Technically I don’t have to write today, since I posted multiple times on other days, but you know me, I must bore you daily with inane blahging.

Only, there’s literally nothing to write about, sitting in my apartment.  I don’t have my own garden, or the means to get most places.  Now that I have the time, I can’t join groups protesting or alleviating social injustice issues, without funds or mobility.  My grocery money went to dental expenses this month, so even shopping is out.

But hey, who’s kvetching?  I’m still alive, some of my teeth are still in my mouth for now, my son and family are nearby and accessible, I live in a fascist state (oh wait, how did that get in there?), I live in a pretty progressive town if you ignore the surrounding state, (which is hard to do right about now, but I’m trying), and if I run out of food I can always walk to Avdi’s garden and compete with mobs of sinister rabbits for salad (or kill the wabbit, if I get desperate; I hear it tastes like chicken.)

Seriously, it’s like a fascist state here.  How do humans get so phobic and hateful and repulsive?  How can we progress when we’re always outvoted and overpowered by racist, transphobic nazis?  Not feeling the optimism right now.  Don’t know what to do about it.  All I know to do is be a supportive ally to those who may make a difference in a future world that I won’t live to see.  And grow them some veggies.

Like I said, not much to say…

There should be a Hitchcock horror movie, The Rabbits.  Everywhere you walk in Avdi’s yard, there they are, lurking, stalking, multiplying, and staring at you with their big beady empty eyes.  They stand up on their hind legs and watch you.  They even come toward you instead of away from you.  There is something very disturbing about rabbits.

Anyway, Shabbat Shalom!

Also, beer.  A wonderful Tröegs Nugget Nectar from PA.  To help me forget about the scawy scwewy wabbits.

I got off to an early start this morning, watering the parched garden, planting more herb seedlings, weeding around the newly germinated veggies, and cultivating between the garden rows.  Almost all veggies are now coming up and thriving, and even ready to harvest.

While out there, I took more plant photos, watched by two large rabbits who barely moved out of the way, they’re getting so used to me.

Then I prepared Hawaiian-style chicken for the slow cooker, and started the Challah.  Avdi and Jess worked (with lots of colorful language!) in the office and on the patio.  I’m also making roasted sweet potatoes with my own Hawaiian-style spice mix, and, wait for it, the very first salad of the year from Avdi’s garden!

I may post some Shabbat pics later.

Here is one of multiple huge bunnies imagining he’s hiding under some blooming mayapples, or in full view.  If it had rained this evening like it was supposed to, mayapples would have made good umbrellas.

As it is, I found the garden quite dry from its week of 80 degree weather, but holding on.  Tomorrow I’ll water everything, in between cooking and baking.  Meanwhile, lots more flowers and plants bloomed and veggies emerged while I was gone.  It’s amazing to see what happens when I’m not here to supervise!  I’m particularly happy to see the native red and yellow columbines in full bloom.

I was at my apartment last night and all day today, running out of things to do and ways to kill time until I could get to Avdi’s, where there’s always worthwhile work to do!  Sometimes I can even squeeze in a blahgpost!

Today was Day 2 of dental maintenance for, as it turned out, both Avdi and me.  While I got the second half of my deep clean/laser treatment, Avdi got his routine cleaning and checkup at his dentist.  My followups will be even more intensive.

After mine, I sat outside at the picnic table having a delightful conversation with one of the dental staff, who auspiciously just happened to have almost my exact birthday!  What are the chances?

Avdi met me down the street at a fun Mexican restaurant, Hacienda, for a local cerveza, marg, guac and fish taco.  I almost felt like a normal person doing normal things again.  You know, like dental work and margaritas!  Oral stuff.

Bad pun alert: today was edentful.  That’s when you go to a routine first consult with a new dentist, end up spending much of the day starting on procedures, with another session lined up for the very next day!  (It would have been the same day, only the insurance doesn’t allow for it.)

It’s just the start of a whole schedule of necessary treatments and procedures culminating hopefully in implants.  It seems my mouth is a disaster zone.  My whole mouth is trying to fall out of my mouth.  That’s what I get for being the genetic dental loser of the family, and for having to delay maintenance.  But I should be back on track now.  So this was a good day.

On the way back, Avdi stopped in at J’s, so they could resume work.  I got my kitty and doggie (next door) fix!  Pixie even came out to play with me, and watched as Eric and I did a little garden maintenance.  I even got an excellent homemade burger out of the deal.

Apologies for sounding like an old person, whose day consists of medical procedures, cats, and gardening.  (And needing to beg rides.)  I’m very grateful just to be able to do all the above.

Yesterday afternoon Avdi took me to an excellent performance of a play called “Skeleton Crew” by The Black Rep, at a theatre in U City ( STL’s university row).  The play was set in a Detroit auto plant break room around 2008, where they were about to lay off workers and force them to take severance.

