Turning the universe upside down

    I've had variations of the above phrase running through my head for weeks now. Even I am not delusional enough to think that this is within my power. However, it occurs to me that if one wishes to turn the universe upside down, one should maybe start with oneself. And that maybe if I were to let go of some of the Big Crazy (dietary restrictions, say) maybe some of the Little Crazy would go away, too. Only problem is that the dietary restrictions have helped a LOT with the Little Crazy. Hmmm. Maybe I should keep the dietary restrictions, but not worry about them. As I note, over and over, I ate that stuff for 45 years and more. Maybe I can't turn the universe over. But perhaps I can start with the Milky Way.

Maybe 51

    Well, the 50th birthday turned out not to be fiasco-free either. Dad fell on the way out to the car for dialysis. William picked him up with no problem and Dad just got some scrapes on his arm, but still. Damn, damn, damn. Maybe the 51st birthday will be the fiasco-free one. At least this one was SERIOUS fiasco free. So there's that.
    Today Dad is getting the clots removed from his (dialysis) access. I assume this will be quick, straightforward and pain-free. I'll be taking him there and bringing him home, so at least I'll be there to see how it goes immediately. Yesterday, he was unusually weak after dialysis. Hopefully, this isn't any part of a trend.

Sack of hammers

    I bought the new laptop (Notebook would be more correct and also sounds ever so much less crude, which is of course why I prefer laptop) but also a can of compressed air. The latter fixed the problem with the old laptop immediately. (Well, the laptop computer at least.) So the new one is sitting over there in its box. I do have at least one game that I can't play on this computer that I look forward to playing on that one. And there are untold numbers of other ones, and cheap ones, that I could get as well. So I'll be opening it today or tomorrow. It's the getting it set up on the Internet part that daunts me. That's a lot of passwords right there!
    Saw a truck today emblazoned Valley Proteins Greasetrap Division. If you think your job is unpleasant or undignified, I think there might be something worse.

Birthday suit

    This will be a brief one, as the promised death of this computer, or rather of its left-click button, is at hand, and it makes me fairly irritable to try to work with it.
    My friend, distant cousin and namesake just celebrated his 46th birthday the day after my 50th. (Weird, isn't it?) He mentioned on Facebook how he was looking forward to his 46th year being a good one. I didn't correct him because I'm having trouble with the math. I mean, I think that he just finished his 46th year. On your first birthday, you've just finished your first year after all. But of course your first birthday ought to be, you know, the day of your birth, the one where you're wearing your birthday suit. This would make your first birthday your second birthday, and every one after that one more than how we normally celebrate them. Wouldn't it? Now, not only won't my left-click button work but also my head hurts. Happy birthday, John!

Too pissed

    This probably won't be too Hemingway-like either. There's too much back story, and the back story isn't very interesting. More of a writing exercise than a blog entry. Sorry.
    Some months ago, during the never-ending crisis, I needed gas and so pulled the lever to open the little door over the... place where you put the gas in, whatever that might be called. Door didn't open. I tried to force it and it broke off entirely. I panicked a bit and went off and bought a locking gas cap. Problem solved.
    Yesterday, after all the fun and frivolity in Savannah, I was slightly low on gas and so stopped in Hardeeville SC to fill up. The card reader at the station for some reason wouldn't take my American Express. At the same time, I was tired, sun-baked and dehydrated, it was 95 degrees outside, and the guy at the next pump was blasting really godawful hip-hop at megadecibels. So I said hell with this and tried the next gas station, with the same results. At one or another station, probably the first, I left the locking gas cap on the trunk, and drove off without it. And drove all the way home without it. (Had enough gas after all, I guess!)
    Today, I filled up no problem with the same card, but noticed immediately that I no longer had a locking gas cap. Fortunately, I had kept the non-locking one and so just put that on. I guess it was an over-reaction all along. This isn't exactly a siphoning type of neighborhood. Anyway, I'll leave it until I wake up some morning with an unexpectedly empty tank. Which might be, I dunno, another sign of very late growing up.

