Gardening in Snoozeville!

Here's me garden! at long last!! You can see quite clearly that there is VERY LITTLE SUNLIGHT at the moment (around 12:30 pm), but wait!!! it'll be nice and sunny in a few hours. (See below!) That's as much sun as my porch gets this time of year. Will it be enough? Ver vaist? I'm hoping it will. From left to right (in the former blue plastic magazine rack from IKEA): Thai basil, Peppermint, Tuscan rosemary (it says "blue" on here, too, but goddess only knows what THAT means).... I'm pondering a trip back to get a tomato plant or two...or even just one tomato and one FLOWER!! I love this.

Sun! 3:15 pm

Lego Turing Machine.....

I saw this today and remembered how much I love Amsterdam! This is a very basic computer, modeled after the Turing machine.  It was built from Legos by two guys in Amsterdam.  You can ride a bicycle safely in Amsterdam.  Just rent one at the train station and off you go!

To learn more about the Turing machine, click the blue title of the vimeo.....so cool!

Scots dialect....

I pulled a dish towel out of the drawer this morning, and it was the one my dear Peggy sent. It has "a unique range of quid Scots words." (It says that on the towel!) I don't know what "quid Scots words" means, either. Anyway, here's the list, per the towel:
braw (br-aaw) adj. = fine, pleasant esp. weather  
mauchit (maw-kit) adj. = dirty, filthy, stinky, muddy ("Lookit the colour o' ye, ya mauchit wee to'rag")
glaikit (glai-kit) adj. = stupid, silly
dreich (dre-ech) adj. = drab, dreary  
besom (biz-um) n. = female upstart
crabbit (cra-bit) adj. = ill-tempered, grumpy  
laldie (lall-dy) n. = a thrashing, a sound beating  
canny (can-y) adj. = cautious, hesitant, frugal  
scunner (scun-ner) v. = to feel aversion; n. = strong dislike; n. = nuisance.
fankle (fan-kle) n. an entanglement ("Dinnae get yersel' in a fankle")

more to come.....

What day is this?

I know it's Thursday, but I've lost count of my own calendar. maybe it's 9 days now without a drink. today was tough. so far, so good. looking for a brighter (and less hot & humid) tomorrow.

Day 7, and I'm having more fun than usual....

Yup...haven't had any alcohol for seven days....that's a whole week, right? So many things about my physical body are feeling better it's hard to keep track. My right foot, for example, doesn't hurt when I step out of bed in the a.m. as it has for about a month. I realized that I was eating cheese along with belting down the wine, and milk makes my feet hurt. Why my left foot hasn't hurt, I don't know. Go figure. It started out cool today, but it got hot and muggy by suppertime. Tomorrow it's supposed to be in the high 90s, which usually means it'll crack 100 before the sun goes down. I am loving my new bed now that it's not trying to break my bones. Can't wait to get into it and read. I dug out Margaret Atwood's "Negotiating with the Dead" two days ago. That's her book on writing. I decided to start with the last chapter, which also has that for a title. Why? The subtitle says "Who makes the trip to the Underworld and why?" It has some lovely quotations to begin the chapter:

Build then the ship of death, for you must take the longest journey, to oblivion. And die the death, the long and painful death that lies between the old self and the new... Oh build your ship of death, your little ark and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine for the dark flight down oblivion.

--D.H. Lawrence, "The Ship of Death"

A winter hanging over the dark well, My back turned to the sky, To see if in that blackness something stirs, Or glints, or winks an eye: Or, from the bottom looking up, I see Sky's white, my pupil head-- Lying with all that's lost, with all that shines-- My winter with the dead: A well of truth, of images, of words. Low where Orion lies I watch the solstice pit become a stair, The constellations rise.

-- Jay Macpherson, "The Well"

What moves and lives occupying the same space what touches what touched them owes them... Standing knee-deep in the joined earth of their weightless bones, in the archaeological sunlight... Standing waist-deep in the criss-cross rivers of shadows, in the village of nightfall, the hunters silent and women bending over their fires, I hear their broken consonants...

