A Woman With Chin Hairs

The Woman: in earlier years

I have spiky white hairs on my chin.

They sort of resemble cat whiskers, except that they’re on my chin.

I’m a woman of a certain age, “The time when a woman becomes a man: her breasts flatten, she no longer bleeds nor produces babies, and she grows hair on her chin.” (Ancient Chinese Wisdom.) It’s also the time when women become dragons and conquer the world.

And I would, except for these darn memory lapses.

O, the Dragons!

Here I am, dressed for battle, sword in one hand, fire coming out of my nostrils, on my way to --- huh, what was I coming into this room for? O w, ow, ow, this sword hurts my arthritis! And my back aches. I think I’ll go sit down until I remember what I was doing.

Instead, as I pass the pile of garden baskets, I grab one and go pick peppers and tomatoes and zucchini and green beans, then return to the kitchen to start cutting them up to freeze. Something about this kitchen knife…

Oh! Right! I was going to go save the world! Now, where’d I put my sword?

And off I go, on a hunt for ---what was it I was hunting for? No idea, so I sit at the computer and play Mah Jong Solitaire. Whoever thought I’d ever be old enough to be enjoying playing Mah Jong? Mah Jong is a Chinese game…huh…when women become men… OMG I was heading out to save the world! Where’s my sword?

Off I dash, on a search for the sword. I can feel the fire building in my chest. On my way through the kitchen – Holy balollies, I started to freeze the veggies, I’d better finish that job before the fruit flies get to them and they dry out! What was I thinking??

Plenty of whiskers here

I cut up and freeze the veggies, then glance at the clock. It’s late…after noon. I haven’t eaten breakfast yet. Better do that now. Hmmm, did I take my pills when I got up this morning?

I’m a clever woman, I have A Method: the pills and tinctures I take only once a day I turn to face the wall once I’ve taken them. The pills I take twice a day are together, and turned forward until the second dose, then turned to face the wall. The one I take three times always faces forward. It’s a great method. Except: I don’t remember taking these this morning; did I forget to turn them forward this morning, or are these still turned from last night???   I remember taking them last night...I have no idea…

Lunch over, I notice my sword, on the kitchen counter next to a pile of veggie detritus that needs to go out to the compost bin. Better take that out first or the cats will scatter it all over the floor.  Out the door I go, headed to the compost bins, and on the way back, I pull a few weeds, then I pull a few more, then I remember something I wanted to store in the garden shed, then I notice some tomatoes I missed earlier so I pick those, then I stop to watch the humming birds fighting each other at the feeders, then ---

Oh my god, I’m supposed to be saving the world! Quick, Quick, go get the sword!

Slow but steady saves the World

I shoo the cats in, because I’m not sure how long it’ll take to save the world this time, and put out food for them. Then I grab my sword, and as I dash out the door, I think It’s getting late, I’d better bring the mail and stop at the post office first, it’ll be closed soon..  So I grab the mail, and race to the car, tossing my sword into the back seat. Off I go.

A mile down the road, I think Everything looks different today, I wonder why? I reach up to adjust my glasses – I’m not wearing my glasses! Rats! I turn around and race back home.

Back home, the phone rings. I answer it. Then I pick up the newspaper and do the Sudoku, which I haven’t gotten to yet today. Then:

OMG! The post office! Where are my glasses??

A pretty good joke on you!

I race around the house – they’re nowhere. Not in the living room, not in the kitchen, not on the piles of paperwork next to the computer, not in the bathroom – better go pee while I’m here, I am a Woman of a Certain Age, after all – then I wander out  to the kitchen, and have a love-up with one of the cats. Then all the cats need attention and treats. Then I notice that the second bunch of veggies I brought in are still sitting on the kitchen counter, so I cut those up and freeze them. Then I sit and read the newspaper. Then I notice it’s time to make supper, so I do that.

I want to watch a movie on tv tonight, so I start hunting for my glasses, which are nowhere to be found. Eventually the Husband and I locate them under the couch, where the cats had been playing hockey with them. Early to bed tonight, my back aches, my wrists are sore, and it seems like I forgot to do something important today, but a trip around the house to clean cat poop boxes and wash cat bowls and refill water bowls doesn’t cause anything to come to mind…

Next morning, I leap out of bed, fire spouting from my nostrils, chin hairs bristling. I was supposed to save the world yesterday, gotta get going NOW!

