Reading & Pino Lella

The remarkable Pino Lella

As my appointment was winding down, Dr. Shoja started speaking. She opened with, “Going forward…,” and as she continued to talk, I sensed she was going to offer me ongoing support and I lost it. I started weeping and trembling, overwhelmed by my good fortune to know her and to have the opportunity to resume therapy with her. I felt prodigious relief and joy.

She is an ideal therapist; she’s a wonderful human being. She’s welcoming, warm, highly attentive and she remembers everything; she oozes sympathetic understanding. I am so, so fortunate to have her assistance. I absolutely adore her, and I’m thrilled to be back in her care. 

At her suggestion, I went to the local dispensary to get some CBD oil to try in the evenings to diminish dreaming; my dreams are driven by anxiety and often have me waking emotionally spent. Well…that was a mistake. I won’t be using CBD oil before bed again.

Last night I had the worst nightmare of my life. As I’ve heard is always the case, I awoke just as I was about to be crushed by massive churning machinery. And I awoke rife with hives. I had to slather myself in Cortisone cream to stop the incessant itching.

One informative outcome of my session with her yesterday was to learn that this incredible warmth I’ve been feeling that has me spending this winter coatless whenever it’s not raining, is due to my anxiety. I had no idea that it was anxiety heating me up.

Well…enough of that.

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Today, I make bread and await news of whether or not a Vancouver television station contacts me for an interview about Biden, a stutterer, being president. And, of course, Her Highness and I will enjoy our outdoor time. It hasn’t rained for just over a week, so the trails are lovely and dry.

It’s predicted to rain today, be sunny again until Saturday and then there’s a chance we’ll have snow on Sunday and Monday. I hope we don’t!

All time not spent walking and baking will be spent in the latest book I’m reading—like The Nightingale, Beneath a Scarlet Sky, by Mark Sullivan, is another book about wartime resistance heroes. War is a subject I’ve no interest in; it’s too sad. But I’m captivated by these stories wherein war is the backdrop and in the foreground are stories of human magnificence. 

Under a Scarlet Sky is about a real person whom Sullivan was able to interview extensively, and he visited all the major sites of the story, making his novel richly visual. I’m in awe of the protagonist, Peno Lella. 

Thank God for awesome books! I’m bored, bored, bored with television and movies—well, except for All Creatures Great & Small.