--Al Purdy, "Remains of an Indian Village" and the last one, my favorite:

Take for joy from the palms of my hands fragments of honey and sunlight, as the bees of Persephone commanded us.

--Osip Mandelstam, "Take for joy from the palms of my hands"

 Cathy says that's in the bible, too--the part about drinking honey from someone's hands (Esau??) I regret I do not know that. Cathy knows more about books than anyone else I know, and she can recite a lot of it by heart. She recited that part of the bible, too. Of course, I had never heard it, never heard of it. Here I am, an old woman and ignorant. C'est la vie. Anyway, Atwood gets around to explaining all the morbid imagery on the second page of chapter 6 (p. 156). She says

 The title of this chapter is "Negotiating with the Dead, and its hypothesis is that not just some, but all writing of the narrative kind, and perhaps all writing, is motivated, deep down, by a fear of and a fascination with mortality--by a desire to make the risky trip to the Underworld, and to bring something or someone back from the dead. You may find the subject a little peculiar. It is a little peculiar. Writing itself is a little peculiar.

I love it when I find things like this in books that just spear me right in the gut. I'll have to keep reading to find out what she's talking about.

Well, guess what?

The rubber plant has sprouted a new leaf at the tip of every branch!  And here they are!  More rain today!  Time to put out some herbs.  Flowers!  The supermarkets have tons of plants now.  

My balcony doesn't get a lot of sun, but it gets enough now.  

I quoted Basho on XE.  "Barn's burned down. Now I can see the moon."  Old age for me is like Basho says here:  I have less yet so incredibly much more without having to strive for it.  

Thanks be for today and rain and a magnificent little tree and eyes to see it all and a camera that still works!

one snapshot and a painting????

Today's challenge for Daily Challenge was to go out walking and take at least three photos with either your camera or cell phone.  I did take three, but the last one was one more than my cell phone could digest.  Have to delete some pix to make room for more.

The first picture makes me think the tree is reaching up with its dying branches.  The second one looks kinda like an Impressionist painting.  I like when this happens but am not sure why or how.  Beginning photographic art.

There wasn't much else to record on the walk, since I was on my way to Homey D's to get some slats for my new bed.  The walk took me across one metro parking lot, on the train to the Rhode Island stop, across another parking lot, and into the store. 

I bought six 1x2s and had them cut to measure.  Cost me not quite $4.  That bed is now so tall, I'm feeling like the princess but without the pea. The mattress is quite comfy, and the box spring no longer falls through the frame when I lie down.  

C asked me how many days I have gone without alcohol.  I said "5."  She said "Wow."  I admit I had to stop and think; it's fading in the background, at least in the morning.  I've taken up making my own Agua Fresca.  Today's choice:  black cherry juice in hibiscus tea.  

Take me!  says the tree....

Looks like a painting....how does it DO that???

Some dayz are like this.....

Here it is, almost 6 p.m., and I just got out of my pjs.  I've been working on an editing project since I got up (9 a.m.), and I just sent it back to the author.  Maybe he'll stay out of my hair for the rest of the weekend.  I still have book #2 of his to work on...haven't even started that. Urk.

And why haven't I started book 2?  Because for the past two days, I kept dropping pieces of an IKEA bed on myself.  Now that the bed's put together, it needs more shoring up.  I want to sleep on it in confidence that the mattress & box spring won't fall through the frame.  I didn't get time to go to Homey D's to buy slats.  Ha.  Manana.  (Maybe I will find some bubble wrap and stuff it along the sides to kind of wedge the box spring in the frame better.  Yes.  That will save $$, too.

Also, I learned yesterday from my friend Irmgard in Germany that IKEA in Germany puts things together FOR YOU.  You have to pay, of course, but we in the US of A don't even get that option.  Hmph.

This would be day 4 of not drinking, and I wanna tell you the thought of going out and getting a drink has crossed my mind more than once.  Or, as the joke goes, the thought would have crossed my mind, but the bridge is out.

