20140510 Grrr Sunshine and annoyance
Saturday May 10, 2014, 6:25 PM, so I dumped the African violets and turned off the computer and was going to leave to walk home and went to start a new file and the disc was fiull, so I had to turn the computer BACK on and save the files elsewhere, which took several tries, so I'm much delayed in leaving.
I decide to call Keith and explain and apologize for being delyaed. But after the phone is already ringing, it occurs to me that he may be napping. (Or showering) I'd actually been picturing im out riding his motorcycle. But since it's already ringing, if he's getting up from his nap to answer it, I'd better not hang up. Dang, I hate stuff like this.
So then I think of calling Scott, who says he tried to call me, but I wasn't home. Apparently, Keith wasn't home either or decided not to bother getting the phone. (Out riding his motorcycle?) So I thought return Scott's call, but then was feeling discouraged and was picturing Scott napping or sitting on the toilet or something and my bothering him. I had the cell phone out and his name selected but instead of pushing send, I pushed back and put it away :-{
when I get home, the garage door is open and the side door is locked so I'm guessing he's out on a bike.
Sunday, May 11, 2014, 2:06 PM, we are in the car headed for Seven Lakes State Park. I opened prezzies from the girls at breakfast, Mother's day Prezzies, and got a sketchbook/jounral, a paint brush and an anatomically correct heart pendant I painted a quick sketch of a bouquet I'd made with the brusd paper and am wearing the necklace (but I am also wearing my bright godenrod yellow Dwayne's Camera shop T-shirt, so it's not the best combo.
K says it's 75 out and we could have ridden our bikes, but I only got 4 hours of sleep and am really tired and that seemed like more work than I was ready for plus my right should and neck ahve been bothering me.
I put down as a goal that I wanted to work on my novella, Follwoing Wolfie, but I keep working on Taming Uncle Beast.
One thing I noticed when rereading earlier segments of Beast is that when Beast abandoned Tiny on the Island, he left Killer with her, but it was so long before I wrote the next section that I had killer with him.
I copied this and put it in the Uncle Beast section below. (I'll go down there for my comments.
I made some notes in a prior journal about Max, Lisa, etc., but never got them transferred into the Ms. I no longer know where the latest version of the various Mss are. The reason I'd like to work on that first is ecause it is maybe the closest to being finished. But I have to work on it AT HOME or at R'dale first, and then give myself assigments, because I don't know where I left off.
Well, I sort of do, actually. Sprt of Max, Lisa, David Tracy and Tanya were driving out to New Mexico. Road trip Lisa was going to art school in Mexico and Tanya had a job at a National Forst of vice versa. Duh, this is why I have to reread it. I also need to assemble all the loose free-raning bits of Taming ncle Beast and design a story line. BUT that should come second. Here's the thing, though, I need stuff specifically for the Psion.
Another thing is, I need to work on my newest poem. I haven't worked on it since I wrote it in thw wee hours. Well, I wrote it waking home and worked on it thats ame night int he wee hours and then haven't touched it since.
Keith and I have been talking. It's bright and I am wearing sunglasses which makes it difficult to see the Psion screen. and now we are getting close and will have to help navigate.
6:44 PM we are on our way home after hiking around for three hours at 7 Lakes Stae Park. Of those three hours, just over a third of it was actually walking. The rest of the time we were taking pictures or occasionally sitting. I think we only sat twice in all that time.
We saw white trilliums, ruined enemies (Rue anemone), hepticas, (just three in flower), sessile bellwort, perfoliate bellworts, shadbush, abotirve buttercups, violets, spring beauties, early meadow rue, pussy toes Also we saw a formation of flying sandhill cranes and a muskrat. We talked to several people and I photgraphed a man we met. We saw turtles and heard frogs. Not many, but a few, and lots of birds. The scenery there is lovely with all the lakes and the topogrpahya nd thrails meandering up and down among the trees flowers and lakes and ponds.
I was happy, very happy, to see hepaticas and rue anemones. It was a gorgeous day, a little too warm, but still gorgeous, sunny and dry with hazy clouds.
Thursday, May 15, 2014, 10:55 AM I am at some unknown building on some unknown street where I have driven Graham for an interview for Camp 'O Fun. I am taking a 15-minute walk while he interviews. The building looks like an old brick school and in fact says PVBLIC SCHOOL on it, but it's the headquarters for the Grosse Pointe School system. It is just off Jefferson on St. Clair. (I had temporatily forgotten.)
It is raining, but not too hard at the moment. It's been raining for several days, was raining fairly hard when we left, was totally puring yesteday afternoon.
Here is the unitarian Church. I was wondering if there was one of those nearby. Never wondered enough to look it up, though.
Does Caroline live near here?
I see double pink tulips spotted rain and "rare"-looking tulips with dark maroon in the center and yellow around the edges and pointed flam-like petals. Makes me wish I'd bborought pandoara, but rain't condusicve to carrying cameras.
I keep puttingt the Psion away because of the rain and then getting it out again
I am wearing my new Keen Mocs. They are a size too large, or half a size too large. I ordered them in the same size and the sandals. But no go. But because I ordered them online, I'm keeping them. I will just have to wear thicker socks and have bigger clunkier feet. I could have set them back etc, but decided against it. Too much hassle. (But how much hassle will it be for several years wearing too big shoes?)
11:11 Do you know where your sweetie is?
I am sitting in the car. It's barely raining now, just drizzling slightly. I'd like to walk more, but I don't know when Graham will be finished with his interview. I've got a jacket o because of the rain, but am hot in the car.
I open the door. Here robins singing their rainsong.
Last night I ate a bunch of junk at the Dss meeting.
2:30 I am over at Pier Park and walking out of the park to check out the accretion area because they burned it for Phragmites remediation. I want to see how it looks.
This morning, I deadheaded all the daffodils in front of Moran and the earliest tulips. The dogwood is in flower and I photographed it in 3D. Crabapples are flowering. I need to get the veggies out.
Sheesh! The didn't even get all the phragmites seed heads. There are tons left. Motherwart up. Some of the trash has been removed, the bagged stuff, anyway. Garlic mustard in flowe, jewelweed up. Still tons of trash. Old trash, too, not new.
I find a snapping turtle, maybe up on shore to lay eggs, and a profusion of black peppermint. Thistles. Burned and partly burned tennis balls, dead fish, heaps of zebra mussels, trash galore. Sinking, sucking mud and rot. Stuff along the shore that looks like cow diahrea, rotted lakeweed, I guess.
New phragmites is coming up. And remediated old stuff is only partly gone. Hope there weren't turtles frogs etc when they burned.
Hmm, we've had a week of rain and the ponds at the back of the beach are flooded and flowing across the beach and I can't get to the far end of the beach without getting wet. So, I turn back.
As I'm leaving the wildbeach, I pass a freshly dead Canada Goose.
The forsythia this year, probbaly because of our long, bitter winter, did not do well. Very few flowers.
Last time I was here, I was wearing my new sandals. Today, I am wearing my new shoes, and like the sandals, they got sucked into quickmud and covered in slime, rot, sand, etc. It's my first day wearing them. It seems like a kind of synchronicity. It unintentional, at least at conscious level. I wore them because it is windy, rainy and cold. And I just got them in the mail.
So, I ate a lot of bad food and had a very bad night. I need to figure out a way to not do that. Other than not going places that have bad food, I do not know how to stop myself when I get on a rampage.
I want to reimagine the walk at the Wildbeach, using real detail and things I've been thinking about.
