Horrorscope

Ok, so in order to locate some information that might give me a clue about who I am and where I might be going at this important time in my life, I am conducting my education of astrology. Since April of last year, I have been seized by the activity of creation and started crocheting hats, scarves and a skirt until I developed a lump in my hand that vaguely hurt and I thrust upon myself the idea that traveling was something I was ready to resume. I received a lot of advice. My brother said, "Don't go by yourself, you're an easy target, being a woman, and if you're thinking of taking your laptop, forget it! It'll be ripped-off." Another friend suggested renting an apartment and sent me lots of pictures of his trip to Paris, where he rented an apartment. My sister recognized the significance of my projected extension and urged me to look into a "round-the-world" ticket. After dreaming about Buenos Aires and turning into a Tango piano music appreciatior, I know that I'd like to go to South America to Argentina and Peru and Rio de Janeiro and spend a little time in each place...

I think I feel the freedom to allow myself the opportunity to pick up my life after having been responsible for the lives of two others. (It is absolute, at the moment.) A chance to put the parts together again and construct something beautiful, practical, artistic and non-corporate or material. Currently, things are going to pieces! Government-issued helicopters flying over the ocean, the Mayor's affair which should be his own affair, Senator Biden's infelicitous remarks... The light and shadow is what I notice the most; it doesn't seem to matter whether it's natural or artificial or in color. In addition, the stars and the moon were brilliant in the sky over those aberrant frosty days we had last month. Lunar tide time, sidereal time, birth time.

There seem to be a few interesting astrologers out there. Some good writings on the planets and the aspects, I've found. I think I want to take a class in astronomy and learn the constellations. And there's a class I'd like to go to on the 3 Planet Stellium (sp) of Mars, Saturn, Pluto in Leo. Chart interpretation's confusing and demanding and painstaking. Like learning music.

Dental Dilemma

Several months ago, while eating lunch, the last tooth on the lower, left quadrant of my mouth broke, leaving crumbs of amalgam and enamel on my tongue, which I had to, uh, spit into a napkin. The decision to see the dentist, of course, meant that I would be forced to go back to the dental clinic at U.C.S.F. After years of neglect and poor work by neighborhood dentists, no other way to solve any problems in my mouth presents itself. I went to the clinic four years ago, after a bicycle accident called for a propitious bond repair to a broken tooth and root canal work and I was most happy to have a professor of dental technology supervise his student's work.

My teeth have never had enough room in my mouth. In fact, when I was twelve-years-old, the canine tooth on the right upper part of my mouth grew out over the other second teeth and was extracted because there was simply no place else for it to be. When I was fourteen, Dr. Rawitz drilled so far into that last tooth, that I probably rose several inches from my seat, proclaiming that it hurt! Over the next ten years, every few months that sharp, mind-splitting pain would recur and leave me sweating for some kind of mercy. I had not an inkling of warning, either. It happened on the bus, it happened at the movies, it happened in gym class, it happened when I was dancing a slow dance with a boy I liked who hadn't yet noticed my 'crooked' smile... And, I had my wisdom teeth pulled by the time I turned twenty-two.

So, after a couple of episodes of deep cleaning, where it feels like the dentist is employing sharp hooks under your gums to remove the plaque, and two more to prepare another tooth for root canal and crown, I was given an appointment to see an oral surgeon to remove the blasted tooth but it turns out that they'll do that on the next appointment in a few days. Plainly, the tooth must be removed; it hurts now. However, he gave me a prescription for a pain-killer...

Feckless

Preparing a package of chicken to be roasted, he adds the marinade to the bird parts and lets it sit for half-an-hour before inserting the assembly to rest in the oven at 350 degrees (relatively speaking}. Electric ovens are difficult for people unused to the way electricity performs as opposed to the way gas works. When you turn your gas oven on, it heats up to the degree you want and stays there, until the thermostat decreases and moves back up to the degree again. Same thing with electric ovens: you set the degree you're looking for and check the thermometer and when the light goes off, it's there, and heats up until it gets there and the light goes off. So, how come it always take 3 or 4 hours to bake a few chicken thighs?

We are so different, all of us. Even those closest to us - those whose genes we physically share - are one-quarter or one-half removed from us as individuals. And, our progeny, the genes that we connected with are no more combined than in themselves. 'Who knows those waves?'

