Shoe-trees and Apologies

Last night on my way home from work (left the office right on time, so that I could get some laundry done -- I was going to REMEMBER it this time!) I was lured in by the siren song of the Salvation Army. (Well, I drive right BY it, and it's very inexpensive, and I haven't stopped for weeks, no, months! And they had their Half Off Everything in Store banner up! So come on!)
 

So anyway, I took one of the weird carts, since all the normal carts were in use, and started my usual route through the store. There wasn't a great deal of stuff, so if I stop by tonight it will probably be crammed with new stuff, the Post-Half-Off giddiness of new second-hand things! WooHoo! 
 

Anyway, I found a few shirts and a sweater and a candle, and looked through the books and experimented with a deep-fryer, and then went and got in line. The check-out man was about ten (or possibly 20, hard to tell) very, very skinny, with a strange bony face and very bad skin and a huge shirt which had come untucked in several places, and an odd voice. But he was very chatty and friendly and and talked nonstop the whole while I was in line. I paid for my purchases and bagged them myself, and headed out to my car.
 

As I was starting the engine, I saw him running across the parking lot toward me, yelling, "Ma'am! Ma'am!" I slowly stopped the engine and rolled down the window, and he poured out this very confusing story about how he had somehow inadvertently made some huge mistake and I needed to come back in the store and let him run my bank card again, he was so, so sorry. I said, "Wait a minute -- what?" and he started all over again, interspersed with constant apology, so I said, "Okay -- never mind. Let's just go and take care of it."
 

Back into the store I went with little Mr. Disjointed Apology. We stepped back in front of the guy who had been behind me in line and was patiently waiting to buy a nice pair of wooden shoe trees -- I had looked at those. I handed the clerk my card -- he was babbling about how he hadn't gotten my signature and then when he looked at the receipt he saw that I had only paid $10, when I actually owed $12, and so on and on, he was so, so sorry. So we went through the process of cancelling out the first transaction, and then getting my signature on the second transaction, and then he finally handed me the receipt. I looked at it. 
 

"Well, " I said. "I see the shirts and the sweater, but I only bought one Bric-a-Brac, and here are two Bric-a-Bracs. So what do you think that's about?"

 

He took the receipt and stared at it, and as I watched, his whole neck and face flushed deep dark red.
 

"Oh," he muttered. "I forgot to take that guy's stuff off it," gesturing to the patient man behind me. I looked at the man, while Apology Man tied himself in knots apologizing AGAIN! -- STILL! and said, "Well, sir, your shoe-trees are free!" He thanked me, and tried to give me two dollars, but by that time I just wanted OUT OF THERE, so I smiled, said "No problem!" and fled.
 

I think I will stop on my way home, though, (she mused). You know, just to see the new goods. Don't think I'll buy anything, probably. And if I do, I won't go through the line with Mr. Apology!

Wind-up Key Equals Depression

So there is currently an ad playing online, at least – possibly on television as well, but I don’t know – for a depression drug.  A drug you take to assist with your depression, I mean.  Can’t quite think of the brand name of the drug, although it begins with P and has a Q in it somewhere.  But the drug itself is desvenlafexine.

In any case, it is an animation, with the protagonist being a woman in a drab colored dress and sandals, with a large wind-up key in her back.  She is a toy, in fact, a doll with stiff and jointed limbs and sort of stylized jerkiness in movements.  She bends stiffly forward from the waist with her arms hanging straight down, and shuffles in tiny little steps, looking at the ground.  This represents her life in her depressed state. 

She then progresses through her interaction with the doctor and others in her life, and, after taking desvenlafexine, finally joins in the shopping trips, and make-up wearing, and yoga classes that her friends are all experiencing.  They are all stiff and jointed dolls as well – the doctor included.

But she is the only one with the wind-up key in her back.  It persists, as well, throughout her depression, and improvement.  And no one else has one. 

So what does it represent?  Is it her condition, her depression?  And if so, why?   Depression is not what motivates her – not what keeps her going – not the impelling force in her life.  I have seen ads wherein the depression sticks around throughout treatment, which is supposed to let us know that this treatment is not going to “cure” the depression sufferer – just going to make their lives easier and more normal.  But in this case, I think they chose a ridiculously wrong article to represent the depression (if indeed they did) – a wind-up key?  Stupid!  It should have been something like an umbrella, that she could have folded up and carried, but that no longer kept the sunlight off her head.  And if they didn’t choose this key to represent something, then they are even more stupid, since no one else has one, and this is the only thing that she has that they don’t.   Bugs me.