Good birthday

    So for my birthday, I wanted to go up and enjoy the best view in South Carolina. However, this required climbing straight up, at least by my standards, and the weather forecast indicated that it would be 90 degrees today even in the mountains. So in a sudden burst of common sense, I opted to go to Savannah instead.
    I did also want to go to Savannah National Wildlife Refuge to look at alligators, so not that much common sense. But the alligators declined to cooperate. I guess by noon, when we arrived, they were all basked out and hiding in the water. Dang crotchety alligators.
    So we went on to Savannah. Lunch was at a Thai place, which we had a certain difficulty finding. But getting lost in Savannah is more fun than getting found in most places, so this was no major problem. Then we headed for the tourism zone. At this moment my brother Mal called to wish happy birthday. Hearing that we couldn't find parking, he looked it up on the smart phone and guided me to a garage. Serendipity!
    We walked around, enjoying the squares and Forsythe Park and SCAD and a couple antiquarian bookstores, at one of which Paul made an acquisition for the University. So there!
    I came out of the closet as a tourist, wearing a camera in plain sight for the first time in my life. People still stopped me to ask for directions. But at least it was in English for a change.
    We had an early supper at a Jamaican place, Sweet Spice, on Waters Avenue. It was more successful than the Thai place (Kai Noodles). I stretched a point and didn't bother mentioning that I'm celiac and needed to order gluten-free (though I had chosen both places because they were on a gluten-free friendly list). I may finally be starting to learn how to relax. Maybe.
    It was a glorious fun day, topped by a call to Dad and Margaret to confirm that indeed they had gone out dancing for the first time in more than a year. And this was much the best present of all.

Soundtrack

    My brain has decided I really, really want to listen to three songs over and over again these days. They are "Negative Love" by John Wesley Harding, "Blue Chalk" by Maura O'Connell, and "Friend of the Devil" by the Grateful Dead. The first I can figure, as it pretty much describes the last three years of my life. The other two are beyond me though. There haven't been any alcoholics in my life for a long time as far as I know. Neither has Mephistopheles (That can't possibly be spelled right, I thought, but looked it up and it is) turned up, again, so far as I know. Fortunately I like all three songs, so I'll just enjoy them and continue bewildered.
    The left-click button on this here laptop is wearing out, so my 400-odd day skein of unbroken blogging might break at any minute. I'm sure the Russian spambots will cope somehow.

Steel Trappists

    For a long time I have thought that it would be a hoot to form a band comprised of lap steel guitar, pedal steel guitar and steel drums. I appreciate that this sounds like a joke, but I really think the three sounds would go well together, where lap steel could be either the David Lindley sound on "Running On Empty" or that of Jerry Douglas on Weissenborn. As I have no talent, I thought maybe I could track down a composition program with a really good synthesizer. (In this case, that should be called an emulator, but I think there's already some piece of musical equipment with that name.) And the other day it occurred to me that I could call the project Steel Trappists. That's it really. Well, I thought it was funny!

Why and why not

    I think I have figured out why I defend my solitude so ferociously. Or rather, why whenever anyone starts to draw close I tend to push them away. I don't think that it has anything to do with any particular preference for solitude. Nor do I think it's exactly an fear of intimacy.
    I think that because of how and why the last relationship ended, I'm scared to death of anyone finding out just how freaking weird I am. Which is funny since I broadcast how freaking weird I am every day on this blog. But the day-to-day oddness of living gluten- casein- and soy-free really does set one far, far apart. Before I changed my diet, I often felt so depressed that it was like I was from another planet. Now because of diet, I'm starting to suspect that I might be.

