slowly she turned

A little brain cobweb cleaning. I have had a nice relaxing morning at home and got a bit of house cleaning done. I’ve decided to start combing the felines with a flea comb everyday to get rid of some of that undercoat before the spring shedding spreads more of it around the house, and it will give me a heads up if I need to dose them with Revolution. Last year I did not have to deal with fleas at all, and I don’t like to dose them if it is not needed, no matter what the vet says. It was almost as if the universe said you have enough to deal with – I’m not adding fleas to it this year. Diego has twice the hair that Pablocito does. Fortunately he loves to be combed. Pablocito, not so much.

This week was intense for everybody in the world, especially the northern hemisphere, and I’m just mentioning the war in Ukraine for a reference point when I re-read this in the future. I think that it is worth mentioning as well that all refugees from war should be welcomed and helped, not just the ones from European countries. However, I’m not saying that to diminish the plight of the Ukrainians – it is truly horrible what is happening and I wish that the US and NATO would do more to help them.

We had a health scare this week – Sandy has heart problems again, although I guess that we shouldn’t be surprised since the heart is a muscle and he has polymyositis. He went to the cardiologist appointment by himself, and I am definitely going with him to the next one. He came home with a misinterpretation of his tests that sounded much more dire and he either neglected to ask some questions that needed to be addressed or he forgot the answers. Anyway, he was told to go on a low sodium diet and stop eating fast food and processed food. We’ll need to go grocery shopping with this in mind today, because he needs to learn to read labels, and he doesn’t like to cook. I don’t like to cook any more either, so this is not making either of us happy. I’m not home for lunch any more and he has to deal with this.

What really threw us is that his other lab work earlier this week came back great. His A1C is back to normal range, his cholesterol is much better, and his blood pressure is normal. But his heart is not pumping as it should.

I went with him to the pharmacy to pick up his new medication for this condition. He had been warned that it would be expensive and that his insurance might not cover this new one, but he had a coupon for the first month free. The pharmacy tech told him that his insurance (Medicare!) does not cover it. He asked how much it is without insurance and we were told a jaw-dropping $795 per month.

Another reason to move to Portugal. My god. Why are people so afraid of socialized medicine? When we are there I think that I will pop into a pharmacy and ask prices for some of our meds.

Anyway, his insurance company called and said that they would cover it yesterday but didn’t say how much the co-pay is. And he didn’t ask how long he might have to be on this medication, but my guess is that it won’t be forever if he makes some lifestyle changes.

I was going to do an alcohol-free weekend, which is normally not so hard for me, but I really want that one drink when I come home from work. I had a tough anxiety afternoon yesterday for no particular reason – I was thinking a lot about the past – and crying some – and just everything, all the things seemed to be piling up. As I neared home I could smell that Sandy was burning stuff in the fire pit, so I decided to walk down to the neighborhood store and buy a six-pack and have a beer back there. Lo and behold they had Smithwick’s down there – I was surprised! On the way back as I walked by the local bar I noticed two friends at the end of the empty bar near the door and stopped in. I have not been in this bar for years but it used to be our regular haunt. One of the friends is technically my pastor, although I don’t go to church anymore. It was nice to have a porter and talk with him. What a difference from the ministers I grew up with!

So there was a little bit of fire pit, and a little bit of front porch sitting, and a little bit of cooking, and we watched an episode of “Mom” that made me cry – dang – two sitcom episodes with funerals two days in a row!  I got a good laugh watching “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” on Thursday though because of Mrs. Weissman’s matchmaking client who, upon telling her that she had a loom, was told about “after marriage revelations” and then later that they would “destroy the loom.” I never knew! Luckily Sandy married me anyway.

I accomplished some of my goals this week – made GP and podiatrist appointments and cleaned up the studio some, found places to put the stuff I brought home from the Art Center print studio. I wove. I went to therapy. I’m doing better. It is helping.

I like to make pronouncements about my plans for the weekend on Saturday and the first day is half gone. The weather is lovely so I plan to do some yard work and not hurt myself doing it. I bought some lettuce seed and will plant some and later I will have some asparagus roots to plant in the “womb” garden in the back, so I’ll get it ready this week. This coming week is spring break so there won’t be many people or cars around. Maybe I should call the yard guy to see if he will come over since there will be street parking. I need to get my lake tapestry framed and ready to hang in the TWS show in June and not wait until the last minute since I won’t be around for most of May.

A friend posted about a Turner exhibition at the Boston Museum of Fine Art that will be up when we are there so we might meet him there on the free morning we have in Boston before we fly to Lisbon that night. That would be really nice. He and I went to high school together but only got to know each other through Facebook. I’ll just have to get the timing right in case we have to get tested while we are at the airport. Everything is changing so rapidly.

Wow, I wrote a lot, and I didn’t think that I had much to say!

Not a lot happened yesterday because I really got into reading My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry. I did weave a lot on Cathedral, but my good natural light bulb burned out and the photos are washed out. I’ll have to buy another bulb because it’s a kind that I don’t have extra in reserve. It’s harder to weave too because the quality of your light really makes a difference and I’m interpreting color as I weave, so finally I gave up and picked up a book.

