In Which the Hellgoddess Proves She Can Talk at Length about Nothing

 

After a very slow cautious ME-placating start* this morning I took a deep breath and wandered desultorily up to Third House.  I already had the dog-minder booked because I was supposed to be going somewhere today** so I thought I'd at least go have a mild little look at . . . what is still more or less the bomb site that is Third House.  GAAAAH.  Every time I go up there and gaze upon all those boxes of books I have a sudden appointment at the opposite end of town.***   But it's getting increasingly ridiculous that I have this . . . uh . . . Third House and people who come to visit still get put up at the local B&Bs.†   So I did some squirreling and scouring†† and as a result was on such a high of virtue manifested that when I swept (admirably exhausted) hellhounds down to the mews I immediately embarked on the noble and shining exploit to make bookshelf space for my knitting books.  There is, however, a significant drawback to having accomplished this feat:  standing up on a shelf, as opposed to lying down on the table next to the piano that is supposed to be devoted to music, ††† suddenly there are so few of them.  Maybe I should order a few more to keep them company—?‡ 

* * *

* Plus strong black tea.  Sigh.  I eat more fresh vegetables than a regiment of giant rabbits, I take my vitamin pills, I support and boost with homeopathy^ and Bowen, I neither eat, wear nor wash with anything containing Funny Chemicals . . . but I'm still a caffeine addict.  I've been off tea three times in the last quarter century . . . including once after the ME felled me . . . and I go back every time.  Okay, everyone needs a vice^^ and I have yet to gamble away all my material goods in a single throw^^^ or pick a fight with someone twice my size and with six arms, all of them holding swords, after a beer too many.^^^^  But . . .

^ Indeed I'm pretty sure I'm on my feet today because I made a good choice of booster last night. 

^^ Or twelve

^^^ Possibly because no self-respecting gambler would be interested

^^^^ In my case of course it would be glass of champagne too many.  Speaking of vices. 

** What a kick in the head this weekend has turned out to be.  After I was already signed up for my bell outing an invitation to a major Dickinson clan gathering arrived, and Peter and I discussed it but the journey was not plausible—too far for me to drive, and the train/coach option plus the party itself would equate to a body bag for McKinley.  Peter decided he would go—the irony being that at 83 and falling asleep after supper every night his stamina is still better than mine.  This afternoon, after hellhounds and I got down to the mews, after the dog minder had performed her ambulant magic . . . Peter got a phone call from one of the Younger Generation saying that he would come and fetch his second cousin once removed^ tomorrow . . . including any attendant wives.   And I can't ask my dog minder on no notice to do a second weekend stint and I'm still pretty much on the thin edge myself and probably don't dare go be frelling social at one of these clan gatherings which I found seriously debilitating before the ME.  But . . . damn.  If the Younger Generation had got wind of the situation two days ago and made his extremely generous offer then, I might have been able to juggle.  The gathering tomorrow will have too many people, but there will also be champagne.^^ 

^ . . . I think.  Genealogy is not one of my strong points.

^^ I tweeted this, but it's worth repeating:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/mar/12/what-really-thinking-woman-with-me

I'm a little wary of how these pieces are edited—some of you may remember the what-someone-is-really-thinking column about a woman with a much older husband:  she sounded pretty much a cow, and as another woman with a much older husband I objected to what seemed to be her assumptions about the reality of the situation.  But after a lot of other people posted their similar objections, she signed on to protest that she'd been harshly edited.  So I wonder about this one, because this woman has also been edited to sound pretty bitter and whiny, and while there's bitter and whiny too that's not all of it—and I bet she also said 'I am not my illness'—but that's been edited out.  Allowing, then, for unsympathetic editing, let me say that every word that has made it onto the page is true for me too.  I am not malingering.  And I know a lot about what my illness is telling me—so?   Someone with a limp because one leg is six inches shorter than the other knows why they have a limp too.  I also tend always 'to look so well'—and as someone one of whose basic ME boundaries is about getting behind the wheel of a car, I notice she refers to being well enough to drive.  And the last paragraph—yes.  You may just get the flu.  And it may just not go away.  That's what happened to me too.  I still have the poem Peter wrote me about glandular fever+ when I finally got that diagnosis and was so relieved.  I'll put it up here some day.  I still have it up on my wall.  As a warning, I guess, about what you want to risk laughing about.  But it's a funny poem, and it still does make me laugh.  Black humour is a lot better than no humour. 

+ mono in the States  

*** The best news about Third House is that at least two of my chocolate cosmos are still alive.  I love chocolate cosmos^ but I always lose them over the winter—it's not just that they're tender, they're fussy.  Geraniums, for example, you bring indoors and shove on a windowsill and they give themselves a shake and say, oh, right, indoors, and keep right on flowering.  Begonias that have been outdoors all summer tend to sulk but survive . . . snapdragons hate my windowsills but are fine in my Heath-Robinson greenhouse^^^ . . . blah blah blah blah: I could go on but I won't . . . anyway.  I have occasionally wintered a single chocolate cosmos over but this is the first time I've succeeded with more than one:  and one of them looks positively robust.^^^^  

^ Well, duh.  But you don't eat them.  You just smell them.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_atrosanguineus  But they smell heavenly.  

^^ My stephanotis is flowering and speaking of smelling heavenly . . . mmmmmm.  It's not chocolate, it's . . . well, it's a summer smell, except that stephanotis is also tender, and flowers in my experience in early spring when everything outdoors is still shivering.+ 

+ Wiki says summer.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanotis  I had a monster stephanotis once—which I inadvertently killed by leaving outdoors on a night it wasn't supposed to freeze—and it used to flower and flower and flower and flower, but when it was still a windowsill plant it flowered in spring. 

^^^ I've told you I've got several snapdragons that have wintered themselves over outdoors?  Snapdragons are tender.  Snapdragons do not survive months like last November-December–or even last week.  I'm hoping I've just inadvertently provided hospitality to a mutant hardy strain and am about to make my fortune (finally) selling the seed. 

^^^^ Gods help me if cosmos are like stephanotis and get large.  The reason the stephanotis died—and I still feel guilty—is because it was so big it was a major wrestle to get it back into the kitchen at the cottage—at the old house it lived inside the French windows in my office. 

† No, I am glad to see you!   Really I am!  It's just—uh— 

†† I am still finding charming little leftovers from the builders.  I love builders so much.  Not.  Who puts wet soap in a box of towels?  Builders.  Who don't notice that they've left their almost-empty^ cup of coffee behind a stack of (book) boxes?  Builders.   Who leave screws, splintery tag-ends of timber, bits of piping, incomprehensible broken-off shards of plastic and the occasional rusty tool behind, so your property is an archaeological site of no interest whatsoever for years after?  BUILDERS. 

^ I am trying to be grateful for small favours. 

††† Speaking of which, I've just ordered some Benjamin Britten sheet music for voice.  Also Purcell.  And . . . Pirate Jenny. 

‡ No I am not asking for recommendations.