Fitness again

    I still don't care for the term "fitness," but I think I know what they're trying to say now. And I admit that I can't think of a better word for it, either. However, as I find that very little exercise provides enough muscle such that my spine hardly ever hurts anymore (KNOCK ON WOOD!), it occurs to me that the concept might have validity. My question from before (Fit for what?) still stands though. Calling somebody "fit" is calling somebody else "unfit," which strikes me as unhelpful.
    I always liked the "wellness" concept. Betterness? Go Boy Scouts and try Better Preparedness? Guess not. All I'm trying to convey is that it seems like very little exercise can allow a person, especially an older person, to live with less pain with little effort. I'm not sure that encouraging "fitness," thereby implying that they are unfit, is going to do the job. Five-minute pain relief? Maybe.

Recurring

    Flogging the old dead horse again, let's continue the accidental dream diary. Last night, I reached a resolution of sorts in a longtime recurring dream. For ages I've been dreaming about this imaginary section of town near the river that's just full of ethnic restaurants. The question is: which town? Usually it seems to be some kind of amalgam of Philadelphia and Columbia, with nothing really in common with either real place.
    In this dream, it was definitely Philadelphia, even though it was no more Philadelphia-like than previously. (I mean, in the dream I was relieved to have it cleared up at last that this was Philadelphia, though how this was cleared up is, well, unclear.) Also I was with Robert. Robert of course hasn't lived in Philadelphia in many years, so that makes perfect sense! We were trying to find Thai restaurants, but all the Thai restaurants had closed and become jewelry stores. The Korean restaurants on the other hand were thriving.
    I would kill or die to know what any of this is supposed to mean. Of course, the obvious interpretation is that what I'm looking for is gone and I'm frustrated, and what I'm not looking for is all around me. Nah, too obvious!
    I also had a dream that was very odd in that it was microscopically detailed. Without going into those details (which were more than a little gross) I was looking at a news photograph while listening to very detailed narration. The gross part was described but not seen, fortunately. All that was pretty weird even by my exalted dreamtime standards.
    On the one hand, all this dream diary stuff is probably more than anyone wants to read. On the other, think how great it is that my life is dull enough to let me blither about this stuff, compared to a year ago and the nine months following. (In real life, I went to Poinsett State Park yesterday to hike, and got a shot of a couple of basking cottonmouths. Danger! In real life!)

Preservatives

    It makes me mildly kookoo when canned or frozen products contain preservatives. It's canned! It's frozen! Isn't that preservative enough? I don't really need my food to be shelf-stable for three years. I think a few weeks would be sufficient. Wouldn't it?
    Also also I would think that one would be able to find canned beans that are just. canned. beans. No salt. Really, I can put in my own salt if I want to. It isn't one of the hard things. What I can't do is take out the salt you put in that I don't want anyway. So I soak my beans, and simmer them an hour and a half. Big bean fan, me. But it ought to be quicker and easier in 2012. (Though I did at least find some without preservatives, finally.)
    Why not quinoa chocolate chip cookies? I have a feeling that I will be finding out soon.

Cracked rearview

    I know that I drone on and on about my dreams. And I realize that it's hardly an original observation that dreams offer an interesting 52 pickup of what's been going on in your life. Last night I dreamed that I took somebody to dialysis most days (though not that one) but it wasn't my dad. Instead, it was a nice guy I see every month or so at Drinking Liberally. He had to fill out a form detailing everyone he had told that he was on dialysis. (It seemed like this was because they thought dialysis patients were targets for thieves; even in the dream, it seemed weird.) On the form, he said nice things about me, though one was that I'm a gourmand. It being my dream, I knew that he meant well.
    He and his wife (whom I've never met in real life) were at or in the neighborhood of the dialysis facility (which was nothing like the one in real life). I was relieved, because when I had gone by, both his street and that of the dialysis facility were flooded. (So how did I get there? The subconscious does not tell.) In real life, Margaret's yard is subject to flooding, and it's rained a lot lately. But we've gotten by so far.
    I later dreamed that I was walking down the middle of the street in the wee hours in Five Points (a big bar-restaurant part of town) in a kind of Mardi-Gras-with-more-clothes scene. There was no traffic, so we were perfectly safe. (It's been a while since "perfectly safe" has been something you could say about Five Points.) I was a little worried about pickpockets and so walked home.
    Just a lot of neuroses that are similar, but not too similar to the ones I live with in real life. And all apologies to Hootie. (They probably staggered down the middle of the street in Five Points back in the day without having to go to sleep first.)

