Merry Now What?

I dropped a knife on my toe.  Peeling an onion was slow going, and you are more likely to cut yourself with a dull knife than with a sharp, predictable blade.  Let's give this one a few swipes and get a better edge for chopping onions.  The Sabatier is a nice, heavy 8" piece that has been with me for years; it hones to an excellent edge and is a joy to work with until it slips out of your hand and drops sideways onto your toe, second one in.

The sensation was a mere klunk without pain, even when a dark crescent appeared and started to spread.  Awww, come onnnnnn!  The first day of vacation and... jeez, stop watching the darn thing and get a paper towel, compress, compress, compress.  I am not one to examine my own cuts, but after gimping to the couch and observing the paper towel perform extra absorbency, I thought maybe this needed a stitch.  But wait and see.

After fifteen minutes, it subsided and seemed to hold together with a bit of a gash, and okay, it stopped being scary.  Two of the cats had come by to listen to the swearing and see if they could help by pawing at me and jumping in my lap.  NO.  SKEDADDLE!  SCOOT!  These commands were ignored, so I one-handedly lifted a cat to deposit her out of the way onto the couch while squishing the opening closed with the other hand; that idea was not appealing to her; she slid away, knocking the laptop off the table for me to not catch and land on (yup) the mangled toe.  Compress, compress, compress.  Additional mighty fine Christmas swearing ensued.  Santa writes: Coal for Susan after that string of blue.

I called my friends to tell them that due to stupidity, I would not be joining them this evening and hopefully will hop by tomorrow.  Toe is stinging, loaded with antibacterial ointment, butterfly-bandaged, covered in gauze, and elevated.  The soup is on hold, and will be resumed in a bit.  

In other kitchen news, due to Christmas vacation there are three tanks in residence; one of guppies, another of pillbug babies, and the third of millipedes.  This is temporary, and I prefer them near a sink for caretaking purposes, but away from the counter in case I drop a knife on them.  This morning, while checking the millipede Rancho Coburno, one had emerged halfway out of the moss.  They should get used to being handled; right now they let go of a fluid composed of hydrogen cyanide from their backend to make the predator change their mind.  It isn't enough to harm a human but may irritate a few.  Just wash your hands. You would be surprised to know where cyanide resides in the natural world; just don't swallow too many apple seeds.

Anyways, I picked this guy up and noticed that wow, this is different, for they usually curl into a cinnamon bun whorl.  This one was huge, and had wriggled into a Gordian knot, a round ball of bug.  How the heck did he do that?  Oh my goodness, is that another tail, there's two tails?  Wrapped together. Into a ball. Barry White was playing on the small stereo in the back of the tank.  I put them back and apologized.  It's sort of nice, however, knowing that the environment is healthy enough that they want a family.

Tonight was one of the most magical of nights in my childhood; the anticipation of Santa stopping by our house in the country, so far out you would wonder how Santa would find you.  I would lay in the dark wishing to Jesus and Santa that it would be all right, that nothing would trigger Dad into tearing his gifts apart or smashing plates against walls.  Fear mingled with happy anticipation, perhaps you've felt that in some capacity.  Yesterday, I made sure that my school kids had a good send off, with a gift for each and a small box filled with geegaws.  They got to pick the color of ribbon that I tied around their stuffed animal's neck, faces ecstatic.

A student that I had two years ago came by; she had written me a note in pencil.  I read it at least six times during the day to remind me where I am and what my purpose might be.  She said thank you for being the most awesome teacher.  You were always good to me, I will never forget you.  Merry Christmas to you and your family.  A note like this happens every once in a while, and it is an apt gift from the universe.  I don't even notice a sore toe with a note like that.

Whether your family or you or your cat recognize the holidays, or if tomorrow is just Friday, we have passed the Winter Solstice and are on our way to longer days.  You won't notice the increase till the first week of January, for the earlier time of sunrise does not necessarily match the lengthened time of sunset.  It's a bit of a teeter-totter.  But in these dark nights, begin a flame that ignites an idea, a wish, a heart's ease for someone; you will feel it yourself and be cheered.  The gaiety of ribbon and paper, swirled by dogs and cats and kids is a charm of the season, the deeper jeweled tones of winter take the place of flowers; the light of a candle pantomimes a bit of the sun.  What comes from the heart resounds.

Sleep well, in anticipation of the lighted part of a 24-hour cycle, of the ebb and flow of measured illumination.  Imagine what is to be, imagine what you can do.  Bring one moment of peace to another, and remember that there is more good than bad.  Sweep away sand, seven maids with seven mops.

