Toad Herding for Fun and Profit

Yesterday night, my flimsy building key stopped working, and I was locked out of my apartment.  This was a bummer because I live alone and had no one to call and let me in at 10 pm. 

This morning, I called to arrange for a new key, and we agreed it could be shoved under my garage door, though the trauma of smashing the crap out of my finger in said door on Saturday was fresh in my mind. 

I got home and opened the garage door, looking for my ticket into the building, and a mid-sized toad hopped in and promptly got itself stuck thinking there was No Escape even though three directions were open to it.  It kept hopping further and further along the wall when it wasn't playing the If I Don't Move the Large Thing Menacing Me Will Forget I'm Here and Go Away and Leave Me in Peace game.   

I suspect that toads are not one of the brightest species in the ecosystem. 

There was no way I was going to just close the door and let the thing die and stink up my garage.  I tried to gently herd it out, and it just wasn't working until a lady walked by and, attracted by the sound of a possibly crazy person waving her hands and cell phone at the ground and trying to be some sort of toad whisperer, stopped to get a better look. 

I explained my problem.  She laughed at me as I kept trying to humanely get rid of my newly acquired amphibian, but she eventually got fed up and whacked that sucker back out into the driveway with a hand like a trowel. 

I was horrified as I watched it tumble and come to a dusty and very final stop, sure she'd killed the silly thing whose only crime was being stupid and confused.  After heart-stopping seconds of being stunned, it rolled over.

"It's alive!" I thought and rejoiced until it hopped toward my garage.  I stomped and waved it away and closed the door before any more drama or trauma ensued.  The woman walked away laughing as I thanked her.

I watched the toad as, at a loss, it headed back out into the middle of the parking lot where it hopped in strange, possibly concussed polyhedrons for a while, despite my encouragement to get out of the place where cars go.  I washed my hands of him eventually, as he seemed destined to end up flattened by someone's tire.

Good night, sweet toad.  May flights of angels sing thee to they rest.  One way or another.

Out again? Alas . . .

.
 I am almost out of ibuprofen.  Again.  It's discouraging.

Can you identify the item in question from this lineup?

 I always hope each new bottle of ibuprofen will be the last.  It never has been.  I started collecting them in 2007 in case a photo op like this one arose.

Yes, I'm having too much fun with this.

Some day, when the ibuprofen bottle I buy is the last, will I be able to type novels-worth of words again when I desire? 

Maybe.  Or maybe I won't be pain-free until I get to heaven.  That could be a long time.  And a lot of ibuprofen.  Sigh.

. . .

Yesterday perfection

.
Took a walk
Made progress
Hung up sun catchers and pointless, gauzy curtains
Organized
Finished a book
Swept the floor
Saw a tiny, nearly translucent frog hop away to avoid being crushed by the opening door
.

Musings on a weekend when I'm (still) unpacking

.
Robert Frost said
good fences
make
good neighbors.

I think loud air conditioners
do the same thing.
.

When summer acts like fall

Two perfect fall days in a row in August so far as it tries to make up for the horror of July.  When summer acts like autumn, I have to resist the urge to go find a patch of grass under a tree and just lie there doing nothing for hours.

I can't do nothing yet because I'm still puttering in the new place.  All the books are unpacked and sorted.  My study area is set up.  The living room area is bearable and traversable (sp?).  Now I can also enter and exit the bathroom without contortions, and there's really just one last hurrah of a pile by the door that needs to somehow move out to the garage (super old files I need to keep but will not likely be accessing ever).  I may be completely unpacked by this weekend, which would be so glorious.

Just in time to start getting serious about planning for my class that starts the last week of August . . .  Don't worry; it's only a half class, so there shouldn't be any meltdowns this term.  Good times.

Looking forward to autumn,
TMIA

Inhabiting new spaces

What I know about my new apartment:

• I have some very kind neighbors who help without even being asked.  (Some of them even before I pass them looking pathetic.)
• It's easier to like my neighbors when I have the AC on because then I can't hear them.
• The sliding toilet seat of doom will either improve my posture or destroy my sanity.
• I don't mind sleeping on the floor, and neither does my back.
• Over 90 degrees with matching humidity is a bit of a chore for the poor AC for some reason.
• I want to be done unpacking.
• The stairway I prefer sings if you walk up too fast.  (It also smells less of cat wee.)
• I still love alphabetizing, despite the pain.
• When I am done unpacking, there will likely be fewer bruises.  I sincerely hope.
• It is unfortunately likely that I will fall down the stairs at some point; it will then be rather difficult to navigate the labyrinth I have made out of this apartment.  (High priority: getting bed frame put together, so I can finish shifting and unpacking, so there will be enough clear space for me to negotiate with a cast, should the need arise.)
• I have a freezer again, and it is marvelous.  Once I clean off the stove, I can even make use of the freezer's few inhabitants.
• I still can't hang things straight.