Embarrassing admission

    I seem to get myself in trouble by declaring victory over a given problem and immediately finding that the victory was only temporary. So I'm not declaring victory. However, it seems at least at this transitory moment, that all I needed to do to fix my back problems was to take a broom and hold it out in front of me, then lift it over my head twenty times. Then flip it so that the sweeping end is at the other side (thus equalizing the weight lifted by either hand) and lift it over my head another twenty times.
    So my various blitherings about fluorosis, bad shoes, allergies, bad mattresses, etc. seem to have been without merit. For all that I really did have whiplash and probably really do have herniated discs, the problem that causes me the back pain is sitting in a chair looking at this computer untold hours per day. The solution is making my hunched over shoulders stretch back. But I'm not declaring victory. Fate, you behave yourself.

Friend of lions

    I had this spectacular dream last night where I was playing with lions. They were very friendly. And their claws didn't hurt when they kneaded. I think I was asking them their names and they were answering. Amelia has a lot to measure up to now; I want a pride of lions!
    I also dreamed that I was helping my brother furnish his palatial house. My selections tended to be cheap, but comfortable. I thought I was doing it for his use, but then I found out that he had his own suite of rooms, so I could use my cheap and comfortable furniture. I was well-pleased. (Of course, that's what my real furniture is like.)
    I was thinking that I knew a joke for the real-life situation locally: If April showers bring May flowers, what do May showers bring? But I guess the joke just repeats May flowers and the punch line is "Pilgrims!" So the question continues: What DO May showers bring? Don't say "mildew"!

Gesundheit!

    So the sick kitty is still sick, but not very. After her bout with throwing up Friday, she was logy all day Saturday, then perked up. Then she started sneezing. It's been going on three days, I guess. I was finally going to take her to the vet this morning, but called and the nice lady there confirmed my memory that all they have is antibiotics and since this is almost certainly a virus, it wouldn't help much. She said that unless there's colored fluid draining or significant behavioral change, it's probably best to let it run its course. Unfortunately, that's likely to be a week. Amelia seems to get better hour by hour, though, so I'm hoping that it won't be that long. Anyway, the only behavioral change she has exhibited is that she knows I'm even a bigger pushover than usual. Smarter than she looks is my Amelia.

Secrets

    Not, mind you, very INTERESTING secrets. Just puzzling. This town has a way of not labeling things. There's a large facility off 12th St. Extension in Cayce. It has restricted entry, like a prison, but otherwise looks like a medium-sized college campus. It appears to be the operations setup for the local power company. I just can't figure out why this needs to be a secret. (If you never hear from me again, though, you'll know that somebody thought it was pretty important.) As their more white-collar headquarters is right up the road, complete with signs and stuff, it seems like any bad guy with a jones against infrastructure could figure it out anyway. So go figure.
    In Columbia itself, a motel became the Salvation Army's homeless shelter. At the time, the idea was expressly to be highly visible. Since then, the facility has expanded, but all signage is gone. One wall on Elmwood Ave. is a giant cross made of glass blocks, so it looks like a secret church. But that's it. Did somebody think that if there isn't a sign, nobody will see it. (Two-year-old hiding his eyes: "You can't see me!") Or that the homeless wouldn't be able to find it. Or is there a great sign that I'm missing somehow? It's a bewilderment.
    The secret police cars (or anyway the ones that are hard to pick up in your rear-view mirror) that I mentioned earlier turn out to be all FlexFuel Impalas. So it probably isn't my imagination that they are recent acquisitions, probably since the GM bailout. Rather like those 20 years there when nearly all government cars were Chrysler products. Now I kind of pity them; I imagine FlexFuel isn't a lot of help in a chase.