Decembery

The millipedes have been transferred to a ten gallon tank that allows them to stretch out a bit more, plus the substrate is a nice bed of coconut fiber.  I gathered a bag of dry maple leaves from the piles in the parking lot, and have to bake them at a low temp to kill any fungal or parasitic cooties.  Millipedes, as many other living things, are susceptible to mites.  I've read to leave the mites alone, as they clean the host; then there is the opposite where you take a Q-tip dipped in alcohol and wipe down the side of your beloved critter.  I need to go on Amazon and see if there is a "Millipedes and You" book.

Now, the smaller tank has a few remaining pill bugs, and I was poking around with a chopstick (so handy a tool for many things) to see who was where.  And guess what!  Babies!!  I flipped up a leaf and the tiniest yellow string lifted it's wee self up as if to say "What on earth do YOU want?" and I am guessing that is a hatchling millipede.  Other movement indicates that more than one is scooting about, and then there were tiny yellowish pillbugs as well.  There is a nursery of arthropods and crustaceans in my kitchen.  I am thrilled.  The more, the merrier.

Pillbugs have gills, and are related more to crabs and lobsters than bugs. Millipedes are also closer to marine life, and are supposedly the first animals to emerge onto land some 450 million years ago.  They can live up to seven years, and make really nice, gentle pets.  Yes, I am a nerd.

Other than arthropod housekeeping, this day has been one grand headache; they suspect pneumonia, which will be decided once the x-ray doctor looks at the chest slides taken Friday afternoon BUT THEY WON'T BE IN UNTIL MONDAY.  I'm on the second set of antibiotics, the first being amoxicillin which just tickled the bacteria pink, then something called azithromycin, one tab a day for three days which further amused the farm that has taken residence in my lungs.  I'm going into the third week of bronchial circus, and feel like a semi-animated lump.

An interesting sidenote is that my sense of smell is completely gone, an experience brand new to this humble body.  Coffee smells like nothing.  The cat box smells like nothing.  Anything I've eaten tastes like dirt unless it has a load of salt, which is one of the few flavors identifiable.  I brought home a bag of fish sticks, not the healthiest food, but you just toss them in the toaster oven and then eat.  Were they fish, chicken, or extruded muskrat buttcrack cheese, I couldn't tell ya. Crunchy but only the desperate ketchup gave off faint tones of vinegar.  Any suggestions gladly examined.

I have lived through two neti pots, which several friends and my son swear by.  I hate them.  I don't mind pouring water up my nose, but the burning sensation created in my sinuses feels like a weasel is trying to gnaw its way out of my face. I have tried adding salt, brown sugar, store-bought additive, and plain filtered water and get the same result.  Pain.  Lots of pain and swears.   I will last till Monday, it's already been scheduled for being a sick day.  But enough of my meowing.

No snow, but this city has installed lights for year round that make it festive and fun.  There is now an ice rink downtown for those of you who like their feet moving in an opposite direction of their arse.  New restaurants and bars, and hopefully more attractions will come; but for now, we are colorful.  The grain elevators are lit with abstract patterns, building are illuminated in greens and reds, uplights scale walls of old brick, lending modernity to hundred year old facades.

The young people come down with their families; but even more moved are the folks who saw Buffalo go down into the shards of the Rust Belt as jobs were outsourced, as the Welland Canal took away the passage of grain ships through the harbor, as city planners ran a subway train down Main Street which eliminated traffic and saw the death of downtown.   It's wonderful to see, and if I ever shake this cream of lung inconvenience, I 'll be there as well.  Not ice skating, you understand, but a raised glass in their direction.

Tomorrow I have further plans for the millipedes; there are ample brachiopods that were gathered for Bri and Dana's wedding.  What better place to put them than in the arthropod tank with critters that evolved about the same time as the Spirifers?  It will be a miniature Jurassic Park, with giant bugs.  Fern.  I need a fern.  Plastic dinosaurs, except they didn't show up for another 200 million years. Two hundred million years, people.  That would bother me, the anachronistic warp; I'll think of something.  Maybe.  Head soggy. Ow.

I like December, a lot.  I wish I could recapture some of the enchantment felt when the giant, overheating Christmas bulbs on a sap-gooey tree loaded down with lead tinsel were plugged in.  Nothing like the aroma of hot lead with the potential of burning pine needles.  My Aunt Dorie's tree was fabulous, and she introduced me to the magic of magics: bubble lights.  At her house it was okay to plug in the tree, and enjoy the glow of blatantly primary and secondary colors.
It was calm, and I remember the drive home back to the empty country, and passing the city streets thick with snow and the ornate street globes of the time until we turned onto Genessee, which led to stillness and dark isolation.

