I Got A Package

It is amazing the effect that opening a plain brown cardboard box that the mailman leaves on your porch can have on a person's worldview.  I've been feeling pretty crummy since breaking my ankle.  I'm sure mostly because I fell down, broke a bone, had to have surgery, am on strong painkillers, and have to hop around on one leg with the help of a walker.  Family and friends are rallying around, being altogether fabulous, but one part of my family is too far away to stop over after work or even drop by on the weekend.  DD called every night until she and SIL1 hopped the Empire Builder in Chicago for a ride out to Seattle and back to celebrate their 5th wedding anniversary.  (it's been 5 years--already??? how can that be?)  There's no cell service or Wi-Fi on the train so no more calls but she just now texted that they're safe in Seattle where they'll be for six hours before reboarding and riding back to the Windy City, and then they'll drive home to Lexington, KY. I think that sounds like one swell way to celebrate your anniversary when you have limited time and have had a year full of excitement.  Four and a half days of enforced relaxation... ahhh.

Anyway, back to that cardboard box.  A friend came to visit and brought it in.  I, being well-raised and very polite, did not open it while she was here although I did slit the tape and lift the flaps to see a card for me, one for Durwood, and a shiny pinwheel.  When she left (no, I didn't hurry her away, she had to meet a friend who might be able to fix her knitting machine) I opened it and found a treasure trove.  Look!  Not only a shiny pink-&-blue-with-swirls pinwheel, a bag of Bugles (not sharing but not gobbling it all in one go either), one of Red Hots, a roll of Necco wafers, bubbles you can touch (from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, perhaps?), a pack of my favorite kind of mechanical pencils, a crossword puzzle book, a darts game, a tentacle pen (a TENTACLE pen, people, with eyes and suckers and everything; I wrote thank you notes with it this morning, it works great), a skein of yarn with sparkles, and (picked out by our grandson-to-be Aa) a jigsaw puzzle.  Thanks, you guys!  I haven't stopped smiling since opening the box.  As soon as I finish Hello Hamish cardi sleeve #2, I'll be making a cast sock in the purple sparkle yarn, you betcha.






Speaking of the cardi, I finished sleeve #1 yesterday and got started on sleeve #2.  When I got to the cuff of sleeve #1 I learned that it's important to have page 3 of the pattern in your possession so you don't have to make up the cuff rounds (I guessed right) or drag yourself back to the printer to get the page you need, which I did once I bound off.

About that whole "dragging yourself" thing... I lounge here feeling energetic and strong, then I struggle to my feet, get as far as the doorway between the living room and kitchen (about 12') and feel like I need a nap.  I said as much to Durwood last night and he agreed that's just the way he feels most of the time.  I promise to have deeper empathy for his struggles and not be so peeved when he hasn't done all that I think he should have accomplished in a day.  Cross my heart.  Because feeling this way sucks big, gray troll toes.  It has also motivated me to start lengthening the time between pain pills so that in a few days I'll have a little more real energy rather than the imaginary stuff I have now.  (No, I won't cut back so that I have pain, I'll just push the boundary closer to the edge of the precipice.  Promise.)  I have my first doctor's appointment post-surgery tomorrow morning.  I'm looking forward to finding out how long I'll be confined to the couch, to hopping on one foot, to not working, and to not driving.  Maybe I can have the purple sparkle cast sock done to wear to my appointment.  It should clash nicely with my red cast.


The snow mostly melted in yesterday's sunshine.  It's not sunny today and it isn't warm, not by a long shot (it's 37), but it's too warm for the snow to stick around.  Good riddance.






April 10--Walter Bibikow, Nyhavn, Copenhagen.

Canalside houses,
in colors
somber or bright,
stare with row upon row of
many-paned windows
westward
toward the sunset,
toward adventure.
~~~~~

I try to not punctuate poems but my innerHitler won't let me get away with it.  I don't have to capitalize the start of every line but I can't skip the commas and the period at the end.  I know that my poems are mostly one long, oddly formatted sentence but I like them and I'm happy that my drug-addled brain doesn't have to deal with writing prose this month.  Happy Poetry Month!  Only twenty days left.  Limber up your pencil and dive in.
--Barbara