Questions About Life

 
When I unlocked the office this morning, the first thing I smelled was not air-conditioned air, nor the copy machine, but the enchanting, intoxicating aroma of daphne odora. From the tiny little bunch I have on my desk, three days old. I immediately become a nymph on a Grecian hillside, half hidden in the daphne, peeping shyly out at the sheep and shepherds, while I draw a deep breath, and my eyes roll back into my head.  Gorgeousness. 

Why can't all life be as intoxicating, as perfect and as meaningful as the scent of daphne?  Or just even other beautiful scents -- we'll leave out the philosophical questions about life, this time -- I don't have the mental fitness to be pondering those questions this Wednesday morning -- even other great smells, like roses (nice, but...) or fresh cut grass (evocative, but...) don't carry the smeller out of their body.  Don't have this emotional effect.  It can't really be because daphne is rarer, either, because there has never been one time that I smelled that smell that I didn't experience this.  This what-you-may-call-it.  This emotion.  And I lived for seven years in an apartment building with bushes of daphne beside the gate.  And every day it bloomed I plucked a bit and had it on my body, being warmed by my skin, so that the scent rose with my heartbeat.  And each time I would catch a whiff, I was exalted.

So is it something about the composition of the aroma?  That it tickles a tiny place in the brain?  A race-memory?  Of a time when I was a numph on a Grecian hillside, half-hidden in the daphne bushes, warmed by the sun and pouring their fragrance out over the country and making the people (and the sheep) drunk with giddy joy?

Full Moon Tonight

Full moon tonight!  Driving home from Mickey's it was tantalizingly peeping through the clouds every few miles, and glowing dimly behind things.  Absolutely lovely, no matter how many times it has happened before, and how many times it is destined to happen again before I die.

On my way north on I-5 I was beside a pair of motorcyclists, who were riding very loud bikes.  And I mean loud, too -- when they revved their engine, each burp was separate and distinct and VERY. LOUD.  It was a pair, a man and a woman, and the man's bike had a very shiny, red, square end, like a box, which I'm certain has some specific biker name, that any biker person would know immediately and probably contains the word "bitch" in it somewhere.  But I don't know it, okay?  Anyway, it made the bike look brand new and like a toy.  They were both wearing what I always think of as Nazi helmets, which is one of the reasons I knew they were serious bikers.  And although this was back on I-5 that I first saw them, they roared and rumbled and blap-blap-blapped all the way back to Milwaukie with me, and turned up MY street.  Went to the apartments on the corner of Harrison and 23rd.  Pretty funny!

Non-Migratory Geese, and E-coli That Does Not Evolve into a Person

This morning I got up and stumped into the kitchen to put the kettle on.  I was in that stunned state I frequently am in when I wake up, eyes unfocused and staring, and I was standing at the kitchen window, but such was my state of still-feeling-asleep that it took me a moment to realize what I was seeing.  It looked like the whole pond was on the boil.  When I realized that it was the geese doing their morning ablutions, instead of the ducks, I was able to make the motion immediately relatable.   The ducks do just that same series of movements,  ducking their whole bodies under, head first, several times in a row, and then shuddering quickly to fling out the water.  But when they do it, it's sleek and quick and smooth, with some spraying of water as they shake their feathers out, but not this roiling, churning, splashing, swirling hugger-mugger that was going on with the geese.   Quite a lot of violent motion going on out there.

So -- I was thinking, as I made coffee.  Are the Canada geese that live in Milwaukie a step in the evolutionary path?  Since they no longer migrate, I mean.  Geese do migrate, right, and every time they fly somewhere, they fly in that pattern of long vees which makes me immediatley think of migration -- when I was a child I would see and hear a vee of geese going south, and my parent would exclaim, 'Look, honey, the geese are going south for the winter, see them?"  And now these geese, this flock of a couple hundred geese no longer goes anywhere, but lives here year round.  So that is changing their programming, isn't it?  They are now no longer migratory creatures.  Their children are also not migrating, but staying here with Mom and Dad.  This has been the case for at least three years, and probably much more, but these three years I can at least attest to.  So what the heck?  I haven't seen any articles about this, or even questions as other people notice and ask, so either I am the only human who has realized this, or else everyone realized it so long ago that it is now a non-issue.  The evolution of a species right before our eyes!  Or at least this sub-set of a species.

