Thursday, April 27, 2023

 Thursday, April 27, 2023

I had a weird nightmare this morning. I dreamt I had to attend a conference and needed someone to cover for me. I was sure what my job was; it had something to do with a preschool class. I had the bright idea of asking my mother to do it. She had never taught, no less taught, a group of children. If she was noted for anything, it would be her poor teaching skills, mostly because she lacked patience. Her instructions usually involved yelling at me that I should already know how to do it. I had two contradictory thoughts in my head. She would love to be involved with a group of young kids, but she wouldn't be able to control them and would smack them. That would result in a lawsuit against me, and I would lose everything. Somehow, the option of not involving her didn't come up in the dream. I suspect the dream reflected my worry about the world's financial state, particularly in the USA.

Elsa and I were up and out bright and early this morning; it was driveway yoga day. Without fail, when Yvette starts the class and says sit up tall, my body chemistry transforms. I enter this delicious, altered state. Yoga gets me there better than meditation. While yoga offers an escape from stress and negative thinking, meditation provides a way to transform stress and negative thinking.

Yvette had to leave early to teach her online yoga class to a group of Montessori preschoolers in Connecticut. Last year, the school adjusted to our schedule. This year, they didn't. Scott took over. He doesn't do what Yvette does, but it's all good. Among other things, Yvette watches us like hawks, making sure we're not doing anything harmful.

Scott helped treat Elsa's ears after class. I've been doing it twice a day for a week. I have no idea if what I've been doing is good enough. The vet who saw her last told me her ear infections are part of her allergic reaction that causes the lesions on her skin. I've been taking Elsa to the same vet for five years; this is the first time someone told me that. I sometimes see different doctors. There are a bunch of young ones, fresh out of vet school, full of themselves and their prescriptions.

   Scott holds Elsa while I pour a liquid into her ear. After twenty minutes, I have to 'inject' another liquid with a syringe. I don't know what either liquid is for. When I applied the first liquid, I squirted too much out of the nozzle-nosed bottle. It got all over Scott, but I wasn't sure how much got in her ears. I thought she wasn't shaking enough after she was released. I realized I could use the syringe for both applications. Doing so, I waste less and feel more confident. I got it in her ear instead of just her ear lobe. She's not as happy to have Scott hold her now and shakes her head more. Have the previous applications done anything? I wish the doctors would give better directions.

The weather was clear enough for long enough for me to get some spraying in today. I changed the vinegar formula. My friend Carol pointed out that if I added a gallon of 5% vinegar to a gallon instead of a gallon of water to 30% vinegar, the gain was only 2 ½%. My first response was the 5% gallon is cheap, so why not. It made me think. The 5% vinegar is inexpensive. The 30% vinegar is expensive, $25 a gallon. I used to use just 5% vinegar for the weeding. It worked pretty well and was much cheaper. Ah ha! I changed the formula to one gallon of 5% vinegar and only half a gallon of the 30%, with a handful of salt and a squirt of Dawn dish detergent. It worked just fine, and I saved myself $12.50.

I saw an excerpt from Broadway Melody 1936 with Eleanor Powell. She was considered an amazing dancer. I love her in her duet with Fred Astaire in Begin the Beguine. I was intrigued by the dance scene from Broadway Melody and watched the whole movie. It was nominated for three Oscars, including best screenplay. It would never have won today. The plot was thin with huge holes. I could have written a better script. It was unsatisfying. Even the dance numbers weren't that great. The choreography was a weak Busby Berkeley. I searched for the name of the choreographer, but none was listed. At the end of the film was a list of miscellaneous facts. One was that Eleanor Powell did her own choreography. The blurb said she had a limited vocabulary. She shone in Begin the Beguine because she got out of her comfort zone with Astaire's choreography. Neither of them was happy dancing with the other. She preferred being a solo performer, and he because he found her too masculine in her dance style. By today's standards, there is nothing manly about her in their duet. She's fluid and graceful, genuinely amazing. Astaire's complaint was that 'she laid it down like a man." He was scared of her. A woman who could do what a man could was considered a threat to masculinity in those days. To many men, it still is.

   I started counting the number of Hersey's milk chocolate nuggets I eat daily. Today, I had four—not too bad. Yesterday, I had sixteen. Oy vey! I recently checked the calories—150 calories for every three nuggets.