Pre-Florida

January 31, 2011 at 10:16 am (Dreams, Home, Time)

Back again, and now three days away from leaving for Florida for 12 days.  Rose has suggested bringing Smidge over to their house for these long trips.  I agree, wishing she’d brought it up early enough that I could have acclimated her to their house (and other cats) before I had to actually abandon her for nearly two weeks.  But they are weary of dealing with the wood stove in my absence, and no stove means a cold house, and that’s only acceptable if Smidge isn’t here.  It is causing me a great deal of stress.  Upside is that I will save a lot of wood, maybe still have a couple of pieces left when I return.  There is no hope of cutting any more here, with the several feet of snow everywhere and the mountains of it thrown up by the plow.  I will end up ordering wood.  We ran low on wood and pellets at the same time; I have to pick some up today.  Tractor Supply has them for cheaper than CJ’s, who isn’t returning my calls anyway.  They don’t deliver, though, so I have to get them, and then transfer fifty bags of pellets to the pallet on the back porch.  I’ll borrow Rose’s chainsaw to trim some pieces I have that are a mere inch too long to fit into the stove.  The cord on mine isn’t pulling right now for some reason.

In prep for that I moved the last 14 bags from the old batch into the mudroom last night.  Three on the bottom had been chewed into by mice.  Not surprising.  I duct-taped them closed and brought them inside for immediate use.  Not much loss.  I wish there were a more secure way of storing them, though.  Anyway, between the shoveling and the hossing of fuel, I’m getting some upper body strength that I’ve missed.

My hands are flaring absolutely horribly, and I’ve found little patches of eczema on my arms and legs as well.  They wake me up in the night, itching.  This sometimes subzero winter is cruel to my skin, my lungs, my sinuses. I’m still highly congested and allergic, following the virus I had a month ago.  The snow is like an enemy that won’t leave the yard.  I’ve gotten snowed in here twice; if Karl hadn’t had machinery I wouldn’t have gotten out til Spring.  Even after the plow came last week, I could barely get out into the street, there was still so much at the mouth of the driveway.  He says I need my own tractor.  I’d kind of LIKE to have my own tractor, actually.  That’s kind of an exciting proposition.  We’ll have to keep our eyes open for a used one we can afford.  There is also the matter of wood storage.  I need a woodshed that is closer to the stove than the opposite side of the house.  I am imagining bumping out the pass-through room, where I’m currently sleeping.  It’s right off the living room.  Take out the window, put in a door (French door, windowed, so there will still be some light) and create another room beyond that opens to the back.  Put a window in it so the pass-through won’t be dark as night.  Stockpile wood in there and it’s just feet from the stove.  This will work best when the upstairs room is done and I can move up there to sleep.

And, dreaming as if money were no object here, if there’s a room THERE, we might as well build up and extend the little bathroom upstairs off the master bedroom.  Create a dressing room/bathroom, a little boudoir.  I love it when a bathroom is big enough to put a comfy chair in it.

Of course all this will wait until K’s shop is built, and I don’t even know if we can afford it any time soon, and do I really want to take on chickens with these projects looming as well?  (Probably.)  Last night as I first wrote about this I was so discouraged and weary, I could only think of the downsides.  Touring is taking its toll this winter, as I knew it would.  Things will look more hopeful as the days get longer and there is SOME hope of this snow going away.

I got home late yesterday afternoon.  Smidge didn’t leave me alone for five minutes all night.  She jumped on my shoulders a dozen times, put her paws up against my legs, sat on my lap, sat on this little table looking at me for 45 minutes, watching me eat dinner, her eyes blinking sleepily.  I love her desperately.

I deal with the resentment of touring, go back and forth, maintain gratitude for the money coming in.  I feed the stove and stay warm.

I’m going through a lonely phase.  So bored with no flirtation, no interest, no romance, no sex.  It’s been 3-1/2 years since I even kissed anyone, let alone had sex.  I think, who would want me now anyway?  Oy.  Sure, honey, I’ll sleep with you.  Let me just get my mouth guard, my breathe-right strip, my earplugs, and my A&D ointment.  BRB.  Last month my body had the nerve to menstruate.  Just menopause already.

I’m taking some Prednisone to Florida with me, and will decide whether to knock back all the inflammation for a few days.  I haven’t had to do that in a long time, so I won’t feel hesitant if this continues to be agonizing.

Meanwhile it’s going to be a busy day and I have my list ready.  Might as well get to it.

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The Road, and the Woods

November 15, 2010 at 8:58 pm (Dreams, On the Road, Trading Time for Money)

Ay, yi yi.  My head feels stuffed with cotton.  We had two gigs yesterday and then drove back from Virginia, about 7 hours.  I got to bed around 4:30am.  That might be a record.

