I moved to Nice to learn French when I was in my early twenties. It was the best year of my life, and I remember what joy I felt when I awoke one morning and realized that I had dreamt of myself speaking in French. I can’t remember how far into my year that it was when I had the dream, but next month I will hit the ten-year mark of living with a severe speech disorder and yet I have never had a dream wherein I was stuttering.
Last night I had a dream in which I was speaking fluently. Perhaps the reason that stuttering hasn’t become part of my language of dreaming is because I didn’t seek to stutter and I don’t want to stutter, but I was a passionate learner of French. An agenda item for Dr. Shoja and me.
Although it had rained in the night, it had stopped by the time I rose for another day in wonderland yeseterday. I was glad to be able to walk with Her Highness on a long trail. The dawn chorus was a symphony yesterday morning. A Barred Owl, woodpeckers, Jays, Robins, Thrushes; it was a cacophony of sounds, and it was glorious.
When we were done, we returned home for the day. I, to putter until lunchtime, Her Highness to sleep until lunch. I checked out our community Facebook page and was thrilled to discover that a fellow who runs a delivery service between Gabe and Nanaimo is starting a Saturday food pick-up and delivery service.
He’s arranged with an East Indian Curry restaurant, a Chinese food restaurant, and a sushi restaurant, to work with him. Every second Saturday he’ll fetch orders we place at the curry restaurants; the alternate Saturdays will be Chinese food. During the Summer, he’ll switch to sushi because the lineups for the ferry get so long, he won’t be able to keep food warm. I love this plan, and I plan to become a supporter.
I missed the sun all day yesterday, but the morning was much warmer than it has been for a long time. There’s a lot of rain in the forecast for the coming week. Sigh. But it didn’t rain all day yesterday so even our afternoon walk was dry. The change in the weather makes it easier to work on my taxes and do chores, as I am not inclined to go on three walks or long walks; I like staying close to the fire.
I washed my bed linen. It’s a big job because I must wash the large duvet cover separately from my sheets and pillowcases, and then I wash the bedspread on which Sheba sleeps and sometimes drools. It takes forever to wash it all, and then to put the bed together, but I did it and I could hardly wait to get into it when it was done.
I took some stuff to the shed, when I came back inside, the bed was covered, absolutely covered in little bits of something. I had to spend a good half-hour getting the little pieces of stuff off the bedspread that is velvet and holds onto tiny strands of crap. As I cleaned, I realized what had happened. Colleen opened our friendship gate in the fence and Sheba had been sleeping in a massive pile of sawdust in Colleen’s yard. She is rebuilding her bunky.
The kitchen, part of the living room and the bed required cleaning. There was sawdust and wood chips everywhere. This, after having cleaned the bed and vacuumed everywhere. I was pooped when I was done, so pooped that I kept getting dizzy when I was Zooming with Steve who’s just back from a month in Australia/New Zealand. After the call, I knew I was not going to do any SPACE work. I got on the couch to read until our afternoon walk. And then I read some more until dinnertime.
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It scares me how much I love Sheba. We are always together. She sleeps on my bed. She’s big; one of her parents was an enormous Bernese Mountain Dog. She comes by her heft honestly, and she is wonderful to hug. She’s so big, it’s like hugging a person. And that’s what she feels like to me, a person. She is my partner and I know her well.
Awareness of this makes me fear the day when …. I have Dr. Shoja to help me, and I have Fred and Ethel who will undoubtedly outlive Sheba. Fred, particularly, will be of great help because he is so rich with character. He talks to me all the time. He’s constantly in my face, and I’ve come to love his complexity.
I love Ethel too, of course. She is a classic feline. She is far more private than Fred. She has, though, learned to talk from Fred. She now calls to me when she wants something. I absolutely adore her because she likes to be near me a lot. They are all so different, but we are family.
It thrilled me the other day to watch Fred standing in front of Sheba who was lying on her side on the kitchen floor. Fred was right in Sheba’s face, howling at Sheba the way he often howls at me. I call it his command howl, but Sheba was non-responsive. There has never been any trouble between us except for when I first got Fred and Ethel. They hated each other, or Fred was freaked by her, and Ethel was forced to defend herself. The latter is more likely. I did what I was advised to do by the breeder and the vet; I put them in the guest bathroom and closed the door. They fought for two days, but then things turned and soon we were a cautious unit.
Late evening we had a very depressing time because dear Ethel had her fourth epileptic seizure. Her seizures are violent and very, very scary. When she seizes, I slip into a dreadful state because there is naught that I can do and my fear and powerlessness make me a bundle of shakes, jerks and tremors. She is fine this morning. She always makes a full recovery, but I lack confidence with each one that her recovery will be complete.
We will walk this morning in lovely mild temperatures but under a dark overcast sky. I’ll Zoom with Aidan and I’ll read. Here are some shots I took yesterday:
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| Above: Six Butterbut blooms. Below: One weird bloom. |
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| My small Cemellia tree. |
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| My Hellebores are blooming beautifully. |
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| My many Primroses are blooming. |
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| My Croci are blooming in many places in the yard. |
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I don't know that this is called, but it looks like
Forget Me Nots, but it's a large plant. |
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| Snowdrops. |
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| Daffs. |
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This is Sweet Boxwood. You can hardly see the tiny
blossoms, but the entire yard smells fabulously due
to them, It smells like Jasmine. |