Signing off clutching my checklists,
TMIA

in case you were wondering

I fell off the face of the earth due to packing for a move, moving, and unpacking.  I'm still unpacking, but there may be a return to our regular posting schedule soon . . .

abundance

.
This week I have been blessed
by the sight of an undeserved
abundance of cranes,
one perfect summer day,
a couple of good books,
bad news, good news,
and the anticipation of seeing
friends I only see once a year.
.

being attentive

.
I watched the rainbow as it started to disappear,
but then the kids started yelling, so I turned away,
and when I looked back, it was gone.

Have you ever seen a rainbow disappear all the way
to the bitter end?  Maybe rainbows are like fairies
in that Peter Pan play, fueled by belief, killed so easily

by distraction -even a moment- that results in (if not
disbelief) unbelief or something like it; not active
disbelieving but passive not believing not focusing, not
being attentive
.

Summer in June

.
Every day on the way home
my dead trees stand at the edge
of the marsh shocking
as nude bathers on a clothed beach
.

what we learned (from the EMG)

It is perhaps not surprising that when one runs electric current through nerves that are working just fine, thank you, (and sometimes overtime) said nerves twitch and transmit more pain signals for days.  (Yes, that's my excuse for nearly a week's absence of posting.)  By now, the purple marker dots where the nerves run have faded, but the bruises are still here.

So more physical therapy ahead if this new, aggressive doctor can convince OWCP that his new diagnosis is related to the original injury all those years ago.  I wish him good luck in his quest, and I really hope he has better luck than any before him.  If he does, maybe I can think that the reason why my ideal job fell through so devastatingly is because I need to be here working with this doctor because maybe he can help heal me as no one else has been able to so far. 

I seem to look for meaning in everything that happens to me once I get over the initial knee-jerk reaction, but I have such a short attention span, I usually forget before I can be disappointed if my wished for meaning doesn't come.

In other news, it's summer, and the sun came out today, so I lay outside and basked and read a book and forgot my watch, and it was a really good book, so pardon me while I go get some more aloe . . .

the tyranny of cottonwoods in June

.
ponds full of summer scum
puddles fuzzed with cottonwood fluff
handfulls of white down collect in every corner
.

How not to fall in love with a house

How not to fall in love with a house

• Don't meet the neighbors.
• Don't measure anything. 
• Don't think about exactly how things will best fit.
• Don't like the closets.
• Don't think about how you'll clean it.
• Don't think about how lovely the tree in the front yard will smell in spring.
• Don't notice all the places you could walk to (book store, another book store, library, Panera, Home Depot, park, every restaurant I ever go to).
• Don't notice how quiet it is. 
• Don't notice the pond and the turtles and the ducks.
• Don't think about what life will be like when you live there and not where you live right now.
• Just don't.

Hope sproinging eternal in rooms with perceived low ceilings

The sleep doctor has spoken.  I still have some work to do with being disciplined enough to get up when I'm supposed to no matter how tired I am (because I will always be tired, and lying in bed NOT sleeping for an extra half hour will not make me any less tired).  However, if I can't get this pain and nerve weirdness under control, it will keep waking me up a lot every night and interrupting what sleep I can get.

So I went to see a pain specialist.  He is very aggressive, has an idea for a diagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome (TOC), which, like chronic pain, is kind of a divisive diagnosis in the medical community.  Some believe it's real; others don't.  Of course I couldn't have a single, definitive, concrete diagnosis!  What were you thinking, you silly person?

Next up is a fight with OWCP about another EMG.  EMGs are extremely unpleasant.  Seriously unpleasant.  And he wants me to have it done for both arms, something that should have been done the first time to establish a baseline.  (Now that my right hand is falling apart, it might actually show something worse than the left, so I think it will not be useful as a baseline.)  Oddly enough, the MRI was approved right away; it's kind of eerie, actually.  I'm not sure what to do with this unexpected lack of a predictable road block.  The new doc seems unfamiliar with OWCP, which could be a good thing.  He might not know what can and can't be done, so he might be able to accomplish impossible things through sheer force of will.  More power to him for having the forward momentum going! 

If it gets approved, I'll have to schedule it late in the day because I will not be able to go back to work after I have it done.  I won't even be able to drive myself back home to curl up into a twitching ball for the rest of the day. 