Hmmpf. I wonder where I left my sword???

 

 

For the blog, 7 September 2022

All photos Deb Marshall

 

One might say - flames and fire!

Bad Ju-Ju

Never Too Too

 There are days when one shouldn’t get out of bed.

There are entire weeks when one shouldn’t get out of bed.

A friend told me that last week was like a week of full moons, even though we were nowhere near a full moon – everyone she interacted with was either being stupid or nasty; everyone was walking around like they were mad.

I should have paid more attention.

But I didn’t.

So: I have a dear friend who lives in a state we won’t name, that’s always in NH news – actually, it’s always in news all over the country – because the state’s governor, and half its citizens, regularly do incredibly stupid things, often involving alligators. My friend is a smart, smart woman, but her life circumstances have changed, so that now she’s a genteel, aging woman in straitened circumstances. And she really, really, doesn’t want to adjust to that.

Thyme, hosta, coral bells, and unfinished chores

Her only relative  and I have been spending untold numbers of hours and days and months during the last year, doing research for her to try to determine where and how she can live for as long as possible, as comfortably as possible. And she’s been fighting it – the State of Denial is a large one, and parts of it have alligators in it. But finally, a week ago – pay attention to the time period,  and the days of full-moon activity my other friend recorded – she suddenly became cooperative and actually did something we’d  been warning her for months that she needed to do, but she didn’t wanna do.

Hallelujah! A massive, collective sigh of relief  was  heaved by her care-giver, cousin and me. We relaxed for a moment, then jumped into the flurry of activity that had to  follow in order to  get  ready  the preliminaries to make a move she needs to make, and more intense research and financial plans checked and re-tabulated, and long, written explanations about things she needs to know and make decisions about, all of which involving 3:30 am time slots for me writing writing writing -  and then ---

Allium flower

---and then, she changed her mind. OK, we thought, we’ll just move on and she’ll consider another option. But no – she wasn’t going to do anything more, she was done, she’d stay in her house ‘til she’s completely destitute, and  - well, you can guess what else. I really, really wish I had remembered what my other friend had told me about how her weird-energy week was going, but I didn’t.

Instead, I blew up. I could feel the top of my head open up and the lava of my brains flowed out all over my computer. My nostrils flowed with smoke and ashes. My tongue dried up and fell out. I had visions of roaring fire into the distance. But my typing hands were still working. And they, and my thoughts, were incendiary. And I wrote a very detailed letter to my dear friend, explaining, with many  adjectives and descriptive characterizations, exactly how I felt.

Okay, next part of the story: The day I went  into the World of Fury, the Husband took my car to run some errands and fill the tank so I’d have enough gas to get to work the next day. But a check engine light came on, so, instead, he took the car to the garage to get it checked out. “Oh,” the garage guys said, “that’s the Doomsday signal. How’s the car running?” It seemed to be running fine, they decided it might just be a loose connection or something inconsequential that digital signals often do in cars, but added, “We turned it off, but if it comes back on again, bring it back.”

Happy Johnny Jump-Ups

Remember what week it was?

Next day, I left the house early enough to get gas on my way to the office, and then headed to the post office to mail the incendiary letter, and a copy as a head’s-up to her care-giver so she’d be warned about the temper tantrum I’m expecting it will set off , grinning to myself  evilly because it occurred to me I could let my friend pay for her own damn postage if she was going to piss me off this badly – and noticed on the way to the post office that the Doomsday Signal was on again. And no, I still didn’t remember about the week warning.

I mailed the envelopes, then went across the street to the garage, and asked office lady if she’d ask whoever had looked at the car yesterday if it was safe for me to drive the car to work, which is 30 miles away and then 30 more back again at night. All the mechanics, she said, were out to lunch. I didn’t ask if she meant literally or figuratively, but, ok, there’s no one at the garage to ask. Sounds like I need to go back home and switch cars with the Husband.

