BLAH
I've been very tired this week. Although there are remedies:
but you can only consume so much of what Don calls the nectar of the gods before you start to shake and rattle like a half-empty jar of stale peanuts falling off the nearest skyscraper, and hyperventilate like a hungry, rag-draped street person finding a packet of hundred dollar bills. (Great images, eh?) Furthermore, I have no real reason to be this listless and tired, unless it's a prelude to the terrible cold Don caught and is struggling with and has inadvertently passed on to me, germ generosity. Or the aftermath of poison something- or-other. (My face looks better. Finally.)

I'm not too tired to write something for the other blog! My apologies to everyone for being so lax with that one. But as I've noted before, I'm living a more organic life these days, and personal observations, rants and rehashes seem to come more naturally. So forgive me. I will post something, hopefully something not too boring, sometime this weekend.

If you can't forgive me, forget me.

Perk up, Vicki! Fuggediboudit!

BUMPS
As the years move on -- and on, and on -- I examine my skin more closely because of all of its stunningly uncool changes and growths. Nothing extreme, mind you, no Pinocchio nose lengthenings or cysts the size of grapefruits, but wearisome things like predictable furrows and wrinkles and, ewww! -- these stupid little bumps that appear like tiny anthills on my thighs and chest. Gross!

Yes, I've obsessed on it. In natural retribution, the Universe decided to give me bumps I can really get down and demented with: poison ivy (oak?) has invaded the left side of my face and neck. My left eye has swelled like an gigantic overripe grape and I have practically taken a bath in calamine lotion. Reality check: It hardly helps the itching at all.

I feel like shit.

Nevertheless, I'm still managing to take Buckwheat out for his walk every morning -- just shorter ones that steer clear of the hills. At least for now.

I can't even go to the nearby 31 Flavors for a malt to cheer me up. Has to be a drive-thru, and they don't serve malts.

BONES
Buckwheat has been limping a little, and at 2-1/2 years of age, a doggy having a chronic problem like that is worrisome. Don and I will have to take him to the vet and have it checked out. It may be something called "pano," which I've researched on the web and is not completely atypical in a larger dog. B. certainly qualifies! Not sure if the trouble originates in his leg bone, or underlying tissues; I have to reread the pano information . . . whatever, we'll have to find out later.

When we went on our last hike, he led me into the lower creek which has formed near one of the wildflower-studded horse trails, and the water has completely altered that environment, which is already dense and almost cloyingly green. Those generous rains! The rugged walls of the creek are are at least two feet deeper than before, freeing up all manner of fascinating rocks and organics. As I strolled behind adventurous Buckwheat through tangled scrub brush, maneuvering through a thin stream of gentle water and some scattered rocks, something inordinately white and symmetrical drew my eye. Turns out it was a mammalian -- but not human -- tooth, part of the jaw of a nearly intact canine skull. This pic is just something I found on the web. Aside from the whiteness, it looks very much like what I found. The jaw was detached from the skull. I wrapped all of it in a rag and we took it home . . . Maybe it's having watched too much "CSI," but I feel a seductive pull on my primal sensibilities, something warming about death and the forensic remains, studying what's represented by such bones,in such a skull -- this one a musty red brown. I have set it on a backyard shelf, next to some old candleholders. Giving in to a usually submerged sense of the macabre . . . It's either a coyote or what's left of one of the many domestic pets that get snatched by coyotes 'round these here parts.

B. likes to dig, too. Today's walk was cut short when he wanted to spend a long time going after some creature he smelled -- probably a squirrel.

DAYS OF PROOFING
For someone with bad eyes, I sure am a studious and often shrewdly sensitive scrutinizer of type. Just finishing up the April/May issue -- yes, it's later than it should be. So shoot me! -- and the last four days have been filled with running out pages (ink already low) and reading every single one until my eyes are crossed and (once yet again) my brains are Jello, but I can't say it kills me, cuz I do it so well! There's something so very satisfying about finding tiny errors and correcting them.

Tomorrow Don is meeting with a Purple Heart officer, a man from San Diego, I think, and then afterwards we visit the offices down in the Marina. And our boat -- long neglected, needing a bath and some more time consuming, complex fix-ups. But with the approach of the warm season, the time is right to ready her up for her first sea venture. Just around the Marina. Not sure when true, full sailing, out in the open ocean, will be the order of the summer day. It's a more strenuous and complicated sport than one would think. Has it's own language. Still learning.

Speaking of special language and protocols --wine! One of my favorite beverages and someone recently said all reds should be drunk at room temperature. Doubt that, and have to research it on the web. Meanwhile, I'm on my second glass of Chianti. At room temperature.

P.S.:

Yesterday I wrote a provocative piece on the Pope and Catholics. Something hinky was going on with the server, the browser -- something, somwhere -- and it never posted. They say I can hit a place here on my page called "RECOVER POST," but lucky me, for some reason that key or whatever is not on my page. Probably all for the best, since I had some criticisms, some that may grate on staunch Catholics, but at least they were cleverly worded.

When I feel more like it, I'll be back here waxing silly or otherwise on some other subject.