need not return for six months

 I don’t know how I fell down that rabbit hole but did you know that Amazon sells colouring books with Jason Momoa… and one that lets you colour animals pooping. What colour would a sloth poop?

With a dentist appointment scheduled for noon, the morning was spent getting cleaned up with a bit of makeup - not something that has been happening with any frequency over the last year… imagine my surprise when Adia ran to her crate expecting a treat! She knew we were going out and was ready to load herself into her prison. She got an extra treat for that!

Spike has been improving in leaps and bounds (literally!). Since I upped the dose of CBD and went to a 3 times per day schedule he’s gotten a bit better every day. Today he got out of bed with no limp, he’s gone down the front steps a few times, and back up twice. He’s even gotten himself onto the futon. He’s not better yet, but we are more hopeful that he’ll make a full recovery. 😚 

We are three weeks vaccinated today.

I will admit to being a bit of a hypochondriac fueled by a slight fear about the AstraZeneca vaccine brought on by way too much time on Facebook… the other day when I got undressed for my bath there was a fist sized bruise (a wild exaggeration) at the top of my leg - what the bleepity bleep!!! I freaked out. Carm took a photo for me and I sent it to my Dr., then I got on the internet to review the list of symptoms for blood clots… I had none. Deep breaths... It took an evening for the panic to subside, but now I’m good. I did hear from the doctor and he said that I’ll be fine ;-)  

It’s a dreary day again today but that’s okay, we need the rain.

Shall I take up colouring as a hobby? 

Speaking of hobbies, I fired up my thinking cap and designed a little database app to calculate cbd dosage depending on the strength of the oil. Then I put together another little db app to track how THC intake affects me. What fields will I want to capture? Which values will come from lookup tables? I don’t have a full fledged Android database but the one I do have is good enough. It was a bit fun to play with skills I’ve long stopped using, a real dusting off of the brain.

“No, my friend, I am not drunk. I have just been to the dentist, and need not return for another six months! Is it not the most beautiful thought?  --Poirot”

~Agatha Christie

languishing in the emerald city

 My muse has deserted me. My brain has shifted into another gear, one that is distracted by noise and motion. Cars flashing by on the road catch my attention, Carm fiddling with his feet draw my eye, Spike walking around gets noticed. The TV sounds too loud and even music sometimes fills my brain with noise. It’s just the chemicals in my brain and I know that soon they’ll get back to where they were.

Maybe my visit to the dentist tomorrow will upshift me back to awesome. Imagine a time when a dentist appointment is a welcome interruption to the monotony.

I’m in the mood to write and even hauled out my old copy of ‘Writing Tools’, an awesome book with tons of helpful instruction. But I’m missing content to practice with. An endless passage of identical days doesn’t trigger any inspiration.

Oh, I’m not complaining (exactly) but gosh what a (pipe) dream to think covid will end.

We’ve had ‘green day’ already and I missed the exact day that it happened! Why did it slip by without fanfare? I’ve not been mindful I guess. I did notice the tiniest of pink buds on the apple trees today! Everything is early this year. Except summer BBQs with friends and families…

The covid situation has been dire with hospitals transferring patients all over the province to make room for the influx. The stay-at-home order is still going on for another 23 days - will it end then or be extended? When will we be able to have laneway visits again? There were 5 deaths in Ottawa today. The only industry that’s done gangbusters over the last year are the morgues… Vaccine supply is intermittent (we are lucky we got one when we did). 

I find that news of covid barely registers now after months of sitting on the edge of my seat hanging onto every word… it’s been too much for too long. I read an article a while back that spoke of languishing and I suppose that’s what I’m doing (with spurts of crazed excitement).

“The paint was glossy, the car was clean, and we had a full tank of gas. The future was up to me, for now.”

~Alysha Speer

broken links

 HTTP 404… link rot… or in today’s lingo: 404 days since covid restrictions started. So long. I was reading a thread about covid and one guy went on and on swearing about the whole mess, ending with ‘I’m alone and so lonely’. My heart broke for him and all the other people in the same boat… as I’ve said before, I live a charmed life and it’s never been more apparent than over the last year. Sure, it’s been mentally hard at times, but I’ve got it easy.

Carm’s been working hard at getting the tangle of hoses and connections installed on the pool so we can open it. Today, with one more trip to the pool store, he got the new parts installed and looking good. I popped my head out a few times but thought he might like finishing up without my unending stream of suggestions. I really and truly can’t help it!

Adia was out with him, sticking her nose into everything, trying to understand what was going on, or perhaps if there might be food. Speaking of food, I’ve got a bag of super-dooper treats handy for when she does a long recall at top speed. 

