deer tracks in the snow/a nothingburger post

I need to work backward to answer all your comments I'm so sorry my ability to sit up is getting better each day no nausea pain sometimes sometimes not
today is a good day yesterday was not but yesterday was winter today is not
last night a deer climbed the stairs to the deck walked across it ate all my oregano and and lemon verbena used my herb containers as its own personal salad bar then trotted down the other end of the deck down to the deer trail it rather sounded like a clattery train from my room and I'm amazed she didn't fall on the ice
today it is 44 degrees and spring feels possible and I don't want to puke or crap my brains out or faint etc so the weird gastro doc was right about organic vinegar with manuka honey and ground flaxseed sprinkled in my yogurt it seems to be working in my guts which is kind of a miracle given the fact that I've been sick for two years been looked at and turned inside out by 18 thousand doctors and 2 hospitals and now it seems I am not

manuka honey
ground flaxseed
organic apple cider vinegar

imagine!

just checking in today to say hello hi and hello
hello
hi
hello

Love

I want to write to be a writer who writes but my body has sabotaged my art which happens
I made it to my appointment on time and learned that my four removed polyps were not cancerous nor was the biopsy taken from my esophagus so

nothing

and yet I still feel sick
but nothing
I left the hospital with instructions to continue taking the flax ground seed twice a day even though I told him it made a painful ball of needles in my stomach then I told him about the croissant I ate last month how it also made a painful ball of needles in my stomach but he did not respond to either of my complaints except he added organic apple cider vinegar to my list of meds which is a short list consisting of ground flax seed needles and organic apple cider vinegar which I use on my hair btw if you have a well or hard water and your hair says JUST NO apple cider vinegar makes a great rinse

it'll cost me about 3 thousand dollars then to be told to eat ground flax seed twice a day and to eat apple cider vinegar I could have gone to the hippie mamas for this information I'm pretty sure

in other news nothing hurts right now except my heart and we are all heart broken about our country or most of us are

now that I know I'm not going to die within the next six weeks now that I know a Professional Physician has given me a clean bill of health (my blood pressure was perfect and he didn't even tell me to lose 10 pounds which doctors always say and even when I weighed 120 pounds during my cocaine days years and could slip into a size 2 dress I was always told by doctors to lose 10 pounds) knowing all this propelled me to get out of bed this morning brush my hair trim my bangs put on a lip and blush and a pair of earrings even though I still feel sick

I guess I have been imagining my terrible stomach pain and nausea
I guess I am a world class hypochondriac except with real Crohn's disease with which I was previously diagnosed but which this Specialist says I don't have
so nothing except pain ground flax seed and apple cider vinegar

those trees in the photo are in my back yard
we had very cold
and very snow

how it broke me to think of Orlando under the snow I will plant flowers around her grave as soon as I can daffodils and lilies and tulips and snapdragons and ranunculus and sweet daisies Orlando loved flowers more than anyone I've ever met ever

the snow has stopped falling from the sky now it is frozen and just hanging around and I read seed catalogs by the dozens and have already planned my summer garden I am more than happy to just skip spring as usual and go directly to summer even though it's supposed to snow all this week starting tomorrow

I spoke to My Darling Veterinarian during Orlando's time he told me some really juicy gossip about the composer apparently the composer is selling the big beautiful house his rich wife built for him in La Conner (near me) and moving to Olympia (way south instead of way north) into a place called Panorama City -- I shit you not -- not a retirement home but a senior village with a full nursing staff and fun activities like chair yoga seriously this is so fucking weird he is only two years older than I and healthy as a horse (trust me on this) hmmm hmmmmmm...

after my appointment yesterday I went to Walmart (I hated to but it was my only option) and bought a $58.00 stand up vacuum cleaner because mine which was only a year old died and a $4.00 pale pink shirt with gray hearts on it that will never stand being washed or even a mild breeze might tear the sleeves off so what so what I need to write about how once you're poor for many years it is difficult to crawl out of that mindset into okay

being poor means wearing one shirt forever until it falls apart (it still feels like an illegal thrill even to buy a $4.00 shirt)
being poor means using the same bath towel for a week because the laundr-O-mat is too expensive
being poor means eating a lot of startch
etc

crawling into okay

I guess I'm headed for the beach now and maybe I'll remember what I sat here to write once I get back

Love

I am terrified of my visit to the gastroenterologist at 9:30 this morning so I’m hiding in bed binge watching Mozart in the Jungle until the extreme last second it’s 27 degrees and there is snow but no snow day if I am neither dying nor already dead I’ll report back at the end she said ominously 

impermanence

Dipthong/fever. Lovely and love nourish steam my face red as a beefsteak tomato but only on the fever side. Do not attempt to kiss me full of bees charcoal cow crust and pork roasting on a grill. I am vandalized. I ache. Do not kiss me or whisper into my left ear. There is a woman demanding a hospital bracelet. She turns to me and asks can I have a fit? I grant her permission of course certainly and right now if you want. We are here to bleed into tubes. We are here to be whittled to perfect red and white cellular perfection. We (the inhabitants of the hospital’s bowels) are wagalongs tagalongs everything blue and brown shoes skirt shirt dirt. In the factory Keith used an air hose to blow metal filings into his own eyes so he could go to the hospital for the pain meds for opiates to feed his addiction. His feet hurt hands hurt thumbs wrists knees back bending and bending into gleaming sheets of titanium for 27 years. Mine did too. We the fat the elderly the female the hirsute the not quite right the sullen the we-don’t-like-your-look the crazy will be first to go because we lack beauty because we lack speed. I must be mindful now. My father once said if you see a well-dressed man on the street he’s looking for a job. My father knew things. 18 years sober when he died you bet he knew things.

