June

 

The first full set of the Scrabble tiles

Charlotte 'helping' me in the garden, rolling around and making sure all the rabbits and deer know this is her place as well as mine.

 There are some fruits starting on the plants here, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers - Mark thinks I put too much fertilizer to water ratio when I put some out to day but I will water more again tomorrow as it will be ninety degrees.  But I have a short postal route to run, as well.

Esme and I went out to get chicken feed today, and then got library cards and books in the town where I work at the post office.  We have cards for the other one in our county, but we haven't gotten over there as often - and it was a good idea to stop.  She said that the young adult section in this library, even though the place was very very small, was really good.  We also stopped and got drinks at a cafe and went to sit in a college student nook for a bit to read our books - there was a grackle coming back and forth feeding a nest of baby birds up high in the rafters there - it was quite cool to watch.  We didn't even know they were there until the parent arrived and suddenly the world was full of chirp.  We had went down to the nook because there as a lawncare company making huge noise by the gazebo in the square we initially tried to sit at.

I also made a pint of blackberry syrup from blackberries up the road.  Mark didn't think they were going to be useful - and I couldn't help myself from picking at least a small amount.  I followed my instincts, although I looked up that it should be apple cider vinegar AND salt (I remember salt always, from my mother's instructions) and clear water and many rinsings to remove the little bugs that like to live in the berries.  And then heat up to boiling with sugar, lemon juice and water and mash it up, then bring to simmer and simmer for a bit, and then strain it to get out as much of the seed and pulp as possible.  Mark wanted me to add even more sugar to it - I doubled the amount I had originally put in it, but then I told him I was going to see what this was like before adding more.  I had a spoonful of it on ice cream, and it was very good.  It could have been thicker, simmered down longer etc.. but it's still quite good the way it is.

Did Greek lesson, Spanish Duolingo, French Duolingo (high grammar), Russian lesson on Busuu, and Lithuanian and French alternating on Babadum and Baltoslav.  I read half of Neil Gaiman's 'Stardust' book that I checked out from the library.  

 

It is 8 pm and I've been up since 4 am... will try to get some more sleep tonight.

 

ramblings:

I was woken up so early this morning by a very strange dream of my mother, and the 'afterlife' / 'between-world' etc.. as the mixed up ways of roads and hallways and bureaucracy and things that make no sense - it is not the first time, not by far, that I have had the same sort of dreams - usually she is 'lost' or has to ask me something again, like what my phone number is - but this time she wanted to talk to me about what I was going to take into the hospital to do a surgery, and I picked out a few bits of clothes out of the car we had come in, saying I didn't need even half of this stuff for a two day stay etc.. and I was trying to figure out how to carry a bag in, if anybody was going to help me, but I grabbed a long-sleeved pink and white gingham shirt that was very specific and said that would be useful for sitting up in bed once I was feeling better, my stepfather (who is still alive, I'm pretty sure) took one of the bags from me, but he set it down on the ground, he was with a few other people I never actually looked at and they asked him and me about the twins (my cousins, his nieces) and I told them I hadn't heard anything about them in years, sorry - we discussed something about what I was going into the hospital for, something I had been ignoring in my stomach (makes no sense) and it had gotten to the point I had more trouble with it and needed to fix it - and my stepfather and the other people went back into the van - but my mother came with me - and then I went up into the hospital and my mom came with me, I was carrying a small bag and the shirt draped on my arm, we passed through all the hallways just fine on the way to the right office, I stopped and looked at a vending machine someone was messing with at a checkpoint desk, while they found out if I was supposed to be there and I waited for them to open the door - it was full of strange packaged foods like a candy machine, but the outlet was some sort of square bucket somebody (an old man, the guard was talking to him, apparently he did this often) was trying to mix stuff up right there like a slop pit - and I decided I didn't want any of that food - and then when I was supposed to check in at the correct time for the surgery (2 pm) a nurse met me in the hallway and looked me up on a list, said they weren't ready, things were just too busy, brought me to a waiting room, where I tried to check in with the secretary on the left who was VERY rude and snappy and wouldn't let me say a word in edgewise even to say who I was - she just wanted me to sit down and wait until spoken to - how long? don't TALK, don't look at me, No No don't EVEN etc.  and another nurse or secretary leaned over while I was going 'sheesh' to my mom and we were sitting down - she told me in a low voice that it was just very busy today, things weren't going right at all, and the other lady was just very upset - the angry lady peered down the row and  snapped at me again for sitting (when she had told me to) - and for talking to the other lady - and I didn't like that at all - went into some room after a few minutes with the clipboard nurse and my mom and somebody else were asking me about what I wanted to know about what they might do, and what might happen - discussed that didn't I know things could go wrong, I said everything would be alright, no matter what, as long as they wrapped me in a clean cloth soaked in clean water, things would turn out okay and I was very lucid in that moment in the dream - with my conviction and knowing I should be afraid of what she was implying but saying 'this is how this is'  This felt like one of those 'tests' in a dream, where they try to make you terrified of what might happen, but you already know it is a dream - but you are also bound to tell them your exact personal truth because you can see it at that moment clearer than you sometimes do when you are awake.  They wanted me to back out?  Have a crisis?  Demand a ton of more info?  But I didn't, because there was nothing I could do personally that was going to affect the outcome, but also, it was a dream and I was awake in the dream.  Usually - lucid dreaming you can do whatever you want, and make things happen because you know it is a dream - but I felt this was more a 'deep questions' thing.  However, we went further into the room and I got onto the hospital bed or exam table? it was hard like a table but sat up like a bed, and I quickly fell asleep - and lost time - then was floating above over the tables in that room it was almost Star Trek looking down at multiple tables set at odd angles to each other, sort of like a pathway or buffet, and there were body parts all over them, very unrealistic heads and legs and arms - and someone was telling me they were mine, but no they weren't (hey, Worf's head made an appearance, and he was definitely not me)- because I was right here and standing up from beside the table whole and clothed just the same as when I came in - and it was all just movie props - I could tell they wanted me to be scared, but I was more creeped out and wondering why they were messing with me (we watched something sort of gory last night, the movie Pitch Black), and I couldn't tell if they did any surgery or not or I had just been asleep and woke up - and I didn't really want anything more to do with the place, so somehow we ended up walking back out of there and getting into what looked like my postal van but with seats instead of the racks - I was driving with my mom alone in the van down roads that doubled back over them (I've been there before - in many dreams, it is so hard to find the right exits, you have to get on the correct highway ramp to begin with, then you have to exit, go back down the other way parallel and opposite to where you were going a second ago, and then turn again onto the right road again), and then we were driving straight along and the road got narrower, and narrower, and we were now in the country, traveling down a less busy road, over some railroad tracks looking down into places where I was sure I had gotten my vehicle stuck before, and places that I maybe had walked before, and forgot where I was going - I had lost mom at the railroad tracks somewhere back there and I was by myself again and even my car wasn't a real car, it was a little electric toy thing I was riding that shouldn't even have been able to go that fast - and when I got to 'work' I was trying to find a parking spot for it, I didn't even want to leave in the parking lot because it was scooter-weight and could just be picked up and carried off - so I carried it under my arm into the building! and tried to find a place to stash it behind some chairs in the breakroom... I was working at the cross/mixup between Michaels and Lowes again trying to figure out what locker to put things in and how to login and what time I should be there on the schedule, and what I needed to do today... eventually woke up because I hate the 'passwords' and 'combination locks' bits - up to then I can navigate the dream but those usually make me just wake up