I was fussing around the kitchen singing one of the little ditties that I so often sing and realized that the most pervasive earworms that I’ve had have lasted for years. ‘Do your ears hang low, do they wobble to and fro’ is a multi-daily bit of ‘music’. Sometimes it’s ‘ooh eee ooo haa ting tang walla walla bing bang’. There may be a few loose connections in my head.

Additionally, for decades, it’s a rare morning that I don’t sing the first bit of ‘Brand New Day’ by 10cc. It’s not an uplifting song, in fact, it’s all about death, but hey!

When you open your eyes

To a brand new morning

And the sun shines

Above you

You pull on your breeches and say

Oh well,

It's the start of a brand new day

https://youtu.be/Qes0PqjxaHw

Carm must have done something really really bad in a past life to be subjected to so much out of tune misery!

We saw our first dandylion yesterday!!!! They don’t usually show their sunny little faces until Mothers Day but I guess the weeks of unseasonably warm weather lured them out early. BTW - we do not poison them.

“One could certainly think of a man not in terms of a body but as a single vital current. And this would allow one to grasp the concept of existence as dynamic and on-going, rather than as static.”

~Yukio Mishima

burrow myself deep

 The snow on the ground this morning sent me scuttling back to bed to burrow myself deep in the banks of downy blankets. I wasn’t feeling particularly great anyway so all that white was a good excuse to hide myself from humanity.

There hasn’t been much to write about lately as the days are melding into one long boring lonely stretch of time. Oh, we did get outside on Monday and I ‘helped’ Carm set up the new pool filter - and by help I mean offer a never ending stream of ‘helpful’ suggestions… he was in such a good mood that he didn’t even get mad at me! Hero!

Spike re-hurt his leg sometime on Monday…. before then he had started attempting to go up the front steps and was getting around pretty well. I didn’t see what happened but I suspect he slipped on the hardwood floor and splayed himself. I think the injury is in his hip area but it’s hard to tell as he doesn’t resist any leg manipulations. 

He is such a brave and stoic little guy. No complaining and tries so hard to get around on his own. He even runs a bit when he’s happy. He knows when he needs help though and waits for us to lift him.

Sometimes loving a dog so much is hard.

I’ve been giving him CBD but I don’t think it's been a proper dose. I found more info that would suggest that he should have 20mg of cbd twice a day but I’m only giving him 6 once a day - time to increase slowly with 8mg three times a day (which for my notes translates to 6ml of the 15mg/ml strength).

Speaking of CBD… I’ve been taking it pretty consistently since January with great success, but for whatever reason I dropped down the dosage a few days ago. My mood plummeted with negative thoughts becoming stickier, harder to dislodge. I wasn’t feeling awesome. I suddenly realized that I’d reduced the dose so put it back up. Yesterday was okay (although I was wrecked all day from too much THC… another story), and today, especially after a bit of a nap, I’m back to being wonderful! 

Life is good! Even the bit of snow is just a reminder of what March and April usually look like - we were blessed with an early summer this year! 

Note to self: don’t try to crack 9 eggs while be-boppin to ‘American Pie’ - egg white flies everywhere!

A long, long time ago

I can still remember how that music

Used to make me smile

And I knew if I had my chance

That I could make those people dance

And maybe they'd be happy for a while

~Don Mclean

So many favorite songs. I don’t know if I could choose just 1 to be the fav. What would be the barometer of like? How loud I sing? How hard I dance? How many times I play it in a row? or day? or year? I was thinking (like the fool that I am) that I should have a song dedicated to celebrating my last year in my 50s. What music would be representative? Luckily I still have several months to choose. (maybe Queen “We will Rock You”?)

Fox on the run in the backyard:

“In his heart, he always preferred the actuality of loss to the fear of it.”

~Yukio Mishima

budding

 The last few days have been cooler… relatively cooler, they’ve been in the normal range for mid April. Hurrah! Grass is green, the red shafts of the peonies are a foot above the earth, hostas are poking their coiled spears out of the ground. There are tiny lilacs forming among the budding leaves.

I was off the property today… yes, all the way to the grocery and cannabis stores… I waited in the car. At least it was a change of scenery for a few minutes! 

We are going to try to have lots of silly little things to look forward to. A extra special bottle of wine, some favorite food, movie afternoons, anything to pass the time.

“Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!”

~SITTING BULL

stay-at-home extended 397 days into pandemic

 More lockdowns announced today, including an end to golf. I haven’t heard about grooming yet. Everything else is easily managed… although gosh darn I’d love to go shoe shopping 🤣  And now no laneway visits at all. The police are being given the authority to pull over vehicles to check where people are going. Wow, the haters are going to be all over that!