Chris arrived home having developed a nasty cold, so we were trying to keep everything sanitized, down to the steering wheel.  He was a trooper to drive most of the way home.  It’s partly because he drives the fastest of all of us and has a preference for getting home before dawn, but still.  I know he didn’t feel so well.

This is the hardest week, in a way.  I have to get in one day of work, be it tomorrow or Wednesday, because we depart Thursday again.   But the coming weekend is the last real tour of 2010.  Ironically, we’re going to Virginia again.  At least we have nothing Sunday so we’ll be able to get home that day at a reasonable hour.

Ah, the church bells are ringing 1:00.  I am so grateful to be home.

Aside from the usual too-hard beds and a weird, persistent lower GI discomfort all weekend, it was a good tour.

… Several hours later… Yes, good tour; it is difficult to reconcile appreciating the good moments within the all-encompassing loathing of even being on the road at all.  It plays dangerously with my sense of equilibrium.  As often as I feel gratitude for something — comfortable lodging, decent food, a great audience — I still question whether, given a do-over, I wouldn’t rather be done with it all now instead of next year.  We had a conversation about our common propensity to always wish things were other than how they are.  Chris was lamenting our extra 45 minutes of travel one afternoon when we had a hard time with directions to a place and had to retrace our steps 3 times.  “I’m stuck,” he said, “with the wanting things to be different.  There’s nothing I can do about this right now, so I should just sit back and accept it and be glad we’re not late for anything.  But I can’t let go of the wish to complain.”  He’s all about the “stories” we tell about our situations, the “perception” of the moment, as though there isn’t anything fundamentally true or solid about how we interpret what’s happening.  I rather think all our narratives are true, on the other hand.  I have an immediate desire to stop him calling my experience a story.  Like he’s accusing me of making up something that has no validity.  But then, that’s just my interpretation of what he’s saying, isn’t it?

We played without sound systems all weekend.  It’s freeing, though my voice isn’t very loud and I have to play more softly and be sure not to push too much and ruin my throat.  So much gushing after, so many comments and people talking through tears and asking why we’re stopping touring and, gee, it looks like we have nothing scheduled in December so why couldn’t we just come down to D.C. one weekend and do this one more house concert?  They have no idea in the world of what is involved.  Carol didn’t even try to explain.  And the whole three days, my guts complaining, my hands flaring and needing bandaids, trying to get at least the minimum amount of real rest needed to remember chords and words and order and, oh, be funny also and engaging and smile a lot and turn on the charm.  And pack and unpack and strip the bed and get out of the bathroom if somebody needs it and remember your inhaler.

I find it increasingly difficult, at the end of a tour of just a few days, to remember where we played and stayed at the beginning.  More and more the places blur together.  I used to try to keep a file of these things, notes for next time, so as not to be embarrassed.  Then I kept forgetting to write in it, and now, well, all these gigs are for the last time, so there’s no real need to even keep up recording the set lists.  It is a tiny relief in a sea of grudging obligations.

One concert (and a service the following day) was at a really sweet 1890 church that was built by freed slaves, in Leesburg, Virginia.  I took pictures of the windows and the beadboard because I have been making sketches for a little retreat cabin in my woods.  Behind this church was a children’s playhouse, a rectangular one-room affair like a miniature version of the church.  It was just darling and I got a lot of ideas from that.  My friend Jonnie in Texas renovated a bungalow a few years ago which had a large potting shed in the back.  She turned it into a painting studio, and called it the “Shedio.”  My cabin would be a larger version of that — no electricity, no plumbing, but big enough to have a loft sleeping space and a sitting area with a small wood stove at the other end. The location in mind is far enough from the house that, in summer when the trees are in leaf, it wouldn’t really even be seen from the main yard or driveway.  I consider not telling the town and so avoiding taxes, but when it comes down to it, I may well decide it’s better to apply for a building permit and acquiesce to all their documentation demands, which I’m sure would be pesky.  I’m not as renegade as my brother-in-law in that regard.  He’d probably hide it and not apply.  I’ll entertain the thought as it will give me some satisfaction, but no doubt proceed like a good citizen in the end.

It is Fall, and that means the new tax rates have gone into effect.  As a result, our mortgage went down by about $90 a month.  We’re pleased.

Incidentally, speaking of my property, I walked the perimeter on the south side for the first time and discovered a little sort of clearing where someone clever, once upon a time, had made a perfectly round little fire pit of stones.  I thought it must have been used by the sons, back in the 60s or 70s, but there was trash around it –  beer cans and newspaper dated just two months ago.  Ashes in the pit, under fallen leaves.  Someone has been trespassing!  And lighting fires and drinking beer in my woods.  I cleaned it up and plan to disassemble the fire pit and remake it elsewhere, nearer the house.  I felt violated, wanting to spring into action.  Fence!  Signs!  Border patrol!  How dare they??  But you know, it’s nowhere near the house, a little ways behind a small apartment building, and I can see how some young persons would think it’s cool and all right to drink and hang there as long as nobody knows about it.  It may not look like private property to them.  But, guess what, kids?  You’re busted now.

