Dwight Day

It’s Dwight arrival day. I’m so excited about that. But first I have to go through this agony of having to keep Ethel unfed whilst feeding Sheba and Fred. I hate it. I’ve been dreading today since I got my kitties. It’s spaying day for Ethel. She’s being very good but I have another four-and-a-half hours to go before I take her in.

That’s the good and the bad; the ugly is the weather.

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Rising at four am Thursday was fine thanks to ten hours of glorious sleep that began at six-thirty Wednesday night. I’d been exhausted from all the physical work and so much interrupted sleep; turning in bed is torture due to the pain in my neck/back.

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I’m glad I understand how my water system works. I thought: I’ve driven a car all these many years without ever having to understand its engine, why learn how the water system works? But I was wrong. I have increased confidence in my ability to live and manage my life here. I feel far more secure understanding how I get water.

After I had my muesli for breakfast yesterday — okay, okay, it was chocolate cake — I did all my laundry. And knowing that the water would be quickly and automatically replaced positively thrilled me. …Well not quite thrilled me — now there’s another problem. Another switch needs replacing because of the nature of my compressor. Rod has to come back a fifth time. And on it goes….

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At eleven-thirty, I had a meeting with Mitch of the local Arts Council at Mad Rona’s Café. Just before I was to go, I decided to shower and when I went into my bedroom I found my bed had been massively shit and urinated upon. Thank God I have water! I had to strip off all the sheets, the mattress guard and the cotton surrounding my memory foam mattress topper and do a serious laundry.

I knew why. I went to the cupboard where the litter box is and sure enough, it was closed. They had somehow closed it and could not get in to use their box.

Fred: “So, Ethel. Where should we take our dumps?”

Ethel: “Follow me.”

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The meeting with Mitch was super. He’s a charming man and it was my first time to Rona’s, a local institution. It’s a fabulous place. It’s super nice, comfortable and big with lots of comfortable chairs and garage-style doors that open in summer. And when I looked around, almost everyone was my age except the staff and Mitch.

Mitch is the person in charge of special events at the local Arts Council and I’m going to help him with writing and editing and I’m going to help Michelle, the AD, brainstorm fundraising. I told her about the self-portrait show we did for Artropolis and she loved that idea as a route to community involvement and mild fundraising.

Darrell the Great finished the window exterior and began installing insulation in the ceiling. Now we turn the heat on. Today he’ll add the vapor barrier (a plastic sheet) and then he’ll start on the Pine planking. The studio isn’t going to be a terribly pretty place; it’s a workplace. But I believe in the end that it will feel cozy once I get some decorations up and the new furniture comes. It will certainly be clean and warm: Yesterday I bought the wood stove that’ll go in a corner.

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I got another magazine from The Stuttering Foundation and a pattern is emerging. I always cry when I read it. It’s partly a good cry from experiencing a strong and positive “I’m not alone” feeling, and it’s partly sadness to have so severe an affliction.

Many stutterers are episodic; I’m not. Sometimes people like me are referred to as exquisite stutterers, sometimes as stutterers in the hundred percentile. I do everything ‘in extremis,’ so it doesn’t surprise me.

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But today is Dwight day. He arrives not too long after I take Ethel to the Vet’s.