Poor Carm though - I feel so badly for him - he lives for golf.

I have had a few spectacularly lazy days! It’s fairly obvious to me now that I was having an extended mini hypo-mania that was bound to end badly, however, I only had a little dip for a few days (nothing to really note, just a low-ness of energy), but now I’m back to more or less normal. Still dancing and singing but not as loudly.

Spike seems to be improving… slowly… he’s consistently going down the 3 steps outside. Yesterday he was on the bed and fell off. Ooof. Poor guy. I wonder if it’s time to block him from the bed?

“April was just beginning, and after the warm spring day it turned cooler, slightly frosty, and a breath of spring could be felt in the soft, cold air. The road from the convent to town was sandy, they had to go at a walking pace; and on both sides of the carriage, in the bright, still moonlight, pilgrims trudged over the sand. And everyone was silent, deep in thought, everything around was welcoming, young, so near— the trees, the sky, even the moon—and one wanted to think it would always be so.”

~Anton Chekov

the green green grass

 Yesterday morning I declared the grass green. Green enough to overtake the dead brown grass that remains and green enough to hint of the emerald that will be here in a few weeks. The life energy in the ground is astounding. From the union of brown clay and warm sun comes life. It seems impossible.

We’ve had more days of nice weather although it’s been accompanied by fierce winds that drive us inside. 

I’m sure that any possible vaccine effects are long over, but a deep fatigue remains. It’s a bit like the old days when I’d have to stay in bed for a few days to recover. Then, like now, my mood starts off okay and gradually diminishes as time goes on. So I’m trying to be vigilant and squash those grey thoughts off right away. And accept that I’m exhausted so that I don’t beat myself up over all the things I’m not doing.

Carm played golf again on Monday!

After doing a search for mood ring toilet seats I ended up on the Wayfair site - there were hundreds of toilet seats of all designs and colours, but sadly no mood ring ones :-)

“But after it's all said and done, don't you want to grow old with your best friend? At the end of the day, that's who you want to share your life and laughter with. Someone who will be there in hard times to hold you tight. Someone who will fight for your honor and support your decisions. Someone who will encourage your dreams and help you to fulfill them.”

~Dannika Dark

gratitude

 Summer paid a visit today, actually it’s been here for over a week now… the trees are clothing themselves with buds opening into tiny leaves, the grass is greening up nicely, and birds are going crazy setting up their summer homes. Life practically springs from the earth around us.

Did I enjoy the day? Yes. To the full extent? No. I’ve been feeling somewhat fatigued the last few days with sore joints and stiff muscles, likely effects from the vaccine. I was in bed at 8:30 last night and when Carm came to bed much later wondered why the light was still on… I hadn’t had the energy to turn it off!

But we did get a bit of the patio furniture outside today and a few loads of laundry done but not much else.

A new sewage tote arrived from Amazon today - so exciting! The box and the tote were sitting on the front porch when I let Adia out and she just gave them a quick sniff, then continued on her way. A year ago she would have freaked out. She’s come a long way!

Spike is still hobbling around. Today I thought he looked really old :-(  I had to work hard to refocus my thoughts, otherwise I would have started bawling in anticipation of the future, which will likely come too soon.

I read an article about experiencing gratitude and sharing that gratitude with others. Since the beginning of my blog I’ve tried to focus on being grateful for small things, the idle pleasures in life, and I think this practice has become second nature or at least easier. I try to make a point of telling people that I appreciate them but I think I just sound maudlin and sappy when I do, or maybe people aren’t used to hearing positives? 

We ate our supper outside tonight! 

Yesterday we sort of cheated the stay-at-home order to have a birthday visit with Graham. We were outside at a distance, and only 5 of us, so we were in keeping with the rules, I think.

I’ve decided that I have to stay away from the news reporting about the vaccines… I’m starting to freak out about the rare blood clots for the AstraZeneca, wondering if we did the right thing. Of course there’s nothing to be done now, it’s not like there’s an antidote.

“Spring is made of solid, fourteen-karat gratitude, the reward for the long wait. Every religious tradition from the northern hemisphere honors some form of April hallelujah, for this is the season of exquisite redemption, a slam-bang return to joy after a season of cold second thoughts.”

~Barbara Kingsolver

we got our jabs!