Bowling should be more 3D

    What I want to know is, why can't you bowl loop-di-loops? Or have the alley curve off down and to the left or right before coming back again? It would be so much cooler if bowling were more like miniature golf. If the Wii doesn't already have an Ultra 3D Bowling game (well it IS already 3D), they should. In case you're wondering, this is the kind of stuff my brain comes up with when I can't get to sleep or when I can't quite wake up. But that doesn't make it any less cool!:)
    The Monkey was sneezing and hiccupping today, so she just isn't having a good May. I think she's stopped now. Hopefully that will be it for her bad month.

Babies!

    For Mother's Day, I drove Margaret, Dad and brother William out to Margaret's daughter Bunny's house. It was a house of babies. The new one is less than a week old, another was about six months and the new baby's big sister is a little over a year. It was a hoot. They were all very well-behaved, especially the new one, who stayed asleep practically the entire time. It was nice to see everybody and nice for Dad and Margaret to get out. He got around pretty well with his cane, negotiating the front steps with help from William and me.
    Meanwhile, the kitty got much better as yesterday wore on, and was all the way back to normal by evening. Yaaay!

Sick kitty

    My Monkey is not at her best. She threw up twice yesterday, and has been highly subdued ever since. It was just liquid both times, leading me to the thought and the hope that she just has a hairball that she can't get out, and that when she finally does she'll be all better. She just stays at the foot of the bed, laying around. When I visit with her, she is playful and friendly, but much less energetic and much less importunate than usual. She hasn't eaten as far as I can tell.
    If she isn't better by Monday, it goes without saying that she's headed to the vet. If anything drastic happens before that, everybody's job is to tell me that it wasn't my fault, that there was no way of knowing, and that it was perfectly reasonable not to take her to the emergency vet. (I wouldn't be so nervous if Alice's cat Madeline hadn't been so much like this at the end. But she was clearly starved, while Amelia is clearly not.) I'm still hopeful.

Childlike

    Old men who are childish (or even non-old men) are supposed to claim to be childlike. but I've never had any problem with my childishness. I can make squeaking or farting noises by squeezing my hands together. This hasn't been a social plus since middle school, so I had forgotten about it. The other day, I did it out of the blue for no reason in particular in the kitty's presence. She ran away. Since then, she's less alarmed when I do it. The fart sounds leave her cold (being a girl and all) but she's very, very interested in the squeaking sounds. ("Do you have a mouse in there?")
    Last night, I also remembered I have a certain facility with making percussion noises by beating on my cheeks while opening or closing my mouth. She ran away from that one, too, but got used to it very quickly. I don't know if this will increase or decrease her kitty dentist tendencies. At least she won't think I have a mouse in there. Unless I master REALLY high notes.

Waiting room

    The waiting room at the dialysis place seems particularly grim, which is odd really because it's really rather pleasant. Granted, we all know why we're there and there are some smells you'd rather never encounter, but they've made it as bright and cheerful as anyone could. And I was wondering why it seemed less pleasant than it ought to. Eventually, I seized on the fact that the TV is nearly always running A&E, which during the 11 and noon hours runs cSI Miami and during the 3 and 4 o'clock hours runs The First 48. I have the strong sense that in a place such is this for a purpose such as this, running programming that's all about death is probably not an ideal choice.
    Today, they had on CBS (I think) running The Price Is Right. And the joint seemed ever so much more cheerful. (Admittedly, under the circumstances the constant diabetes ads were kind of funny, or at least ironic.) On other occasions, they've run AMC or CMT. Neither would be my first choice, but at least they're fairly unlikely to harp on death. Then again, the patrons all follow CSI intently when it's on, so maybe it's just me. Or maybe they're fully resigned. Anyway, though I'll never be a fan, I hope there's more Price Is Right in the future.

