There is No Dark Side of the Moon

WTH every week can leave you speechless lately. It's swampy, as Paul observed earlier. Just about a steam room area, not in the steam room itself, just around it. Soggy, ill-feeling. This is the sort of life pattern that leads to a night at Rudy's. And we all know that nothing good comes from going to Rudy's.

To add to the general outsized bizarrity of life, Stevil's playing his Recycled Radio Show right now
http://wvew.org/

and it's strangely synched up with our local television station's auction
http://www.brattleborotv.org/news/bctv-news/love-bctv-live-auction-band-jam

I've submutted my column to Vermont Views (late) but it's not online yet. When it is, I'll post it.

Meanwhile, eat comfort foods, wear comfort clothing, do comforting things. The world has sharp edges.

On Their Way Back Home

Sunday driving, not arriving....

A Growth Spurt

Remembering back to when I was about 10 and the painful legs I had for months as I grew 3 inches in one year. Growth hurts. It's change, and change always hurts. Pain brings change. They're connected.

So the last few weeks have been a growth spurt. Growth meaning more self-awareness, getting new buttons that can be pushed, learning to not respond to things right away, and the ongoing reassessment of one's capabilities. And Boomer's moving away and then Mac's death hit me harder than I'd thought.

And losing the children's book in which I'd invested 4 months of work. I hoped against hope that it'd be retrievable, and when told it wasn't, that everything was gone from my hard drive, I went into a weird grief process. Not that it hadn't happened, but that it was no big deal, it was just a kid's book, I could rewrite it, it wasn't like Gatsby or anything. But it was 4 months of hard time, with your head always half-somewhere-else. It was close to finished, the end was near. It took space, it had a life, and is now gone. Poof!

And there was one of those "now it hits me" phases where I kept re-realizing that Mac was dead.

And realized Boomer had meant more to me than I'd thought.

I tipped from FB.

Then the computer died.

Then my brother didn't call or answer my calls on my birthday after I'd had a little visit from his wife the night before that shook the hell outta me. Yeah, no joke. That extent of somebody stopping in has only happened twice in my whole life. And I don't care how tough you are or how long you've been doing it, when you get someone from the other side in a close encounter it still shocks you, unless you're going cold turkey off massive amounts of drugs. Then, nothing really shocks you. But this one did spook me. Beery's okay, so I'll kill him when I see him. I kinda hope that's the last I see of Mac though.

There's a lot of ow!s in all that, btw.

Anyway, yeah, it was a big bag of bouchedaggery and I know a few more things about myself that maybe in my early senility I'd already known and forgotten in 1979. It was a couple of weeks of shittage, but it lifted and life goes on. No matter how old you are, there's always something new, even about yourself, to discover.
May we all be Growing Strong. ;)

Puppy Joy, Puppy Love

You forget what having a puppy around is. It's constant motion with staggered times of exhaustion. It's everything is new and a surprise to them. It's cuddling as a joy and a sport. It's moments of random hilarity that can leave you trying to breathe. It's enthusiastic affection. It's frustration if you're the owner. And now I have several moments in my mind's eye that make laugh pressure in my head (when your eyes start to tear and your nose runs a little, and you have to laugh) that I hope stay with me forever.

Thank you Strider and Olivia. XO

Life really should be more of that- laughing almost into hysteria now and then, cuddling a puppy struggling to lick your face, eating yummy stuff, talking about everything.

About the rice noodles. They were way better than wheat noodles. Way better. Lighter, not pasty (I never pre-boil lasagna noodles). There was a mishap in appearance when I assembled it and the rice noodles curled up on top before the mozzarella topped it and weighed them down. Which happened because I found I couldn't lift it before the mozzie would even be added so it waited til Allyson came back to be topped and go in the oven. I suspect they wouldn't have with the weight of the mozzie but it didn't matter. They crunched up a little with the cheese on them. All good. And no stomach issues for me. Rice products are the way to go methinks. I'm thrilled to be eating solids without too much ado.

The science experiment is leftover dumpling mix that I'm let drying out in the fridge. I need to know what it does before I can figure it out. Not green or fuzzy. But only 4 days old, too. :) I'm still a food experimenter at heart.

It's soooo quiet. All the Beestage has done since they left is eat and sleep. She comes outta the bedroom, bugs me for food, eats and goes back to bed. She's in constant purr mode, too. They almost got to the all-good stage but then Beest would wig out. Fargin Beestage.

Meanwhile, if you're taking the news in small doses, here's something you probably either knew or suspected, but now it seems confirmed true:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/04/telephone-calls-recorded-fbi-boston
Uncle Glenn old me this started in the 1950s when he was working for the old Ma Bell. It's just that technology is sharper now. And they'll refine it further for their uses, of course.

Secondly, this is an interesting piece about being disabled in the US. A quote: "....the human body can be impaired in an almost infinite number of ways, and people of all walks of life can become impaired. As with the population as a whole, disabled people are characterized by difference rather than normality...."
http://monthlyreview.org/2004/03/01/the-right-not-to-work-power-and-disability

There's a lot of bad news, a lot of good news you'll not hear about, and a lot of the same old crap that goes on and on. Take your puppy breaks when you can.

The Beest and the Puppy

Having a blast with Strider and babydog here. Her name is now Olivia (she isn't the Maisie sort) and she's happy to be alive and discovering. Beest, however, is a cranky old Victorian spinster. Mexican standoffs galore, though I think Beest only "got" poor Livi twice. Livi has taken Strider for a walk (they did 5 miles yesterday).

Otherwise, I've been a vegetable and it's been really nice. Lasagna is soaking. I've never used rice-only flour to cook with, so that's all new. But I have to say the nongluten bread I got is fab. Rice flour is my next culinary frontier. I made dunplings over chicken soup and they have a curious almost pastry texture. Very easy on the stomach though, and I think with an egg added next time they'll be good. I have an experiment in the fridge, too.

This really was what I needed after the crazy weeks. Just hangin'. Lotsa laughs from the puppy and Strider, who carries on a running dog's-view (or Beest-view) commentary.

It's a very pretty budding-Spring day.

May the Fourth be with you too. :)