 I will admit to choking up a bit when I got my jab this afternoon. I’ve never been so grateful for a little prick as I was today - the feeling of relief was almost overwhelming. As I sat in the chair waiting for 15 minutes to pass I had to force back tears. Good tears. Hopeful tears. Oh, I kept it together but I tried to savour the feeling. Tonight we celebrated with bubbles :-)

I considered really dressing up for the occasion… my sequin dress would have been nice but with over an hour of sitting in the car it seemed silly. As it was, I wore a summer top and shorts! On April 8th!

The pharmacy was well organized with lots of space to keep away from others, not that there were many people to keep away from. It felt very safe.

Carm was ecstatic to be on the golf course today. Another reason to celebrate.

The warmth today was unbelievable with the mercury reaching over 20C. There are more warm days in the forecast. It’s weird to say at this time of year, but we could probably use a bit of rain. (on edit: next week has lots of rain in the forecast).

While Carm was swinging his club, I finished vacuuming the carpet in the camper and then arranged the furniture for use. I just need to pass a damp cloth over everything and then it’s ready. My getaway.

While Carm was gone this morning I kept the music off for a few hours and basked in the relative silence. It’s not that he’s (very) noisy but the house has a stillness that even the dogs don’t disturb. It was nice for a while but then I’d had enough and put on some tunes.

“April is the kindest month. April gets you out of your head and out working in the garden.”

~Marty Rubin

be nimble be quick

 For the first time in months I had a bit of a breakdown this morning… with an official announcement of another stay at home order in just a few hours it all seemed like too much. Cases have been ripping through Ontario like wildfire. People are out everywhere and it can’t continue like this… so… we’ll all be staying at home for another month… yes another freakin month. It seems like it will never end.

But! It’s another beautiful day with more in the forecast. Perhaps it’s Nature’s way of making up for unleashing covid-19 on us.

We were up before 7:30 this morning to get ready to nab an appointment at the health unit for Carm. Today they opened up for 60+ and we thought getting a different vaccine from the one I’ll be getting tomorrow might be a good idea. Is it? I don’t know and thinking about it I’m freaking out that we are postponing his vaccine for 2 weeks.

He’s the one that goes out to do the groceries.

He’s out now while I stay at home.

I’m listening to a 10cc album that I first got when I was 12. It was alternative rock then and certainly not mainstream now, ALTHOUGH I did hear a bit on a car commercial! Very surprised. They did have one top hit: ‘I’m not in Love’

Yesterday was gorgeous. We got the tires changed on the car - everytime we do it things seem to go more quickly as we are more organized. Then we ran the slides out on the villetta! While Carm trimmed the apple trees,  I vacuumed and puttered in the camper. Today I’m cleaning the carpets and putting another coat of finish on the hardwood floors. Not that we are going anywhere… but I’ll use it as a little getaway for a change of scenery we might even sleep in there occasionally. 

It’s 1pm and I’m desperately trying to recapture my mood of the last several months. I need to banish the prickling behind my eyes and the pit in my stomach.

6pm… I’ve spent time outside, puttered in the camper, freaked out over the press conference announcing the stay-at-home order, and booked another vaccine appointment, this one ½ hour away rather than 1 + ½ hours away. Carm has booked one at the same place, cancelling his hard earned EOHU vaccine. We decided that with all the variants it makes sense to get it done now. 

All is well in my universe :-) And Carm’s happy too as he gets to golf tomorrow!

“Today has been a day dropped out of June into April.”

~L.M. Montgomery

we scored appointments

 Zip a dee doo dah day! With an amazing amount of luck the planets aligned and we scored two spots for vaccination. By the time we were both registered there were no spots left. I’ve been searching for days with no appointments to be had anywhere, and it seemed that places may not have even had vaccines… this afternoon the Walmart site finally worked and voila! a few appointments at a town an hour away. Nothing closer. We nabbed them and will enjoy a long drive!

The weather has been un-freaken-believable for the last few days. A high of 14C today encouraged Carm to putter around outside while I cheered him on from the sidelines. To be honest, I was a bit ‘slow’ today after a late night of fun so didn’t have the energy to get the rake out. Such a slothenly life.

We had a traditional Easter supper of ham, boxed scalloped potatoes (cause those things taste amazing), and asparagus. Brandy Alexanders for dessert.

I’ve been right on the cusp of hypomania for ages now but it’s working out and I’m staying on the side of sanity. Oh, there’s more than the usual amount of singing and dancing but I feel in control. It is an awesome feeling! If I could skip and kick up my heels I would.

ice from the pool

Spike’s doing a bit better but he hasn’t had a miraculous recovery. He waits to be carried up and down the stairs which is a big deal for him as he hates being picked up and will normally growl or even try to bite.