I like the companionship of bars as much as I like the beverages.  Hm.  I could go down to Oyamel and get another Agua Fresca, but it'll still be sour sop.  Fine, but I had that YESTERDAY.  They change the flavor once a week.  The new one starts tomorrow, and they won't even be open.

Well....that's how it is.    

Shoreham, MN

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Here is where I really LIVED every summer weekend from the age of about 10 until I left for the convent at age 17.  The woods and the lake provided me with the emotional sustenance I needed.  This place was heaven to me.  It's changed a lot, but the channel that flowed from Lake Sallie (top) to Lake Melissa (bottom) is still there.  And you can still see the Detroit Lakes Country Club's golf course on the far right.  Michael and I used to get up really early and go play 9 holes before the course opened.  We'd come home with our jeans soaked almost to the hips with the heavy dew. 

Does it count if it's medicinal??

I don't know which day this is, maybe day 3.  I'm pretty tired.  Was setting up a bed from IKEA last night and dropped part of it on my foot...which knocked me down...and I hit my head--right on the cochlear implant site--on the big oak dresser.  Not only that, when I finally landed, my keys dug into my hip, and that hurt like hell.  I did tapping right away, though, and this morning all the swelling was down, no pain in foot or head, a little in hip.  Not bad.  

Anyway, after a longish day, wrestling now & then with the bed, and visiting  here and there, I am having my chest pain, for which I usually have a shot of likker.  It's not a serious, go-to-the-ER-type pain, just the old ache that's followed me around for more than half my life. 

The question is, now that I'm not drinking alcohol, wot do I do about the pain? A doctor prescribed nitroglycerin way back in 1991, but I threw it out.  I figured that was the beginning of the end, since it turned out that way for both my parents.  Plain old whiskey takes the pain away immediately, but that's out until I figure out how to quit drinking but still drink. 

Meanwhile, chamomile tea seems calming, so I'm having a cup of that and thinking of the women who toil on the Royal Ottoman farm's 4000 acres in Egypt where it's produced.  I'm sharing my comfort with them in their moments of pain and tiredness.  The Buddhists call this tonglen practice, sending and taking. 

Paying attention

teeny-tiny flowers in the grass beside the walk

gorgeous summer clouds, bright blue sky

Wot's this tree with the yellow flowers, blooming so late?

So....this is what I saw when I left the house this morning.  Such a beautiful day, so glad to be alive.  Snoozeville has many wonders.

In which I quit drinking....Days 1 and 2

This nondrinking has come about from my reading Ruth Rendell's Tigerlily's Orchids, in which one of the characters, Oelwen, 60, decides to drink herself to death. Not pretty. The story points out her physical decimation, about which I've never thought, but which I'm beginning to experience. Many teetotalers--though most definitely not all--in my very limited experience, have been either prissy or judgmental pains in the butt (I've been and still am prissy, judgmental, and a pain the butt myself...never said I wasn't). Some have been loving models of kindness and serenity.  However, I'm not here to make sweeping statements.  I'm just going to quit drinking. It should save some $$ and also my liver. Some of my remarks will be e-mail extracts (as Day 1). I've never really done this before on this scale, so I'll just make it up as I go along to track my progress. L'chaim! Cin-cin! Up yours!

Day 1:

"the bedinabox is right where u dropt it, and i have no intention of even opening it until maybe 2014. i have not had a drop of likker of any sort today. survived happy hour by brewing some hibiscus iced tea. that may be my answer. at least for today."

Day 2:

"FEELING BETTER!! Esp EYES! Yay." What a relief! I feel cleaner, younger, and incredibly better, and I'm just out of bed for an hour. See if I can manage to get through the rest of the day. (Later in the day....well, I got through happy hour by going to the Farmers Market and buying as many colorful fruits & veggies as I could afford: 4 wild plums, 1 green & 1 purple pepper (cut one slice off each and fried an egg in it), 2 zucchinis, 3 gorgeous, glorious tomatoes!!, a pint of homegrown blueberries, and a pint of fresh cherries. Plus a nice bottle of plain water from Pret a Manger! I am not suffering.)