And this caused me to remember that senator from Louisiana, who will probably be remembered everywhere by everyone because of the stunning stupidity of his remark, which was immediately placed on YouTube, and will no doubt be making people exclaim for years to come.  He was opposing a group of science teachers who were there hoping to repeal Louisiana's current law which requires teachers to give equal class time to the myth of creation as laid out in the Bible.  Kept interrupting them to ask things like "Is evolution something that you can prove to me right here?"  and the science teacher, very patiently, was explaining the process of the evolution of the E-coli virus, and how each step can be frozen, and then viewed, and the progress of evolution seen right in front of your eyes, and this senator (Mike Walsworth, in case he ever runs for President) interrupts again to ask, "Does it evolve into a person?"

Into a -- does the VIRUS E-coli evolve into a -- do you have the faintest idea of what the word evolution means, you idiot?  Who elected you? 

My Head Under the Covers

Arg, arg, arg.  I do hate anything to do with my sinuses.  Whenever the word "sinus" crosses my mind, the words preceding it and following it are going to be negative.   Can we speed up the evolutionary process here, please?  Hollow areas that fill up and then empty themselves in order to equalize pressure may be the very best thing we can think of at the moment, but come on!  It so rarely works with anything like efficiency, always includes miserable sensations, impedes breathing, talking, singing, and shrieking for help (just in case, you understand) and frequently produces runny snot.  When it doesn't produce runny snot, it is often much worse in the other departments (read: miserable sensations) and always brings with it an emotional quality.  A negative emotional quality.   

Now, you could argue that miserable sensations are, by definition, going to produce misery.  But I have experienced pain just as painful in other parts of my body -- my knee, for instance, or my elbow.  And while it made me feel pain, it didn't make me also feel --  frightened, anxious, depressed, hopeless, desolate, solitary, unloved and ugly.  All of which I have experineced (and then some) when having sinusitis.  Remember those months at Prairie?  I'm amazed I survived.

So, today is Wednesday, and I noticed the facial pain on Saturday.  So this is day five.  Isn't that long enough for my sinuses to figure out what is going on and reach a point of equilibrium?  This spot on my cheek has been aching in that elusive, cold, dense way pretty much without a pause, but bounding into my awareness every time the temperature drops even a few degrees.  I need a hood to wear over my head, that can stay moist and warm inside.  I took an antihistamine, just hoping that it would have some effect on the attached sinus activity, even though there isn't an allergen involved.  Don't know if that will help or not.  I need the cold east wind to stop blowing.  STOP BLOWING!  I need to live on a tropical beach, or a rain forest, woth lots of water floating about in the air.  I need to have stayed in bed with my head under the covers.

I will choose Free Will!

As I turned onto "R" Street, just a hundred yards or so from my parent's house in Ocean Park, this past Saturday, I was singing along with the radio. It was playing loudly, since it is a three-hour drive to my parent's place, and I need to amuse myself somehow. Since no one was in the car with me, I was also singing loudly. The song was Rush, "Freewill," which lends itself to loud solo singing.

"...you can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice/
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice/
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill/
I will choose a path that's clear -- I will choose Free Will!"

And then I turned in to park beside my parent's little wagon, in front of their tidy yellow and brown house. I passed a very pleasant and lazy weekend with them, as it was chilly and raining, only went for two short walks and did not even see the ocean, although I heard its thunderous roar. I collapsed in a heap in my favorite chair and read all weekend, and my mother fed me. It was lovely.

When it was time to return to Portland and take up the reins of my life once more, I packed my duffle, and gathered my things, and kissed my mom. And then went out and got in my car, started up the engine and drove off. As I got to the first cross street, I flipped on the radio. It came on loudly:

"...you can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice/
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice/
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill/
I will choose a path that's clear -- I will choose Free Will!"

I was quite surprised!