Indeed it did, Gentle Reader. For the past few weeks the setting has been permanently on CLUSTERF***.
One tiny example? No internet or phone for a week during which my email “chats” (from my landlady’s where I was perched between a cat litter box and a saddle) with the satellite provider started being all caps. As in, NO. MY INTERNET ISN’T WORKING AT ALL YOU CAN’T DO A TEST ON THE LINE. NO. I DON’T HAVE A PHONE BECAUSE IT’S CONNECTED TO THE SATELLITE. THERE IS NO PHONE WHERE I AM. WE ARE OFF GRID. SEND HELP. That sort of thing. Finally, after extended misadventures, workability returned to the ethers and the entire system was replaced. For once none of this was even remotely my fault. This miracle entailed a visit from the person who owns the “dealership” here, who asked me out for a drink with the Partner sitting there and with his wedding ring shining brightly- right after he told me about his private plane. Are your neighbors 7th Day Adventists with a landing strip? I asked him. Deflection scored. I’m telling myself it’s all fine even though all the ideas I was brimming with when this latest crash happened, for the website and whatnot, and of course brilliant blog musings, evaporated like the fog rising from the ground last night after it rained. Even the part where we ended up dispatching and then cremating a scorpion who’d mysteriously appeared in the middle of the floor with its tail raised ever so adorably (the P: What’s THAT? Oh, SHIT. Me: What? OH. SHIT.).
In the meantime all sorts of other things have been revealing themselves and it seems clear now that we don’t, in fact, live in Kansas anymore (in both personal AND cosmic ways of course) and none of the people we used to know remember us except in the most fetishized sort of way. The Giant Finger that is public/government involvement in one’s life (think insurance, and certain other basic things, like registering to vote plus various other matters the County involves itself in) has been showing itself to be ever more puckish, which contributes to 1) A bit of screaming 2) Deep breathing 3) Acceptance that one seriously needs a new map. It’s a kind of condensed grieving, actually. Where you grieve for yourself as the human you thought you used to know you were, and the life you thought you used to live.
The truth of course is nicely put by Wendell Berry:
“When I rise up/Let me rise up joyful/like a bird.
When I fall/let me fall without regret/like a leaf.”
It takes some practice but it IS possible to greet all the pits with the stakes and the live tigers as ways to do it differently. Ways to see it differently. I’m thinking now that if you can at least catch yourself sometime in the 24 hour period during which these things hit, you’ve got an excellent chance of doable change in circumstance. The question is, what do you do during that gruesome 24 hours when your stomach is in your toes, your heart is torn and your head aches? What you do is stop, and breathe, and WAIT. Let yourself have time to speak. Then, of course, you have to listen- which doesn’t have to be so bad once you firmly stick to the NO JUDGMENT rule. You can, and often probably should, decide not to do or feel or think certain things again, but you mustn’t torture yourself for having done them. Or as the case may be, not done. It’s all a springboard, weirdly enough.
And in more important news, the Dog is almost a year old. At 75 pounds he is what a PetCo employee admiringly said, a “tight-looking dog!”. Even though he has taken to rushing to his bed and pretending to snore when it’s bath time, he’s really VERY handsome. The Partner took him shopping for birthday toys and evidently it was a smashing success, with the Dog investigating all appropriate items, sniffing bones, and even playing with another 11 month old. 
The romantic hues of this photo show that…well. He takes up the entire couch now. It’s admittedly not a big couch but it is about….five feet long? He revels. When we’re out his smile disarms even the crankiest individual. We’re still looking for a chew toy that will last more than 56 minutes and not hurt him if he swallows any of it, but I suppose that is the Quest Perilous in which we try to prove ourselves Worthy. Prithee, Sir? doth this chew toy ring satisfactory and please thee? Anyway, I’m making hummus for his birthday next week- it’s his favorite. So far. Right after potato curry and home-ground hamburger. Little nibbles, of course.
Thank you and bless you, ALL! as we continue on this ever wilder ride.
Boozilla: learning to fly one room at a time 