(Taking deep, calming breaths)

Incidentally, the little retreat cabin wouldn’t be in the same area.  No worries about anyone stumbling upon it.

It has given me joy to think about this wild space, this snug little chapel, even though its making is in line after the chicken coop and bunches of other work that must be done here first.  I’m thinking long term.  I’m thinking about the day I come back from the last tour — that will be England, the end of May — and sit here at my window looking out at the Spring, knowing that every day for the rest of my life I can be here, attending to this place.  Creating retreats, works of art in the woods.  Homage to the fairies; company for the Standing People.

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Need a Mouse? Take a Mouse.

October 18, 2010 at 6:47 am (Dreams, Home)

After a sparsity of rodents over the last couple of weeks, I suddenly caught four in a 24-hour period.  The last two were caught simultaneously downstairs on the Balance Beam, their favorite place.  I had but two traps left set, and just before bed I went to check and both were occupied.

Good grief!

They’re coming in from the cold.  Now they’re both in the Traveling Hotel, where they spent the night.  One’s only half grown.  Great; the rest of the litter must be in the walls somewhere.

I finally got the brainstorm (HELLO, light dawns over Marblehead) to follow that beam to any logical entry hole in the basement.  They won’t all be plugged this year, but maybe I can make a little headway.  Unfortunately the bulkhead is old and rusty and there are various cracks in the concrete etc. where they might be entering.  And there are so many rotting clapboards, of course.  Tom the painter helped me put up the two remaining downspouts yesterday, and as we screwed one of the clamps into the side of the house, it split the clapboard and tugged it out a little as the screw twisted in.  There will be some replacements next year.

The good news is that I found the elusive trim board that needs replacing on the end of the house.  Karl had taken it off last year, but not made another one, as it requires some fancy shaping and he has no shop yet, ergo no big tools set up.  But Window Man might be able to do it.  I’ll saw another piece off (we lost our last sample somewhere) and take it to him next time I pick up storms.

Yesterday was very productive, for being a day when I was determined to do nothing.  I did not get my Day of Loafing, but it was perfect weather for a little groundskeeping.  Tom called in the late morning and asked if I wanted him to come and paint, so of course I said yes.  The front of the large part of the house now has primer and one coat of paint on it.  I tell you, this white paint is WHITE.  The house practically lights up.  He’ll finish the second coat today.

Meanwhile there were Things to do.  One of my English Ivy plants has long been rootbound.  It’s been yellowing and losing a lot of leaves.  I finally took it outside and, after much labor (and clever use of a bread knife) managed to get it out of the pot, in a hard, rooty lump.  I couldn’t see any other  solution than to saw off some of the root mass, add fresh soil, and replace it in the same pot.  I’ve trimmed it enough so that it doesn’t need that many roots.  We’ll see if I just shocked it or if it will now thrive again.

The lantanas I dug up last week are quite traumatized from having a few roots broken (and not nicely, either; I should have brought scissors and done it cleanly, but I ended up tugging at whatever I couldn’t dig around, and snapping a few), but I’m hopeful that after the die-off they’ll regrow.  It was more difficult than I expected to get them out of the ground.  The roots weren’t necessarily deep, but they went wide.  Poor things; all their flowers have died in just a few days, the leaves are droopy, and they look pathetic.  But I’ve had jasmines come back from worse states, and they’re not that hardy.  Lantanas are pretty strong.

After that little chore, and in between trips next door to switch laundry around, I got out the loppers, rake and wheelbarrow and cut back some of the forsythia in back of the house.  It’s spread so much that there is hardly room to walk around the back corner.  We think it’s mainly volunteer anyway; there is stuff behind it that looks mindfully planted, like an old azalea that’s just about choked by everything around it, and somewhere back there is another tall, spindly dogwood.  All that is going to be cleared out as soon as Karl has time to bring over a large earth-moving machine or possibly the tractor and a chain.  I’ve got my eye on that corner for a chicken coop.

Sigh; the chicken coop.  I don’t see how I’ll have time to make it this year.  I’m around so little in November.  And I don’t want to cobble together some quick, ugly thing, either.  I want to design it, make it with care.  Make it a piece of art.  Maybe I can pay Pearl to raise a few Spring chicks for me and then take them by the end of June.

