Handbill Handout

 I have been having a recurring nightmare where I'm caught somewhere, usually outdoors, definitely far from home, NOT naked like the stereotypical nightmare everyone has....just.....barefoot. Also in this nightmare, the foot that is now and forever missing a toe has that toe again, except that it hangs like a small bag with a rock in in it and flops around as I walk, completely out of my control.  Or sometimes it retracts into my foot.  Whatever it does, I know that it absolutely does not belong there and I have a mounting sense of panic that I need to get rid of it.   At that point I'm transported to a crowded workspace or restaurant or some other place where it's difficult to move around because of the press of people but somehow one of my mounting army of dead family members finds me and drags me to a table where other people are, people who want to talk to me.  I don't want to see them.  I argue and berate the people who are trying to get to me....

 It's not Monday Night Football or Hockey Night in Canada but it is my new Pandemic-End Days pastime.  Friday Night Shopping.  For the first three weeks after, as Arlo Guthrie might have said, we were successfully injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected we went to the shiny new Shop Rite in our area.  That Shop Rite is in a location previously occupied by a combination Path Mark and K-Mart that included one of those excellent "restaurants" with the particle board booths and the hot dogs of indeterminate age on rollers and the knock-off Slurpee brand "Icee" which means it was exactly where any self respecting lower-middle class nine year old would want to eat while mom listened for the Blue Light Specials.   So in other words, a Shop Rite aspiring to be a Wegman's would have some good mojo from the spirits in that particular location. Since variety is the spice of life we're going to change it up tonight and go to the Stop 'n...

 I've been told that because a piece of my foot is now possibly in heaven  or at the very least in an ashtray or garbage can that I can get a handicapped card for my car. Fuck that. I'm not ready. Somebody else asked me if it was tough to keep my balance since the part that's gone is pretty important for balance.  I said it wasn't.   Then I tried to look at the moon tonight.  It's a 54% waxing gibbous I think, and it was straight overhead.   I looked straight up while standing in the middle of my front walk and I almost fell.   I staggered back to the house and steadied myself against a wall and looked again.   I just saw a glow.  The edge of my roof blocked my view.   I went back inside. 

 I’m sitting here listening to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s “A Tuba to Cuba” and it occurs to me how little I still know about jazz in general and how I know practically nothing about Afro-Cuban jazz, so little in fact that I had to type some words in the ol’ Google box to make sure “Afro-Cuban jazz” was the right term.  Despite my utter ignorance I thoroughly enjoy this recording that I purchased entirely because I was listening to it at a listening station in the excellent record shop Louisiana Music Factory and Snooks the store cat wandered by and looked at me which I took as an omen.  Sometimes the store cat knows what’s best for you.  I’m glad to be listening to this at home, alone, working because if I was listening to it in the old office that I occupied before my employer’s ill-fated migration to the disease-friendly open concept that led to everyone wearing noise cancelling headphones all day and instant-messaging colleagues sitting six feet away inst...

 My maternal grandmother used to save orange peels and put them on the radiator to perfume the air.   I don't have a radiator but I sometimes do the same thing using an open window and the sun. 

 The gourmet tea bag specifically.  You're lovingly assembled from bespoke ingredients, put in a bag and live in a box for a while and when your big moment comes you get soaked in near-boiling water for 5 minutes and that's it.  Into the trash or the compost.   What a letdown. I buy my fancy tea from Rishi and this is what they have to say about their bags: "Rishi tea bags are made from a plant-based material called polylactic acid (or PLA for short). PLA is an inert, DNA-free material that is produced by breaking down starches found in plant sources. Through this process, no plant DNA is left behind, making these hypoallergenic and allergen-free. PLA is NOT derived from petroleum and will not leak harmful plasticizers into your brew. True to our sourcing ethics and to help showcase Rishi’s high-quality teas and botanicals, this material is purposefully sourced to provide you and your family with the safest and most delicious cup of tea! " So I got that going fo...

 We’re currently driving around with a box of medical waste from my most recent turn as a recipient of IV antibiotics at home.  The last time I had one of these boxes I had to take it to the hospital on one of my follow up visits and got sent from place to place like Batman trying to get rid of a bomb in the Adam West movie version until finally I took it to the lab, put it on the reception counter, said to the nearest person “I was told to drop this off here” and bolted as much as someone with my damaged limbs can bolt. Now they give you a box with a mailing label that you have to take to the post office and mail to a disposal facility.  Unfortunately, every time we’ve been at a post office to mail letters the lines to mail packages have been longer than we were comfortable standing in so back to the car it goes. Is it the weirdest thing we can’t get rid of?  Not unless you think my father’s old prosthetic leg is weirder. We inherited that when my now-late sister mo...