The anniversary of my father's death is approaching, as it does every year in May around the time of my birthday. He died on my birthday weeked. A very brightlu colored red-winged blackbird it twitting at me, Twit. Twit. Twit. With each tit, it hops. A sleek beautiful fox squirels stands up and its hhind legs and curls its hands, looking to see if I have a treat. I do not. A tern squawks and dives in arc into the wind so that it comes in swoop past my face. The wind, already strong, is picking up. Because of the rain, I didn't bring a long lens or even a "real" SLR camera. I have the panasonic G5 micro 2/3s, the Fuji W3 and the tiny Canon digital elf, which I think had been a lemon since I got it. I carry it for emergencies only.
Terns have such a raucous voice when they are angry, a buzzing terrible vouce. Somewhere here, they must be nesting, because one dives at me repeatedly, and this is no windblown mistake. Soon thoygh, there will be more people here and they wull somehow have to tolerate it or move elsewhere.
Buzz, buzz, click click click click. The ccircle and dive, circle and dive. At one point, I cover my head because they are coming so close. I turn back and hope to quickly exit their guarded territory. I can't see, though, where they could be nsting. I need to look up their nesting again.
I must have left the territory of that group of terns, because they've ceased their diving and buzzing and clicking and left me to myself. Now I am seeing and hearing swallows.
The sky is getting darker and darker. More rain is probably coming. It's been raining all week and doesn't look as if it will elt up. The wind and the dark clouds and the cold give me a deep melancholy feeling akin to joy somehow.
The windsock on the observation platform is straight out and erect. No limpness there.
I wish I had brought my pochad box or even my iPad (it's in the car). I'd like to sit here and paint. But probably a windy lull between storms isn't the best time to paint, and I need to go home and start dinner. I had such a bad night last night an am so tired, but I feel like being here in the wind under this black sky with the gulls and the terns and the swallows and the wind whsitling through the rigging of the sailboats and halyards clanging. And no people at all. None. I am alone here But what I feel is not loneliness, but a deep healing solitude.
And I feel guilty for not being with my beloved. Maybe he needs some space as well. Still, I do need to start dinner soon.
I look out over the lake at the white caps on the dark water, the horizon like a new steel blue razor. And I feel a deep longing that somehow feels like contentment.
The lake has so many moods.
They've raked the swimming bach, so there won't be any dead fish or interesting treasures (except the one floating about six feet out.) OH, there's a hige dead carp, put of sight behind one of the rbeawaters, or they would have probably scooped it up--and near it, a pumpkinseed. The sunfish is smaller than the carp's head, which is less than a firth of it's body. It's in the waves, though, and might be hard-pressed get a shot of it.
OK/ that dead carp and the beach patrol (of the swimming beach) was the last hurrah of this walk and I am headed for the car.
I hear the sound of a Harley revving, and even though he doesn't drive a Harley, I think of Keith and wonder what he's doing. Napping? Ring his motorcycle? Paying Bills? Looking on his laptop to see what his pay was?
Well, I am headed home shortly, so I'll find out.
I walked 54 and a half minutes. If I walked 5 1/2 more minutes, I'd have an hour, but I need to go home and start dinner I do not want to walk 5 more minutes.
Monday, May 19, 2014, 7:41 PM, I am walking from Rolandale twoard (via away from) home. Keith is mowing the lawn. I just planted 8 squash plants that I grew from seed. They are kind of limp. I hope the robins and sparrows don't bury them with their rooting around.
I am feeling somewhta depressed because my finromyalgia, which seemed to be getting substantially better, has been getting much worse again. And that has all kids of repurcussions. For example, because of the pain, even with Meloxicam, I have no desire to walk at all, and can barely force myself to walk 45 minutes (I hope), and certainly do not want to walk the extra I feel I should walk to make up for missing three days of walking, one entire day, and two days where I only walked 15 minutes or so each day. The lack of walking may be contributing, in part, to the problem.
Also, the fibro tighten my neck ligaments which presses my neck vertebrae down against each other which hurts in and of itself, but also pinches nerves that cause shooting pains to run down the lebgth of my arms to the tips of my figers and thumb. It feels like a bad strike to the funny bone, which isn't funny, or worse.
I stop and chat with some African American ladies who are very friendly and encouraging. They want to know how far I walked and how far I am going to walk, but I can't tell them. the distance.
Keith was very cranky and scary in the car on the way to Rolandale. I was frightned of him. He said that when he is angry at some driver for being a "fucjing asshole," he's not angry at me, but he was yelling and cursing and talking about carrying a gun and shotting drivers like that. I am truly afraid of his "road rage." He was angry because someone tooted at him to turn when the light had just changed and he thought it was because they wanted to turn on red even though there was a no turn on red sign.
I'm not sure that is worth killing someone over. It was a tiny toot.
Oh, gret, I wrote a "story" about bumbleberry sauerkraut and when I had "finished" the first draft of it, I tried to save it, but the batteries are too low.
I guess I'd better put the Psion away until I can plug it in. Otherwise, I'll rish losing everything.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014, 3:38 PM I am out walking. It's nice. Coolish, breezy, sunny. I am annoyed with Keith beecause he had errands and didn't bother to let me know he'd be late and I'm annoyed at Graham because he wants me to take him to get is haircut and I haven't had time to do all the other things I need to do so that's just one more thing. And he still hasn't given the info I need to pay his credit card bill and we are leaving the day after tomorrow.
I pass some lovely white, pink, lavender and magenta tulips that lift my spirits. They fill with light, especially the white ones and that light seems to endter my heart and calm it a little. I haven't had time to walk yet today, or do my exercises.
I pass a woman working in her yard and I think that wanted to go to Village Hardware and get plants for the garden so they could get started while we're away, ut I didn't do that either.
I'm probably not so much angry at Keith and at Graham as at myself for not being more togther and organized and energetis and also for wasting time online.
At least my fibromyalgia isn't quite as bad as itt was yesterday. It's not as good as it has been lately, but not as bad as yesterday.
Not yet, anyway, knock on wood.
Yesterday, I saw Deanne out mowing her lawn and I asked her if she was moving out. A small moving vna was there and things were being loaded onto it. I imagained that since it was a small moving van, her partner/friend/lover might be loving out (or that the kids were moving their father's), but when I asked Deanna, "Are you moving?" she said, "SHE moved out." I asked her if she was OK, and she said blended famlies are difficult. (No shit! Tell me about it!) She said they'd been fighting, so it was more people, but also lonely. She said her daughter was going to college next year and she needed to make that a priority. But she sounded sad. I wanted to give her a hug. She said we could have coffee and talk after she told me that we were making it work and I said it was terribly difficult.
4:07 PM I'm over at Pointe Plaza. I brought Graham over for a haircut. I gave him $20. I am going to walk for 15 minutes. Then wait. I am not fond of walking in this area because of the panhandlers, so I am keeping an eagle eye out.
Here's what annoys me about Keith, among other things. (Whoa! A brick wall fell down! Hope no one was under there!) Even though most my anger probably is actually aimed at myself, I am still annoyed at him. He was an hour late and didn't bother calling. His idea is that I should go about my business regardless of what he's doing, that is, not plan my day around his arrival home, but just go ahead and do what I want to do. I could do that easily ebnough, but I hardly see him as it is. He works six days a week and often falls asleep after dinner. If we're not going to care about each other and mae an effort to spend time together and consider e2ach other feelings, if we're going to live two separte lives, why bother being married at all?
