No Trellis: Rain!

Saturday morning started rough: Sheba wouldn’t stand or walk. I was freaked out but then I smelled something. I’ll spare you the details; I am now a Master Rear End Barber. 

Lesson Learned: Get a longhaired dog; you’ll become familiar with its anus. People say “holy shit” and “holy crap.” Why? What’s holy about stool? 

Lesson Learned: Get a longhaired dog; add rubber gloves to your emergency kit.

And speaking of lessons learned… I may have finally become a responsible water drinker. I count the glasses I drink per day. I’d not been drinking enough. 

And …

Lesson Learned (by singer Susan Boyle’s team): Choose Twitter handles carefully. She recently hosted a party to celebrate the released of her new album and her team tweeted out this hashtag:  #SUSANALBUMPARTY Is it because I’m gay I see anal bum party?

Lesson Learned (by the Cheltenham Literary Festival team): Its 2017 festival announcement hashtag was: #CLITFEST How does that happen? Does the literary festival have no editors?

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I went into the village for some food when it started to rain. It wasn’t heavy rain, but it was rain and I was glad for it. I loved the smell of the air. I was warm and it felt so healthy. I was thrilled for my garden.

Darrell cancelled; I was very happy to have the day alone and very happy with the rain. It was an extremely low energy day.

The day had one dreadful moment. Dr. Majic told me to do back stretches and so I contacted a physio to get some instruction because I did not want to do exercises incorrectly, but he’s not back from vacation yet.

I made the right decision. I really made the right decision because yesterday when my back was hurting, I decided to do a little stretch. I had been slumping so I decided to force my butt backwards. I did the stretch and held it and I must have cut off blood to my brain because I started to faint.

I reached for my alarm but didn’t push the button. I kept holding on, hoping I would stay conscious. It lasted seconds that felt like an hour and afterwards I had a sever fright hangover. No more stretching until I get instruction.

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DR wrote to tell me the birds have disappeared around her place as well and someone told her that it’s because they are nesting. When I think about it, birds probably prefer to feed their nestlings and fledglings insects. 

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After a week alone, I feel great again. I’ve learned a fair bit of late about myself, and about living with my condition and guests. Malcolm Gladwell’s “ten thousand hours” theory is well known; I’ve now lived 17,500 hours with “exquisite” stress. (I still cannot believe that medical term!) 

As I head into my final renovations and the finest weather of my first year here, I’m thankfully wiser. And once they are done I start just gently living here — living life “in the slow lane,” not taking on major projects. Just looking after this house that feels so big, my pets and welcoming guests.