needed

The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is referee. I might need one. A referee. Or a keeper.

Yesterday I went for a walk. No big deal, right? Except that I am still jet lagged from a trip and I had to stay an extra eight days because of I got (thankfully mild) covid and my muscles are still a bit weird.

I go with my friend J, who usually walks 16-20 miles on what he calls day hikes. We walk from my house to North Beach and then out North Beach nearly to Glass Beach. I bring water. He brings water and cliff bars. I eat one. We turn back. It is glorious and gorgeous and sunny and he is up visiting from Portland. We talk and talk.

I am pretty tired by the time we get to the parking lot and think, oh good. Then I remember: no, we walked from my house. Two more miles. I am trying not to limp by the time I home. He goes off to work some more and I crash on the couch.

After a bit I realize that I am not hungry and I feel peculiar and my legs hurt a lot. Uh-oh. I get up. I can’t remember the name of the muscle disorder, but I remember what it does. Seriously overdoing can cause muscle breakdown. This in turn can be very bad for the kidneys. I need fluids, right away. I mix 12 ounces of water with a little sugar and salt. Later I add bicarb, baking soda. It doesn’t taste either bad or good. I eat three dried apricots: potassium.

After 48 ounces of this and two hours, I start feeling a little better, and my kidneys start working again. My legs hurt less. I feed the cats and I still don’t want food. Ok, well, I won’t starve over night. More fluids and to sleep.

I finally have a little bit of an appetite this morning. Not much. I am tired and a bit sore but not like yesterday. Whew. I need a keeper.

Egg art

I have been collecting eggshells for a while. I am not sure exactly what I am going to do with them, but this is my first piece of egg art. I keep thinking about the large sugar eggs with the window, with small figures inside, that we got as children. I am saving real eggshells and bits of feather and fluff and pine cones and shells. With Easter tomorrow, I may dye some eggshells.

My mother loved dying eggs. We did not go to church but both my parents sang masses and the record player was just as likely to play Bach or Brahms or Carl Orff as the Loving Spoonful or Bob Dylan or The Beatles. We did elaborate egg dying, with wax and multiple layers of color. The complicated planned ones were often not pretty. It was the ones that we weren’t particularly trying that were often gorgeous. We always had both blown and hardboiled eggs. We would have “egg wars” when we wanted to eat one. We would each hold an egg and tap them together hard. The winner was the one with an intact egg. We ate the less pretty hardboiled ones first and the prettiest last. Mmmmm, egg salad and deviled eggs, yum.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: eggs.

Blessing

Blessing

You have my blessing to travel
Now, then forever.

You have my blessing to travel
With your guitar.

Go, with my blessing, travel.
Or don’t, as you will.

You have my blessing to hunt.
Now, then, forever.

You have my blessing to hunt
With your guns.

Go, with my blessing, hunt
Or don’t, as you will.

You have my blessing to sing.
Now, then, forever.

You have my blessing to sing
With your guitar.

Go, with my blessing, sing.
Or don’t, as you will.

You have my blessing to travel
But not with me.

You have my blessing to hunt
But not with me.

You have my blessing to sing
But not with me.

You have my blessing, not me.
Now, then, forever.

________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: grief.

Does my hair look ok?

Ok, they are feathers, right? I think this is a flock of Red-Breasted Mergansers. I took this in Puget Sound from Marrowstone Island on October 30, 2021.

“Look, the babes are checking me out.”

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: stagefright.

“Hey! You messed up my mohawk!”

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-breasted_Merganser/