Tales from the Shark Tank

Everyone in the house is sick, to greater or lesser degree. Today was a snow day; the phone call from the alert system telling us this came at 5:30 a.m., and woke our boychick – which meant that whether I intended to be awake or not, I was getting up every seven minutes. And as Murphy would have it, last night was one for rodent-wheel insomnia. (You know, the kind where the brain is spinning off to nowhere, but won’t shut up? Yeah, I thought you did.) I am sick and tired of being sick and tired and in a rotten mood. I don’t even want to be on the same planet as me. So you who talk to me, be it occasionally or regularly? Consider yourself warned.

Here endeth the kvetch.

Thinking this morning was just plain strange. I woke up with a migraine, which is never a good way to start a day. But I’d promised to sub at the high school, so I took something that wouldn’t make it go away entirely but would at least let me keep my eyes open and drove off. When I have a migraine my thoughts sometimes seem to whirl as if run through a blender, and today was no exception. I started out thinking that if I knew which deity attended to headaches I would be petitioning for their intervention. That drifted into thoughts of role-gaming, wherein a character of mine once learned the limitation of a “spell” to locate something when she got an arrow pointing toward her goal – straight toward it, without regard for mortal limitations in getting from point “A” to point “B”. Then a raven flapped up from the field and settled on a tree by the road just ahead of me. Drift from there to the “100 word story” challenge my friend Li is working on, to write complete stories of 100 words or less.

Strange things happen when the mental blender turns itself on. This is one of them.

As The Crow Flies

“How am I to cross this?” I asked irritably as the arrow flashed at the bluff’s edge. Goddesses don’t whisper well, but She tried. “You asked for a direction. I’m pointing. What’s wrong?”

“If you hadn’t noticed, I lack wings, feathers, or flight. This is the Boundary Sea for a reason.”

“Why?” She seemed genuinely curious.

“It’s impassible, that’s why!” I shouted in exasperation. Deities! I should have tried to find a boat. Next thing I knew, sea winds ruffled my feathers. “Morrigan” I shrieked, but heard only a harsh “Caw!”

“Now what?” came querulously. “You can cross. What more do you want?”

I shut my beak and flew.

Back last summer, my friend Cori began her own blog. A career public defender, that is among the things she writes about.

It turns out there is someone who follows P.D. blogs and has come up with an award called “The Rodneys“, so named for comedian Rodney Dangerfield, whose trademark phrase was “I don’t get no respect”.

Cori was nominated (I don’t know by whom, other than that it wasn’t me) in two categories: “Best Design” and “Best New P.D. Blog”. She won both of them. I am so happy for her that had my garments any buttons, they would be in dire danger of popping off. I looked at the other nominees, and she fully earned this.

Mazel Tov, Cori!

I just saw someone cruise past our house on a snowmobile. He’s running on the half-inch of additional snow that has fallen on the road since it was fully clear. There is so little snow that I could, if I wished to, walk on it in clogs without getting my heels wet. Snowmobiling on that seems remarkably silly to me, somehow.

Life is pretty quiet at the moment. I finally got to spend a weekend at home, cut out a couple of things I want to sew, put backing on an embroidery project I had otherwise finished a good ten months ago, and generally did things that I enjoy. (This is of course in contrast to things I need to do, like housekeeping.) Everything isn’t resolved; in fact very little is resolved, but everything is kind of at stasis for now.

I can only conclude I’ve been living my life at an appalling stress level for far too long, because instead of simply enjoying the peace I find I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop. Note that I don’t say the other shoe. There are already a great many more than a single pair of shoes scattered about the metaphoric floor. I was thinking about that, and I’ve concluded that there must be a centipede living in an alternate dimension nearby, dropping its shoes one by one. It must be the Imelda Marcos of centipedes, too, because even for a centipede it has disposed of a lot of shoes. It’s been working on getting rid of them for years now. I just wish I could think of a way to communicate that where it is dumping its problem-shoes isn’t a closet, it’s my life. I doubt its malicious – instruments of fate generally aren’t. I suspect it’s just unaware. But interdimensional communications being what they are – or aren’t – I know of no way to convey that message. So I guess I’m just stuck keeping one ear cocked for the sound of falling shoes, and reminding myself to relax until they fall.

