Thursday Blahs

For no reason I have the blahs today. It's even sunny out there, and warm-ish-ing up into the 30s. I did try to start learning Wii Zumba this morning (even though I yoga-ed the hell out of my knees yesterday and they are both uber-achy) but while it did load it wouldn't recognize the controller so that I could create myself and get past the beginning screen. Frustration is not my friend at anytime but before 8 AM we are definitely enemies. I will go back to it later, when I am more awake and have my glasses on, to read the manual (often a good idea with a new toy) and see if I can't figure it out before I use the extended warranty (that I bought for three bucks on a hunch) to get me a new one that will play nice with my Wii. Tomorrow Durwood, Skully, Julie and I are going down to the Aging Resource Center for an orientation in their exercise room so we can go there to workout whenever we want. It's $1 a month. A Buck A Month, people! What a deal! You have to be 60 to qualify so I barely make it but I'm looking forward it having another workout opportunity. I'm loving yoga basics (even though my knees are killing me today). I felt a bit more flexible last night and able to do the poses a little better. Obviously I pushed it a bit but I'll get it and then I can go to real yoga classes. (I have to find out if the Friday night ones start tomorrow so I can be ready when I go to knitting.) I wish I was underwater right now. Warm water would be the best, warm and salty, but I'd settle for cold and green fresh water. I feel like I need the peace of it. It seems like there's a buzzing all around me lately, a buzz of activity and things I need to do. I suppose I take on too many things at once, want to accomplish too much in too short a time, but I'm so eager to experience things I don't want to wait. You know, I never could figure out where DS got his drive to learn "a little bit about everything," and DD got her lifelong eagerness to look at things and not stop and think about them (she was looking around in the Delivery room, for crying out loud, checking out the sounds and lights) because I always thought I was lazy and sedentary and Durwood's a think-ahead kind of guy. Turns out I'm the active, impulsive one racing toward new experiences and wanting to try everything. How did I not know this about myself? Can you tell me that? Anybody?

January 4--India, Krishn Battles the Armies of the Demon Naraka. Many of Judith's guests didn't understand how she could bear to have an umbrella stand made from an elephant's foot in her entry hall. If she overheard someone talking about it she'd turn and walk away. Two years earlier she and Mac had gone on safari, on the trip of a lifetime. It was a photo safari and it was wonderful. Africa was golden and vast and smelled like exotic perfumes. Their safari company took them out in the bush in open-topped Land Rovers where they got up close to all sorts of animals. They slept in tent cabins and ate bush meat, which was what the South Africans called whatever the cook shot for the meal. It was all very regulated but made them feel as if they'd landed on a different planet or maybe back in an old movie. The guides warned them daily about getting too close to the wildlife, emphasizing the word "wild," and cautioning them not to wander away from the group or the camp for any reason. By the end of the month's trip it seemed as if they'd wandered into a park with tamed animals all around. The guide would say they were driving out to see lions and there were the lions. Giraffes would stalk through the acacia trees as if on command. It was very quiet on the last afternoon before they got back to civilization. Judith left their tent to walk down the trail to the stream behind the camp. She heard voices ahead and assumed that others of their party were already there. When she got into the open, she was alone, the only human with a quartet of elephants, and she was too close. Close enough that when the bull elephant nearest her turned to drive her off he knocked her down and stepped on her ankle. The next ten minutes seemed like an eternity until Micah, one of the guides, came down the path and shot the elephant. Judith wasn't dead, but there were times in the hospital in Nairobi over the next three months that she wished she had been. The umbrella stand was the foot of the elephant that trampled her. Part of her loved to see it there knowing that the elephant wouldn't hurt anyone else and part of her hated it because her nightmares always started with a round gray foot descending to stomp her flat.

Now it's nearly time for lunch. I've had visitors but no customers. Back to shredding old receipts.

--Barbara