Sculpin

I’m still getting better. Today I’ve been cleared to take short walks as long as I carefully attend to the tingling level. Oh hell yes. I have not, however, been cleared to do the dishes. So I feel like I’ve reached some kind of local optimum in gimpage.

Speaking of things I’m supposed to be attending to with care, I was going to write about what I learned about pain these last few months, both my own experience and in general. I’ve done a lot of really painful things in my life. Still, this adventure in ow has been something special. (You know you’re in real pain when your cognitive function is better on the opiates.) Unfortunately, a windstorm is blowing in and the lights are starting to flicker. It looks like shutting down might be the better part of valor.

So, a friend on LiveJournal is looking for a translation of an Italian hymn. I don’t know how to translate it, but I know a game of mistranslation. There are lots of verses left if you find yourself wanting to join in. No real rules to speak of except “amuse yourself”; you can even get some of it right if that’s what seems right. (I guess you could get all of it right, but why?)

Hampered by the frilly nightgown of the sea
Against the feminine derriere of Arabia
Come giggling into the valley that welcomes you
Spurting out life as if it were light;
The sun itself, that pious bitch,
Cannot quell what mortals give.

Not for you or me but for those holy gifts we live;
Not the little brothers of God and their chewed-up Christ
Or the gray spirits of the awful fedoras
Or the corpses of the gods sadly leaning:
Not in ten lives can they approach our joy, so hot
and unceasing is the flame of love.

Negli Estremi confini d’Egea
Dell’Arabia nell’arse contrade
Come Gigli in amena vallea
Vostra vita a la luce spunto;
E quai stelle la diva pietade
In quell’ora ai mortal vi dono.

Non per voi ma per l’alma viveste
Dei fratelli, da Cristo redenti:
Or gli spiriti alla fede traeste,
Or dei corpi leniste il dolor;
Non periglio vi tenne:era ardente
E perenne la fiamma d’amor.

(I’m going to hell, aren’t I? Oh yeah. Maybe it’s the beer talking, but I feel kinda like I just wrote hymnal slash.)

Previously.

I was going to move the birdhouse away from the clothesline for fear of disturbing any inhabitants. But now that bees have apparently taken up residence in the birdhouse, the intimidation is going quite the other way. For once I wish I could find my camera.

Josh: *lifts his head, listens*
Cam: *takes out the earplugs*
— BANG BANG BANG –
Cam: “Gunshots?!”
Josh: “Yep.”
Cam: “How many did you hear before?!”
Josh: “3, maybe 4.”
Cam: *checks the clock* “1:48. From the north maybe?!”
Josh: “There’s no way to tell really.” *goes back to sleep*
Cam: *big-eyed look of WHAT WHAT WHAT*
Josh: *HOOOOOONK*…*ssss*…*HOOOOOONK*…*ssss*…*HOOOOONK*…

Nobody in earshot has called an aid car, according to Realtime 911. Whatever that was, I hope… well, it’s hard to know what to hope, isn’t it? So now I’m wide awake and vigilant. But even if had been were something to hear, the vigilance has done me no good because I can’t hear a darn thing over the snoring anyway. How does he do it? And how is it that he’ll stay up until 4 am when someone is wrong on the internet, but goes right back to sleep next to an exterior wall when someone is shooting a few blocks away? (Okay, I admit it. I understand the first half of that. I mean, someone being wrong on the internet is a powerful motivating force. Also, um, “a few blocks away.”)

We also smelled something on fire this evening. Josh even walked around the neighborhood wondering which house was on fire this time. And of course we’re just around the corner from where the big flood was. I wonder what will be next. Plague seems insufficiently local, as do bears, and we did the fleeing-bankrobber thing around here a few years ago. Falling space junk? Mini-tornado?

Josh and I have been getting a crapload of hangup calls lately, at least some of which are spoofing an ID of 408-999-1234. Sometimes I’ll pick up the phone and it’ll be someone talking fast in Spanish; that gets me wondering if they’re working the same common scam that caught Josh in 2003. More often I pick up and say “Hello?” and I’ll hear background murmuring or whispering in what sounds like Spanish. After a few seconds they hang up. Day after day after day. It’s enough to make me ask Josh if we can change our name to Johansen or something, just in case we’re getting targeted as likely Spanish-speakers.

I’m pretty well fed up with getting up to get the phone, so I’m not going to do it anymore. Most folks email me, not call, but if by some chance you do call me, please leave a message. Odds are good we’re screening calls.

Any day in which I get to use the term “mangle-wurzel” in conversation is a pretty good day in my book. Even better, it made sense.

Why was I talking about mangle-wurzels? It’s unholy hot out there for early June, which means it’s about time for solar beet salad. It’s a sign of summer around here. I roast the beets for several hours in the solar oven at about 300F, then slip their skins off, chop or slice them, and chill them. Sometimes I dress them with a little vinegar the way Delores taught me, or I pair them with greens, but sometimes it’s just me, a fork, and a jar of cold beets, and that’s fine too. It’s all kind of amazing considering how many times I was threatened into eating my beets as a kid, but those were canned beets that’d generally been left in an open can for a few days. Slow-roasted beets are a whole ‘nother story.

A lot of people like baby beets, but I actually prefer that edge of bitterness that the more mature beets can have. Knowing this, Josh brought home the biggest beets he could find. They’re almost alarming in their oversizedness. If you want a five-pound beet, this is your time to hit up Whole Foods.