After 24 hours in bed sweating out a fever, I’m 90% today and thankful for it. Now to get back on the roll I was on – of course, this quote from yesterday’s NYT might give my roll some perspective.
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
“Investors better go to a drugstore and get a neck brace. It’s an extremely emotional market. It goes from boom to doom on a daily basis.”
ED YARDENI, an investment strategist.
Okay this is my horoscope today:
Taurus
The fact that you will have a lot of high energy today will do more than fuel high productivity — it could instigate some inspiring changes within your group of friends. In all your activities, your enthusiasm will bubble up from deep inside you without any effort on your part, and it’s contagious. Without realizing it, you will become a sort of leader — showing people options they had never considered before. If they follow you down this path, welcome them warmly
This is my reality today:
Woke up in a cold sweat with chills and aches and haven’t left the bed all day. So much for that “high energy” my horoscope promised – I don’t think I’ve been this still in years.
S and I walked our dogs (well, almost all our dogs, Arlene stayed home) through the park in the dark. I haven’t ever been in that park in the dark, except to see the holiday lights. I’m still struggling to understand how people become who they are. What makes S wise beyond his years? Why do I behave like I’m 15 a lot of times? I’m not quite sure I have the answer to this because it involves giving up preconceived notions of linear time and accepting that some people don’t fit neatly into categories.
They just are.
My mother called while S and I were coming back from our dog walk – practically bursting through the phone lines that she is being offered a DON job at a nursing home in Baton Rouge – another 1.5 hour commute each way, another high stress job. She says she will rent a crash pad there and keep her place here in New Orleans and drive back on the weekends.
I don’t want to be negative but she’s in no condition – mentally, physically, physiologically, spiritually – to take on a position like this and that just shows you what kind of nursing shortage is going on out there in the world.
But I bit my tongue and let her have her fantasy. We’ll see what happens.
Que sera, sera.
I also heard from my brother, David, who I haven’t spoken with since the last time I was at my older brother’s house. We correspond but rarely talk by phone. It was so good hearing his voice – made me ache to see him and reminded me of how remiss I have been not to take the time to go visit him.
I had a good day today – received kudos from a colleague and compliments from two different friends – and it made me feel good because we all need to hear the atta girl’s sometimes – they help you gage if you are headed down the path that is right for you.
Ever since we were on the bike ride and had a group prayer at the Chapel of Sunshine the next morning, I’ve been thinking about those less fortunate than me in a big way. My prayers at night are starting to sound like a laundry list unfortunately:
Mom – watch her health
Sarah – help her overcome her RSD
David – get him out of prison sooner than later
Daphne – help her lungs become healthy again
Abby – help her outgrow all of the medical issues that were thrown at her at birth
Todd – help his foot recover from his motorcycle accident
I think about all of these people who need help right now – who are worse off than I am – and I feel incredibly fortunate and incredibly sad.
Sundays can be this way sometimes – you get a lot done without even trying – breakfast at the Cakeman – YUM YUM YUM – the best biscuit I ever put in my mouth besides my grandmother’s fresh from the oven – on Spain and Chartres – the Cakeman rules for breakfast in the Marigny. The hot cross buns looked divine and we bought petite pineapple upside down cakes and I ate a half of one before I got my mega cheese omelette.
Perinos for garden supplies and then home to plant mums, pansies, and petunias. Still thinking I would get a run in before the night was over. I hosed down the outside of the house. Planted color in a few key places.
With gardening gloves on, S came by and introduced me to and then read me the obituary of Oriana Fallaci – here is a great description from The New Yorker of this woman I never knew till today:
Fallaci’s manner of interviewing was deliberately unsettling: she approached each encounter with studied aggressiveness, made frequent nods to European existentialism (she often disarmed her subjects with bald questions about death, God, and pity), and displayed a sinuous, crafty intelligence. It didn’t hurt that she was petite and beautiful, with straight, smooth hair that she wore parted in the middle or in pigtails; melancholy blue-gray eyes, set off by eyeliner; a cigarette-cured voice; and an adorable Italian accent. During the Vietnam War, she was sometimes photographed in fatigues and a helmet; her rucksack bore handwritten instructions to return her body to the Italian Ambassador “if K.I.A.” In these images she looked as slight and vulnerable as a child. When she was shot, in 1968, while reporting on the student demonstrations in Mexico City, and then confined by the police with the wounded and the dying on one floor of an apartment building, the first impulse of the students around her was to protect her; one boy gave her his sweater, in order to cover her face from the drip of a sewage pipe. Her essential toughness never stopped taking people—men, especially—by surprise.
Then friends came over and we took the boats out on the bayou – cruising down to Park Island and talking all along the way about what we truly want from life while all the while enjoying every single moment of our lives. We got back and headed to Wit’s Inn to play two rounds of pool and eat a pizza. The pizza there is damn good but they wouldn’t let us listen to music since it is Sunday night (read: football night) and so we had to keep singing Amy Winehouse’s Valerie all by ourselves. When we got back to the car we turned it way up and sang at the top of our lungs dancing in the truck.
In the end, we come back to where we start but always, always, always and again without missing a beat, we come back to the same place, only we’re different, and it starts all over again.
Valerie by Amy Winehouse:
Well, Sometimes I Go Out, By Myself, And I Look Across The Water.
And I Think Of All The Things, Of What You’re Doing, And I Paint A Picture.
Since I’ve Come Home, Well My Body’s Been A Mess, And I Miss Your Tender Hair, And The Way You Like To Dress.
Oh Wont You Come On Over, Stop Making A Fool Out Of Me, Why Dont You Come On Over, Valerie.
Valerie
Valerie
Valerie
Did You Have To Go To Jail, Put Your House Out Up For Sale, Did You Get A Good Lawyer.
I Hope You Didn’t Catch A Tan, I Hope You Find The Right Man, Who’ll Fix It For You.
Are You Shopping Anywhere, Change The Color Of Your Hair, And Are You Busy.
Did You Have To Pay That Fine, That You Were Dodging All The Time, Are You Still Dizzy.
Well Since I Come Home, Well My Body’s Been A Mess, And I Miss Your Tender Hair, And The Way You Like To Dress.
Oh Wont You Come On Over, Stop Making A Fool Out Of Me, Oh Why Dont You Come On Over, Valerie.
Valerie
Valerie
Valerie
Well Somrtimes I Go Out, By Myself, And I Look Across The Water.
And I Think Of All The Things, What You’re Doing, And In My Head I Paint A Picture.
Since I’ve Come Home, Well My Body’s Been A Mess, And I Miss Your Tender Hair, And The Way You Like To Dress.
Valerie
Valerie
Valerie
Valerie
Valerie
Valerie
Valerie
Valerie
Why Dont You Come On Over Valerie…
Last night, we briefly discussed those who are passionate and those who aren’t. It’s one of those you either are or you are not equations. This was my affirmation this morning – I think it’s obvious what side of the fence I fall on:
November 11, 2007
The passion burns within me for love and for life!
This morning, fog has descended and blanketed the bayou with a ghostly mist – runners and dogwalkers alike look phantom like – I wonder where our bagpipe player is, a perfect time for him to strike a note.