November 17, 2006

• Mercury is Still Retrograde

  Even as cold as it was, I would have stopped at least twice to capture
  various views of the gorgeous sunset yesterday on my way home from
  town, if I hadn’t forgotten to take my camera with me.

  That was just one of the things we forgot.  After several hours
  with the engine block heater plugged in, the car started right
  up.  After it had been running for twenty  minutes or so, the
  needle on the temp gauge started to rise.  Then Doug brought the
  tire inflator out (we warm it up inside before using it in cold
  weather, because I broke off a cold brittle fitting once at temps close
  to this) and aired up the tire with the intermittent slow leak. 
  That it would choose to go flat in double digit subzero weather is
  almost a given, when it has chosen not to go flat on many other more clement occasions.

  Doug gasped as we approached the mailboxes and cried, “The
  outgoing!  We forgot the mail.”  I turned around, drove back
  home, and he ran in and got the mail.  I was about ten miles down
  the highway when I gasped, pulled over, turned around and went back and
  put wood in the stove, enough to last about four hours.  If I
  hadn’t done that, the fire would have been cold before we got home.

  I took advantage of one last chance to go to the bathroom before
  hitting the road again, and left the damper open and the stove door
  open a crack to get the fire well started.  All the time I was
  back there, I was repeating to myself, “Close the stove… close the
  stove….”  Back out in the living room, I turned off a lamp we’d
  left on, and dithered momentarily whether to turn off the radio. 
  I decided to leave it on to comfort Koji, who has terrible separation
  anxiety.

  As I approached the mailboxes again, I was trying to remember whether I
  had in fact shut the stove, so I turned around and drove back. 
  Doug hopped out, ran in, and determined that I had shut it.  All I
  forgot that time was that I hadn’t forgotten to do it.

  Other than that, the trip was fairly uneventful, and the visit to the
  vet was actually pleasant.  We got new blades for the Mat Breaker
  comb, miticide for everyone’s ears (not the primates’, we fortunately
  don’t get ear mites), wormer for the whole houseful (maybe we do need
  that, but it’s just the four-leggeds who’re getting it).  Hilary,
  the cat we took in, got her immunizations, a pre-op exam, and an
  appointment for spaying in a couple of weeks.

  To save my time, my darlin’ Greyfox met us at the vet clinic, and he
  and Doug shifted bags of groceries from his car to ours, and some very
  fine and practical clothing for us that he’d gotten at a thrift store’s
  bag sale.  Since I had forgotten to eat lunch before leaving home
  and my blood
  sugar had tanked, I was especially glad that Greyfox had a bag of trail
  mix
  in his car.   The guys moved from my car to his some boxes of
  books and videos (things he’d given us for our entertainment and will
  now either sell or donate to a library), a bag containing some
  accumulated mail for Greyfox, a coffee mug to replace the one a cat
  broke at his place, a few books I’d gotten from Charley and library
  discards that I thought he’d like, and some forms I had downloaded at
  his request. 

  He had also requested that I bring along my scissors, and while Doug
  and Hilary were in with the vet Greyfox and I stood in the clinic’s
  arctic entry, and I trimmed his beard with the wind periodically
  pushing the door open until the receptionist got tired of hearing the
  chime and locked it.  Afterward, as we were getting back into our
  coats for the trip home, I expressed my gratitude for Greyfox’s doing
  the shopping and meeting us at the clinic, saying that it had made my
  life a whole lot easier.  He responded by saying that it seemed
  appropriate, since he had spent twelve years making my life more
  difficult.

  Maybe my response:  “twelve and a half years…” seemed
  unappreciative, but it was just a little joke and it did get laughs all
  around.  Those first twelve and a half years we were together,
  when his addictions and NPD ruled our lives, were not exactly unrelieved
  hell.  Even though those years had their happy moments, and I tend
  to find things to be happy about even in hard times, I’m glad the
  addictions have been transcended and he is conscious of the NPD and
  working on making it go away.  Occasionally, he surprises and
  delights me with marvelously keen psychological insights.  We
  actually enjoy talking about addiction and psychopathology.  What a marvelous development!

  All the way home (with a stop at Pioneer Lodge for food), I kept
  glancing in the mirror, enjoying the spectacular sunset in the south as
  it eased from pastel coral to brilliant orange.  It’s that time of
  year — seven hours and six minutes of daylight
  today, and a sun that never gets very high above the southern
  horizon.  The clouds all day yesterday were streaky evidence of
  the high winds that were sculpting them.  The snow plume off the
  peak of Denali (Mount McKinley) was massive and miles long.  In
  other words, it was a beautiful day, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be
  out in it for very long.

  

  • 12:02 pm
  • 4 Comments