You might say, "don't sweat the small stuff." You might says, "why all the fuss over one hour?" Of course there are many hours to be considered, asit's happened many times before where I was waiting for him, sometimes with specific lans, and he didn't show up. (and with our histories, I wrry sometimes that he's hanving an affair. Or I worry that he's been injured in traffic). 1 hours is 1/24th of the whole day. But he gets up at 4:15, has private time until 5:30 (no me allowed), and is gone untol 3:00. If he goes to bed at 10, my possible available time with him awake is 7 hours, but of those 7 hours, there is cooking and chores, laundry and lawn mowing and other thinsg that keep us apart. Plus his solor reading time. If we hypothesisze that cooking and chores and solo reading take 3 hours that leaves 4 hours to spend together. (Assuming he doesn't sleep on the couch, which half the time he does.) So then, an an hour away is 1/4 of our time together, unless it comes out of chores, which it could, if he bothered to let me know. That's part of why I wish he's let me know. Also, it seems as if it's the repsectful and lvoing thing to do. The caring thing. And when he doesn't bother letting me know, I feeel as if he doesn't love me or repsect me or care about me. And if I feel as he doesn't love me, repsect me, and care about me enough to give me a call, why not get a divorce? Who wants a husband who doesn't give a shit.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the male attidtude is, I'll do what I damn well please and to bad that woman is such a nag and a bitch. Doesn't she know her job is to provide sex and gratification and be quiet?
Of course, in reality, he can be sweet, loving and attentive and provide for my needs. AND since I've wished him to call since 2002 and twelve years have passed and he only occasionally remembers to call me, he probably isn't going to change. I try not to nag, but all the disappointment in the world is apparently not going to change him. It's difficult to chnage onesself, but nigh unto impossible to chnage someone else.
So I have to think about how I can chnage, what I can do to get over the pain of feeling unloved and abandoned by him. One thing I could do is love him less. Try to balance out the unlovingess that I feel when I feel he neglects me.
If I love him less, it could start a downward spiral
Wednesday, May 21, 2014, 5:51 PM I am walking from $Rolandale toward Berden and Mallina. I'm going to cut across Mallina today, because we've been working on the garden at Rolandale and probably got more than 15 minutes of exercise, but I didn't time it, so I am cutting only two blocks off, the block between Mallina and Chester and the block between moon and Mallina. My fibro is bothering me and I'm limping. Yesterday, or the day before (?) we planted brocoli, and squashed and somatoes and a pepper and today we planted more tomatoes, differnet varieties, 2 acorn squashes, 4 zuchini's (we may have already planted both, and 4 Brussels sprouts. Also we had earlier potted basil and dill and today some ().
It's very hot, and at one point, I got so hot I took my pants off, and wouldn't you know it, Warren came out back to get his garbage cans and spoke to is. I pretended everything was fine.
Keith is watering the garden. I'm limping along. It's so hot today.
I should have worn shorts and a tank top.
I keep forgetting to put vaseline on my scars.
We're leaving tomorrow for the Pinery and we're not ready.
At the corner of Rolandale and Canyon, and older black man leans over the chain link fence and keeps saying something to me, over and over, but the rush of cars on the street behind me, accellerating away from the stop sign, makes it diffivcult to hear. Finally I hear the word cigarette. He's asking for a cigarette. I tell him I'm sorry, I don't smoke. He says, "That's all right," but hee looks sad. But it's God's truth--I do not smoke. And I do not have cigarettes. Not now, not ever.
Here, there are white people. Copper Canyon. White police officers used to live here when they had to live in Detroit, and some of them never left when the law was recinded.
I wish I were working on a project. It would make walking more tolerable and keep my mind off my pain. But I've lost track of all my projects.
Thursday, May 22, 2014, 2:24 PM We are driving north toward Canada and the Pinery.
Sara, Erwin and Frankie are headed for France today.
Friday, May 23, 2014, 12:47 PM Pinery, Journal, personal
I didn't sleep last night until after it got light out. I was freezing cold. The mattress was slanted so I kept rolling to edge and almost off. In the morning, I actually fell all the way off.
In the morning, when I fially did sleep, I had a dream that I wanted to record. (recorded below)
Wednesday, May 28, 2014, 3:45 PM I am out walking to Village market. It rained all day, sometimes hard, and is still raining. I guess I should not be trying to write.
5:04 PM Now I am on my way to CVS after buying tons of food. It's not raining at the moment and I left my at and raincoat home, so I hope it doesn't start up again because I could get totally dreches and it's not that warm and I have the Psion.
The trees are still dripping and there are huge deep puddles on the sidewalks. The robins are still singing for rain. I am wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt over a very thin sleeveless blouse. It's a little chilly, but I was too hot with my coat and hat.
The lawns are very lush and thick and green. Robins are hopping everywhere. Samaras litter the ground. I am alking on people's lawns trying to avoid lae-size puddles. But the lawns are flooded too. Blue columbines in flower. Stonecrop.
Thursday, May 29, 2014 4:03 PM I am over at Pier Park. I am walking by a car studiously looking the other way because inside the car, a man is changing his clothes.
It's a perfect day, clear blue sky, not too hot or cold, just right, small breeze. One man playin basketball, some older women playing tennis, the sky a sharp blueline against the sky, the grass lush and brilliantly green, sparrows bathing in a puddle, swallows swooping. I can smell the water: it is green and blue and roughish without having too many whitecaps. I see a single sailboat and a freighter, no two freighters. More boats have arrived int he slips.
I went to the library after BP, who only kept me maybe less than 45 minutes, not that I minded. I would mind, however, if he kicked me out early all the time. (He usually keeps me late). I read two poems from Desire, the opening poems and "This is my wife," They were relevant to the discussion we had two weeks ago about sexual fnatsties and the difference btween male and female fantasies and the differences between fantasy and relaity, but we didn't really talk about it. Of course, the second poem I read from the opening of Desire was pretty long and then we talked about Hal Phillips and Kathy. Which all related.
End regular Journal ERJ &&
* * * *Begin Hairy notes
Thursday, May 29, 2014, 4:12 PM
Hello, how are you? What's going on with you? Did I hear Jane Billings say she was going to miss you, on facebook? Does that mean you're moving? Do tell!?!?!?
I am walking at Pier Park on a perfect spring day, pleasant, breezy and sunny.
I had a bit of a shock the day before yesterday, which is sort of funny and ironic in the light of a previous discussion. Our last day camping, we hiked out the the end of the wilderness trail and o one was around. I waded out into the lake and Keith went skinny dipping. Afterwads, he was sitting naked on a log next to me drying off and I was examining his genitalia, and I noticed that there was a lot of bristly hair around his balls and penis. I'd seen it before and I guess I thought that it had been rubbed thatw as by his underwear.
I asked him about it and he didn't answer me, so I asked him again, and he said, sounding a little defensive, "well, I haven't been able to shave there, since we've been camping."
And I said, "What?" And he mumbled a repeat of the above, and I said, "Shave there? Why?" and he said, I've been shaving there for years, surely you've noticed."
I hadn't. Unlike other husbands and lovers, he always shuts the bathroom door when he shaves and grooms himself.
He's not very hairy. His legs aren't very hairy, his chest isn't very hairy, his butt's not hairy. I guess I assumed he was just naturally not hairy there. Or that the hairs got rubbed off through natural processes.
He has a little rug of very tightly curled grey pubic hair above his genitals. I thought thatw as just the way he was. (I know it sounds dumb, I guess. But I've had a number of lovers with different body sizes and different amounts of hair. I just thought that's how he was naturally. I've been with him 12 years and had no idea.
I was shocked and somewhat horrified. I asked him how he got started doing that. I was seriously thinking that if he did it for Susan and was still doing it for her, I would leave him. Immediately.
He said that many mnay years ago, when he had his first hernia operation, they shaved that whole area and he liked the way it felt and kept it that way. I dont' know if he's telling the truth. If I thought he did it for Susan and was still doing it for her 14 years after she died, I'd divorce him immediately.
I told him that I felt that shaving there was a reversion to chidhood and he said he'd stop shaving there if I wanted him to. He said it only took him 15 second (yeah, right) to do it afterr he sahved his neck.
