Two off the list

Brother Sushi says that the knives by that particular company have never impressed him, although pretty much everything else they make, does. He also says that the electronics produced by the company I hadn’t heard of, are nothing to write home about. Seven is an easier number to juggle than nine.

No doubt other items will drop off the list before I have to make up my mind.

Lots of happy knitting yesterday. After dinner with Brother Sushi, I went over to Firstborn’s and hung out for a couple of hours. Fourthborn had painted three small abstracts to go in the newly redecorated bedroom, so I got to visit with her as well. They have new bedroom furniture, beautifully and gracefully designed in a lovely warm dark finish, and far easier to dust than the stuff to which I naturally gravitate. Mostly, I sat and knitted.

Lark came home at one point, and while she was across the room and couldn’t see exactly what I was knitting, I held it up briefly and asked, “You like this color?” “Yeah?” “OK, good, you didn’t see anything.”

I am almost to the end of the first ball of yarn.

But what I need to do now, is put on my shoes and scoot out the door. It’s nearly 7:30, and there are groceries to buy. It’s going to be a busy day. Graveside service for BestFriend’s mom later this morning, and then a couple of hours between that and when I need to be at the place where I am getting tested for allergies. I hope to squeeze in a manicure and a chat with my bank during that time. The manicure is, frankly, a higher priority. The chat with the bank is because they want to talk with all of their customers about new banking services and products (I am guessing, how to charge more for less; I liked them far better when they were still a credit union).

And I’m afraid that I will have to give them a definite-maybe. I could be closing that account entirely in a couple of months, after 17 years, in order to open a joint checking account at a different bank. Or we could be opening a new account together, here, if that is a better deal. Or we could each be keeping our individual accounts and opening a joint one for household expenses. Or I could get voted off the island, keep the new guy as a friend, and start knitting a wedding present for them.

Strangely, this is not crazy-making. There is plenty in my life that is, and mostly that is not bothering me, either, at least not on a conscious level. When my massage therapist was working on me, she hit one trigger point and asked quietly, problem with one of the girls? Yes, there is something which I have been processing for quite awhile. We will all get through it. We love one another, and that is what family is all about.

After the massage on Tuesday night, when I took myself out for salmon, I sat in a booth. It was a little hard to squeeze into. It was even harder to get out of. I twisted as I pulled myself free. I felt something immediately along my ribs on the right side, just behind my arm. Thought at the time that it was a little ironic to have done that right after getting a massage. Went to bed and went through my day on Wednesday and Thursday and didn’t think any more about it.

Woke up yesterday barely able to drag myself out of bed. I don’t know if I cooled off too much during the night, and that aggravated it, but yesterday I was emulating Chester from “Gunsmoke”, minus the whine. I could feel it in my ribs, in my lower back, in my right hip socket, in the ligament that connects the kneecap to the groin (or maybe it’s a tendon; whatever it is, it was not happy; this is the same part that got injured during that long, long drive in 1990), and in my left foot and ankle.

Work went well; that helped. Dinner with Brother Sushi helped some more. And two hours of laughter with Firstborn and Fourthborn seem to have been the chocolate sprinkles on top of the sundae. I woke up barely feeling any crabbiness from all the parts that were shrieking at me yesterday.

I told him last night that it was almost as if my body were saying, now that you can relax a little about the new guy, here are some things you need to be paying attention to. He said that made sense.

The body and the spirit are interconnected in ways that we do not presently understand. My body frequently speaks to me in metaphor, to get my attention about spiritual matters. I’ve had a lot on my mind, not worries exactly, and stuff I needed to get off my chest. (You will be pleased to note that I am also breathing more easily. I barely coughed yesterday, and I don’t think I have coughed, yet, this morning.)

But I am hearing what sounds suspiciously like heavy equipment out on my street, so I had better get out of my driveway while I still can. I do hope that I will not be parking on a side street for the next two or three weeks and traipsing across my neighbors’ yards to get there. I think the Tonka Boys are about ready to pour the driveway-bits and the sidewalks, across the street.

This could turn out to be a far more interesting day than I had thought, or planned.