Light a candle, throw the world away.

I can't sleep. I got up at six and stole PJ's chore list for the day since it was quiet things like laundry and sweeping and I'm cursing myself for being this ridiculous bu also as soon as the final load of sheets goes into the dryers I'm going to go up and run a hot bath and then I'll feel better. The littlest of cats was hogging my tiny island of bed all night and she wouldn't move and I figured she would stretch out and snooze when I left but instead she came with me and now perches at the top of the landing and looks annoyed that I woke her up. 

On the upside it's eight and everything's done for the day. We're not hosting a dinner. I still have an endless headache and I left everyone to the wind. There are ingredients. I don't know what to do but I also don't care. Thanksgiving is my throw away holiday. I either go to McDonalds or I make a huge dinner and go all out but I'm not feeling it at all this year.

I can still be thankful, grateful and beyond blessed. I can also be profoundly irritated and in need of a long winter's nap. A lot of people are wondering why I didn't write, why I haven't caught you up to speed on things, what Caleb is up to (no good, as always but in a wearier way) and why I haven't been more present in the moment. It's like a cycle. I don't know how to explain it. I am feeling defeated a lot lately. I lost my dog in the spring and I can't get past it easily and why should I? He was my companion for sixteen years. I feel like everyone is mean and selfish and unhinged lately and I need a long cry and a longer hug, maybe. Maybe some chocolate and a long drive. Maybe that lobotomy I keep thinking I have gotten and it turns out to be false prophets. Maybe I'm haunting myself. Maybe I'm feeling up for nothing and everything and maybe the perspective is hard to keep in mind. It's okay. I'm human. I'm allowed. 

All I know is it rained a tiny bit and it's going to rain a lot more and I can make life cozy and wait out the feelings until they change again. Like I said, it's a cycle.

The park bench murders.

The trees are turning red and gold and the hot chocolate and pierogie season is well underway now (but not together). We are winterizing the property in advance of cold weather and finished the final thing today. I didn't finish it before. It's supposed to rain for two solid weeks so it was time to get it done.

Now the only thing we leave out are the hoses until just after Halloween. Just in case. People here love to light fireworks in the nieghborhood and you never know when one is going to go rogue. I'll put the hoses away on November first. 

My little bottle of thieves oil smells like dragon's blood. I'm not all that impressed. It's not potent, doesn't do anything and while it smells nice enough, a blend of eucalyptus and cinnamon, there's no magic qualities or extra effort that it puts in that I can see and so I brought it upstairs to throw it in with the mop water next time I mop. Use it up, learn from it, and never buy it again. 

We voted today. They fed my voter's card into a big machine that looked like a zamboni crossed with a work printer. I watched in fascination, received my sticker and went on my merry way. Hoping for things to stay the same in this province so I have to do my part. I made the boys come, and Henry too, because we all have to do this. Henry was excited as always and said he hoped all his friends voted. Me too. They're the future. 

Lochlan and I split an order of chicken McNuggets for dinner and then he went off to have a quick nap and I settled in to make some little blankets with some old yarn. The new cats get cold and we can't have that. Plus I have old yarn and I can see no other purpose for it. I'm going to finish this one while I watch the new episodes of Unsolved Mysteries because no one's bugging me tonight for anything. Perfect.

Resurrection fern.

 Spending the morning being a selkie, as it was pouring rain and I walked up to the mailbox alone to get the mail, in a t-shirt and jeans, no less. I didn't think it was raining that hard but it was and now I am vaguely damp and cozy yet back in the house with the lights lit and Iron & Wine on the google thing in the kitchen. Pod? Screen? Tiny TV? I never know what to call it. It's not a nest, and it's not a home, so it's a screen on the counter and it shows dust in the sunlight and I may get Ben to build a little floating shelf for it so it can be up and away. I'm a big fan of clear counters. 

We've done a lot of work clearing clutter this summer and evaluating things that haven't moved in forever and we got a smaller kitchen table in a brighter wood hue. I'm a huge fan of blonde woods and light shades to offset the dark greens and navies and greys and sometimes you have to mix the two and then you can cover all your bases decorating-wise. What I mean is that-all white with pine is just lovely but not for the entire house. You need to break it up with some lush rich hues and texture. So trade off between the two and amazingly it works well. 

I'm fighting the urge to drive up to the store and buy some salt and vinegar chips. This week I have really minded being a highway away from everything. I used to walk so much more so it didn't matter. There were stores on every block as the kids grew up and then suddenly I chose the ocean over the ease. 

I'm still doing it. I just want some chips today. Also the finale of The Rings of Power is tonight! Thank god. It wasn't good but it was also amazing. How to explain that? No idea.

How can so many different size hands make the same size noodles, indeed, buddy.