I said no, I was used to him the way he was, as long as he wasn't doing it for Susan (as if he'd tell me).. I said it seemed weird to em to shave your genitals when you didnt even shave your face. He says it feels better.
I had my genitals shaved for a hernia operation and also for the birth of my kids and made me feel NAKED. I didn't kaike it and was eager for it to grow back. It made me feel more vulnerable.
He said he'd never ask me to sahve down there and that he liked me the way I was. Speaking of which, the second night we were at the Pinery, we made love for two hours and the next morning for 4 and a half hours, like teens. We had a a relaly good sensuous time and he seems to be aroused by touching me and by my touching him.
That may be more information than you wanted, but since we talked about it before, I thought maybe I should admit to this event in our lives.
Ironically, I cut the hairs on one side of my genitals today because there's a smalls ore there that I wanted to make sure wasn't a buried tick. I got a couple ticks at the Pinery. I couldn't see it through the hair so I cut off the hair.
Keith probably would not appreciate my telling you this, so please delete the email after reading it and empty the trash and respond (if you do) in a different email.
And speaking of private sexually related things, Hal Phillip's girlfriend Kathy (Or exgirlfriend?) called me up today to talk. Hal is apparently having an affair with another woman. She is very upset. I got quite an earful, poor girl. Poor woman--she's 60.
If I were her, I would not take him back.
Even if he wanted back, which apparently, he doesn't.
All this talk about sex reminds me suddenly of a time Chuck and I were in some department store and he saw this Amazon woman, huge, but not fat, hust a really tall, big-boned, big breasted young woman, twice as big as Chuck and he said, "Wow. I could handle that!" Strange the things you remember
I'm still not caught up from the trip, putting things away etc. ML was coming to dinner tonight, but now she's not, and Ellen and Warren Cressman where coming over, but now they are not. Maybe tomorrow instead.
One of the interesting things about Keith's shaving and my being near tears about it is that we hashed it through, talked about it, and worked it out, something we're not very good at. I think (hope) it's alls ettled now and things will continue as is. I like being married to Keith. I still think it's really strange and weird and a little scary that he wants to shave there, but since he's already been doing it all along, I guess nothing is different except I felt and sort of still feel that I'm married to a stranger.
Some friend of Erin's (from high school, or collge, I'm not sure) is writing a YA novel and publishing it one chapter at a time on a blog and I started reading it and relaly like it. Some guy here at the Marina is yelling like a drunk street person--scary.
I like that book better than the ones I was reading (published real books). So far. The guy writing it is a doctor and has a wife and small children, so how does he have time to also write??
Things I hate about the Detroit area: HUGE SUVS standing along the curb idling the enhines waiting for kids to come out of the pool. They've never heard of greenhouse gases or global warming, apparently.
5:11 PM at R'dale--we've only been gone a week and the broccolis already have brocoli heads, small (maybe an inch to an inch and a half. Yum! soon.) The irises opened while we were gone. It was still spsring with small leaves in Canada, but here, it's just about summer. I am wearing shorts and a thin sleeveless blouse and sandals and am quite warm.
As far as shaving genitalia, if anyone has a hang-up about it, it's probably me. I have a lot of sexual hang-ups, in part from being raped and in part from my repressed early family life. But considering that I do not wear make-up and do not cut or style my hair or wear fingernail or toenail polish, it seems approrpiate to me that don't care 5to alter that other part of my body, either.
I went for many years refusing to shave my legs or armpits. I do that now because otherwise, I'm offensively hairy. But no one needs to see my genitals, except Keith, who never objected, and doctors, who must see plentu of unshaved pubes. I beleive for the most part in a live and let live world, as long as people aren't harming each other. Let the shavers shave and the hairy folk be hairy.
I must say that I do like Keith relative lack of hair. He doesn't shave his pits. Or his chest (maybe he cuts individual hairs, but he doesn't shave, because there are some hairs there.
My father used to be very hairy and the chemo made all his hair fall out and he must have liked it that way, because afterwards, he kept his body hair trimmed.m I thought it made him look like a slug. But I was used to him the old hairy way.
* * * *End Hairy Notes ,, * *%%
* * * * Dream Turtle Lizard Dream
I am staying with Heidi Smith Chester who seems to also be Connie Fuess. She has a native American wall hanging showing a huge turtle in the middle with four small turtles around the edge, in the four corners. They are green, with other patterns, and slightly stylized. I am alone in the room and admiring the wall hanging, when the wall hanging turns to ceramic, the turtles turn live and real, nestles in ceramic pockets, and the large central turtle stretches a long serntine, neck, like a snapping turtle, and eats the small turtle on the upper right. I am surpsied, shocked and upset.
Then the ceramic thing turns back into the native American wall hanging, only now the large central turtle has a long curved serpentine neck headed to the upper right, and the devoured turtle is gone. Heidi/Connie returns and I tell her what happens and she points to a turtle on the floor. It is a tiny baby painted turtle with a dark colored back, smaller than the greener one that was eaten. I pick it up. I feel certain it is not the same turtle, but I want to protect it, and I out it into my fanny pack, which is sort of like a baby carrier.
Heidi/Connie and I go out to a nature center where there is some kind of faire going on and we walk and talk and climb hills and shove between the people in big crowds. The turtle turns into a lizard and grows bigger and bigger. It is constrained by the fanny pack/baby carrier. Heidi/Connie ssuddenly seems very upset and thinks the lizard has died and I say no, it is still alive. We rush home and take it out of the carrier. It looks somewhat twisted, but it untwists itself and is fine. Heidi/Connie and I are very relieved.
I just thought of an ending to the dream I had this morning. I had two, but I only remember one when I finally had a chance to write it down. It was about the large turtle eating the small one and changing the wall hanging. In the final scene, the misisng turtle on the upper right is replaced by a "lizard" (iguana).
I have no idea what this dream means. It was upsetting to me. I don't believe you can replae one whild with another, or one friend with another or one dog with another. Not i a one to one relatioship where I could have a baby, name it Gina Maria, and have it replace one that died. On the other hand, a friendship with Ellen, while not replacing Pam, because no one could replace Pam, helps to fill a friendship void in my heart.
To honor the dream, I think I would like to draw the tapestry.
ED1, end dream 1, Turtle Lizard Dream
* * * *
TRIP LOG Pinery Trip May 2014
Thursday, May 22, 2014, After a frantic morning, we left home about 2 PM, which is when we could have signed in at the Pinery. We could have gotten there earlier still, gone for a walk, and then gone to the campsite. In any case, Keith went to work for a half day and Mary went shopping for trip food, so it would be as fresh as possible since it has to last the whole trip. And she watered the inside and outside plants at both houses and dumped the Afriican violets. Unfortunately, she forgot to check Rocky's food and water, but she just fed and cleaned him a couple days ago, so he should be okay.
At 2:30 PM, we are hurtling northward. We're going 80 or so in a 70 mph zone after being held up for a while by slow traffic. The sun is shining but it must be in a hoole, because the sky is almost entirely covered with large fluffy clouds that are white or grey o top and dark grey on the bottom.
It looks like early spring. Some trees are bare and others have only small leaves. The leaves that are out re broight yellow green or reddish.
We're passing Marysville, but I don't know where that is. There is a field of solar panels.
In the woods, I can see mayapple umbrellas. Along the highway, there are yellow musards flwoering. We are apparently apporaching Port Huron. It reminds me that we haven't biked up the the black River yest this year.
There is highway construction and closed exits and we've shunted over to the other side of the median. Keith says, "theyve been working on this for a couple of years"
The sky ahead is very black. I hope it doesn't rain. And, if it must rain, I hope it waits until we have the tent up.