Now I’m in a rush, because I’m running late. As I sort of speed up the hill on the way home – a black bear cub runs in front of the car. No, I didn’t hit it, but where was Mom, and is there a sibling about to dash in front of me?  Out loud I said, “Okay, that was cute, be careful!” and continued on towards home.

Columbine

I got home, and tracked him down to tell the Husband I need his car. I move all the sloshing jars of flower bouquets and a tub of cut herbs I was taking on that day up to the café in the building my office is in, into Husband’s car; I shuffle my own backpack and other gear into the Husband’s car; and as I rarely drive the Husband’s car I ask some questions about where some controls are - and I have a premonition that this isn’t going to go well.  But I’m running late, and I still don’t remember about the moon energy warning. 

At the end of the driveway, I notice there’s not enough gas to go to the office and back again, but I’m running really late now and figure I can get gas before I come home. At the end of the drive-way, I stop to grab the newspaper from the paper tube, to read at work. There is no newspaper – first time the paper guy has screwed up in a couple of weeks. Hmm. Another feeling of unease, but I’m really running late.

A couple of miles up the road, a black kitten runs in front of the car. No, I didn’t hit it, but at that point I shoulda just turned around and gone home. I considered it for a second; but I didn’t.

Twenty miles up the road I get on the highway, and the car starts to make a most god-awful noise, and it’s bucking around, water is sloshing everywhere, jars of flower bouquets are clashing against each other, and I’m trying to figure out, what the heck? I realize I should pull off to the side and look, but it’s Friday on Labor Day weekend, the road is packed with speeding cars, and we’re rapidly approaching a construction zone, where the road splits and there’s no pull-off lane. I get off the highway just before the split, and drive another mile to where I know there’s a Mobil station, with a Shell station across the street.

Oh, yeah, the tire is definitely flat. And the Mobil station, and the Shell station across the street, are both just lines of gas pumps and quick-marts. Sigh. 

On the wart this summer

I call AAA, and I get Jennifer, who wants to tell me about a special deal AAA is offering just this weekend for long-time members, it’s a free medical alert system, and I’ve never heard anyone talk that rapidly and continuously without taking a breath. Now I’m shouting: “Jennifer, Jennifer, stop talking! Jennifer, SHUT UP! I need road service! STOP TALKING!!!”  I hung up on her and tried again.  That time I got the road service person, who took down my description of where I was – you know how sometimes you drive places all the time, and you can do it in your sleep, but you have no idea what the route numbers or street names are? Yup, that was me.  We came up with a description I was pretty sure a local guy would recognize. “OK,” road assistance gal says, “someone will be there by 4:30.”

Am I hearing wrong? “4:30 PM?” I ask. “Did I hear that right?”

“Yes, it may take awhile because they might be busy when we contact them,” Helpful Lady says.

Great. I need to call my patients and reschedule.

So I do, and then I hunker down and read while I’m waiting. OMG – no newspaper! Ah, but I have a book in my backpack. Always have a book with you, it’s saved my brain many times. And thank heaven it isn’t hot and humid like it has been. But I do start to ruminate on the bad ju-ju week a bit.

Eventually a great big, long truck pulls in next to my car, and a beefy, short, young dude with pants the standard 6 inches below the butt crack gets out, and takes the absolutely shredded tire off my car and puts on the spare. It’s only 4 pm – hmm. “Can I drive this into WRJ and then home again, which is 30 miles south, or should I just go home? I can take the back roads home,” I ask my savior.

He thinks about it. “Yup. But don’t go over 50 mph, and get a real tire on within the week. These things can blow, too, and because they’re under a lot of pressure, if this one blows it’ll take the whole back end off your car.”

Lynxie

Oy. OK. I call my patient and say it’s ok to come in; then I fill the gas tank  - so if the spare tire blows we’ll have a massive and interesting conflagration – and so I can get home, because the Husband can’t rescue me, because he’s home with the car with the Doomsday Signal lit up.

I get to the office, I deliver the flowers and herbs – they needed more water by then – I water the plants in the waiting room, which were panting for attention by the time I got there; I treat my patient, then I cross my fingers and drive slowly home, and manage to get there just before dark without hitting any moose on the way.

Today it’s Sunday, and I see we have an actual full moon next Saturday: the Full Harvest Moon.  I wonder what I’ll be reaping this week?