Halfway through getting all our things done and I've been assured that I actually procrastinate far less than most people and my to-do list is shorter and less catastrophic. I'm not sure why people ignore the things they should be doing. I would perish. Maybe that's why I stress when things start to pile up-I'm not prone to enjoying having things hanging over my head. 

Huh. Who knew? 

I did have some hot chocolate yesterday afternoon. It was raining and lovely. I finished a couple of shows and a knitting project. I started more of both. I love late afternoons when it gets dark early. I walked up the hill and fetched a package Ruth was expecting. I breathed in the fresh air. I really enjoyed the moment. I have to remember it's just now October and there is no huge rush, though I did my first leaf raking already too. Ha. 

Lochlan is like Sit down. Jesus, Woman. And also go do what you want to do, then.

So I do. 

Also I need to talk about the new Chef's Table: Noodles. Like halfway through the first episode and I'm looking around thinking Seriously?? This guy is oblivious to everything and has mommy issues and also is downright masturbatory about his freaking pasta. I'm completely grossed out and snort-laughing through it at this point. Netflix, come on. I love you but stop with this series, it's just getting worse and worse. Like actual food porn, as if someone took that phrase and ran with it. I hate it but I'm hoping it gets better? I don't know how it could but it's making me laugh. Duncan said maybe if I acted that way I would also enjoy cooking but he is wrong. 

I will never enjoy cooking. I freaking hate it. I'm a grazer by nature and only want a whole meal once or twice a week. That's it. Give me a hard boiled egg standing up at the sink or a banana in the truck on the way to an appointment and I'm good. 

Probably malnourished but good.

Talks of pep and wearing a hole through a worry stone.

 Ahhh fall. My Afib is back, my headaches are back and everything is breaking. No, seriously. Amazon won't let me cancel a package it won't even ship, the garbage can in the kitchen is motion sensitive and a ghost keeps opening it, three of our most-used vehicles need work and we spent all day doing plumbing and gardening projects and getting nowhere fast. Three cords gave up altogether on things that need to be charged, and the list of to-dos and to-fix grows ever longer. 

And I am easily overwhelmed but also confident that it will all get done and grateful that we had a very long spell with zero issues and not much going on altogether. It's kismet, though, isn't it? You spin out cash for a long, leisurely break and then everything breaks to pay you back somehow. The universe always calls in its favours eventually. It's almost funny but since I have troubles with being frustrated (aka easily overwhelmed) it's not funny but it will all be fine. It's just stuff. It's just life. It's just a mild heart issue. 

HA. 

I need to slow down, I say to myself as I sit and knit and knit and watch Secret Lives of Mormon Wives which is terrible but also compelling and I already churned through Worst Ex Ever and The Laci Petersen movie and a few others and damn, I need something silly. I finished Love is Blind UK. We're almost finished Rings of Power and I wait patiently for the new season of Outer Banks to drop (in two parts! GEEEEEZ Netflix!) I watched Emily in Paris. I am a busy girl hahaha. 

I also watched eight hundred thousand movies with Ben and Lochlan, sometimes with Dalton, sometimes too with PJ and a couple with Batman. 

I taught Ruth to knit and now that's all she does outside of work. 

It's a panacea for a stressed out mind. Same with gardening. I should be deceased for all of the worrying I do, honestly. I know it will kill me quickly but it's like telling me not to breathe. 

 On the upside I did get more hot chocolate and I've been chipping away at fall cleanup and winterizing even though it's early and  I have a whole list of junk tv to get through and I'm super pumped for sweater weather since hat weather is already here for me. My hair is a half-inch long all over and I love it. Very Jean Seberg. Very gamine. Very Mia Farrow. Very cold head. Hahahaha.

I reset the garbage can already. Two vehicles are booked in for experts. Plumbing seems good and the gardening will get done. It's fine everything's fine. I don't need to worry but I do.

It's been a really really really busy month.

Remembering him comes in flashbacks and echoes
Tell myself it's time now gotta let go
But moving on from him is impossible
When I still see it all in my head
In burning red 

I'm sorry for my absence and even sorrier you didn't have access to the archives. We went to Burning Man and also had a nice vacation before and after it, because it wasn't all it should have been. This was my do-over year and it sucked worse! And I lasted two days again! 

And I'm never going back but this time it was more luxury, less lung infection, and still it was so awful. We flew out before I even figured out where everything was. We flew out before I even ran out of clothes. We flew out before I had time to inhale enough playa dust to wind up in the hospital and let's face it, no one wanted me to be there in the first place but Lochlan also loves to spoil me rotten while he stands patiently off to one side and then says I told you so and I hate that but also I love it. 

While I was gone, Caleb deleted all my shit after hacking into my gmail. I got a bunch of emails and one of them actually was kind enough to point out the blog was gone. The rest were asking me if I was okay and I didn't know why. Of course I'm okay. I keep on clanging through the days, tripping over memories and skipping through mud puddles. 