2:45 PM We're waiting in Customs. The line is fairly long. The sun is still shining and the sky ahead is fairly bight, but it is dark to the north, which is where we are going.
Sara, Erwin and Frankie are headed for France. Today!
Keith says, "It looks like we picked the line with Arabs in it again," and I say, "You have a knack for that honey." Our line is moving more slowly than any of the others. In fact, the others keep going by and we don't move at all. Sigh. ;-( We don't mean to be UnPC, but there may be a questionable person in that car that is still in the gate. OR they are asking for lengthly direction.
The guy who was directly ahead of us but took the next line went through and a car we passed 25 miles ago went through.
2:58 PM The car with the suspicious people in it was finally released and the rest of us went through relatively quickly and we are on our way again.
Keith's toe hurts and my knee hurts.
3:18 PM We are off the highway and headed north into the clouds. %The sun is totally gone, but it's not raining. A hawk flapped mightily out of the trees next to the road and went up at a 45 degree angle to avoid our car.
It is very flat here. Huge flat fields, many newly plowed. Barns, silos, and in the distance, woodlots. Rows of trees between some of the fields as windblacks, and along long driveways. Bunches of trees in the farmyards. Yellow brick houses. And some clapboard ones.
Now we come to a few small hills, like dunes, and more trees. We are entering Forest. Keith is going to stop at "The Beer store." He will probably buy Alexander Keiths.
An old guy comes out of the beer store wearing a plaid cotton shirt, short-sleeved, suspenders, baggy jeans and a farmer hat. Keith comes back out, probably as old as the old guy (?) with his Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale. A case of it.
Most of the houses in Forst are yellow (or tan, or pale ornage) brick. Many are colonial style. The business buildings downtown are also yellow brck, but the church is red brick. Father out, as leave town, there are more clapboard housesm A big Foodland grocery store. a KFC. A crabapple in full flower. I saw some wild flowering trees in the woods, too. Could't tell for sure, but they were probably shadbush.
A truck drives through a field. We're back in flat farm country, 34 miles from Grand Bend.
We have arrived at the huge wind mills. They are so graceful One is not turning.
3:46 PM We have arrived att he front gate. The car says it's 55 degrees. There are wild geraniums in blossom along the road.
4:03 PM We're registered in in the Dunes 1 area looking for our campsite.
5:06 PM Keith has gone to get firewood. He probably had to go all the way to the front gate. While he was gone, I put the fly on the tend (we'd erected it before he left. I moved various tings around, lugging stuff to go in the tent over to the tent, and rearrnaging the stuff on the table. Then I went and got water. I had a terrible time getting the fawcet to turn off. Now Keith is back.
He's unrolling the wire to blow up the air mattress. I didn't unroll it all the way, since he had to drive in with the car. I can't set up the beds and the tent until he does the air mattress. I don't want to start painting until we've walked and had dinner. (By then, it may be bed time.)
9:00 PM I am siting in front of the fire. After we got the tent all organized and ready for us to go right be bed when the time came, and after keith chopped wood and set the fire so it was ready to start and after battened a few gatches, we went up over the dunes to the beach. Near the top of the dunes, I found a hunting knife that had probably been ther all winter It was in a leather sheath and the sheath was well chewed and the snap rusted. Keith could open the snap with several tools, but he finally got it open. I think he cut it. The blade, though, is very dull and wouldn't even cut a zucchini.
When we go to the beach, the horizon was sharp and dark We walked a long ways along the beach (25 minutes, too a few pictures of pebbles in the surf and dead birds, and then we climbed the stairs back over the dunes and went morel hunting. Bonanza. We found 15 morels of all sizes. We brought them back to camp, cut them up, removed the pill bugs, cleaned them and ate them. They were a little sandy even after being washed.
We had salmon and shrimp stirfry for dinner. Keith made a lovely fire with great coals. Fire-building used to be my job, but he's taken it over. He used the masculine methods.
We saved some morels for Keith to cook with butter and garlic tomorrow. Also saved the biggest one for me to paint We took some pictures, too. I was going to paint it tonight, but it's getting dark.
{:30 PM Keith takes advantage of the darkness and the bushes to avoid a trip to "The Pissoire," but Mary walks the 300 yards or so. She tries to take a shortcut through the woods, but loses the trail in the dark and crashed through the underbush (and probably the poison ivy) in her sandals.
It has gotten very cold and we are both wearing winter coats and hats.
We can hear the "surf" (roar of the waves) from our campsite.
There are very few other people camping here, and no one yet within sight or hearing. One Pinery vehicle drove by while we were eating. It's quiet, except the birds' evensong, the surf, the rustling leaves, the crackling fire.
Friday, May 23, 2014, 3:26 PM. It was very cold last night. Keith warmed up, but Mary was cold all night long and couldn't sleep until after it got light in the morning. Then there were too brief sleep and some extended cuddling. Mary fell out of bed. The mattress was slanted and all night long, she kept nearly falling out until she did.
She's very tired. Very very tired.
Mary turned the bed around and hopes that will work better and she can sleep tonight.
We had a late breakfast of dry cereal and oat meal and coffee. We walked to the facilities and on the way back, took pictures and collected a couple morels.
Then we drove to the Heritage trail and collected more morels and took some pix. Keith has a hatful of morels.
We are out at the observation platform at the end of the Heritage Trail on the ausable (?) river where there is a goose nest, ducks, a swan, and it is very queit. We heard one green frog, one peeper. Rd winged blackbird.
Saw in flower: strawberries, wood betony, wood anemony, wild geraniums, (little white things), hairy puccoons (just starting), columbine, violets, starry false solomon's seal, dandelions, Canada Mayflower in bud (but not yet in flower anywhere). It's a alte spring here, so we may not see friged polygala.
The geese had a big noisy dispute. Some very tiny twittering birds chased under the platform.
Itt's been cloudy all day, but there's a warm sun peering through a layer of cloud. It's been windy and dark and not the best photgraphic weather.
There go the geese again, fighting and arguing. They are making a raa uckets, and flying at each other over some islands in the river. Nesting sites.
7:37 PM--we never had lunch. I ate some dry cereal out of the box on the way to the heritage trail. When we got back, Keith fried up some morels. We are them plain, fried, yum.
Then Keith read and I drew then painted a postcard with a picture of a morel on it. I had Erin in mind, since she collects postcards, but it came so well, I was wishing I had one for Heeidi, one for Gail, one for Ellen, one for Sam and Joan, etc. I sent that one c/o Sara and Erwin, but should make something for them, too. I dont have the right tools. I need a good pen, a fine point pencil. Spray fixatine. But I made one postcard and it turned out well. I put it in Chris Bursk's Sected Poems, and then I cut vegetables for dinner. K made hmaburgers, I found more in the woods near our campsite and put some in the stirfry. We had a nice supper.
It had been very quiet, but a huge family moved i across from us and a father and son next to us. The big family is very noisy.
Keith is reading Philip Pullamn. I cleaned up, washed the dishes, put the food i the trunk, etc. It is already cold. I've got my winter coat and hat on already and at 7:45, the sun hasn't set yet.
The sky is clear and there's metereo shower tonight, so K intends to carry his chair into the area between the dunes. I may not stay the whole time he does. I get bored after a while, especially if I am tired and cold, and I am very tired since I didn't sleep last night.
Before it gets dark, I want to put the dishes away and the dish drying mat. Meanwhile, I may make another postcard. It took a long time to do the first one. I forgot though, that I meant to put oak leaves in the picture and put grass in instead. So I want to do oak leaves in the next one.