The Christmas lights here stay on, this city is happy with the changes.  Change is good, for the most part; you reflect and grow through your choices and memories.  I miss my brother; but a very wise passage from a friend said that grief never ends; it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay, but aligned with the price of love.  Good night, John.  Millipedes and Christmastime, I think of you.  Sleep well, all.

Ain't it the truth!

Friday night in the early seventies meant heading over to my friend's apartment at eight, slapping on Mary Quant, Yardley, and Maybelline; she doused herself with Chantilly Lace which I thought smelled like baby powder.  I preferred Heaven Sent.  No flat irons were invented yet for hair, the thing to do was to lay your head on the ironing board and go at it with a real iron.  I used steam rollers with a metal core that would sizzle your fingers like hot dogs if you grabbed them wrong.  Eye drops to make your eyes bright, then individual lower lid eyelashes were painted on so they wouldn't be smudged by the rest of the construction.  No going out too early; if you were meeting friends at a bar, 11 p.m. was a pretty reasonable hour.

Depended on the bar.  Biker ones, stay out of there all together; preppy ones were filled with LLBean types; at Casey's, be ready to duck out fast as soon as you heard a beer bottle break; Nor-Tel's was an old bar with lounge music, and The Mug would have a band.

If you weren't with a crowd, wear shoes that you could run in, without any foo-foo girly lace ruffled nonsense that would trip you up.  Jeans were best; at the time embellishments included studs, embroidery, paint, sewn on trinkets, and moderate bell bottoms. Why run?  If some idiot lit up inside a public place, the police would be there in a heartbeat as at the time, the county was run by a man who would jail you if you were just sitting next to someone carrying; the wisest thing to do included evacuating the building the second you smelled weed and head to the next door hamburger joint for hot chocolate and french fries.  The whole thing was daring, jittering with the politics of impossibilities, devoid of progress, and gave an edge to life that you thought was reality.

Har de har har, Alice.

Nowadays, Friday night means switching to decaf by 4 p.m. so not to lay awake from a cup of tea's caffeine.  Maybe an early fish fry with friends, then home to jammies and a book or sketch pad.

I used to claim that those years were wasted youth, and there were better things I could have done, such as use the Regents scholarship I had won.  Well, there is truth in that, but the retrospective lens these decades later says something a bit kinder.  People waste time in churches as well as bars, in hothouses and laboratories.  Who did you harm, except yourself?  Hopefully no one, and most of all, you didn't give up.  You knew there was something out there for you to do along the way, even if it wasn't momentous; perhaps helping another living being whether it was cleaning cages at the museum's live animal exhibit, or singing carols at a nursing home.  Picking up a piece of litter.  Leaving a quarter on a railing somewhere.

I helped my friend for as long as I could, for I assigned myself the role of her guardian angel in exaggerated eyelashes.  It was a job I had performed like a seal at my parental home, trying to keep peace and save my Mom.  She wouldn't leave.  As I found my own way out, there was Nancy; seemingly self-assured and wild, but also owning a self-destructive streak that eventually killed her.  It gave me temporary purpose to be the one she trusted, but also partially filled my need to be needed.

That era of my life is basis for continued reflection; I didn't know where I was going then, but I can see the development of conviction, and even longer on, the knowledge to trust my own judgement, which was very hard when you are taught to turn the other cheek.  Don't you turn that face, but get your verbal left hook ready, and know when to leave; wear your sneakers.  I am wise.  I am focused.  I am aware of fallibility and how to get up and start again.  And again. And again. New discoveries happen every day; some I don't forget.  But tonight I have the word "RENT" inked on the back of my left hand, so I don't forget to hand in the check; I currently have bronchial mischief that makes my head hurt, and therefore the brain is battered and deep fried.    

The record for no snow has been broken here in the city of Buffalo, famous for lake effect storms.  If the lake does not freeze by the end of this month, we are primed for some wangdoodle-sized blizzards that will sock us in through March. The almanac predicts a cold, dry winter; but does that take a warm lake into account as storms sweep in from the west?  We shall see.  Shake out the blankets, you are all right.  Take stock of yourself, see the good you have done, and don't worry, dear hearts.  Sleep well, sometimes courage is a slow process.