I just happen to have an in-house Devil who has had it in for me since 1979. 

I mean, don't we all? 

What do you mean you don't? 

In any case, we are home and unpacked and caught up and I went today and got groceries and gas and did my banking and put away the suitcases. Well, I didn't. PJ put them up in the attic down at the sunny end where the tiny window is. He promised he left them all unzipped and with a fresh dryer sheet in each. 

It makes a difference. 

But I had a hot vacation, a dirty vacation and then a mountain vacation and I am set for the winter now. We got out and back with some good weather to spare and I didn't sleep but I did laugh a lot and eat a lot and I feel pretty good going into fall here. With the blog. With the Devil. With August still doing check-ins. With these two stranger-cats and Benjamin the big jovial giant. 

With myself, in my own skin, comfortable. 

I negotiated a bunch of deals. I shaved my head. I did not kayak even once this year. I didn't buy any pumpkins or grow any either. I navigated some long roads and I didn't sleep at all. I cat-nap now. Today I've got everything prepped and I've put on Taylor Swift and am making hot chocolate and it's about to rain. 

It won't be a month plus this time. I know I say that every time but a new season means a new routine and I think I do better when I write.

The laundry is caught up, there's a new Thirteen Senses album out, and I'm enjoying watching the Back to School panic from afar.

Welcome back, me. I've rolled back into town just as pilots are talking about going on strike, Burning Man is faltering, the Gathering is over and the trains have shut down. I went and left the heat, the traffic, the construction and the idiots behind and went somewhere completely new, where I had to navigate for myself, figure out meals and lodgings and attractions and weather without any habits in order to maybe better appreciate not having to do it here, at home. I was at my wits' end, my last nerve, the final straw with the camel standing by and I had to go. 

Luckily it all worked out and I am safely home again with lots of tall tales and fun moments and now we are just one Monday remaining and the one after that will be Labour Day. The days are definitely getting shorter, the nights colder, the leaves more colourful and the boys more calm as we roll on towards September in the best way possible.

We even had some rain. I was out hacking up the butterfly garden yesterday. It's long spent. The pears are almost ready, apples too and the grapevines are heavy with fruit. We watched a whole family of raccoons visit last night in the orchard, pipping and squawking and chirping to each other while they found purchase on the arbours. Four little babies and their parents. So cute. I only say this because I didn't grow any vegetables for them to work through so I can relax and enjoy their little masked faces this year. 

Everyone is happy I'm back. I love that. I missed my boys, I missed Henry who loves having the independence of not having his mom bugging him all the time, and I missed Caleb's heavy-handed but somehow comforting presence. 

I let go of some long bad habits through doing this, and I learned some things about myself and I found a quiet confidence I don't think I had before but now I'm back and after many stops and starts it's time for some more stories. 

See you tomorrow.

Weeeeeeeeeee.

 Five Mondays and it will be Labour Day. 

Yay! I stopped coughing at last and now only start if I laugh too much which is at least every breakfast, lunch and dinner hour thanks to PJ who is always up for making me howl til the howl turns tea kettle turns wheeze turns cough. 

Lochlan is always pissed at him but then again Lochlan is the one who has had to listen to me cough and cough and cough for almost a month straight and I feel for him so he enjoys the coughing-free moments more often than not these days and isn't excited to return to them. I offered to drown myself in the pool for a while there but he was even more pissed about that so really he just gets older and more worried and I'm glad he wasn't like this when I was in my early twenties or I probably would have murdered him, to be honest. 

We watched the new documentary on Netflix: Skywalkers, A Love Story. Oh my God it was so good and also I am really glad I mostly had a net and was only a story or so high. They have nerves of steel and it was so stressful to watch but afterward I felt as if I can let go of the every day stresses because I'm not depending on a sponsorship for a high risk, illegal activity to pay my damn bills.

I have Caleb for that. 

Anyway, there are popsicles in the freezer and avocados on the counter and the recycling and garbage is done and it's a long weekend and hopefully it won't be as hot as it was yesterday. It was so stupidly warm I swam in the ocean instead of the pool and Lochlan didn't like that either because I am definitely no Olympian. We came in after ninety minutes and watched the Olympics for the rest of the day. I hate the heat and I hate exercise and I'd rather eat burgers and watch someone else balance and do acro or gymnastics than do it myself anymore. 

I think this long weekend will just be more of the same and I'm really excited about it, suddenly.

 

"You don't face your fears, you ride 'em"

Hi. We had houseguests. Talky ones. I was given no chance to break away nor could I rest and so I am STILL coughing. Like forcefully. Constantly. I drink hot tea all day. I try and rest now as we are a few days out from it all. We got the house pulled back together, rode out the heat wave (finally ebbing) and cleaned up. We ran errands and scrubbed everything for a fresh start for the rest of the summer (seriously, six Mondays and it's pretty much over) and this week I will be taking it extremely easy and resting and eating popsicles and doing crafts while floating in the pool.