The vet arrived at 4:30 almost dark. She was so kind and clearly besotted with Jupiter who watched everything. We swaddled Orlando in her favorite blanket but first tucked in Paris’s favorite toy and a bundle of dry sage and hurried out to the spot near the deer trail we dug for her. It was pouring rain hard rain with dark bullying its way in. My son placed her in the hole and I laid 15 daffodils near her head then I sat on the ground and shoveled dirt into the hole with my hands then with my arms pulling the muddy wet hurrying against the weather the night the sheer dark of the forest. I placed the rocks around her and my son placed the wee stone cat in the center then my son played some bagpipe music on his phone and wept and keened louder than I have ever heard and he and I were broken. I had to throw my jeans my warm coat my garden gloves my sweater my hat and my green Converse™ shoes into the washing machine.

An achy night.

A painfully empty day.

Hold your darlings close.

Be mindful.

Love

Cairn/Beloved/not even the stars understand

the dark time/Orlando/compassion

today I bought a new litter box and rug mat for said new litter box and then I dug a six foot hole in the back forest near the deer path with my son and I collected a sizable pile of rocks and agates to place on her grave along with a stone kitty curled up sleeping to mark her grave and then I went to the store and bought three bouquets of daffodils to place on the blanket in which we will bury her along with her favorite toy the Camano Island vet is coming tomorrow at 4 to undo this most beloved Animal God

the boy is bereft he has cried twice today
he has cried three times that I know of in his life the last time for Paris

there is much to cry about today I talked to Orlando for a long time tonight I thanked her for being such a good companion to my son I told her she was brilliant and stellar and funny then I told her Paris was waiting for her then I made a big lasagna pan of homemade macaroni and cheese so my son and I have some comfort food for tomorrow night that we won't have to cook


we are all broken right now every one of us
the entire world weeps and the wolf bares his teeth and laughs
there are no words

Love

bonus round

bee beard a Christmas gift from The Surfer yes I look sick in this photo I still am sick anyone want to call the hospital for me?

ps. gastritis, ulcers, and Barrett's Esophagus (caused by stress and vomit all of it)

psps. I made the ravioli but I don't know what the hell to do with them since I can't eat anything at.all. also they are messy which displeases me but my stomach aches and aches and I lost patience after about 10 seconds in still I know they will be delicious one day I think they need to get froze

pspsps. did you know the singular for ravioli is raviolo? I did not until just now

pspspsps. if you're the ANONYMOUS who complained that my style of writing (i.e. a conscious choice to avoid most punctuation) made you "nervous" and "drives you crazy" I hope if you come back you go away again immediately*

*this has been a Radish King public service announcement

this is the first time I’ve been able to sit up since my oscopies
I don’t have the energy to go into it all but I am supposed to call the hospital today I was actually supposed to call the day after but my entire being refused the idea

I was sitting on the toilet the other morning when Jupiter came barreling in carrying one of her catnip toy mice in her teeth I bent over to stroke her and thank her for her brave work when she started purring thus dropping the catnip mouse which turned out to be an actual mouse there was nowhere for me to run clearly but I made a lot of squealing squeaky noise after which I washed my hands and went back to bed to hide until Jupiter finished up

good kitty

she is slightly too big to fit on my lap
Jupiter has been torturing an almost empty bottle of Smartwater because she discovered the goldfish “mascot” inside the label this involves loudly banging and slapping noises in the middle of the night as she attempts to murder the fish sometimes she just sits and stares at the bottle perhaps daring the fish to swim away I praise her each time

good kitty

I took a little trip off the island through Standwood (Stanwood is the only place to go once you leave the island unless you want to be in actual water) to Silvana pop. 90 and stopped at a thrift store where I purchased the quilt pictured above for $18.00 the reason it wasn't priced at $400.00 is because the idiot woman who runs the store shoved the quilt in her home washing machine and several of the tender hand stitched rectangles came unsewn I fixed that in a hurry with needle and thread and the quilt is so lovely all the work put into it once upon a time I also saw this coffeepot in a yard and stopped my car and went into the yard to get a closer look I promise you there is a lot of yard crap around here mostly big plastic crabs and derelict row boats but this coffeepot is pure magic and it looked so good against the storm sky and it made my robot loving heart open right up

along with giant coffeepots and thrift stores I saw a woman in a field with a sheepdog and beautiful beige sheep with black legs the woman was training the dog to herd for show and the dog did so perfectly the four sheep lined up in parade formation as the dog awaited her treat I also passed a sign on the kayak place that read MORNING PRAYER MEETING MARCH 4 AT THE ANGEL OF THE WINDS CASINO which gave me a moment of wonder and a good laugh on account of the casino which is filled with the odors of stale cigarette smoke booze urine and poor people who can't stop gambling seems an odd choice but there are miracles all around if you keep your eyes open

in other news I wore my brand new bra for 11 minutes before I took it off and tossed in the way back of my underwear drawer also the Roomba that Maryrose gave me when she moved has been turning itself on at random times which is a bit unsettling but if the robot decides I need to vacuum who am I to argue except last week I finally caught Jupiter pressing the GO button on the robot and then stalking it as it moved freely about the house I had to stop it and clean its guts and its rollers from which I removed enough long human hair to make two complete wigs I probably should start saving that hair just in case

good kitty

I am going to make mushroom ravioli today I made the pasta dough and the duxelle and ricotta mixture yesterday I get these big ideas but rarely feel good enough to implement them

I also want to write about the guy at the pot store and Wonder Woman so I will be back my dough has rested too much and I need to move while I still can

love to you Darklings

one toe in

You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.
~James Baldwin