The subject and plot were very familiar, having lived with and around people who were put in the same predicament in Dayton, OH when the GM plant shut down.  The four actors in the play did an outstanding job of recreating that human crisis.  The audience was a mix of mostly older Black and white attendees.  I found myself very absorbed and engaged in the production, and was glad to be able to experience some STL arts and culture.

Back at the old apartment…an aside first.  I want to be clear that I’m extremely thankful and grateful to A&J for helping me to find and move into this convenient location.  It’s perfect for my modest needs, and especially for walking to Avdi’s.  Sometimes I jokingly whine about living on “the other side of the tracks” so-to-speak, but I don’t mean it.

There was a character in the play, Faye, who had become unhoused and was secretly sneaking into the plant to sleep.  Then on top of that she was forced to take severance and lose her retirement benefits.  But her supervisor, an old friend of the family whom she had helped, when he discovered her plight, offered to take her in to his family’s home.

I’ve never been in that dire a situation, but I could easily have found myself there.  My son and his partner wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.  I could really feel for Faye, her pride and need for self-respect vs. her loss of housing/financial security, and how much it meant to have a son-like friend care that much.  That’s a lot like how I feel about my son and J. making it possible for me to live here, and offering rent assistance if I should need it.  Just to clarify.

And now back to my apartment…I removed the final five herbs from the hydroponic cube, and potted them up for A&J’s respective gardens.  I think in future I may grow all my herbs hydroponically, they did so well.  To that end, I’ve set it up again for another batch.

I managed to find a lot of necessary puttering around to do all morning, catching up on neglected chores (mostly hort-related, of course!).  Even though I’ve rotated most of the plants to Avdi’s, it’s impossible for me to not have growing things around me.  It’s in my DNA.

Later, I walked to CVS to find a gift card for my Gkid E’s birthday, and to get exercise.  I checked out a couple of other useful stores on the way back–a clothing thrift store that had the exact suede mocs I needed for Avdi’s, like new for only a few dollars, and a smoke shop that had all the good incense flavors!  I also discovered one of the large storefronts under renovation will be a new animal hospital!  That sounds like a promising development for that somewhat seedy strip mall and this area.

Tomorrow I have an initial consultation with my new dental group.  I’m nervously looking forward to it.  It’s way overdue.

I don’t mind being back in my apartment the way I thought I might.  It gave me a chance to catch up on business (e.g. extensive dental history docs to complete online for tomorrow) and chores, after being away so long, and just catch my breath.  I’m sure A&K can use the break from me!  I slept pretty well here.  When weather allows, I can always walk to Avdi’s and garden.  Not a bad life at all.

Soon I’m going to my other lodgings; not sure how I feel about that!  I’ve gotten used to being here with people and garden-surround.  But I’m sure they can use a break from me skulking about underfoot, plus I’ve done most of the jobs there are to do for now.  The garden is getting a soaking without my help, and it’s actually cold and gusty out there.  So maybe alternate scenery is in order.

Here are some rainy scenes to close out this chapter.

Yesterday turned out to be quite eventful.  The weather alternated between a delightful day to hang out in gardens, and dangerous extreme thunderstorms, culminating in an actual tornado warning in the evening.

After sitting out the first storm threat, Avdi and I grabbed his pro photography gear and joined Jess and her daughter E and a whole mob of her friends and their parents at MOBOT to do a prom photoshoot.  It was like herding very fancy, funny cats.  I helped Avdi carry gear and hold the large round reflector.  I even managed to sneak in a few shots of actual flowers.

In the evening we had pizza and started to watch our show, while weather conditions continued to worsen.  Then we started getting tornado warning alerts (“seek shelter now!”) and the siren came on continuously.  Was this the big one, where we all end up in Oz, or worse, Kansas?  So the three of us schlepped stuff down the basement and hung out there for a while with Percy, me trying not to panic, Avdi entertaining us with funny readings of Poe stories, K unperturbed by it all, and Percy just sitting there with his beady eye on me.

Finally the worst of the threat was over, though very loud thunderstorms continued.  Avdi and I finished watching our show; he hung around for a while to make sure we were OK, then he went out and I spent the night.  Another scary tornado averted.  I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it and take it in stride.

But I lived to write another day.

It’s thunderstorming, as predicted, and is the garden ever relieved!  Which makes me happy; the air smells like fragrant new life, and I can feel the plants hydrating.  I think just in the last five minutes, more veg seeds germinated!  It’s rejuvenating to be surrounded by so much wild aliveness.

It’s also no coincidence that I don’t have as much writer’s block here at Avdi’s.  Whereas sitting in a sterile apartment, cut off from nature and people, makes writing about remotely interesting topics a challenge.

Here, surrounded by easily accessible plants, critters, humans, the elements, and experiences, I’m in my natural habitat, which is both exhilarating and calming.  There’s always a new discovery, and sometimes a challenging adjustment to absorb and master.  In other words, an ever-evolving, dynamic situation.  Lots of things for me to learn, help with, write about, and photograph!

This may not even be my last post of the day!