Thursday, November 7, 2024

Thursday, November 7, 2024  

 

   I woke up feeling like I had a good night’s sleep. It felt like it must have been at least 3:30.  I fell back asleep without getting up to pee or check the time.  When I woke up again, I checked the time. It was 1:30. The first time, it must have been midnight at best, possibly earlier. I finally woke up at 3:30 and dozed for the rest of the night.

   As I lay in bed, I felt a sciatic pain in my right buttock and down my leg. I hadn’t felt that kind of pain in at least a year. I had a trusty tennis ball under my pillow. I keep it there at all times.  I spent most of my life with one muscle or another seizing.  I feared I’d backed myself into a corner with all my hard work. I had been warned that my bones had reformed around my bad posture. I’ve had a spinal curvature all my life. Straightening it out at this late date could have negative consequences. Was that what I was experiencing now? 

     The tennis ball digging into my glutes didn’t do much good. I moved the ball up my spine. That helped a bit more. I moved it up further.  Finally, I found a spot in line with my armpit that provided complete relief. There was no pain in that area; that was all in my hip and leg. However, that was the magic spot that provided the release.

  While on my morning walk,  I tried to call Jean, my Hanai sister.  The call dropped four times without ever going through. I have no idea why that happens.    

   When I was young, AT&T was the only carrier in the nation. While you had to pay for long-distance phone calls, the service was impeccable. There were no dropped calls, and the sound was always crystal clear. I experienced poor telephone service when traveling in Europe. We made fun of their phone service. Now, we all have the same problems with our cell phones.

    On my morning walk, I ran into Mike, an Englishman living in San Francisco and visiting friends in Hawaii. Mike visits his friends here several times a year. I’ve run into him on and off for years. He was trained as a stone mason as a young man in England. There’s not much work for him in the USA.  I learned today that he has a sixth-floor apartment on Market Street.  I asked Mike to help me figure out what I was doing wrong when I drilled holes into the trees to kill them.  When I drilled, the bit only made a pressure dent, but not a hole I could pour a teaspoon of Round Up into to kill the plant. 

   Mike took one look and told me I needed a different bit. I need a speed feed augur, wood drill, and wood drilling bit. It has a screw point with a fanned-out drill blade.  I tried one this morning. It worked like a charm. 

  When I met with Shelly this morning, I talked about how fear stopped me from doing things both trivial and profound. Sometimes, it is something I’ve done before with success, but now I’m afraid I won’t succeed. Shelly told me that the fears and behaviors that stop us from accomplishing things are expected.  The irony is that most of the tasks I fear failing are those I’ve succeeded at before. 

    I heard a famous performance artist talk about his fears. As excellent as each past performance had been, he fears he won’t be able to do it again.  Interesting.  Why were we plagued with this fear? How did it help us survive on the plains 10,000 to 2 million years ago?  if many people suffer from this fear, it must be built into our psyches.  I finally screwed my courage to the sticking point and posted an ad for the used solar panels on Next Door and Craig’s List. It would be what it would be. I wasn’t optimistic. I would deal with no response to my ads.  What was hard was sticking my neck out? If I can deal with the lack of success, why can’t I deal with the challenge of posting the ad?

  Last week, the gardener, Eli,  came to help me figure out how many hibiscus plants I needed to cover a large area. He measured the area at 54 feet long and about 10 feet wide.  I would need three rows of plants with fourteen plants in each row. 

   I also needed a watering system for the plants. New shrubs need a lot of water. Eli recommended I check the Diamond Irrigation in town.  

   Lynette, the company manager, helped lay out the plan. The woman is amazing. She loves her work, and her pride and joy in her work were a delight to witness. The equipment is surprisingly inexpensive, and it sounds easy to install. There is a standing spigot nearby that works. Hooking up the drip system to the faucet will be easy. I will put it on a remote control timer. That way, I can turn it on from my lanai.

  I was listening to another Kristen Hannah book, The Things We Do for Love.  It got higher ratings on Audible than her Magic Hour.  I found the book predictable and uninspiring. Magic Hour had a significant impact on my psyche.  The main character is a psychiatrist caring for a wild child, a seven-year-old who is without speech. It was a fantastic story of poetic quality transcending the quotidian human existence. The wild child represented the wild child in all of us. That primitive, uncivilized aspect of us is closer to the surface than any of us are comfortable with today.  We are all running scared. Our world is coming to an end -one way or another.

     While Darby and I did our evening walk, she commented on my haircut. She said I had a mullet. Damn! That I wouldn’t like. Did I really have a mullet?  I have to remember to tell Randee next time that’s out. I did like it when she left a little snippet of hair right at the base of my head, but not a whole mullet.