I did get my work table cleaned off somewhat. At least you can see the table now. The painted wood panel on top of the cutting mats is meant to be a base that I’ll cover with found objects from Lake Waccamaw, but I can’t make up my mind how to proceed. Maybe I’ll make another and do two. At least I can do some prep work for Leighanna’s Zoom class that begins in a couple of weeks.

Could be that it will be a good sewing day. It is cloudy and rainy outside. I know that Sandy will push me to go do some errands with him – and he should, because I need to give input into some of the shopping – but I so much do not want to leave the house or even go outside. I started doing some little stitch meditations while listening to Zoom meetings this week. I’m not crazy about them, but not everything has to be good. It’s best to do anything rather than nothing.

I watched the movie CBGB this week – it had not been on my radar despite Alan Rickman starring in it. What a strange role for him – proves that he really could do anything. I had no idea what CBGB was, even though the Talking Heads and a lot of other bands I loved got their starts there. Then that sent me down a Talking Heads rabbit hole. Turned out the lyric I interpreted as heebie-jeebies was CBGB: “Life During Wartime.” Appropriate for this week.

So after listening to the Talking Heads most of the week and watching the Stop Making Sense concert footage and their fantastic video work, I woke up this morning thinking that the lyrics of some Talking Heads songs would be a great jumping off point for some abstract artwork – I’m thinking collage like I did with “Stairway to Heaven” and “Hotel California,” but those came out of some printouts of music I found in the recycling bin at work. These would be more intentional. I especially like the idea of working with different lines from “And She Was.”

Somewhere in my ramblings, maybe in the liner notes for Sand in the Vaseline, I found that David Byrne wrote this song about a “hippie chick” that he knew who would do acid and lie down in a vacant lot and fly.

I’ll never do acid (probably – some work is being done with LSD as a treatment for depression) but I would love to fly with the world as it turns.

This week has been better on a personal level – war in the Ukraine is a world nightmare and producing still more WTF moments in US politics. Can’t wait to get out of here! Maybe I will tell people in Europe that I am a Canadian. Most can’t tell the difference in North American accents – at least they couldn’t in Ireland and the UK. But an Irish person can tell if someone is from Cork or Limerick or Donegal, for sure!

We got out a little this week. The weather outside was beautiful on Wednesday so we went to Oden Brewing and sat outside and watched the first part of Ghostbusters. Wednesdays are their outdoor movie nights. It made me realize that either I don’t remember Ghostbusters or I didn’t see it. I remember Ghostbusters II. It is likely that I didn’t see it. Sandy and I were working at night a lot during that time and couldn’t afford to go to the movies anyway. I’m surprised I didn’t rent it, though. Oden has a good stout right now called Bee’s Knees. This version was “vanilla latte” so I had a taste first. I don’t want a stout that tasted like a milkshake or a floofy coffee drink. It didn’t – it was damn near perfect so I had two and brought home a four-pack. Because I’ve cut back on my drinking so much those two pints put me straight to sleep. I looked it up later and they were 7% ABV – higher than what it showed on Untapped.

^From the women’s room at the City Arts Center last night

Then last night Sandy took me out to dinner at Cafe Europa because we thought it would be nice on the patio. After we sat down and ordered the wind picked up and we ended up eating inside, which I’ve refused to do in the past four months or so. However, we found a spot at the end of the bar farthest away from everyone with a space between us and the next couple so I think it was okay. I guess we’ll see. We are friends with the owner and he likes to play big board games. Sandy (and maybe I) might play a game with him at the restaurant soon on one of their slow nights. I don’t worry about being around Jakub because he has to be very careful about not getting infected too. This was one of our regular haunts at one time so it was good to be back.

Still, I am not eager to go out into public indoor spaces. I need a specific reason, like being out of coffee or onions.

I think that I feel less anxious because there is nothing left to plan about our trip. I have no control over whatever comes next, and that is curiously calming. Every now and then I look at Google Maps and read articles about fun things to do or public transit or Portuguese food, but I’m not obsessed like I was.

My goals for this week: Make doctor appointments. God how I hate this but I can’t keep putting it off. I’m getting low on anti-depressants, and I’ll need a steroid shot in my heel soon, and I need a pap smear and mammogram. I need a chiropractic adjustment. I’ve kept up my dental appointments, thank God. What I hate most is having to see a new GP. My old GP retired at the end of the year. Having to explain all the stuff as you get older takes a lot of time and concentration. Not everyone feels the same about prescribing meds for mental health and that makes me anxious by itself. At least this time I can tell the doctor that I see a therapist regularly.

Other than that – weave and clean up the studio so that I have some workspace! Same as last week, I guess. Clean up the front yard. The daffodils are blooming and some of the other spring flowers will do so soon. I generally leave it alone over the winter so that the birds have some food under the leaves and on the seed stalks. I will have to remember to get on my knees and not squat down – that is killer on my achilles tendinitis. Hopefully I can get yard help again this year. My guy from last year was great – when he showed up.

On the critter front, Diego has been much better but he has been sitting behind me making strange grunting breathing noises. When he went to sleep he stopped, so I wonder if he is doing it on purpose. I switched him over to taking loratidine every night and it seems to work better than the Apoquel did, and it is much cheaper. I think that I forgot to dose him last night so it looks like I’d best not skip a dose.

I suppose that I should check the news now. I’ll try to write tomorrow with some artwork photos.