Old Man Ork

A leaf sleds it’s way across the sky before me,
flowing with the breath of the wind.
Mortal angels
with their silver wings
fly higher,
dragging vaporous tails
marking lines
to corral fleecy clouds.
Wind chimes trill,
weathervanes chitter ‘tic tic tic’,
and trees sigh…
Let the day
blow its breath
across my grinning face.

Listening to an owl just outside my window lecturing me on the degrees of darkness and the dance of the moon…

tired. burned a little botanical, now jamming a little cohen. dancing to the end of love, watching for cracks so the light can get in. hallelujah.

the cold winds are pushing themselves through every access they can find. windows on the northerly side of the house have ice on them. added extra blankets to the bed, and they call to me.. soon... soon... let me get some werds down.

digging the foxhole deeper, one spoonful at a time, peeking over the edge at the treeline watching for movement... i know they're out there. i am ready... i have prepared.

Sweet Goddess, I'd forgotten this blog. Lots has changed, lots of things still the same. Mister Smoky died shortly after that last post. We've acquired two other cats since, bringing the total to four. Mighty Cat, Morticia, Thackery Binx, and little Bunny FuFu who is tailless.

I ended up in the Emergency Room back in January with blood clots in my leg and in my lungs. I've dropped 45 pounds (at a plateau right now). I'm going to try farther, but as long as I don't start putting it back on I'll be satisfied.

Locals continue being the backwater bible thumping Maga hat wearing stupid fucks they are, that's never going to change.

I crawl across the waters
of our darkened pool,
embracing its chill
and the sounds of the night.

Modern Hannibal Wannabes
astride their metal war elephants,
broken bass beat drums proclaiming
'Testosterone, testosterone!'

Somewhere nearby
the Canine Guard barks his report,
starting the roll call
of the whole neighborhood watch.

The moon paints my surroundings
in silvers, grays, and blacks,
it brightness confusing a dove
who coos through the night.

Still haven't gotten back into the daily discipline of journaling.

I'm back swimming, if I hadn't mentioned it before. Tonight I swam in the moonlight with Canned Heat playing. It was quite nice. I'm hoping my night time swims will help me sleep a bit better. Verdict is still out on that one.

I watched my kites flying over the neighborhood today. They've been back for over a week now, but they seem to just now be circling tighter on our block. Will they nest in the pecans in the neighbor's yards for a third time in a row (that I've seen)? Time will tell.

I've also started drinking my beer collection. I don't really have anyone to drink with out here, and no breweries nearby, so no point in hanging on to all that beer. One a day...

Turned 63 yesterday. I don't feel old... but I do. Lots of aches and pains that never seem to go away. A lot less stamina.

A lot less patience. I see all these assholes screaming about "there rights" to violate stay in place orders, that it's "are bodies" and no one has the right to dictate what they do with it. The same ones who were just arguing that women had no rights of THEIR bodies when it came to reproductive choice. Fuck them all. I want all of them to get COVID19, I want them to suffer through all the symptoms, and then I want them to simply die. I'm just out of fucks for them. I want a different kind of hell to visit the Republican Theocrasy. I want them broke. I want them broken. I want them publicly ridiculed every day. Spat upon. I want them to have no peace ever again. I want everything stripped from them just as they've stripped this country and our countrymen of everything they could steal from us. No forgiveness, because they've stolen that from me as well.

I turned away from most of the social media stuff now, spending more time reading, listening to music. Self isolation is proving not to be too difficult for me, though I did take a drive out into the country today just to see something new.

*sigh*

John Prine died due to complications with COVID-19. It's not like I didn't expect it when I heard he'd contracted it, he was 73 after all. Despite that, it still saddens me to see my icons falling. I've reached that age where more and more of them are dying, most of them being adults when I was still a teen. I'm seeing my own mortality clearer and clearer. John was only 10 years older than me.

Everyone has been posting lines from John's song 'Paradise' -

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam.
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am.

I really like that song and I hope it holds true for him, but there were so many other songs out there that I grew up with. 'Flag Decal', 'Illegal Smile', 'In Spite of Ourselves', his songbook is huge and filled with my voice from a younger time. I guess I'll be revisiting some of those old songs again soon.

On the home front, I got the yard cut here at the house. Took me most of the afternoon and left me sore as all get out but it's done. Of course I still have to cut grass at the rental, but that's another day.

Annnnnnd, I'm still not getting to sleep before 3am. Maybe tonight???

I've got a ton of stuff I should be doing. At the moment, I should be sleeping, but I've done enough of that in the last couple of weeks my sleep pattern is slipping. Becoming more nocturnal. I need to fight that.

I also need to get back on track doing things, keeping myself active. Pick a project each day and making sure I get that one thing accomplished before drifting off into another fugue state. I've got lawns to cut, both here at home and the rental down the street. With the rain we've had I've had the double whammy of fast growing grass and grass too wet to cut. Each yard ends up taking me at least two days to get cut, so it feels never ending.

Gardening. I need to work on that more as well. I had to dig up all the irises that lined the front sidewalk when TDOT redid the walks. They laid sod over my beds, though honestly, they needed to be completely reworked anyway. I've got some other seed I want to add to those beds as well.

I also have tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, cantaloupe, peppers, mint, dill, rosemary, oregano, thyme... some others I can't remember off the top of my head. I think I'm keeping tomatoes in containers this year after some of last years troubles. Most of the food I think will be grown in containers. Only exception are the blackberry vines. Those are growing out by the pool pump house, and I need to get them in order before it becomes a tangled mess.

I have been reading a lot. I started reading the Jack Reacher series and am up to 24. I also started rereading Butcher's Dresden Files, while tucking other odds and ends into the list (like Kitchen Confidential... all those years a cook and I never read it). I ordered a bunch of Hillerman from Powell's to finish out my collection of the Leaphorn/Chee books.

Okay, time to try to sleep.