Kitty dentist

    Not only is she a kitty ventriloquist but also she's a kitty dentist. Whenever I yawn (or anyway whenever I do in a lying down position with the Monkey on my chest) she looks in my mouth very intently. I don't let her look as long or as closely as she would like. I don't know what she would do if I kept my mouth open indefinitely. Can kitties say, "Now spit!"
    I completely forgot to post all day today. My brain has been thrown off by rain. So was my hike. I went to Harbison State Forest to hike, but it was raining a bit so I blew it off and went to Publix. While I was there, the minor drizzle turned into an unbelievable downpour. So laziness proved to be a good choice. I browsed the heck out of that Publix right there, let me tell you. When the rain quit I did some actual shopping at Aldi and drove home very carefully. I used my bike pedals as a hiking substitute later.

Unleaded

    Not to go all Andy Rooney (meaning curmudgeonly, not dead), but shouldn't we be done with the term "unleaded gasoline" by now. It's been decades since anybody sold leaded gasoline. It isn't like they are miraculously removing lead from gasoline that's full of it. Lead is just something that they used to add to gas but don't anymore. I think "Regular," "Mid-grade" and "Premium" meet the case. Really.
    Yesterday, I took a pleasant trip to Swan Lake/Iris Gardens in Sumter. I had read that the rocky shoals spider lilies at Landsford Canal, which usually peak at my birthday (a couple of weeks from now) are peaking now instead. So I thought that the irises, which also usually peak at my birthday (thanks for the nice present, Mother Nature!) might do the same. They didn't, but some of them were very nice. Also it was fun to try out the macro setting on the cool Coolpix Anne gave me for my birthday. Pretty day; glad I went.

Blue trout

    I'm rereading "Byline: Ernest Hemingway." (I bet you can't guess who that's by!) He discovered in the backcountry of Switzerland a dish called blue trout. It's prepared by boiling the trout in vinegar, bay leaves and red pepper (and, ya know, water). Now I appreciate that freshwater and saltwater fish are different. But it occurs to me that my haddock tends to be more than a little bitter, so I thought I would try something like this.
    The haddock is mostly baked; I just added the vinegar and red pepper at the end when I'm cooking it with the potatoes and (today) broccoli. It really tasted pretty good; I would say better than usual. However, it tore up my stomach something dramatic. So maybe I could get by with less vinegar. (Also, it didn't turn blue.) Anyway, it was fun to try, and will be funner to try in the future.

Walking with a mountain

    So Paul and I wanted to go hiking in the mountains. What I really wanted to do was go to the place I always call the best view in South Carolina. Unfortunately, though, to get there you have to go straight up a mountainside. And we knew perfectly well that we are in no kind of shape for that. So we went to the same place, Jones Gap State Park, but to a different trail, the much easier Jones Gap Trail. And it was lovely and fun and easy and then...
    Two roads diverged in a wood and I... We met the spur trail to Rainbow Falls. It's 1.6 miles long-- how hard could it be? Answer is that it isn't hard at all if you're in shape for that sort of thing. I at least was not. My knees are still sorely disappointed in me. I'm quite ready now to sign up for AARP, a recliner and Turner Classic Movies. Owie. On the other hand, it was a fun hike, we met a lot of nice people (and a lot of nice dogs and babies, strangely enough), and the payoff at the end was fantastic. I didn't even kill the guy who was smoking by the waterfall. Thought about it a lot, though. (KIDDING!)

Really relieved that everybody has crazy dreams

    Outdid myself I did. I was in a waiting area at an airport. In an adjacent seat was the leader of the UK Labour Party, who in the dream was about to be the next Prime Minister. I noticed that he had really comfortable shoes; also for such a very important person he had no security presence at all. So I suggested that since he had no security, it would be no problem for me to knock him on the head and take his very comfortable shoes. It being my dream, he understood instantly (and I knew instantly that he understood instantly) that I was just kidding and that he was in no danger. He took it as a compliment on his shoes and laughed.
    Then there was a football coach. He was an NFL assistant, but seemed to be out of work more than working. He had a wife and kids; apparently she was a big earner. The kids, it turned out, weren't his. Rather, they were the children of the Labour politician we met in the airport portion of the dream. I said, "Sounds like a sitcom! Hey, they play American football in England now." (Well, they don't, but they did for a while there.) "You guys should move to Britain and start a reality show!" The sick thing is, if it happened it real life, that would be the natural progression.