 I have a few clues: At the office, I found a text from my alligator state friend’s care-giver saying my friend had changed her mind again, and was now planning her next step in self-responsiblility. The text should have arrived the night before – before I mailed my very descriptive letter - but the gods of Full Moon Bad Jokes didn’t let my phone receive it until 5 pm the next day.

There’s a mouse in my pantry, and the cats aren’t interested.

I had exactly two winter squashes this year, because the rest of the winter squash plants died or were weirdly dug up and killed; I picked those two precious squashes last week, because the plant they were on was rapidly dying. One went into this week’s soup – the other, I discovered tonight, is rotting.

Crow; photo by Clare McCarthy

And, it’s Labor Day weekend, so the garage isn’t open. Who knows when the cars of Doom will be fixed?

I think I may just stay at home and read books, not go anywhere, not answer the phone, and keep my fingers crossed. We do, after all, have rattlesnakes in NH, though they’re rarely seen and wouldn’t usually choose a garden to sun in.

But I’m not sure I’m willing to risk it.

 

For the blog, 4 September 2022: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

Rasta Furian: photo by Julie Schroppel

You Never Know...

 

Yellow Garden Spider guarding the shell beans

I just came in from the garden, totally soaked. This month it’s been a toss-up whether the soaking will be from sweat because it’s too hot and humid, or from rain – but not nearly enough. Whether. Weather. Argh!

No matter what the weather gods are doing, the season marches on, and while it’s a little early this year…ok, quite early – the garden’s slowly getting cleared out. The shell beans are all gone except for the scarlet runners, which I don’t think are going to produce this year – lots and lots of flowers, but almost no bean pods. The same with the lima beans, though I just picked a handful of those.

The chipmunks have eaten all but one bed of beets, which I pulled completely the other day because they’d started on that bed; all the carrots except for one row that’s hidden under the asparagus ferns, and it’s so dry there there may not be much of anything attached to the greenery when I finally pull them. I replanted beets and carrots twice, but neither germinated, it was too dry. I had to pull one full bed of leeks because the little buggers had started on those, and they’ve also sampled the onions, Egyptian onions, and garlic – critters aren’t supposed to like aliums, so I don’t know what that’s all about. 

Tomato hornworm - big as my middle finger

Tomatoes are finally ripening, but they’re all lumpy and bumpy and scarred, ok for freezing because I cut them up, but almost impossible to slice and just eat. Fortunately the cherry tomatoes are ok, but you can’t make a sandwich with them unless you turn them into a spread, which isn’t a bad thing, really. For two months now my kitchen pegs have been covered with garlic and onion bunches that are drying; garlic’s all dried, and the onions are still thinking about it. My potato bags were full of lovely purple and red and a few white fingerling potatoes; those are in covered baskets and boxes under the table, curing, before I can pile them together into one big basket in the pantry.  My shallots, which matured early, are taking forever to dry in a basket on the kitchen counter. And lumpy tomatoes are also taking up basket space on the kitchen counters, ripening until I can freeze them. Oh, yes, and I’ve so far found, and removed, 3 honkin’ gigantic tomato hornworms which munched on, and ruined, 6 unripe tomatoes besides eating the leaves off one plant.

All my winter squash and pumpkin plants died from causes unknown, and something – not sure what – actually dug up the two promising ones and moved them aside, so they “desisicated,” as the Tall Guy put it, before I found them. No claw marks, no little piles of dirt, no paw prints or hoof marks  – the site of the murder looked just like a human would do with a trowel, and it was done several days apart. It’s very weird, as strange as the unknown thing that dug a trench to get at the fava beans last spring, and then didn’t eat all of them. Dried fava beans that one plants are huge – much larger than a seed or bean most birds could handle. I have theories about what’s causing this damage – swamp monsters, aliens, evil garden gnomes, zombies, very peculiar bears, ostriches… The green peppers this year are growing on plants that never got taller than 14 inches, and the fruits are rotting as soon as they start to ripen. The zucchini plant has produced dozens and dozens of squashes, in spite of squash borers killing half of it; but the summer squash, which is a beautiful huge plant with lots of flowers and no squash borers, has produced exactly 5 squashes. Go figure.