A memory came up on Facebook for our Caribbean cruise in 2019 so I visited my blog to read the entries for our trip - gosh, it seems like so long ago and strange to be in such close quarters. If I knew then what I know now I might have been more diligent about having a great time - maybe that’s a lesson to be learned for life in general - enjoy every moment as if it could be your last.

“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. (Sonnet XCVIII)”

~William Shakespeare

unconventional

 We are officially in lockdown again, 384 days after the first one. Oh, it’s not called that, this time they are calling it the emergency brake… it boils down to more or less the same thing. Except that dog groomers are still open so Adia will get her nails done - hurrah! I suppose it’s basically the same for us except that we won’t have any laneway visits for a month and Carm will miss out on golf which is a big bleep drag.

No luck getting a vaccine appointment yet…

After a week of no zoom calls I was desperate for company last night - luckily Olaf & Stephanie were able to step up to the task. As usual we had a little party with lots of laughs :-)

So… (and I hate to start a sentence with a conjunction but this time it seems right) Spike was feeling pretty good after his haircut and was running around a lot. He was even getting on the futon again. And then… yesterday afternoon he jumped off the bed onto the hardwood floor (there are carpets on both sides of the bed for him to jump onto, but no) and hurt himself. He’s not quite 3-legged lame but close, especially after he’s been lying down. It’s so hard to watch his decline.

We went for a short drive yesterday, stopping first at High Ties, the neighborhood pot shop so that I could get something different to try. This one is called 2:1 something or other with CBD being 2x more than THC. I thought it might be good for stress and wondered if it would be good for menopause symptoms like the trainwreck, only less wrecky if you know what I mean. It’s nice, but won’t replace the trainwreck.

This time of year I always know when it’s the weekend as golf is on TV. It used to be that a good nap could be taken during the event, but alas, the crowd now cheers and yells so it’s no longer quiet with hushed voices.

I wasn’t in a super great mood today - not a bad mood, just not amazing - so a little bit of Muskrat Love was on order: 

Muskrat, muskrat candlelight

Doin' the town and doin' it right

In the evenin', it's pretty pleasin'

Cause really, isn’t it a prescription for joy? Especially if you cue up some Eagles to follow.

I was thinking (during golf) about how I would describe myself. The first thing that came to mind is that I am a rule follower and yet I consider myself to be somewhat unconventional: I had pink hair decades before that was a thing; I wore cowboy boots or converse high tops with dresses; I had white sneakers that were covered in rhinestones before Paul Simon wrote his song about the girl with diamonds on the soles of her shoes; I designed an open concept house even though people told me it was a huge mistake; every wall in the house was painted pink because I loved it; I had a pet rabbit and would walk it on a leash; I had a motorcycle before girls did that; I bred parrots and brought the babies to work with me; oh, there’s lots of other things, but these roiled off the top of my head. 

I’ve never been the cool one! But maybe not being cool IS cool!

“And the Spring arose on the garden fair,

Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;

And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast

Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.”

~Percy Bysshe Shelley

song sung blue

 Only a dusting of snow was on the ground this morning and it was all gone by the time I dragged myself from bed, luckily no April Fools joke :-)  Winter ended suddenly this year - there may even be ½ a tank of gas in the snowblower. Oh sure, we could still be dumped on but enough for the snowblower? Hopefully not.

As I often do, I scrolled through Facebook this morning and today it was (almost) worthwhile. An article mentioned that Ottawa pharmacies were getting doses of the vaccine for ages 55+! That’s me! And Carm! Together we went through the list to contact some nearby places, but alas, some didn’t even know about it let alone have a booking system up and running :-/ We persisted and got our names on a few waiting lists…  I feel impatient and excited.

I’m afraid to hold out real hope.

I had a revelation today… When I’m feeling good I tend to sing and dance but it’s a bit like the chicken and the egg. Which comes first? Does singing make my mood better or do I only sing when I’m a bit manic? When I sing, my brain is not ruminating on whatever might make me feel stressed so maybe ‘Muskrat Love’ is like a drug of sorts. Not all music does the trick - it has to be sing-along. I have playlists full of this sappy music - not all 70s pop… there’s the Doors, and Led Zeppelin, Genesis, Pink Floyd… but mainly it’s lame music from my youth. Although ‘Sex on the Beach’ was rumbling around my head yesterday. 

If I were a doctor I’d write prescriptions for Spotify.

I don’t know why it took so long but I’m finally not self-conscious gyrating in front of Carm. I no longer care what he thinks… not actually, but maybe the pandemic has forced the change - I must move! He laughs when I grab his hands to get him to try dancing - he thinks I’m crazy, but I think he likes a bit of zany in his life!

“It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what.”

~John Galsworthy