio garden arranged. I was so intent on playing in the dirt, I was like a child who doesn't want to stop her game long enough to go inside to eat. The professional eater dog warned me when her dinner time approached, nudged me when it arrived, and when an hour and a half more passed without food appearing in her belly, she stood between my knees, and wagged her tail so hard she shook my whole body. I was hungry too, having skipped lunch during my fun, but by evening I was so tired, I didn't want to move. I long for the days when I could have just ordered a pizza and called it a day. Instead I found myself very thankful for a hot shower and a grocery store only a four minute drive away. And now I find myself ready to let pictures do the rest of the talking. I've lost the ability to string together words. Time to drag myself off to dreamland.

Weak

Inspirational song: Keep Young and Beautiful (Annie Lennox)

I'm getting really tired of pulling Athena off of my calico cat. For that matter, I'm getting tired of pulling a long history of cats off of her. I don't understand why she is always in that position. She's always hiding under some piece of furniture, screaming the worst kitty obscenities she knows, with some cat giving her the stinkeye. I've stopped getting up to check on her half the time. I just yell across the house, quoting from that wonderful internet meme, "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!" I've heard repeatedly that predators go after the weaker prey animals, instinctively culling the herds. Is my little "Britney" just the weakest member of the Pride? She has been picked on for so long, by every other cat, I have to assume so. Athena gets crazy eyes every time she sees her, all pupils, barely a sliver of yellow visible. She jumps and bullies her just like my daughter's stubby-legged tuxedo cat, pounding on whatever surface the calico is resting on, to startle her into swearing, and then prancing off with a fluffy black tail bouncing as a final taunt. It all started with the little brown tabby who grew up with her, focusing like a laser beam on her as a target. He knew I didn't like it, but he would stare at her while she slept next to me, wanting to bite her on the butt. He would look at her, look at her butt, look at me, and then look away. Over and over. Look at the butt, look at me, look away. Eventually it would be more than he could bear, and he would jump up, bite her, and then run. The older my calico gets, the more frail and grumpy, the worse the abuse gets from the other cats. She just looks so pitiful in her old age. It paints a bigger target on her head.

I had a moment of zero self control this afternoon. I went to Lowe's with the express purpose of picking up a few more plants, and came home with three times as much as I meant to buy. I would have more guilt about overdoing it, if I didn't know for a fact that my man suffers from this exact same weakness, and he comes home with truckloads of plants and a sheepish grin. Granted, his worst excesses are typically the clearance plants that cost a dollar or less each. They're frequently just a little sun scorched, frost bitten, or simply needing deadheading to come back to life. But even if they're too weak to survive, the investment is minimal and the loss is easily absorbed. Today I pulled out several plants from the clearance racks, but I think the bigger investment was in insect-repelling and hummingbird-encouraging plants. This year I am tripling up on citronella plants, and I bought a trio of lemongrass, and more mint and rosemary to go with it. It was no fun getting chased out of my own damned Park last year because of the mosquitoes and banana spiders. I'll do whatever I can, short of poison, to reduce the insects and maintain my access to my own yard this year. All the fun was gone by the end of June, while the summer was still young. I intend to make it through full maturity this year. Or at least through July.

Closer

Inspirational song: So Far Away (Carole King)

I made a decision I've been wrestling with for months. I decided that it was time to cut loose the membership at the Y. I hadn't been going regularly since my injury got the better of me last fall, and though I have tried to get myself going out there once in a while since physical therapy started working, I am honestly reluctant to drive almost ten miles each way to walk on a treadmill or lift some weights. A friend asked me today why I didn't join the gym that's right around the corner from my neighborhood. I literally have been driving past this place for years, not realizing what it was. They changed their sign to be only their initials, from what I understand, and I never bothered to look at it and recognize it as an athletic center. I toured it this afternoon, and it seems acceptable. Not a fancy place, but it's close and all their machines seemed to be of a recent vintage. I'd have to give up water aerobics, but I haven't been attending them in months anyway. The one water class they have is of the feeble old lady variety, not intense cardio like I prefer. The guy who gave me my tour jokingly asked whether I wanted a job teaching more energetic water aerobics, and I told him I just might do that. But really, I don't think he believed that a class like that would be a real workout. I kind of want to do it, just to prove a point now. First I have to decide for sure that I am joining the place.

