The Mixed-up ABC's of Life

B is for BRRR!

I woke up this morning with icy feet. No Havoc to act as bed warmer, I guess, but the temperature had also plummeted during the night.

At 4 a.m., when I woke up shivering, I realized I had opened the window earlier in the evening and had forgotten to close it, I got the hair dryer and melted the ice that had formed in the groove and did not return to bed. Fully awake, I answered some emails first.

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It was not the best of nights in my bedroom.

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C is for CATCHING DRIPS

When we first went to bed I discovered that the second dog pillow, the one under the wooden beam, was soaking wet. What??? Surely neither Havoc nor Kenya would have done THAT.

Then I felt the water dripping down on my face. Quite a lot of water. It was coming out of the wood-encased beam ... in many places. Another leak in the steel roof. If I could get hold of the original builder, the one who went nuts and quit, I would do something unmentionable to him. This is the third place that leaks have turned up when we have had a thaw. So far just in the two bedroom closet areas. It is hard to catch drips that come down out of something that long and wide. I ended up with a bucket, a large steel mixing bowl, two bathroom waste baskets and several towels. I tried to stop the pinging noise with a facecloth in the bottom of the bowl, but the water kept hitting the side of the bowl. I adjusted the arrangement a couple of times, but finally just gave up and tossed and worried until exhaustion took over.

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B and C

At any rate when I got up at 4 to close the window, the dripping had stopped. Unlike the rest of Ontarians and Quebecers, I am dreading spring. As long as everything remains frozen no more water damage will occur. To say nothing of the mud that will be uncovered once the snow melts ... mud that will be carried in on large paws ... but that is something else.

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A is for ASTROLOGY

Today, Rob Brezny came through with his usual wisdom. In other words, I liked reading my horoscope, but I also enjoyed the readings for the other signs too. Just a taste:

Gemini:

Whether or not you consider yourself a storyteller, it's time to do the best you can at practicing that art. I say this for two reasons. First, the people you encounter will have a special need to hear about your adventures in redemption, the riddles that have fueled your quest, and the mysteries that have pushed you to the edge of your understanding. Second, as you talk about those adventures, riddles, and mysteries, you will give yourself the exact boost you need to open fully to the next great story of your life.

I became fixated on "the next great story". My great stories so far have included things like giving birth, traveling in the developing world, and, most recently, building this leaky house and becoming a dog woman.

What, besides death, could he mean?

Pisceans were advised to: visualize scenes like the following: an apple pierced by an arrow that's lying on a bridge near a half-crumpled Valentine card; wind rattling through an old tree in such a way that you hallucinate there being an angel perched in its branches; an accordion floating down a stream trailed by two quacking ducks; a stranger who's simultaneously crying and laughing in a cafe while writing frenetically on white paper napkins. And why is it important to commune with scenes like these? Because they will energize your soul in ways you can't rationally understand. They will remind you that deeply meaningful events can be utterly mysterious.

And Taureans were told that people close to them have been transforming and they should be alert for the possibility that they are not who they used to be.

He quotes from T.S. Eliot's "The Cocktail Party":

"We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger."


Scorpions are advised to make love at every opportunity and if they don't have a lover to help them out, then they should boink the wind, screw the sky, hump their dreams, and make love to the universe.

Now that sounds like a lot of fun! I may try that. It certainly beats mine: preparing for death!

Do you suppose he meant death or something else? I am not sure I have the energy for anything more rambunctious than the puppies.