Fiasco-free again

    Hey, I went hiking today in the no-phone zone, and when I emerged, was pleased as punch to find no messages to the effect than anything terrible had happened. Moreover, last night I got a call on my cell phone and it turned out to be my brother Mal alerting me to something wonderful happening on the radio rather than any horrifying news. It's almost enough to restore a fellow's faith in Providence. Or at least Woonsocket.
    Out on the trail, I encountered a couple of Men Supposed To Be Working. They had laid down tools. One was standing around, while another was napping on the narrow bridge I was trying to cross. I found this rather rude, but then, where else are you going to lie down on a hiking trail through a swamp? Later, I encountered what had been a tree down on the trail and was now sawdust, so they had been working earlier. Also it occurred to me that they had helpfully knocked down a lot of the spider webs for me. So I felt a lot more forgiving as the morning wore on.
    It was a fairly overcast morning and Congaree NP had largely dried out again, so it shouldn't have been a great hiking day. But except for the spiders, it really was. Now to go lie in the bathtub and drown whatever vermin I might have picked up!

Point of view

    We meet for Drinking Liberally at Thirsty Fellow, a bar with a nice view of the Columbia skyline, such as it is. Only problem is that from there I can see a building that I absolutely cannot place or recognize. I've been trying to find it while driving around on my assorted errands, but I just can't. What makes it special is that it doesn't seem to have any windows. Of course, this probably has much more to do with my extreme astigmatism than any lack of foresight on the part of the architect. But it's making me ever so slightly crazy. Those people who put that building up for Tuesday evenings only and then take it down again are probably laughing their heads off.

Nooooo!

    The dialysis facility called this morning to ask if I could bring Dad at 7 tomorrow morning. The above was my answer, though I wasn't rude or curt or loud about it and I'm pretty sure she could hear the smile in my voice. I explained that he had quite enough trouble getting up and ready for his normal time (11:30). If he could do it, it would be really great, though, because the weather is getting insanely hot and it would be nice to get this out of the way before the truly infernal stuff starts. But I just don't see it.
    I had a very pleasant walk today on the Lake Weston Loop Trail at Congaree National Park, and an even more pleasant return to civilization to find that there were no alarming messages on my voicemail. It's getting to the point where I'm very, very polite to wrong number callers just because I'm so relieved that it isn't a call telling me that something terrible has happened. I probably should train my friends to call my cell phone more often so I'll stop dreading every ring.

Not good

    but not terrible. Dad fell last night in Margaret's kitchen and couldn't get up. She called me a little past 10 and I went over and got him up no problem. Somehow he had cut his hand while trying to get up, unfortunately. The blood on the floor was more than a little alarming, but he's fine. I don't know what the nurses at dialysis are saying today about the cut on his hand, though.
    Given that unsettling experience, I wasn't expecting to sleep well, and this expectation was met. I went ahead and played rock n roll, but very quietly. Dreams were almost unprecedentedly odd. There was this deal where I was in Brighton (where I've never been) only it was in the United States, specifically Chicago (where I've barely been), also Valencia, Spain, and also it was in the mountains. I don't know if I was watching a movie or bi-locating, but there was an episode in a hotel restaurant of great prestige, where I or the person in the movie was sampling the specialty of the house, the Governor's Salad, which was a plate of shredded carrots. There was also a special dressing, which was more carrots and some onions.
    But I was walking in the park, which was totally denuded and orange, like Valencia when I visited there and they hid the river. I was wondering when the grass would grow back, but then I had to climb a mountain and when I got to the top, I was at the entrance to an Elevated station. Or possibly the hotel with the carrot salad, I don't know. But the street was something Britishy, like Victoria Street or some such. My sleeping brain gets around.