At least my arms are in really bad shape right now.  (Your prayers for the bad spell's continuation until after the test would be appreciated, oddly enough . . .)  If something's torn or whatever in the nerves, it might be more likely to show up now, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for the simple result.  If it's not TOC, I'm sure this doctor will keep looking.  He wants a real, solid diagnosis; he seems to think I really want one, too.  Sometimes I think it would be good to have one: when someone asks, I could tell them something more concrete than "chronic pain and probably something tiny and irreparable torn in my wrist."  Maybe I would care more about a diagnosis if I expected it to be something curable, but I don't.    The good thing about low expectations is that you often get pleasant surprises . . .

I also don't expect OWCP to accept any new diagnosis without a fight.  The good news is that, as I mentioned earlier, this new doctor seems like he'd be willing to wade into the fray and give them a fight.

Housing for the discouraged

So the buying a house thing also fell through.  I got tired of dealing with banks that were theoretically desperate to get rid of properties but unwilling to do so in practice.  I took another look through my last apartment search for something

• big enough to fit the books I'm currently storing offsite
• that had wood floors to help reduce my allergies
• that was cheaper than what I pay now (I have my rent and the monthly fee for the storage closet where I store all my books)

Surprisingly, I actually found something.

What I'm looking forward to

• more room for my kitchen magnets (not really)
• a freezer (frozen vegetables!)
• room for all my Minnesota books
• 670 square feet
• not being over the entrance (no more feeling every entry and exit, no more smoking below my window!)
• Open south windows
• a bedroom I can seal off to allergy-proof it
• less claustrophobia for those who visit
• not living next to the stairs (no more hearing all those giants clomping up and down all the time)
• lower rent
• not being right next to a highway (no more listening to the drag racers!)
• quieter living (stern, tough grandmother manages the place, and she doesn't tolerate noise)
• no bugs (apparently, they don't like going much higher than the first floor)
• playing with where to put stuff for maximum efficiency in use of storage space (graph paper!)

What I'm not looking forward to

• no microwave (for the 4 times a year I kind of need one)
• no dishwasher (good thing I don't use very many dishes)
• no disposal (does anyone have any experience with how to keep the sink from getting clogged?)
• 2 flights of stairs
• coin laundry
• coin laundry two flights of stairs away
• trying to find a cheap bed
• packing for the move
• the move
• the pain
• worrying about other people getting hurt during the move
• the need to get a portable AC for the bedroom since the AC is in the living room
• manual garage door
• coordinating the move, so it's as cheap as possible

Any advice on how to make this all as painless as possible?

imperfect

.
this is how spring kills:
branch dangles broken beneath
weight of blooming flowers
.

Mid-May

.
right now
this minute
go

stand
under that
crabapple tree
in bloom

enjoy
the scent
of heaven

stronger than
the stink
of the city
around you
.

today I want to believe

today I want to believe
fortune cookie fortunes are true

"You are headed in the right
direction.  Trust your instincts."

but they are so often wrong

My plans for the holiday

My plans for the holiday include
recovery from this cold
     (can you bore a virus to death?)
nothing constructive or practically valuable
reading, anime, manga
no significant interactions with other human beings
rest

Winter Carnivals and other insanities

What do you do when it's below freezing, winter is well underway, and you're going stir-crazy from being inside all the time?  If you live here, you have an outdoor winter carnival with a parade that makes those marching band kids actually appreciate their ancient wool uniforms!  And that parade lasts for more than three hours.  Oh boy!

So my friends who moved here last year took me to this event along with their tiny toddler, and we adults all gained a new appreciation for the joy of hot air balloons.  When they set off those jets, you feel like you're not actually frozen solid.  (Just nearly frozen and very, very stiff.) 

Their child is hilarious, very solemn in strange situations.  Not worried or afraid, merely extremely dispassionately observant.  I have no idea if she had a good time, but I sure got a huge kick out of watching numerous parade participants come over (with candy or necklaces or clown costumes and big, fake smiles) and totally fail to get any kind of reaction out of the child at all.  It's not like she ignored them; she just looked at them and really didn't see the need to get all jolly or anything.  It was still funny after two and a half hours and a couple dozen attempts.  I am so easily amused.

We actually left long before it was over because I guess we all just reached that point where we agreed, "This is ridiculous.  It's a parade that will never end, and we are built for other climes."

I think we still had to wait until the next hot air balloon float came by to thaw us enough to begin walking.

What do you do when winter makes you get cabin fever?