That is, if my family is still together next door.  What in the world will happen… Rose is still on the fence, needing to vent often about everything that Karl isn’t and doesn’t do.  Yesterday was their anniversary.  They had a nice day going to the farmers’ market and some flea markets, but as usual she arranged the day so it would be observed somehow.  Karl traditionally doesn’t observe special days; doesn’t give birthday presents, cards, etc.  Obviously there’s some psychology there related to his upbringing, or self image, or something, but that’s been known from the beginning.  It’s not a surprise.  But Rose was particularly saddened, in these unsure times, that he hadn’t made any effort to at least get her a card for their anniversary.  Yes, he’s clueless in some ways.  But I see that he shows caring in a hundred other ways.  Caring to the point of neediness.  Somehow that’s no longer all right with her.

In an exchange we had last night, she wrote, “I’m just needing to vent.  I guess I knew what he was when I picked him up.”  She was referencing the parable about the snake/scorpion who bit/stung the boy/woman who kindly brought it across the stream/river/flood (various versions, obviously).  “You knew I was a scorpion when you picked me up.”  I replied, “Maybe you didn’t know what you were when you picked him up.”

And herein lies the truth as far as I’m concerned:  Rose has always married too quickly, judged too soon, and not taken time in between to return to herself.  After her last divorce she got a condo and lived on her own for the first time in many years, winner of a perfect opportunity to get to know Rose as just Rose.  Within a year she’d moved out and in with Karl already.   If I hadn’t liked Karl so much I’d have continued to worry.  But I, too, thought, “Maybe this time she’s hit on the perfect match.”

I continue to enjoy Karl’s friendship/kinship immensely and am so saddened at the thought of losing this contact with him.  He is so much fun to do projects with, and I’ve valued our commutes to work.  I end up thinking, “He’s such a great guy; it’s a shame she married him.”  Meaning, if it had remained a friend relationship, it might be easier to continue it.  But then, we wouldn’t be in these houses doing these projects anyway.  The Sisters compound would never have happened.  It’s quite confusing.

And on and on.  We’re having dinner tonight while K. is at shooting practice.  Meanwhile I am late for getting ready for work.  The light is just creeping into the sky.  Leaves all over the lawn (I just mulch them in with the mower), trees looking bare-ish.  It’s just gorgeous out there.

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That’s It, I’m an Empath

September 8, 2010 at 6:32 am (Dreams)

James suggested I look for the brilliant and mad “Drunk H1st0ry” videos on U-Tube, so I’ve been watching a few.  They are not only funny but… fascinatingly, um… well, they’re like Mensa-level pranks.  They find someone who is really smart and knows a lot about a certain historical event or person, then have them drink an alarming amount of alcohol and tell the story in their own words.  Then they get semi-famous actors to reenact the story over the smart drunk person’s narrative, lip synching all the dialogue.  If the narrator says, “Yo, bro,” Ben Franklin or whoever has to say, “Yo, bro.”  If she hiccups, the character has to hiccup.  Start with this one about Abraham Lincoln:

Dar is sleeping better, finally.  Meanwhile I had an unusually restless night.  I did go to bed earlier than usual, because I was SO tired all day.  Then… couldn’t fall asleep.  The pillows weren’t quite soft enough, the bed not exactly enfolding enough.  I dozed lightly on and off, and toward the end actually had some memorable dreams (there were rooms in my house I hadn’t even been in yet! And a section of wall that had a sort of big cut-out diamond shape with a fitted piece of wood that pivoted around on the right and left corners — and two older ladies that lived on the other side and were used to just coming into that room and practicing the grand piano.  I caught them there and told them it was time for them to leave.  Layers and layers of meaning I don’t have time to ponder now), but I was hot and cold — thought I had a fever at one point, but no aches — and finally got up at a quarter to five.  After bathing I caught a baby cricket in the bathroom and stepped outside to let it go.  It was still dark and starry, with scudding clouds.  I stood on the stoop naked, looking with my blurry vision up at the sky, squinting, discerning what I could of the heavens.  I was clean and it felt so good to just stand out there for a few moments, free, in the privacy of my wooded hill.  I am so blessed to live here.

But I’m still really tired.

********

The thing about the Drunk H1st0ry videos is that, though I haven’t been extremely drunk since I was about 14 years old, except for a short period after my crazy abusive ex boyfriend committed suicide in 1997, I remember that feeling and by the time I’m done watching a story I’ve taken on some of the unease that accompanies that level of inebriation.  I have to breathe and remind myself that I’M not drunk, I’m not sick, I’m not spinning and helplessly altered.  Then, after expressing compassion and concern about Dar’s sleeplessness, I have the first almost-sleepless night I’ve had in years.  I think I’ll start hanging around with rich, enlightened people and letting some of that rub off on me!

Anyway I made a (small) start on learning bass parts last night, after a lengthy update to the computer and some data entry and other little business.  Tonight I have to make an effort at revising the band bio, unless Karl wants to run conduit for the demo’d bedroom, in which case I’m all over that.

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