Long Covid and overdoing II

I overdid a bit yesterday too.

Friends drove me to the airport when I wasn’t really strong enough on my own. It is two hours away at least. I am very very grateful. They kept my car. I drove them to the ferry and picked one of them up last Friday. My friend L said my brakes were suspect. Two days ago I drove to his house and he took a look. I mostly held a flashlight. The front brakes are fine but the back shoes were down to very thin. I got a crash course in brakes (2006 Scion, a very useful black box of a car) and we took the drums to be ground. We ordered brake shoes and the kit of annoying springs and things.

Everything was ready yesterday so he picked me up. I held the flashlight and then held the back of the pin for one particularly annoying and difficult set of springs. He is a very good mechanic, though not primarily cars. A cell phone picture of the brake before taking it apart and studying the intact one: useful tips. He also pointed out the blue paint. Someone added that in order to keep it all straight. We got it all back together and then tested them. It did need some tweaking to tighten the emergency brake to working order again. I got home at about 4:30pm. Whew!

So today I am tired again and rather achy, but not too bad. I may attempt a quiet day, though we never know what will happen. The best laid plans can be altered at any moment. I hope to recharge my energy today!

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: recharge. And speaking of recharging, here are two experts:

Walk with rabbits

Some days I can’t chuckle
when the news rolls in
my heart could buckle
shootings again

US gun habits
What’s up doc? Dagnabbit.

Shootings on the year of the rabbit
dancers dead as they celebrate
Why are guns such a habit?
I refuse to fill my heart with hate

Gun sales stab it
Year of the rabbit

Forgive but do not reconcile
let my resolve not buckle
mental health takes a while
let no demented chuckle

Fearful gun habits
online snared like rabbits

They argue they must defend their homes
daughter teacher on the line
fearful males online alone
think that guns will make them fine

Fear is a habit
Stop being rabbits

Leave your basement
Help another
Walk the pavement
Earth as mother

Make it a habit
To walk out with rabbits

_______________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: chuckle.

Small hopes

Alone today and quiet, happy with it
“I think you write more than I do, even though
I write for a living.” “I love it,” I say.
It is my daily quiet writing time: four am.
No one is here but me and the cats
and they just ate and are grooming each other.
Just me and paper and pens and computer
still dark out and cold. I check to see if it is clear.
No, not today. I hope to see the green comet.
Little hopes, small ones, quiet ones, that do not
bother anyone. No one is jealous or wants to take them
away. I hold them warm in my heart, Beloved,
and do not think of love.

_________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: temptation.

Trees and paper

I put out my recycling yesterday. All that paper that I fill paper bags with each month. Is paper disposable? It does come from trees.

Chainsaw and climbing gear. He doesn’t look like he’s that high up. But I am taking the picture from a rise, through a grove of smaller trees. Here is the tree that is coming down.

A storm had twisted the upper trunks until the lower trunk split vertically. Now it was dangerous and could fall on the house in another storm. And dangerous to take down because each of the four upper trunks had to be done separately.

One trunk left.

All down. The trunk is still alive and may live.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: disposable.

National Bird

“Hey Martha! Look, she’s got a real camera! Serious zoom lens on that baby!”

“Ralph, look dignified!”

“Dignified! Are you kidding?”

“Ralph, we are the National Bird! Bald Eagles! Look proud! Like me!”

“Nah, Martha, I’m crossing my eyes. She’ll get a surprise when she downloads THESE photos! Come on, Martha, mug for once!”

“Ralph, you are impossible!”


For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: mischief.

Wooden heart

Heart of wood, by the sea
What do the spirits say to me?
His heart is stone not wood you see
And he’ll never come back, never come back, never come back to me
Tree torn from land by flooding water
bark and branches torn asunder
thrown back to the beach stripped and bare
bleached and dried lying there
grass and sand and stones on strand
I wonder how much a heart can stand

This doesn’t really fit today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt. I was looking for another photograph which fits and found this one.

Eminent imminent immanence

I chose a more difficult word for the Ragtag Daily Prompt than I realized! I was thinking of imminent, but came up with immanent when using spell check. Then I puzzled because it did not mean what I thought it meant. In the ragbag ragtag immanence of my mind, I was really thinking of imminent, meaning about to happen or near in time!

It’s a nonsense poem, so the picture has nothing to do with it.

Words in my mind are immanent
but the Ragtag prompt is imminent
spellcheck I thought was eminent
turns out it is more cinnament
now I’m in my element
nonsense poems being elegant
and Tuesday being swellegant
and you’re wondering if I’m intelligent
don’t worry, this won’t be permanent
which doesn’t really rhyme with immanent