It has been said of me that I will be late to my own funeral. While I hope that in particular is true, it is also true that timeliness is, shall we say, not one of my distinguishing characteristics. Somehow I never manage to calculate correctly, and I don’t think there’s much hope of my learning it now. But while my list of things for which I’m thankful is late, and incomplete almost by definition, it is no less heart-felt.

I’m grateful for:

Squeaky scraps of calico fur that climb the human instead of running away, growing to be silky purr-balls that give endless affection and amusement.

My chosen family, the friends who are as close or closer than many of my blood relatives. I have the most amazing, incredible friends in this or probably any other galaxy. They know what they’ve done, and that I do not take it for granted.

Modern medicine, for myself and those I most love.

The strong, fabulous women who choose to call me “mama”.

My son, who has found his way out of the shell of autism to be an affectionate, articulate, loving, creative and intelligent boy. I look at him now in amazement, remembering how he had to be taught interactive and creative play.

My husband, who not only understands my nature but is both willing to let me do what I feel I need to do and able to tell me when to back off for the sake of self-preservation.

Solvency. I will never take it for granted again.

A creative mind that often doesn’t even perceive “the box”, let alone have trouble thinking outside of it.

The clarity of memory that sharpens my appreciation of present blessings.

My in-laws.

Soft plump cats who follow me from room to room and purr.

A sense of humor.

Skill enough to garner notice in an assortment of crafts, and the opportunity to indulge in them.

And eye that can appreciate beauty, and the skill with words to convey that to others.

Misty days that make everything look like an impressionist painting.

Down comforters on cold nights.

Warm cuddly husband on cold nights. (Also on other nights, but this is a family blog.)

And that will do to go on with. There’s a lot more, of course, but I want to get this posted sometime before the next decade officially starts.

My dad had an appointment with his surgeon/ oncologist this morning to discuss further treatment options. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, Dad was “indisposed” when it was time to go and somewhat beyond. So….

Mom went to his doctor’s appointment. Without him.

Someone on LiveJournal has come up with an idea for “Pretend to be a Time Traveler” day. The general notion is to costume yourself and pretend to be someone from either future or past dropped into current society. It sounds kind of fun, but more like “fun to watch” than “fun to do”. It’s not that I’m settling down a bit as I near my half-century, though. I’d have enjoyed creating a character but would never have had the nerve to actually do it in public, or at least not unless I was part of a large group.

I had a professor in college who gave us an assignment somewhat along this line, though. He said we could choose three items from our current closet, and one object. Then we were to tell where and when we would be landing as time travelers from the mid 20th c., what we were wearing and what we would do to make a place for ourselves in the society, preferably without being denounced as witches. (Lower case “w”, not upper case; neo-pagan Witches, as a religion, are a 20th c. invention.)

Now, I’ve been doing medieval reenacting since my mid teens, so my closet was about half-and-half everyday clothing and 12th c. Saxon. So I chose a light unbleached muslin underdress, a green linen overdress, and my (fake) fur lined wool cloak, along with the appropriate accessories – belt, small belt knife (stainless steel, of course), veil, amber and pearl necklace, and so forth. My “object” was a monster herbal that gave medicinal uses of several hundred different herbs along with instructions for preparation and use. Then I set myself down in the Jewish Quarter of York in the early 13th century, where I would have only a minimal language barrier, and set myself up as a midwife.

My professor gave me back my paper and told me to rewrite it, saying that while he knew I sewed, he had specified that I had to choose garments currently in my closet. I thanked him, took it, and went off to my next class. The next day I handed it back to him unchanged – but I was wearing the garments described, though I’d left the knife and veil off for practical reasons. Not only that, but it was clear that they’d been worn before, as they had a few small stains and had clearly been washed more than once. I have to give the man credit; he paused, stared a moment, and then burst out laughing, finally shaking his head and saying that the joke was on him for forgetting about the Society for Creative Anachronism. I also got an “A” on the assignment.