TARDY GUY

That’s me. Sorry for my lack of a second post last week. I ended up in the ER on Thursday for a “foreign particle” stuck in my eye. It was excruciating and maddening. It was also on what was supposed to be my “day off,” which made me angrier than the actual pain. I don’t get those hardly ever and I guard them like an unhinged rabid dog when I do. So much driving with one eye! At least it was daytime. After a mistaken consultation at my regular doctor’s office (but not regular doctor), “I have no idea why they scheduled you. We have no ability to treat you for that here…”  I ended up pathetically weeping my way into the local ER. The intake person was a white-bearded man in his late 60’s wearing a purple collared shirt with a tie emblazoned with witches flying their brooms back and forth in front of the full moon. I told him I liked it. He proudly shared that his granddaughter had picked out his outfit for the day. THIS GUY was a joy bomb, and I already felt a little better. I waited a long time for the doctor, as one does in these situations, but she was great and dripped some stingy, yet soothing drops in my eye. She then put a fluorescent litmus strip in to see if there was a scratch. There was. “You have very strong eyelashes,” she said. I kinda wished she’d hug me… She sent me on my way with some medicated eye grease and an appointment with my regular eye doc scheduled for the morning. 

The next day, with my head resting in the metal cage/cradle thing, and my eyelid turned inside-out, grade school recess style, my doc announced, “Welp, looks like you are on the road to making a full recovery.” “I am so relieved it’s not terminal, doctor,” I joked. He did not laugh. Fine! I remembered that earlier that morning I saw a flash of my ring with the bear face on it in the bottom of my bag. That ring is to remind me that I am in menopause and not a werewolf. It has been incredibly helpful on this Hell-ship journey to the alabaster shores of actually not giving a fuck. It is the greatest feeling/state I have ever inhabited. I think people (male medical scientists and those who fund them) have been so shitty/bizarre about menopause because they are JEALOUS AS HELL! I am actually punk now, not just trying real hard. And as I was driving to the eye doc, I looked out on the beautiful scenery flanking the Kancamagus Highway just in time to see an ACTUAL bear moseying along looking for snacks. I love when the universe gives these kinds of greetings. 

A day later there was a huge blizzard on a day way too warm for the snow to stick. The wind howled. The animals and I were trapped in a snow globe. April into May in Vermont is absolutely psychotic and I love it. Today was a perfect 70 degrees. There are new versions of pastel greens clinging to the ends of tree branches, it’s so exciting! Today was the first day I saw barn swallows swooping about. I also had coffee on the writing porch for the first time this year. Man, I missed it. The paper wasps are waking up and slowly ambling about, warming themselves on the side of the house. These little things make me unreasonably happy. 

I am burning unreasonably happy logs inside the furnace in my chest. I become still more dangerous to hatred. I’m hunting it like an orca hunting great white sharks to just eat their livers out. 

Note: the beavers will use ANYTHING to plug my culvert, such as the man’s shoe from the 1930’s farm dump just a little up the hill.