Now that I'm in Day 9 of the Cold Turkey smoking cessation plan and hell-bent on lowering my blood pressure lest I stroke out, The Water Pill has returned to my prescribed regimen. This time, I took it. No one bothered to mention - until after I swallowed it at 8:30 p.m. - that it might be best not to take it in the evening. They would have been right. I peed every hour on the hour last night. I have a headache of monstrous proportions this morning. My mouth feels like I chewed on an old shoe covered in Elmer's Glue all night. I can't imagine that this lends itself to lower blood pressure. I'm imagining my de-hydrated bloodstream thickening like gravy by the minute.
I have a very minor leak from the bathtub fixtures. This old house I bought almost two years ago gets a new tub and a real shower next week. When I moved in, it had a shower head with a rubber hose attached to a nipple under the faucet. It has rested in a small bracket attached to the window sill over the tub since I've been here. High on my list of targets for improvement, it never really trumped the new roof, central heat and air, new carpet, replacement windows (...that tilt in for easy cleaning - like I'm going to have the energy for THAT anytime soon. What was I thinking?), new water heater, porch swing, dishwasher and garbage disposal. But the time has come for a real shower.
I discovered in the bid process that my tub is smaller than normal. (Insert penile reference here.) I didn't realize there were different tub sizes. Having always been an apartment dweller before now, I naively assumed a tub is a tub is a tub. Not so. I'll have a good extra 6 inches to soak in when the project is done next week. (Insert penile reference here and get it out of your system.) I'll also have a real shower - complete with fixtures where they belong and a door that opens and closes. It's always the little thing that thrills me about these improvement projects. When I had the windows replaced, I got a new storm door on the front. That was my favorite part. My new carpet is practically seamless. The garbage disposal is remarkably serene in its duty. The roof looks so white. It's the little things. For the shower project, it's the door. I can tell already.
There was snow on the ground this morning: not a lot, but enough to seem inappropriate for late March. The daffodils and emerging peonies don't look appreciative. The burgeoning grass, sprung from the seed I spread earlier, stood there a little horrified at its predicament. I don't talk to plants, but if I did, I would have assured them that warmer weather is coming and that they'd be able to drink that snow within the hour. That would make me a crazy person. So I don't talk to plants. But if I did...
I don't hear well. It's not that I don't listen. Although - in defense of poor listeners everywhere - it really does behoove one to remain interesting if you expect us to continue listening. You can't bring out a nice spinach salad with warm bacon dressing and follow it up with Shoe In Glue a la Lost Interest Five Minutes Ago and expect us to keep eating. That said, I don't hear well because I damaged my eardrum in childhood. Too much swimming, residual problems from the birth defects, etc. conspired to rupture the eardrum in my right ear when I was a kid. That happened twice. It was actually replaced both times. They burned out the old one and fashioned a new one with tissue from somewhere - I forget where.
It hasn't held over the years and everyone concerned - the doctors and I, most notably - have lost interest in continuing to repair what won't hold. So that side manages to catch a lot of muffled tones. It's handy at night. If I put my good ear on the pillow, I don't hear a thing. Then I get to worrying that I can't hear a thing and what if someone were coming in the back door or a fire broke out or the dog was strangling in the covers on the side of the bed or the police were beating at the door warning me of an escaped convict or..... So I take pills to get to sleep and put the bad ear on the pillow. Now I'm more likely to hear someone coming in the back door and I'm less likely to mind the fact.
I have a love/hate relationship with water. I love pools, but I have the ear thing to manage. I will no longer swim in lakes or ponds or most other small bodies of water that may harbor biting things in their murky depths. To say that I have a phobia about snakes would be to underestimate my reaction to them. I happened upon two of them near the house last summer. One surprised me when I had a shovel in my hands and I surprised myself at what I could do to a garter snake with a shovel, when provoked. The other snake was larger by a factor of ten, at least, and had the misfortune to cross my path when I was atop the riding lawn mower. In the Rock-Paper-Scissors of lawn care, Mower beats Snake. I had my feet up on the steering wheel as I made several passes over its carcass to ensure its demise. I have seen the sloughed-off skin of others enough to know that I did not eradicate the species. And don't even start with the mice thing. I don't care what snakes eat. I just want them to do it somewhere else. Mice I can manage on my own.
The ocean, though, has a pull that is almost spiritual for me. When I first put my toe in the Atlantic - in Atlantic City, 1983 - I got a chill. And not just because it was late October in New Jersey. I did it again in Miami in the summer of 1998 - just a toe. But I took my first full plunge in Ft. Lauderdale in February of 1999, I think it was. I remember laughing with that abandon that only children and Julia Roberts seem to achieve. I had no thought of snakes and sharks. I was acutely aware of how ridiculously overmatched I was. Surrender was the only option. And I laughed at the lunacy and the warmth and the salt. I've been awed ever since. That will change with my first jelly fish sting, snake bite, shark attack, etc. But until then I'll be a big beach and ocean fan.
Dottie Rambo sang a beautiful song written by the Gaithers many years ago that comes to my mind every single time it rains. It's titled, appropriately enough, "It's Beginning To Rain". In part, it advises
"It's Beginning to Rain - hear the voice of The Father
Saying, 'Whosoever will, come drink of this water.
I will pour my Spirit out on my sons and my daughters.'
If you're thirsty and dry, lift your hands to the sky.
It's Beginning To Rain."
Another favorite is the title song of the Reach Out Singers tour I did in 1983. "Grace Upon Grace", by Gordon Jensen:
"Grace Upon Grace, like the waves on the shore.
Always enough. Always more.
Grace Upon Grace, like the waves on the shore.
All that we need is ours from the Lord."
That imagery gets me every time. H2 Whoa.
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