yesterday I stopped at the little Mexican restaurant in the wee strip mall that has the freshest and most delicious Mexican food I've ever tasted Dos Reales Taqueria in the small town that is the largest town across the bridge from my island and I filled up on chips and their amazing salsa and took the rest to go then I went to the do-it-yourself car wash and washed 15 pounds of pine needles off Sweet Lime and to exercise off the hot salty made right when I arrived chips (so good) then I drove to the large grocery store and bought yeast then I came back to the island and went to the new nail salon that just opened next to the IGA slash Ace Hardware slash Thai nook restaurant slash Nail Salon (that's its name) and I got a much needed manicure and I was the only one in the salon with three young women working and they were playing a tape or a radio station of love songs and The Rose came on from that awful Janis Joplin biopic of the same name and I started singing then the woman doing my nails started singing then the woman next to me started singing then we were all just belting it out then the boss lady said DO WE NEED A KARAOKE MACHINE IN HERE? in her outside voice so we all shut up but it was a divine moment and reminded of how we would sometimes sing at My Ex Glamorous Job spontaneous fun singing and the woman doing my nails didn't say a peep at how awful my hands and nails and cuticles looked ratty and torn and broken from moving in 18 degree weather

and not once during all this activity did my panic subside not once but my nails are the palest pink ever and now they're all short (I had only been clipping the nails on my left hand so I could practice my violin because my nails have turned hard have turned truly into goat nails or perhaps entire goats)

panic all the way then all the way home then through the night and this morning my keeper son showed up and we had words because often so much of my stress is from his careful watch over me which at times feels oppressive

I know it isn't good to speak this way of my son who I adore but there it is

this morning we went to the state park and drove around then he took me to the store so I could buy another 9 inch cake pan because I am in the mood to bake the panic still roiling in my belly and when I came out of the store the sky was dark charcoal gray to black  it's supposed to snow tonight

still panic still roiling belly and I can smell star lilies good afternoon Darklings