The new kids are trampling the wildflowers and walking willy nilly through the woods without regard to espablished trails. This makes me sad. :-(
I started painting another postcard of a morel, his one intended for Heidi, but it has gotten so cold and damp that the paint's not drying, which makes the new laers I try to add blend and blur. It would be fine for some techniques (maybe oil or even acrylic, if you wanted to blend it, but not for laying and glazing with watercolors. So I put it away in the car on the dashboard for tomorrow, maybe. I drew the drawing with ball point pen. I didn't bring any good drawing pens or finepoint pencils.
I am walking to the bathroom to bush my teeth, in part because Keith is eating chips and I don't want to eat any. But all the shortcuts to the bathroom are now unavailable because people are camped in the sites with the paths.
The campground is fillung up. This may also .am hoardes in the bathroom. But, in fact, there is only one lovely blond-haired woman in the bathroom running the X-celerator hand dryer. It dounds like a jet airplane taking off. But when she leaves, someone else comes in.
I am standing at the sink brushing my teeth when another blond-haired woman comes out. Dge has a combiantion Bristish and Frech accent. "Our first time camping," she says, "And you'll never guess what we forgot." My ming dtarts cranking out answers like, the tent,t he food, the sleeping bags," and she says, "the hammer. I'm like, Oh, no, I can't believe we forgot the hammer."
"We have one you can borrow, if you still need it," I say.
"We got it up," she says, proudly.
("Hmmm," I am thining. "Hmm."
After I brush my teeth, I get toilet paper and clean the sinks. I don't want anyone to think I left that big mess
When I get back to camp, I tell Keith about the lady with the accent, and he says, "You gonna pound my stake, sweetie?" And gives me a kiss.
He's still readin Philp Pullman. I sit down in front of the last of the coals. The fire has finally stopped smoking. The sun has set over the dunes and is probably setting over the lake now. Soon it will be too dark to see to write o the Psion. I would write on the iPad or drw, or, I could use my headlap.
Kids are yelling in the dunes. They are trying to get a dog named Leo or Cleo to do something it doesn't want to do.
I just thought of an ending to the dream I had this morning. I had two, but I only remember one when I finally had a chance to write it down. It was about the large turtle eating the small one and changing the wall hanging. In the final scebe, the misisng turtle on the upper right is relaced by a "lizard" (iguana).
9:39 PM. I sit by the fire feeding tiny twigs from around the campsite into the coals. Soon, it is too dark to find any. Keith has stopped reading. It is too dark to read, but not dark enough for the meteor shower/storm. The twings I place on the coals are cedar, juniper, oak and pine and the flames that spring up are fragant.
Keith coments that he hasn't heard any nights, no owls or nighthawls. The surf is so loud that any bird would have to be quite xlose.
Now, too, are the constand sounds of chatter from across the street. A girl with a lisp who never stops talking. "Grandma, how old are you? Are you 90? A hundred?" "Forty eight," comes the answer. She, the child talks on and on. "What f we get lost?"
A car goes by with its brights on and illuminates the woods, our tent, us, the neighbors. Keith makes a rude comment that I won't transcribe.
Keith unwinds the wire to run the CPAP. The first faint stars show up through the branches overhead. Already, I feel chilled.
10 PM Keith is putting his PJs on under his clothes. I am sitting along by the nearly dead coals of the fire. Someone from the campsite across the street is shining a light into our site. Keith seems to be taking an unbearbly long time.. I can't imagine what is taking him so long. Maybe he's rubbing testosterone on his knee pits and taking his meds. I'm imaptatient because I'm so fired. I move into the car. I was imagining that it would be alittle warmer the car, but it is not. However, my breath, and Keith's sould warm the air in the enclosed space and my body should warm the seat. In theory. Maybe he's gone to sleep.. Maybe he is manufacturing the meds from sctacth. Oh, here he comes now. I did not get the iPad. I was too cold and tired. Here he comes, there he goes. He's gone again, and didn't get the iPad or come in the car. Maybe I misunderstood what he said. I thought he was going to read to me.
If he isn't going to rad to me, and he's left without me to go into the dunes, I'll be peeved for waiting up for him.
Well, I got out of the car and Keith was sitting in his chair looking at the sky. I thought he was going to read to me and he thought I said I didn't want him to--what a crock. I sugested it ight de-dark-adapt his eyes. He said it would be OK. Just one more in a long line of communication failures.
Saturday, May 24, 2014, 12:43 PM It seemed to be even colder last night than the night before. Since Keith was sitting in the campsite rather than going up in the dunes like he said he was going to, I went up in the dunes by myself. But when I got up there, I had a bad tacchycadia and arrhythmia event and was very scared. It was also very cold. I lay on my back and immediately saw a very quick meteeor. I wantted and waited and waitted, meanwhile worrying about my heart, which was pounding fluttering and stopping and starting and acting really weird and scary. I started picturing having to go to the hospital. I saw another better meteor, longer and brighter, and decided to wait and see if I could see any more, but my heart wouldn't stop racing. I tried those exercises to stop it, repeatedly. It didn't help. My knees were freezing, The rest of me was getting terribly chilled.
((A girl as wearing sandals thta look like silver and tourquoise with bright ornage toe polish.))
After I saw the third meteor, I decided to go back to camp via the bathroom. When I stood up, I staggered and had trouble walking. ((The girl says "the sandals were real cheap at Shoppers," so I guess they aren't silver and tourquoise, but on her feet, they look really nice and pretty.)) My heart was still freaking out, speeding up, and that often makes me weak and I was afraid I'd slip fall down the steep cliff-like side of the dune. I struggled down the trail that curved around the side of the dun and down through the woods to the road and by the time I got there, my heartbeat had returned to normal.
Keith and I hashed out our misunderstanding in several ways and then attempted to sleep. Not sure if it was after effects from the tacchycardia or what, but I did not sleep, and I got Keith up at 2:00 AM and we staggered back up to the top of the dune with Keith's chair for what was supoosed to be the peak of the meteor shower/storm.
It was mighty cold up there. Mighty cold. Frigid. Keith sat in his chair and I lay on the ground. I saw three more meteors. There were long spaces between them. My neck hurt and I was cold, and we finally went back to bed at 3:30 AM. I did not sleep right away, I was still awake at 4, but then I slept until 8:30 and then off and on a little more. we didn't get up until around 11. When I did go back to sleep, I dreamed I was sunburned and had a rash on my face was embarrassed to meet some new people.
We had breakfast, cleaned up, and went to the nature center where we watched birds, bought a new bird book, The Reader's Diest book of North American Bird (which is new for us) and a postcard for Erin. I should have bought more postcards. Some of the birds we saw included hummingbird, orioles, scarlet tanager, rose-breated grosbeak, male and female, downy and hairy woodpeckers, chipping sparrows, goldfinshes, blue jays, and another jay (?), indigo bunting (keith only),, cardinals,
Also saw chipmunks, black squirrels, red squirrels.
Then we walked the cedar trail. We took lots of pictures of wildflowers and collected a few more morels. We had a nice time being loving and close, talking and being silly, holding hands. We got a little "high" from looking at things closely and grokking on tree trunks and bark and branches and moss and spring flowers. (We did not drink or use drugs, we were just very happy and presnt with each other.)
Some of the flowers we saw included hairy puccoons barely opening, bog rosemary ()?), those little white things on tall stalks, and other little white things pussy toes, wild geranium, columbine, strawbberries, wood anemone (mosty what we saw yesterday, but seems as if we saw a few new things, too.)
We went to the store and got ice and put it in the cooler, got two more bags of wood at the "wood gate," (some kids called it that), came back to camp and Keith cooked a whole mess of morels, in oil for me and in butter for him and then I cut vegetables and he chopped wood and assenbled a man's fire. He uses a blow torch to start the fire. He cooked the stirfry I made and grilled sausages and we had dinner. ....
