June 18, 2004

• …and how are you doin’ at the dark of the moon?

  What a day and night I have had!  Early this week, I wrote a technical, jargony blog and titled it, Omigawd, shit-o-dear, gollygee and OH FUCK! 
  I had taken a look at the chart for today’s new moon and reacted with
  mild alarm.   It did concern me.  Especially the
  Pluto stuff, since he’s so strongly aspected now.  Finding him all
  entwined in my intensity stellia made me want to turn turtle.  I
  tried to talk myself out of going to town today, but after consulting
  the runes I decided I’d give it a shot.  I do, after all, have
  commitments to keep.

  Basically, the runes said it wouldn’t be easy but I could handle it, or
  they said I’d have fun even if things got out of hand, or they said if
  the shit hit the fan at least I’d be in good company–in other words,
  they were not committing themselves.  I’m used to, when I ask the
  Norns (pull 3 runes), getting one upright, one reversed, and one of the
  ones that is the same either way, such as the I or the X–in other
  words, those Norn bitches tell me yes-no-maybe-so a lot of the
  time. 

  The non-reversible runes are in the minority in Futhark, and my 3-rune
  reading for the outlook on today’s town trip turned up 3 of them. 
  If that has ever happened before, I don’t recall it.  They were H,
  S, and X.  H is “hail” or “storm”, something on the order of a
  force of nature, beyond my control.  S is “sun”, all sorts of
  powerful juju making things shine and grow and thaw and all.  X is
  partnership, sharing, cooperation, and all like that.  Sounded
  like fun to me, no matter what, as long as I stayed alert and kept my
  wits about me.

  Before I even got out of the subdivision here, onto the highway, I had
  to take evasive action to avoid a collision with some old fart pulling
  a travel trailer twice as wide as his big gas-guzzling truck.  He
  came right at me down the middle of our narrow, high-crowned, barely
  two-lane, dirt road.  He left me two options:  run into him
  on the road or get into the ditch out of his way. 

  I made it to the mailbox up on the corner unscathed, got onto the
  highway without mishap, filled some jugs at the spring to take to
  Greyfox, and just past Sheep Creek Lodge, maybe three miles from home,
  saw a bald eagle winging overhead.  And that was the last moment
  of peace and serenity of the entire trip. 

  The highway construction job in and around Willow makes traffic stop
  and pile up first northbound, then southbound, then north again, all
  day.  When those strings of stopped cars are released, they stay
  bunched together for miles and miles on our narrow winding roads. 
  And, of course, there are those drivers who must try to pass and get
  out ahead of the convoy, even if it is unsafe to pass.  Several
  times (I had not yet at that point started to count the near-misses), I
  would round a curve or crest a hill and have to brake and/or pull onto
  the shoulder to avoid some overeager oncoming asshole in my lane.

  I stopped at the Willow post office to pick up a shipment of knives for
  Greyfox’s stand.  Madeline asked me if I wanted the hand cart to
  get the box to my car, but the way she was handling it, it looked more
  bulky than heavy and I decided I could handle it.  My, that woman
  has muscles!  I struggled through the doors and wrestled the box
  into Streak’s hatch, and continued my defensive drive into Wasilla.

  I’d more or less realized by then that alertness was called for, so I
  was more or less ready for the drunk leaving the bar at the end of the
  strip at Felony Flats.  I pulled off the highway into the
  driveway, and he started toward me in his three-quarter ton truck
  pulling a boat on a trailer.  He was looking over his shoulder, at
  the boat I suppose, so I started looking for somewhere to go to get out
  of his way.  I found a space between two parked cars and squeezed
  Streak through it onto the bike path.

  When I got to Greyfox’s place, I told him about my drive, so he was
  more or less prepared for the series of similar events that occurred
  during the rest of our afternoon and evening.  We had a great feed
  from the all-you-can-eat taco, soup, and salad bar at Yukon’s, made it
  to the ranch promptly on time to pick up my vanload of rehabbers, and
  he drove my car to the meeting then met me back at the ranch again
  after.  Mercifully, neither of us had any narrow escapes while he
  was in my car and I was hauling around my eight passengers in the old
  Ford van.

  But as soon as I was back behind the wheel in Streak, it started all
  over again.  Twice in the supermarket parking lot I had to brake
  and swerve out of the way of inattentive drivers.  I don’t know if
  it was the adrenaline from all of that, or the caffeine from the
  meeting, or the exhilaration from a great discussion of unconditional
  love at the meeting, or our shared mirth at a newcomer there who could be the poster
  boy for NPD, but whatever the cause, Greyfox and I were giggling all through our grocery
  shopping. 

  It reminded me of times years ago when I’d gone shopping on acid. 
  I said as much to Greyfox and he was astounded that I’d even gone out
  in public on acid.  Seems psychedelics brought out paranoia in
  him.  He told me about one time when he and his first wife were
  tripping together and she went out in their yard to sunbathe.  He
  kept peeking cautiously from between the drapes to see if she was okay,
  but he wouldn’t go out there.  That story, of course, told as I
  was thumping watermelons in the produce department, occasioned more
  mirth from both of us.

  [aside:  Grammy Mousebreath, mother of our other two cats, just
  came in (got in through the open bathroom window) "talking with her
  mouth full," boasting of her catch, a vole.  She's under the
  computer desk now, and Doug was under there for a moment, but just
  crawled back out after ascertaining that the vole is deceased. 
  From the thumps and bumps under there, I'm guessing that Grammy feels
  the prey died to easily and too soon, and she's tossing it around a bit
  just for fun.]

  Greyfox and I got some smiles from other customers and a clerk in the
  natural foods section who has known us for years, as our levity
  continued through the whole shopping session, despite some fatigue and
  pain for both of us.  In fact, we were laughing at our own gimpy
  gaits and creaky joints as I unloaded the cart at the checkstand. 

  Back out at Felony Flats I unloaded his groceries and loaded up some
  things he had for me to haul home.  After some warm goodnight hugs
  and kisses, I took off and gassed the car and headed out of town. 
  My last two close calls in traffic for the day occurred close together
  on the way out of town.  The last one was the most spectacular and
  the nearest to disaster. 

  A heavily impaired driver two vehicles ahead of me was weaving between
  the oncoming lane and the shoulder on our side.  He was doing
  about 40 in a 55 MPH zone, and traffic wouldn’t permit any
  passing.  His decision to make a left turn was made suddenly and
  without any signal.  The nearest car approaching from the other
  direction went into the ditch and stopped, and the one behind him
  stopped on the shoulder.  The car behind the idiot and just ahead
  of me hit his brakes; I hit mine and went to his right; the one behind
  me slowed without rear-ending me.  We all got through it
  shiny-side-up.

  I remained alert for the rest of my 50-mile trip.  Near home I
  came up behind a truck hauling (on a trailer) a dump truck which in
  turn was full of what appeared to be an unsecured load of corrugated
  culvert pipe.  The culvert was bouncing in the dump bed, the dump
  truck was bouncing on its trailer, and I just slowed down and backed
  off and eased on down the road watching and waiting for the whole load
  to come apart.  I was glad to see it bounce around the bend on up
  ahead as I turned off at home.  I said I didn’t start counting
  near-mishaps at the start of the trip.  My best guess is that
  there were a total of ten or twelve of them in all.   Now I’m
  going to ease on off to bed.  G’nite all.
  

  • 6:10 am
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