The first child I ever came to love apart from my family and my youngest sister's best friend, is the step-son of my brother. His mother was attached to my lover previously and we shared an apartment in the Haight. We liked going to Golden Gate Park, to the Carousel and the Children's Playground with him because his bright and shining eyes never faded except for sheer fatigue. I remember the Christmas Eve that we bought him a pint of Peppermint Schnaaps; he proceeded to berate us for being bad adults wanting to make kids bad! However, he stayed with us when his mother and my brother flew to Mexico and lived in Oaxaca for a few months. He came and stayed at our house in Sonoma County, and with friends. Now his kids are facing their own prospects and looking out for their own futures, and hopefully our group of tightly-knit, loosely-clad, figures from three counties will be able to juggle our needs successfully.

Don't Cry for Me, Argentina?

My "Sweety-Bumpus"

4:55 a.m. and Jones the cat is pulling my door open from the inside to get out. No, I am not interested in waking from that beautiful dream but am coddled enough to get up out of bed and let him out the front door. This 13-year-old pussycat came to live in my house when my 13-year-old daughter had to leave her father's house for reasons auspicious to her needs.

I remember what a handsome cat he was. Jones, a silver-grey, Russian-like-blue cat, with a long neck and large paws, scented the floors with his grace. And, I got him fixed the second day he was here; he'd never be able to live in harmony with my other cat, Buster, unless they were compatibly exchanged. Buster was a big fluff of a cat who we had as a little, flurry of a kitten and who purred to you out of love for taking care of him. On the other hand, Jones, from the very beginning, wanted no part of anyone living here, except my daughter, who, conveniently, developed allergies to him.

Thirty days after he arrived, he came in one night at 10:00 p.m. with his left, back paw bleeding so much that we had to bring him to the emergency cat hospital in San Mateo where they stiched him up, put a lampshade around his neck and sent him home with us. Two days later, lampshade intact, he slipped through one of the 3 1/2" louvered windows in my son's room to flee for outward bounds, only to be arrested by the quick-footed, left-kicking occupant who was determined to conquer. A year-and-a-half later, he had his first episode with urinary tract blockage. He was, it seems, on the brink of death when I took him down to the veterenarian's. They told us to come back the next morning and when we did, he visibly got up went to the water bowl and bit a tidbit of food, all inside a cage. It was hard to coax him to eat. We bought baby food to feed him but the only kind he liked was made out of lamb. Touch-and-go, and he survived it, making us much more aware of systemic breakdowns later.

Jones is pretty content these days and prefers not to go out other than on his pre-sunrise jaunts, when no other cat-owners are awake to signal the call of the wild...

And, One More for the Road...

Last night, I had a couple of glasses of wine and decided not to drive home but to rise early this morning at 5:30 and leave from my friend's house to get to work in San Francisco. This meant having to be alert in the dark of the pre-dawn day and drive down a paved, winding road strewn with brush to get to the road which hooks up to 101 South. It was a relief to get to the bottom and see a sign, obviously made by one of the residents, encaptioned "TO TOWN." The sunrise was especially intense with bands of orange and gold stretching out across the eastern sky, not at all ungodly.

Driving's such an individual skill and some people can't drive the speed limit at all on the freeways causing them to slow down and other drivers to switch lanes to avoid them. I learned years ago that you can't have six car lengths between you and the car in front of you driving 65 mph on busy freeways. When there is that much space, people pass you from behind and jump in it. I remember a cop in traffic school (that I had to attend to have a speeding ticket for going 35 in a 25 zone erased from my record) informing us that the rule in rush hour on freeways is that you should watch the brake lights of the third car ahead...

Work this past year has been in a big law firm downtown, where I handle the Trademark files. It's stressless, but just as boring as hell. That's about all I can reveal about it. There are a number of funny, friendly people who are, for the most part, bright and personable, but they're in the lower percentage of the firm's population.

Anyone have a job for a former library assistant whose major interests are NOT in the corporate world???

The Last Day of the Year...

and I inadvertently forgot to leave money for a tip to the newspaper deliverer!

Yesterday, Hussein was hanged, my sister was in Yosemite and my other sister called and we spoke about my son's blog from Costa Rica and her son's move from Portland to Burlingame...

This has been an unusual year, one in which I switched jobs, my niece got married in a beautiful ceremony, Saturn returned for the second time in my sign, and my brother died. During its last return, twenty-nine years ago, Saturn witnessed the death of my other brother -- the one who played fantastic flamenco on the guitar. When we were fifteen and sixteen, he used to lock himself in the bathroom with his guitar for hours because the acoustics sounded much better... that is, until someone else needed to use that room.

Nothing's familiar anymore. I have this urge to create that is incessant; it began with my fingers crocheting hats, scarves, motifs, and a skirt. I now find myself trying to play tangos on the piano! Music: my meditation. Revelation: communication. Partnerships. (I can not do it by myself!!!)

Does introspection equal introversion?

And, astrology?

Later.