While he was cooking, I finished painting the postcard I had started last night for Heidi. It's the smae morel I painted for Erin, but I treated it differently. (Also a watercolor. I didn't bring anything else.).
Now it is 8:34 PM On Saturday, May 24, and Keith is reading Phillip Pullman and srinking beer and eating potato chips. I am trying to catch up the trip journal. The sun has set over the dunes, but not over the water. It has gotten so cold already that I am wearing 4 shirts, a winter jacket and a winter hat. I neglected to bring long johns, a scarf or neck gaiter.
9:37 PM We are sitting in car and Keith is going to read the James Potter book we're currently reading and is currently getting the inverter ready to run the CPAP.
Sunday, May 25, 2014, 8:30 PM We woke up at around 8:15 and after a trip to the bushes, we cuddled for 4 1/2 hours. Very sweet and relaxing, but Keith got a headache from staying in bed too long.
The we got up and Keith made breakfast--bacon, eggs, coffee, fried bread (mary had hers wtth garlic, yum), and grpfruit. MMMmmm, yummy breakfast. This was around 1 PM.
After Keith drank his coffee and Mary washed the dishes, we went to walk the Carolinian and Nipissing trails. It was a lovely day, verging on being too hot (78-80) and we got lots of sunshine and all sweatifed. Things we saw in flower included fringed polygala, yellow violets, long-spurred vilets, barren strawberry, golden Alexander, dewberry, chocke cherry, wild geranium,
Mary saw both a scarlet ttangager pair and an oriole, and we both saw chipping sparrows, and a bird that was sparrow sized with brown on the sides and white on sides of the tail, and vultures and hawks and crowns and robins and red-winged blackbirds.and a rufous-sides towee, and a yellow bird that may have been a warbler or a femal something. It was yellow greenish with dark wings, like the famale tanger (maybe) and I think it was bigger than a warbler.
After walking somewhat leisurelyat both trails (Carolinian and Nipissing), we stopped at the store for ice and went back and made dinner; steak and stirfry. By the time we finished dinner, it was already dark. Keith read to me and we went to bed. It was a nice night, maybe about 55 60 degrees and we slept firly well.
Monday, May 26, 2014, 12:47 We are headed along the one-way road toward the Bettersweet and hckory trails. We had breakfast and I washed the dishes from brekafast and last night and aired the sleeping bags and battened hayched. It's another lovely day. I am wearing shortts, a tanktop and sandals. It's still fairly early in the spring here None of the trees are leafed out all the way--the leaves are very small. Lots of birds are singing.
4:46 PM back at Camp. We walked the Bittersweet and hickory trails which run along the river at the far end of the campground. The day was lovely, warm and sunny and breezy and we saw lots of spring wildflowers, most of the ones we've been seeing and some new ones.
Among the flowers we saw were fringed polgala, starry false solomon's seal (and false in bud), true solomon's seal, bladdernut, lots of wild geranims,long-spurred violets, mayapples in flower, poison ivy in bud, wood anenome, barren strawberry,
We saw one frog.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014, this is checkout day. It rained during the night, rained hard and fairly long. After a visit to the woods, we cuddled briefly, then hopped up to started breaking camp. Mary unzipped the sleeping bags and Hung ropes to air and dry them--they were quite damp from the rain. Mary stripped the bed and pillows and Keith hung the bedding to dry. Thank goodness it stopped raining. Mary took the fly off the tent and Keith and Mary spread it in the top of the car to dry.
We ate breakfast and Mary washed the dishes and we put the tent in the center of the space to dry and slowly slowly, we are decampingm Keith is packing the car now. The two girls camped next to us left exrtremely quickly. They had a very large tent, way bigger than ours, but they got it down fast.
Right now, Keith is trying to fold the green chair Robert gave him years ago in Colorado.
3:14 PM. After packing, We walked the Riverside trail and saw lots of flowers including sarsaparilla, white (and pink) trilliumns, early meadowrue, golden alexandaer, miterwort, columbines, wild geraniums, ribes sp (gooseberries?) (np prickers, though.), buttercps, wood anenome, we found one more (Keith found it). Solomon's seal, starry false solomon's seal, and false solomon's seal (in bud) Canada Mayflower (first ones opeing a little), barren strawberries, yellow violets
We saw large and small wild geranimums, and saturated and nearly white ones.
Now we are on the wilderness trail and there are wood betaonies, choke charres, wood anenomes, dandelions, fringed polygala, tons of poison ivy (on most trails), blueberries (in flower), as are the other things I listed. solomon's seal, pussy toes, wild strawberries, barren strawberries, columbines, long-spurred vilets, "perfoliate egg-cups," snake, black and gold. The wood betony whoch was just starting ehrn we first got here is nearly gone by. Of course this is a different area and habitat. Oh wait, here's some just starting. Maybe the microclimate was sifferent back there, a south-facing slope. (K has gone in pursuit of the snake). Starry false solomon's seaal. Those perfoliate egg-cups (somekind of honeysuckle, I think), are taking over large areas of the forest floor. Lots of fringed polygala here. And those little white things that float above the sand--forget what they are. There are some of those things I was calling bog rosemary (but we forgot to bring a flower book--the have leathery leaves and pink white and pink inverted vase-like flowers with a little frill of mini-petals..
We're atill watching for morels, but other than one slightly weasley and moldy one on the Riverside trail, we have yet to find any more morels This is a piny woods, on the wilderness trail. Not so many oaks.
On the wildernbess trail, there more mosquitoes
Keith catches up with me at the beach overlook and says he got three or four not-very-good pictures of the snake. There is no horizon att all today--the lake blurs into the sky.
I wade out into the water. Keith takes off his clothes and goes skinny dipping, but I can see people way down th beach. I take off my shorts and wade in in my undies. The water feels amazingly good. Keith is pleased to be cooled and cleansed (it was ot and humid and sweaty and dirty).
We get out and dry off.
That blur on the horizon is moving closer and closer, and the beach is blurring and I say, maybe it's a storm. Right after I say that, I hear thunder, twice. We didn't bring dry bags for the gear so we hightail it and hotfoot it back to the car.
5:23 PM we made it before the tain and now we are headed home under a very dark sky. It's still not raining. OOps, spoke too soon, here it comes. Well we got cvamp broke and got 2 walks and lunch, so I guess we can't xomplain.
The windmills are all stopped. We've never seen them all stopped before. K thinks he saw them coasting to a stop. He wonders why they aren't running, the peak load would be about now Lightning. 66 degrees.. It was 77 degrees earlier (and very humid).
It's raining really hard. Earlier in the day, while we were breaking camp, Mary found a tick on her, and now she keep imagining she feels them walking on her.
It's raining and raining and rianing. We're driving between newly plowed farm fields and they smell like wet dirt. A mist lies over the fields..
5:48 PM We're on the 4012 now, under a think roiling blacl cloud. Part of it, to the north is like a wall, and to the south, it has visible curtains of rain hanging down.
6:08 PM, we've cleared customs and are back in the USa, and in Michigan. It's 59 degrees, raining and there is highway construction. All the wildness and pastoral beauty of Canada is lost (but soon, there should be some wild pastoral Michigan.).
We aren't even back home yet, ut the woods here have changed. The spring here is further along and the leaves are larger on the trees. By the time we get home, it may look like summer.
(It does, indeed, almost look like summer--rainy!)
*£ ETJ end trip journal
* * * *
Bumbleberry Sauerkraut
I've been making raw sauerkraut because I read that it has health benefits. "Prebiotics." Accoding to a number of articles, it helps with allergies and a number of other problems and I have been feeling a little better since I started it.
