Our Better Selves? She Says Squinting in Everyday Ramblings

This unusual dahlia is blooming down in the closest community garden, the one I thought I was going to get a plot in. Maybe next year. Like some years are good iris years, this is a good year for dahlias.

I am glad it is good for something.

Diego had his big ultrasound yesterday. They did find some unusual lymph nodes that are now out for biopsy and I won’t get final results until Monday when I talk with our vet. The little guy was hyper when he got home and hungry.

Poor guy.

He’s been fine today, a little clingy, but fine.

I got my 2nd pneumonia vaccine and a lot of blood drawn at the doctor. She thinks it is arthritis in my spine and nerve impingement at L1 and L2. Basically, something I am going to need to manage for the rest of my time in this body. I hope I will be able to find a movement practice that addresses it but who knows how long that will take?

On my teacher’s call today there were teachers in the U.K. and France who are teaching in person again. Wow. Our public schools here are 100% virtual until February and maybe longer. We may have a vaccine that is available to relatively normal people by June.

We had the highest case count ever for our state again today.

Most Honorable is carrying a heavier class load online than he thought most of the summer because his institution thought they were going to do a hybrid model and he was going to have in person classes partially to accommodate the foreign students so they could keep their visas.

It is all kind of stressful. We are all experiencing this weathering effect of this constant low-grade stress and everybody trying to figure out new ways of doing things. Something as simple as getting a flu shot. Mrs. Sherlock drove through a lot of traffic a few days ago to get to a distribution point for Kaiser and waited only to be told they were out of the senior 4 strand vaccine.

Tomorrow I am going to a locksmith’s shop to see if I can get a couple of copies of my indoor door key replicated. It is good during this time for all of us to have an emergency plan and trusted folks with access. I have already been to two places to try to get this done.

I hope the third time is the charm.

We get our ballots next week. Charity and my upstairs neighbor have a date to fill theirs out the day they come and trek together down to the drop box. Mrs. Sherlock and I have a call with the League of Women Voters to go over our ballots on the 20th so I will take mine down then. I sure hope there aren’t any “poll watchers” or Proud Boys hanging around.

It is good to practice being present in this moment.

Last night I was listening to the history of the late Roman emperors. There were some seriously unhinged ones. They were all murdered. It is a cautionary tale.

I suppose what we are experiencing now is better than having the person in charge murder people making noise that might disturb the sleep of his favorite horse housed in a marble stable but I wonder if the staff at the White House feels that it is better when they are putting their lives at risk going to work every day.

Rain is on the way. We could all use it here in the coastal states but I do feel for those in Louisiana, Alabama and Texas as well as all the folks in Mexico touched by Delta.

May we all find good judgment and rely on common sense and kindness in the days ahead. Let’s find our better selves in the midst of all this insanity.