I tried early on not to complain much about being left home alone while my man was off on his adventure. Now, eleven months in, it's really hard to do anything but complain. I need a partner around for the big projects and for the quiet times. I need someone to answer me in English words when I am at home and talkative, instead of the meows, tail wags, or bored indifference I get in response now. I miss having human energy in my house. I'm greatly outnumbered here, and it would be nice just to have someone beside me to play zone defense. With the extension, I really don't know how much longer this is going to go on. But it has definitely stopped being any fun at all.

I spent the late afternoon with the door open and the Pride roaming again, after a couple cold days stuck inside in each other's way. It was warm but overcast today, so despite all the signs of spring, it felt gray and gloomy. I stayed out in fading light to pot a few more of the herbs and vegetables while a light rain tried to fall. I've decided to press ahead with my plans to keep most of my container gardening efforts on the deck this year. As I set a few plants around, the little pops of green and pink and yellow seem to be closing the deck in, making it feel like another room on the house. I don't use the front porch very much anymore, so I'm going to focus more on the side where I'm likely to spend my time. It would be nice to have my man a little closer so he could enjoy it too.

Musical Chairs

Inspirational song: Elbow Room (Schoolhouse Rock)

One of the very first socials I attended with my club was a "getting to know you" event. We played a states-based trivia game, and had a lot of fun meeting new friends. At the end of the night, they divided up the centerpieces from the tables, which were little bird's nest ferns with Mylar foil around their nursery pots. I got the fern from my table, and I brought it home and planted it in a bigger pot. I nurtured and grew it. I loved how it reminded me of Sideshow Bob's hair. A few months ago, I noticed that it was no longer sprouting new fronds from its center, and then bit by bit, it started to die off from one side. I don't quite know what I did wrong to it. It had seemed to do well with minimal attention, but maybe I should have given it more of my time. I bought a new, tiny version of it last week, and I pulled the plug on the old one. The best I can tell, as I dug out the old soil, it had become a little potbound. But not so much it should have died. I decided that it was time to rotate a couple other plants, that have not been faring well either. I have been so focused on the outside plants, I have let several of the inside ones languish, and that wasn't fair. I have a couple arrowheads that needed me, and I ignored them. One threaded itself through the big shefflera, getting leggy and misshapen. The other had been in a pot that wasn't draining well, and its roots were soggy and smelled of ammonia. I moved them up into the successively larger pots, and I need to make a mental note not to leave the fern in the small, water-holding pot for very long. It will outgrow it soon anyway, but far enough out to give me time to sort through my existing pots (or to sneak one home from a nursery).

On Tuesday, we closed the book on one course of physical therapy, and opened another today. I had to fight morning rush traffic to get there, allowing 30 minutes more drive time than I would have later in the day. I barely made it, arriving three minutes before my appointment time. But I had to wait nearly an hour to start the actual evaluation. The central company is forcing a new computer system on all of their locations, and no one, neither the front desk, nor the physical therapists, know how to make it work yet. The IT reps were at the clinic again today. I was a little creeped out that I had to give the description of my plantar fasciitis history with an extra guy lurking around, reading over Bones' shoulder while he typed in my answers. The clunky computer medical files slowed things down so badly, we patients started to pile up. They try not to run more than three people through the clinic at once, so that we aren't having to fight for machines or exercise space. Lucky for me, my entire "training" routine for this morning was to sit in a chair, barefoot, and using only my toes, dragging a towel with a dumbbell on it closer to me. You can laugh, but that was way harder than I could have imagined. Hurt like the dickens too. I got a little dry needling before I walked out the door, right in the back of my calf. We are only doing one side to start with, to verify that it is the right course of action. I couldn't have handled it on both sides. I can't say yet whether it is going to work. My heels have hurt 24/7 for coming up on ten years. This will take a while.