My favorite mix so far was raspberry sauerkraut. You've heard of "girlie beers" and girlie drinks. Well, this is girlie sauerkraut. My husband, who has not tried any of my sauerkrauts (all the more for me), was totally grosssed out when told him I was making raspberry sauerkraut. But it's really good.
After I ground up all the ingredients by hand, he told me we had a food processor. Next time, I'll try that, because my arm got very tired doing it by hand.
Here's the recipe. Keep in mind that I never measure when I cook.
Ingredients:
Cabbage (small head or half a large head)
1 beet
2 medium carrots
a few drops of lemon or lime juice
salt to taste
a small handful of raspberries (I'm going to try other berries. I found a recipe online for blueberry sauerkraut, so I'll try that. But in that recipe, they put the berries in whole.
Directions;
1) wash, peel and grind the cabbage, beet and carrots I ground mine fairly fine, using one of the smaller size holes. The final product was about the consistency of applesauce and even had a flavor similar to unsweetened applesauce.
2)beat the vegetavles with a clean wooden mallet. Since I didn't have one of those, i put them in a ziplock bag and beat them with something else, I forget what.
3) Salt to taste and put into a crock. A Crockpot crock will work well, as will wide-mouth glass jars. Cover withcheesecloth. I didn't have any cheese cloth, so I covered it loosely with plastic, allowing air spaces around the edges.
4)allow to sit in a warm spot overnight. If it hasn't produced enough liquid to cover itself, add water to cover.
5) After it sits for for three days, taste. If it's not getting tangy and sour, let it sit another few days. When it begins to taste like sauerkraut, add a few drops of lemon or lime and mash up a handful of raspberries or other berries and mix in well. Once it reaches your preferred degree of tanginess, refridgerate. NOTE, do not heat, as this will destroy the good bacteria. This kind of sauerkraut is menat to be eaten raw.
I left mine on the counter in the kitchen for the entire time it lasted until I had finished it You might prefer to eat it cold rather than at room temperature, though.
The first batch I made was very small, just one jar, because I wasn't sure I'd like it or that it would agree with me. But I did like it and am going to make more.
* Uncle Beast notes
One thing I noticed when rereading earlier segments of Beast is that when Beast abandoned Tiny on the Island, he left Killer with her, but it was so long before I wrote the next section that I had Killer with him. Need to fix that. (One way or the other!)
Another thing is that there is no clear story-;ine. I need one.
* 222
from last file Taming Uncle Beast
My point about all this is that while you could meet good people and bad people anywhere, yr more likely to meet anothoer Bugs at AA or Al-anon than at Church or school. And if that's not PC, I apologize, and I keep saying I'm just writing to you, but if you want me to post stuff on Cowbird, maybe I should revise it?
*
So I tell Trey, Harmon and Jake my story about Bugs and they listen quietly. And I also tell them my theory about AA and Al-anon being a possible den of iniquity, and they laugh, and kind of agree. They understand, thank goodness, what I mean. I don't mean to be offensive. And I don't mean they--Jake and Harmon--are bad. I think lots of people who go there might be innocent. Well, probably no one, at Church or school or anywhere, is totally innocent. But mostly innocent.
* New
It was one of those quiet days when nothing was happenig. Real life is not as exciting as a novel. We were drifting down river, Jake was steering. I'd been talking a long time and was still sitting on Harmon's lap not thinking anything of it. He was comfortable, like an old pair of jeans, but he wasn't old, not for me. I mean, that sounds wrong. All I meant was that I just met Harmon, he's almost a stranger, and he still feels comfortable.
Jake told Trey to take the tiller and got out some of the bread and baloney he'd picked up at the store, I guess with some money from Harmon. When they were getting (whatever it was?). Baloney is like not my favorite food, but it's cheap and Jake likes it. He didn't get any butter or tomatoes or lettuce and the bread is that squishy wonderbread stuff that little kids like. Only I never did when I was little, and still don't. But Jakes slaps a couple peieces of baloney between two pieces of bread, and another and another and a fourth and then we're all chowing down. And it ain't half bad. You know, I mean it isn't. Them other people, I mean the other people with me aren't writing memoirs for their English teachers and they are talking crude--not crude, exactly, what do you call it? Not dialect, either, really, but casual, (). And I start talking the way they're talking. Sometimes, I forget when I start writing to not speak in ().
Here's the weird thing. None of them are stupid or uneducated. I mean, Trey's in high school (?), like me, but he must either come from a good family or have good teachers at school and pay attention, or both, because he doesn't sound like he's from hicksville, and neither, of course, do Jake and Harmon. I mean, I guesss there could be uneducated preachers, but Harmon isn't one of them. So I don't know why they're all talking that way, maybe for fun, maybe mocking out the rednecks at ().
The thing is, it's catching, and I find myself repsonding in kind and then it leaks into my writing.
I finally get up off Harmon's lap when Jake docks up at a fallen tree and we take turns wandering into the woods for a quick pitt stop, or as they refer to it, a piss stop. (I like Pit stop better.). By taking turns, I mean they all go first to "check things out and make sure they're safe" and then I go by myself. When Harmon gets up, he kind of hobbles at first and I wonder if I put his legs to sleep sitting on them, but in a minute or two, he's fine, and he doesn't complain.
*
We're in church in (). I've got the mini iPad disguised in one of the hymnals. But I'm not going to write much, because I want to hear what Harmon has to say. I am sitting between Trey and Jake in the back row. I wanted to sit in the front, because of my ADHD, or lack of ability to remember to pay attention. That's why I always sit in front in class, front row center. I don't want to get distracted by kids passing notes and whispering and texting each other and sleeping and doodling in their notebooks and stariing out the window. I really want to get good grades so I can get into a good college and hopefully get a scholarship. A lot of kids think getting good grades is uncool. I don't usually mention it out loud to most of the kids, but I actually like school, like learning new stuff. Okay, I'm weird.
(Darn that cowbird thing, if you have the other kids reading what I write they'll know my secrets.)
Speaking of weird, one of the other Cowbird members is having a "Weird Party" on Cowbird, which means we're supposed to write something weird. I guess I just did. Liking school and research and homework and writing papers and taking tests is definitely weird to most kids I know. So, yeah, I'm weird.
Other ways I am weird include my not liking certain kid foods, like hot dogs, water melon, PBJs, and liking other oods that most kids I know don't like like liver, spinach, bean sandwiches (everyone makes fun of them), meatloaf sandwiches.
It occurs to me that my beng a "whisperer," even though I'm really not exactly a whisperer, is pretty weird. At least most everybody things it's weird in a good way.
Martin says one of the reasons I make a good whisperer is because I am more empathetic than most people, especially kids my age. I think being empathetic is not necessarily a bad thing. For one thing, people talk to me. They tell me stuff because they know I'll listen. I can keep a secret and I don't gossip. And because of that, I have more friends than most of the other weird kids at school. I have friends in every group of kids. I'm not popular, but I sometimes get invited to popular parties.
I am trying to think of ways I am not weird. That's a lot harder! One thing is that I attempt, to some extent, to dress like the other kids, because I don't want to be too wierd. I wear jeans and flannels in the winter and jeans and T-shirts in the summer. That makes me fit in more with the boys than the girls, though, cause I mostly don't like fashions, with very few exceptions. In fact, I just plain don't like girl's clothes. I hate stuff without pockets.
I was wearing my hair in braids right up until the end of eighth grade. Then I got my hair cut and styled like everyone else. I hate it and am growing it out again. It's such a pain to take care of. But it's pretty awkward right now. I hope by the end of the summer that it's grown out enough to put in a pony or tiny braids. Right now I am using little hair clips to keep the too-long bangs out of my eyes. I look pretty stupid, which makes me sad because I think Trey is really cute.
Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.
C. S. Lewis
Mary
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