Thankful

I have a few traditions on Thanksgiving. Not many - the menu, Mom recording the Macy's parade so we can watch it together at Yule and fast-forward through all the crappy pop music, commercials, and talking heads to see the twenty minutes of balloons, floats and high school bands we’re actually interested in hidden among all that junk, and my list of some things for which I am thankful, in no particular order and in no way complete:

What remains of my left foot, Nubbly
The doctors, nurses, and techs who probably saved my life
The amazing care that my family and friends have shown me while I learn to navigate my new reality
The house in which I live
The Evil Genius

Mum
Sprout
Gypsy, K2, Mizz A, Kit, Sam-I-Am, PJ, Mizz Beth, Martha 'n' Milo, Avalon, my band mates, Dica, Donna, and all of my friends who put up with me when I am most myself and therefor least likable. They are the net beneath me when I fly and fall
Bread
The scent of leaf loam and woodsmoke in the crisp autumn air
Apple cider
Books, music, and art
Clean, plentiful water
Clean air
Clean clothes
Freedom
Nature and the ways she finds to show me something new of herself every day
Words
Song
Dance
Adversity, that joy is all the sweeter (Okay, okay, the joy is sweet enough, so basta with the adversity for a minute, please)
Every creature and plant that I consume to sustain myself, because without the life I take, I would have no life to live
Love - that it exists at all is a wonder, and I feel blessed to know it in many forms
Chocolate, gift from the Gods (yes, even the perversion called "candy bar") (Mmm...candy bar...)
Honeycrisp Apples
Strong hands
Strong spirit
Strong will
Laughter
Cussed determination not to curl up and die just because life can sometimes be a succession of truly awful, bleak, and desolate days...but sometimes it isn't
The Internet
You

I hope you have a blessed day, and that the things for which you're thankful outweigh the things for which you're not.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all, from us at Casa de Crazy to you out in the Blue Nowhere and beyond.

Half-Priced Pedicures

Well, hello!

Rather quiet up in here, isn’t it?  A lot of death and cobwebs, lately. 

I could claim being busy.  Hmm.  Could claim depression.  Hmmm.  Could claim aliens ate my brain.  Hmmmm.

Truth is, I’m not really sure why, I just haven’t felt it in me to write much of anything.  I’ve just been kind of...empty.  

Right now, I’m lying in a hospital bed.  Nothing much going on, nothing much to do, so my mind has been running down old rabbit trails and I thought that maybe I could limber up the old composition muscles and see if I’ve still got it.

I’m in a hospital bed because I had part of my left foot amputated.  Gangrene and MRSA and osteomyelitis, oh my.  I got here by not taking care of myself in some basic, necessary ways.  I went without medication rather than let others do without their comforts, because I felt guilty saying “no”.

I’m learning.  Nnn...nnn...nnnu!  Er...

I’ll get there.

I started working on me a little too late for poor “Nubbly”(the name given to my left foot by Sprout), but hopefully not too late in general.  I’ll have to relearn some basic walking and balance, nothing insurmountable, and get back into healthy habits that is let slide, and never again will I let anyone else guilt me for getting my medication instead of using the $ for their wants.  

I found the line - just on the other side of the toes I no longer have.

Now if I can just convince Nubbly that those toes are gone so that I don’t feel them itch any more...gah!