The hardy hibiscus are finally in bloom. And they’re gorgeous. Everyone in the North should have a hardy hibiscus!

It's nice to have a clothesline, finally, after 40 years!

 Most years the dining table gets covered with baskets of ripening tomatoes, but I’ve been using the table to spread out the paperwork and folders and 3-ring binders I need to research assisted living places and Medicaid for the elderly in Florida, for my dear friend in Florida. All I have to say about that is, don’t move to Florida – they don’t use the same language everyone else does, they don’t have the same programs, and then they change it and do, and then they change it again and don’t, they don’t make it easy to find information, you almost have to get an elder law attorney involved, and god help you if you don’t have endless funds. And a paralegal degree (which I do but I still need legal help down there because it’s so --- purposely difficult), and an incredible amount of time and patience.

The assisted living places, however, are much nicer, in a way, than the ones I’ve seen in NH – even the small studios have kitchenettes, and the rooms seem to be slightly larger. The assisted living people are all very nice and very helpful, and they should be, because they want your money. 

Hydrangea and Coral Bells

 Anyway, progress is slow and on hot and humid days my brain doesn’t really function all that well. In fact, on the worst weekend we had, I’m pretty sure it melted and drained out through the soles of my feet along with my life force, and I’m not certain it’s all back in place again yet.

Lynxie had a run-in with a very pissed off raccoon, and has just rejoined us after a ten-day vacation in quarantine at the vet’s. He was vaccinated for rabies, and is now boostered for rabies, and I don’t think the raccoon was rabid – she was beautiful and disappeared not to be seen again after I scared her off and snatched Lynx indoors (she’d chased him onto our wart and the fat boy just barely managed to pull himself onto the rail when I heard the commotion and went out, but she did bite him). I suspect he stumbled into her nest and she was protecting her kits; but we don’t know. It’s a little late in the season for that, but the season has been strange, and kits do stay with their parents for several months once they’re mostly grown. None of the neighbors have seen her, either, though the one next door says a raccoon goes up on her deck every night and drinks the hummingbird food.

Green Echinacea and nasturtiums

 At work – still hearing weekly from patients who have either caught Covid or whose family members have. This is what you need to know about the latest variant: The symptoms look like a cold or an allergy. Because this mutation has changed the virus a lot, the home tests often produce a false negative if you don’t have symptoms, or if you have symptoms but haven’t had them for a few days. If you know you’ve been exposed, and you keep getting a negative home test result, it’s worth going to get a PCR test, which are still more accurate, but even those aren’t as accurate with this variant.

So if you know you’ve been exposed but have no symptoms, wear a mask in public for at least a week and keep your hands clean. If you have symptoms but test negative, wear a mask in public and keep your hands clean until  the symptoms are gone, because this variant is extremely infectious.  And if you don’t want to risk catching it, wear a mask in public and keep your hands clean, even if you’re outdoors, if there are people nearby. This variant spreads quickly and easily – all it takes is someone coughing or sneezing, and if the breeze is right, even if you aren’t right next to the infected person, the virus can easily float through the air to you. Outdoor theater productions this summer have turned into super-spreader events because everyone assumed that outdoors no one needed to wear a mask. Surprise!

Yeah, yeah, the symptoms are mostly like a cold or flu in most people. But in some people they’re much worse; people are still being hospitalized with it; and you won’t know ‘til you catch it how bad it is for you. AND, even if it’s mild it can last for weeks; some people you might infect will not be able to work for weeks after catching it because of the kind of work they do (like me!); and you can’t tell by looking at someone if they have immune system issues and could get deadly ill if they catch it. Yes, those people should be wearing masks, but if they’re surrounded by people not wearing masks spewing virus at them, it’s often not enough.

Wearing a mask is a small sacrifice to improve everyone’s health and protect the vulnerable. And toss your masks when you’ve been somewhere surrounded by people – the outside could be covered in active virus. Hygiene, people, hygiene!

For the blog, 23 August 2022: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

All photos Deb Marshall

 

My garden earlier in the summer - Daisies and California Poppies, compost bin and Lady's Mantle, and a few Lunaria