Where does a day go?

The best thing with this drug Remeron is I'm sleeping well. The problem is I need to adjust my schedule. I used to go to bed at 2:30 and get up at 7:30 all the time. Now I go to bed at 2:30 and get up at 10:30. My habits improved somewhat over the summer, but now that I'm alone at home I've reverted to the previous routine.

Underlying it is the life-long fear that I'll never finish everything I want to do.

Today I accomplished much, far more than my previous normal energy would allow. Partway through the afternoon I started to worry, probably because the light outside had started to fade. I had to remind myself that I had already completed my goals for the day, the rest was gravy, I could stop pressuring myself and relax.

What I did:

• For breakfast I had an English muffin and a peach and blueberries with cream. Also my first cup of real coffee in weeks.


• Washed, folded and put away four loads of laundry.


• Phoned Lutherwood-CODA, a job counseling service, and set up an appointment for next week.


• Phoned Canadian Mental Health Association for an appointment with a job counselor. Left a message.


• Phoned Bob to tell him I have decided not to sing in the choir this fall. I wasn't looking forward to that conversation, but it went okay. I will continue to help as a volunteer.


• Couldn't find my recipe for Madeira, mushroom and leek soup, so I made a mushroom omelette for lunch.


• Phoned Mom for the soup recipe (she is borrowing one of my cookbooks).


• Did my handwritten journal pages for the day.


• Drove to Zehrs to pick up a few supplies for making preserves.


• I also brought home a pork tenderloin and decided to share it, so I spontaneously phoned Sylvie and invited her for dinner.


• Had a shower.


• Dinner for me and Sylvie (the menu reflects a strict new diet she was given by a naturopath):
  
  
  • Roast pork tenderloin with a coating of curry, brown sugar and dry mustard.
  • Peach chutney.
  • Green beans blanched, then sautéed with shallots.
  • Sliced tomato drizzled with pesto and olive oil.
  • Basmati rice.
  • Limeade.
  • Butterscotch oatmeal squares.


• Marian called collect and talked to both me and Sylvie. Apparently I can call the pay phone in her dorm. Whoever answers will go and get her. She had a good first day at school and made some friends.


• After Sylvie left I preserved several half-pint jars of mint sauce.


• Washed the dishes.


• Shot a few nude photos of self.


• Took a call from Daniel L. We had some catching up to do. It was our first conversation since last winter.


• Perused my LJ friends pages.

How did it get to be 2:30 again?

Shame

Lying
age twelve
in the bottom bunk.
Through a louvered bedroom door:
the family voices.

Underneath:
the pleasure of self-touch
the unexpected rise
burst
and swallowed cry.

Later the turning away
of a mother's eye.
A father's silence.
And power diffused.

Now run
these muddled, scared
harried, hurried words.
Let us hear you
or all will go down
into shadows
fraught with secrecy.

Desire always cuts the night
sharp flicker
severing life from pain
smothered in pillows.

Too much to be silent,
never to hear the words echoed
in another's eyes,
never to see
dew misting the lids,
light breaking the heart
as summer bursts a rose.

That it will have no name
and die alone
on the edge of a narrow bed.

Rejoice!

What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the niety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

~Luke 15:4-6, NKJV


It vanished in March and I had given up hope.

Today in preparation for making pickles I went into the office to retrieve the two-gallon crock, which doubles as container for a fiddle-leaf fig beside the desk. There in the bottom was my lost sheep.

It's the gizmo that attaches a camera to the top of the tripod.

( Let us be merry )

Nommy-Nee makes elderberry jelly

Wild elderberries anyone? I have some to give away.

I was in luck this year. Last September I searched the Eramosa River in vain. The birds had eaten them all before I got there.

On Monday I paid my first visit to the river since July and found a huge bush where I hadn't even noticed it before—festooned with ripe black clusters. I wasn't taking any chances. I went back with a bag right away. The branches were so heavy with fruit that I didn't even have to move from one spot to gather about ten pounds.

While I knelt in the shade of those boughs, a couple cedar waxwings squeaked from the nearby trees. I'd be the last one to steal from them, but the bush still had enough to feed a flock of hundreds. I was just glad to be in the right place at the right time to snatch a few for myself.

Quite a few, as it turned out. Tonight I pulled two quarts off the stems and made a batch of elderberry jelly. Another five cups went into the freezer for pies. That's as many elderberries as I can use.

I still have enough bunches for at least four more quarts of berries if anyone in the area wants them. I'll be driving to Toronto midday tomorrow, and will bring them along if anyone wants them.

~~~~~~~~~~

Elderberry jelly reminds me of a character in the children's book, Pookie, by Ivy Wallace. Pookie is a little white rabbit with wings. His family teases him so he runs away to find his fortune. He ends up living in Bluebell Wood. His best friend is Nommy-Nee. I can't remember whether Nommy-Nee is an elf or fairy, he looks somewhere in between, and he lives in a toadstool.

In the sequel, Pookie Puts the World Right, Nommy-Nee makes elderberry jam.

This all comes from my early childhood. The books disappeared many years ago, and even Mom doesn't know what became of them. We thought they were published in Britain, and probably long out of print.

Tonight in memory of Nommy-Nee I did a web search and found that the books have recently been reprinted (the first publication was 1945). I hope it is as wonderfully illustrated as I remember. I had to have a copy of Pookie, so I did something I've never done before: ordered from Amazon.

Blame it on the elderberries.