Slowly Returning to What Passes for Normal

It all begins with sleep. I’ve been sleeping somewhat better, as now I can sleep at last a good part of the night on my side. I’m normally a side sleeper.

Also, I’ve been doing many small tasks: cooking dinner, working at my computer, etc. Since the dizziness has mostly subsided, I’m much more confident tackling the stairs. I still have trouble when I’m lying flat, but it hasn’t been bad at all. I was worried for a while they might have injured my eardrum with their irrigation washer, but I can hear as well with that ear now as with the other.

I actually went out of the car yesterday when Woody drove to the dump with me, not what you’d call a romantic expedition, but for me it was wonderful. The summer green of the trees actually made me joyful. It was a smaller version of the intensity I enjoyed upon leaving the ICU, after I died and was revived. 

I just now meditated with Woody on the sun orch. I wanted to try to do some laundry but woody wouldn’t let me. He wants me to wait one more week before try. Tomorrow, I want to join him in processing all the enormous harvest of had neck garlic.  I’d also love to make zucchini relish this weekend.  We make it every year and we use every bit of it on burgers, hotdogs, for tarter sauce; even as a sweet condiment for roast duck.

I’m hoping to go over to the Grotzes house in town tomorrow for supper. That would really be approaching normalcy. Natasha is a fine cook. Aside from Nina, my assistant, and Scott who cleans the pubic parts of our house every other week, I have seen no one. 

A big orange cat has been coming around. No stray, he has a collar and no interest in food. Schwartzie had been shrieking at him through the screen door, fur on end, glaring, but today after a number of visits, they were on opposite sides of a screen window, hissing, but with each of them holding out a paw and touching.  I guess Schwartzie has decided this big orange cat doesn’t want to make it with Willow or steal his food.  We simply call him Orange Cat and he’s already killed two rabbits in the vegetable garden – not bunnies but big jackrabbits. We don’t object, as they’ve eaten our eggplants and all the marigolds (which some garden magazines recommend planting to fend off rabbits).

I am catching up on magazines and poetry zines that arrived while I couldn’t see straight. I hope to get back to a rather large pile of books soon.

We have been watching the FDR documentary on Netflix. What’s so striking is that FDR was the complete opposite of Grump. FDR believed it was the job of government to help people, to help the needy, the injured, while Grump believes it is the job of government to celebrate him and to make him, his family, and the billionaires richer. He has no compassion, no empathy, but a surfeit of self-pity. The rest of us are just cannon fodder, leaches, and tax payers funding his royal lifestyle. I can’t see he has any ethical code at all. He sees no point to anything that cannot be monetized for his bank account.