scrubjayspeaks

Well, friends, here I sit. Perch, really, on a barstool in a little hole-in-the-wall cafe. I've got over two hours before my appointment is scheduled.

Why so much time? I had to return the rental car this morning. Since I have no idea what traffic to expect, I'm giving myself a lot of buffer time on everything. This will result in a lot of sitting around, trying to keep my anxiety under control.

The surgical experience has not gone swimmingly so far. In fairness, it's nothing to do directly with the surgery. Monday, I got home from work to find out one of the horses was suddenly, inexplicably, and severely unwell. None of the local emergency vets was going to be available until the next day. We predicted that was going to be too little, too late, but there were no alternatives. We provided what medical care we could to at least keep her comfortable.

She died in the night. I'll write about her eventually. She was the last show horse and the one I worked with most, because she was active during and after college for me. She was 25, which is a decent run, as far as these things go. I loved her a whole lot. Shit sucks.

So Tuesday morning, with a storm incoming, I helped my mom use the tractor to drag her out into the field. One of our neighbors has a backhoe, and they've dug graves for us several other times. Mom will be able to get her buried with their help, but moving her into position was a process.

Then I got showered, packed up my luggage, and headed out to get the rental car. Then drove for hours, into a storm. To get to a city I've barely visited and only driven in once very briefly. As the most country of country mice, who is more accustomed to driving on unpaved country lanes than narrow, congested city streets.

It's been two and a half days, and this week is fucking with my head.

So here I sit. With tea.

We have a little porch/landing type thing we built off our backdoor, and it recently started collapsing due to a few failing timbers. We had a bunch of plastic totes underneath it, basically shoved under there for safekeeping ages ago, and they all had to be pulled out of the way when we shored up the porch.

Finally went through them today. One was nothing but shoes that didn't fit me all that well when they were new and which now were irrevocably taken over by spider nests. *shudder* A couple had clothing, towels, and other miscellaneous cloth items, more or less unharmed. Some of the totes had started cracking, though, and had let water in at some point. One of the hurricane lamps is badly rusted now, but perhaps not unsalvageable. There's a little wooden trinket box I've had since I was very young which has now come unglued, rusted, and mildewed away. I still think I can put it back together and refinish it, though, and I rather want to try. I also found the little cloth baby book--numbers and letters and animals--that I've remained weirdly attached to all my life (it's now safely in my bedroom).

If it seems odd that nice things and sentimental things were chucked under the porch all willy-nilly, uh...you haven't heard the worst of it yet. I. I own some really nice things? I know, not so you can tell most of the time, since I like to keep my space arranged around an aesthetic somewhere between "Howl's bedroom" and "bowerbird courtship structure." And it's not that I don't remember owning these things. I just haven't thought about them in a while*.

I now have an etched glass decanter and matching water goblets arranged on the DVD shelving in the living room. Right next to the crackle-finish bud vase in the form of a bamboo double helix, which was in the same tote. (Thank goodness I understood the concept of boxes within boxes and using ALL the bubble wrap.) They're stunningly lovely to look at. I even had my fizzy water with lunch in one of the goblets.

I want to make a point of using these things. I have room for them (sort of, barely, if I'm careful and creative) in the house. At the old place, they had to all stay in boxes because there just wasn't anywhere safe or, you know, flat available to display them. But I own nice things, and I'm increasingly hedonistic as the years go by. I want to enjoy pretty things. Fine things. Eating my grilled cheese and apple sandwich off the good china and such.

I also found all the jars of dirt I took from emotionally significant locations around the old place. Places where pets had been buried, my childhood play area, the hills around our barn. Had a good cry with mum when we found all that. It's going in the bookshelf, where all the cut branches from my beloved trees are stored as well.

This day was A Lot, but it was good.

*The only thing I can say in our defense is that life was really, REALLY hard when we first moved up here. The house looked like it had been bombed inside, and two shipping containers weren't even close to enough room to store all things we had spent a year desperately evacuating from our previous home. And as long as we thought, well, it's boxed up somewhere, so it'll be safe until we want/need/randomly rediscover it, there wasn't a lot of impetus to go looking for them.

Uh, so, just a minor procedural note: if I fail to post normally-posted things over the next couple days, it will be because they've switched off my power (and therefore internet). As a preventative safety measure*. For the lovely fuck-off brush fire currently burning up the hills on the other side of the highway from me.

I mean, it would have to cross said highway and burn up my tiny town before it got to me personally. That's only a couple miles though. Considering what happened to Paradise last year, that's not, like, out of the question.

Fun side effect: in a blackout, we would also have no a/c or fans. It has been 105 degrees for the last several days and over 100 for...about a week? I love dying.

*(I have thus far enjoyed the various messages I have received this summer from the power company, telling us to be prepared for blackouts lasting more than 48 hours if they think it will help with fire danger. I mean, there's a fire on right now and they haven't done fuck all, but what do I know. I hate the power company.)

Well, it's official: I made it through to my last official days at my current job, and now I am free. Huzzah!

I mean, I am therefore unemployed (or will be soon, allowing for processing and whatnot) and on a ticking clock for what meager insurance I do have. So it's not like it's a great situation, but hey! I officially didn't die due to any of the chronic bullshit at that job!

Now I just need my mum to survive the pacemaker installation tomorrow, and then I will feel like I have some hope in hell of coping with life, the universe, and everything.

For my mum's birthday this year, I took her out plant shopping. I...did not resist the temptation to buy plants for myself as well. XD I bought some herbs, some succulents, and some geraniums. Today, the geraniums and the catnip (yes, more catnip!) got repotted. I also planted the moss rose seeds, which are absurdly tiny.



The geranium collection had a very difficult time with the hard freezes this winter, but it looks like all but one made it through alive enough to start putting out new growth. Even with the new plants in, the pot looks threadbare and shabby. By summer, it should be overflowing with scented leaves and flowers, if last year was any indication.

Oops--a little late on a couple planting updates. On 3/27, I planted some (worryingly old!) shiso seeds. We'll see if they're still viable. And yesterday, I planted Money Plants (Lunaria annua). Those were direct sow, so no egg cartons for once! They're a biennial, something I haven't encountered before, so they'll just have foliage this year. Next year, they'll have flowers and silver dollar seed pods.

No pictures this time, because one can only tolerate so many nearly identical shots of egg cartons filled with soil and invisible seeds, but. Got the new Torch Lily seeds out of cold storage (god, but they're needy) and planted them. Repotted the False Sea Onion seedlings into small pots and relocated them to free up some more windowsill.

I...have another ten or so seed types that will need to get planted over the coming two months. I am possibly in over my head. :D

Now that I'm feeling better from my two-week bout of plague, I finally got out in the garden again. I repotted five plants, sowed a dozen seeds, and watered everyone. The plants brought into my bedroom during the hard freeze are recovering. Out of 20, 3 may be lost causes, another 6 are uncertain, and the rest look likely to survive.

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