Maura's Acolytes

We arrived in NC May 27th 2016, so have entered the tenth year here. And maybe chapter 4? The first two and a half years we were here were about clearing the overgrown property, getting a fenced area for the pets and the "orchard."  Let's call that Chapter 1. Mom had her stroke in Dec of 2018. We still had some trees to plant in the orchard, but between Dec of 2018 and Mom's death June 1 of 2022, Mom's health and Grandmámá's health and care were constant concerns. I had a trip to Europe in there, and COVID certainly affected all those concerns for health fragile persons. I'm thinking of that as Chapter 2.

With Mom's passing i became focused on my health: i had just discovered the ADHD diagnoses of family members and realized it applied to me. A year later I had had my nose reshaped so i could breath through it, envisioning more energy from better breathing. I had a hard time recovering energy after the surgery. I finally pulled myself out of what i supposed to be depression, and then i was covered with spots. And so very tired. If this were fiction, the lethargy after surgery would be foreshadowing for the ITP diagnosis, and i can't imagine why ITP isn't the explanation for that low energy sense i had that year. Perhaps this third chapter ends with loosing two of our companions for the cross country move. It ends with Christine's sister becoming a widow,  promising some change in her relationship with Christine. Part of Christine's desire to move here had to do with her relationship with Diana: i wonder how it will change. I hope it's a positive change.

I realize how different our experience of the political world was when we left California. NC's anti-trans "bathroom bill" was proposed or passed  on the same day we closed on the house. Trump's position as presumptive nominee occurred  as we were driving across country. I read the Doonesbury comics that are re-running George W era strips and feel horror at my nostalgic feelings for Rumsfeld.

My work world has changed in the third chapter: colleagues i was working with before we moved have left, including leadership changes that are beginning to reshape my work life. I hope i have the privilege of keeping my job until i want to leave. Were the world to continue as it has during my working life, i would retire in six years.

I am not optimistic. I think of the huge weight that sat on me in ... 1990? 1989? ... when i watched computer and climate scientists present their models of how climate would be in fifty years and the  dreary and dim prospects they presented. Every presentation essentially ended with a list of aspects they didn't have included or that we didn't know that might make the impact less drastic. I walked away realizing i'd be in my early 70s. I did consider switching fields. I talked to someone doing acid rain research whose advice was that if you wanted to save the environment we needed advocacy and public opinion changed, not more research. He had apparently "gotten into trouble" by trying to advocate for change politically. His advocacy was used to turn against his research, implying it wasn't impartial. He was depressed and probably not a good person for me to turn to, but there it is.

I did not foresee the disaster of politics or the possibility of a tech change like generative and agentic AI.  (OK the promise of "Agentic AI", something that could be a personal assistant has been promised by speculative fiction for ages.)

It seems like a new chapter. I dunno. One foot in front of the other.

Good news: No emergency medical visit for 7 days! Carrie's been to the vet twice after coming home. Healing well.  We're getting better at bandaging the open wounds. Carrie is off fentanyl, so she's gotten better this weekend at getting out of the muzzle and pulling the pads out of the bandage. So, i need to up my skills at wrapping.  I do wonder how long we need to keep bandaging. Two open wounds are each about a square inch, another is about four square inches. I think it will take a while.

 Sister in law D thinks she will be a widow in a week. Saturday morning i sent B a close up of an  elderflower cyme, all snowy petals wet from the rain with prominent creamy stamens. Later, checking the rain gauge, i saw that the white cala lily had bloomed and the flowers lay on the ground. I picked the two, dislodging the tiniest of snails, and then added a few lizard tail (Saururus cernuus) and an orange hummingbird mint (Agastache Poquito Orange) to make this morning's bouquet.  Elderberries are just beginning to ripen.

Other good news: i'd bought a bottle to deliver very targeted drops of herbicide to noxious plants (wild briers that have multiplied around the fig tree and on the other berm, honeysuckle twining on fences and out of control, trees on the septic field, poison ivy) and could not find it. I finally ordered a replacement, months after it should have been in use. And then i found it. And i was able to cancel the order in time. Yay.

Sequentially:

I left work early on Friday. ADHD rejection sensitivity probably is amplifying feelings about a meeting. I was just too emotional and so very very tired.  After an afternoon of reading, a visit with my Dad, and more reading, we watched the documentary about Ocean's Gate, the Titan submarine ... hubris, and the guy who ran Ocean's Gate sounds just like the exec director who is involved in my distressed feelings.

I did get a good bit done in the yard on Saturday, flame weeding while it was wet. Moved woodchips a short way to mulch an area at the end of the sidewalk that has been annoying to mow. Then i planted some annuals (coleus and lantana), some Trimezia gracilis ... babies? propagules? , and transplanted a chrysanthemum that survived the winter and has started blooming.   The lemongrass is in real soil for the first time in years, and i hope it multiplies. Finally, the native plants i bought are all in the new heavily mulched bed around the front yard apple tree.

Christine's been telling her siblings that "Carrie is avenged." I found a coiled copperhead in the woodchip pile when working yesterday, and killed it. I don't feel good about it but i would do it again.  There are brush piles in the woods and that's for them. But this was a little too close.

I then went on to have an ocular migraine and then a bad headache. Today has been less outside. I picked sochan and mint, spending time thinking about where i was putting my hands. I've got several Talenti gelato containers full of blanched sochan in the freezer, mint and bee balm on the dehydrator, and elderberry flowers hanging by the water heater. I imagine gifts of mint-elderflower tea.

I also made whipped cream cheese with the lavender syrup and pulverized dehydrated mulberries from last year. Very purple, not over sweet, and only mildly flavored.

I haven't seen the hawk this past week, and wonder if the smelly snake repellents have repelled the hawk. Instead, i've seen a rabbit almost every morning.

  I am avoiding feelings and reading and reading and reading. It;s been a fight not to go to the book and finish this.