Because I need to. I also successfully talked the whole point into taking me to see Twisters this afternoon and hoo boy, I'm so glad we went. I was a superfan of Twister, it came out when I was twenty-five. This one was really good too. I loved it. I won't spoil anything but I was super surprised one of the final songs on the soundtrack was not Dolly Parton but Miranda Lambert. That shocked me. I may go see it again tomorrow. It was really really good. 

The plants are all doing crazy good things. All of the trees have new growth. All of the flowers are blooming and the roses are just budding one after another. All of the days meld together into one and we are all worn out and cranky from being overly warm in spite of AC, in spite of water to swim in, in spite of the fact that we are all together. Ben has been spending early evenings with me in the hammock and then sometimes on the patio with tea and hand holding and listening to the song sparrows and the singular American Goldfinch that keeps visiting. 

Soon the days will get shorter and I will lament wasting summer so I'm glad we got the summer theatre blockbuster out of the way today so it's not going to be a total waste but I really go into with a lot of expectations and plans and come out saddened and disappointed at how little of those plans get carried out. Maybe it's life. We are getting older. No one sleeps. The weight of the world gets tiresome to carry but then there are such bright spots. I need to find more bright spots that can be colourful polkadots to obliterate the dark parts. I need to get rid of this fucking cough because my whole chest hurts like a mofo all the time now. 

Weeeee.

I finally got to see the Rolling Stones! All the boys went to see them in the 80s for the Steel Wheels tour in Toronto. I was to young to join them. It took me over three decades to catch up to that promise and I got to go! It was hot. It was PACKED. The band was a machine. Keith's guitar kept getting away from him, and I questioned if he was playing all the time. He stuck his tongue out a lot. Mick was flawless. Chanel Haynes was a powerhouse and stole our hearts. Ghost Hounds (the opener) were absolutely delicious and tight and really really too good to be opener-material, I think. 

So of course, guess what happens next?

Sometime after lunch on Saturday I had a breakdown of sorts. Nothing fit, nothing was fun, nothing was nice, I wanted to swim somewhere shady and quiet, my armpits are swollen, my throat hurts, I hate air conditioning but I hate the heat so much more and I didn't want to eat that, didn't want to do anything, hated life and really couldn't get a grip at all. By nightfall I was inconsolable.

It was a harbinger of a severe flu because when I woke up on Sunday things were that much worse. I couldn't swallow, couldn't talk without coughing (not a nice polite cough but a weird barky-loud dry but soon to be productive cough that made people visibly withdraw), my eyes were burning and my armpits and the rest of my lymph nodes blew up. My skin was burning, my head felt like a balloon and my nose ran, nonstop. 

I had to go to bed. I've done that only a handful of times in my life. 

Monday was the same. 

Tuesday? Same but worse. I couldn't lift my head up but oh no we're going to vomit. I had a sip of water and an aspirin and nope, it's coming back. I lay on the floor in the bathroom for HOURS. I called for help but no one was checking their phones. Ha. They thought I was sleeping, maybe they thought I was faking (for the record, I don't fake. I'm the polar opposite. I'm fine, I can do everything. Don't worry about me) until I crawled downstairs to check my vitals because if any number was off, I was taking myself to the ER. Henry decided that if I said I should go then we were going, but I said no. 

No fever. My skin is BURNING. I'm so hot I want to die. 

No blood pressure changes. 

Huh. Okay, no, we're staying put. It'll be fine. 

And slowly, it was. I had three chores to do today and I struggled but I got them done. My nose is no longer running. My head no longer feels like a balloon and all my nodes are back to size. My throat is the straggler. I was up all night coughing and had a death rattle that sounded like I swallowed plastic wrap but otherwise I feel like I'm turning a corner here. 

Yay! 

I tested for Covid. Negative. I tested again. Negative. Those swabs are painful to shove up my nose. PJ bought me Cup-of-soup (I love Cup-of-Soup when I'm sick). Lochlan admitted that on Monday he thought I might die so he stayed awake all night. 

No one else got sick in the house. 

Thank God.  

I'm going to blame the seats at the stadium and the size of the crowd. I am five feet tall and half the weight of the boys and the chair was tight with zero shoulder room. It was almost painful. Like being on a Cessna 152-painful. Squeezed. So yeah. Too close, too tight, too hot, too many people. I can't believe I stayed awake the whole night and will never forget this show if only for the fact that I don't think I would have gotten sick had I stayed home, but I wouldn't have stayed home if you paid me. I will pause and probably mask before the next concert because fuck this.