Today I went to the one decent restaurant in town; a new place since they put in the highway connector. I love the cucumber salad. In fact I never ate cucumbers till this place. Just now at 38, finally eating cucumbers. Which have this coolness about them (temperaturewise), which is especially good when it's schorching hot outside. But then, it's really quite a simple salad I ought to just make at home. The food is otherwise nothing that special really.... I cook pretty good these days and now live someplace that I don't find myself desperately trying to find a reason each evening to leave.

But at the end of this meal I got a dessert that had some chocolate in it. This is just about my first bit of caffeine in many months. The result is that 7 hours later (0030) I've got some insomnia. AND some myopia such that I'm lacking wisdom and rambling on pointlessly here.

Yes, caffeine is best avoided.

Other news: today got a new work schedule position. No more night shifts. I had been officially working one night shift a week, but in reality had only really been working it once a month at most. Thank god for no more night shifts though. They were awful.

Let's see, other news... I'm pushing my running too much. Getting obsessed with trying to improve. Losing balance. Forgotten why I started in the first place which was to:
1. Keep my back feeling good.
2. Have plenty of energy for work.
3. ...? General good health.

The running has worked at those. Again starting to worry too much about going really fast, and really tiring myself out and thus decreasing my quality of life.

What the hell else crap is going on? Still finishing up my enclosed raised bed garden. I didn't take into account how much all the garden soil is going to cost. Oh well. All in all I'm spending well over 1000 dollars. But it shall be nice. The blueberry's straight off the bushes taste so much better than storebought. This is just how life ought to be. And right now as when I'm out there I'm thinking about A Wrinkle In Time, at the beginning, as Meg and Calvin go for a short walk and the scenery is described, the garden, the apple trees. As Charles Wallace, Meg, Mom and Mrs. Whatsit eat all those different types of sandwiches. "Wild nights are my glory." Something about this that touches my core, that this is how life is meant to be. You should walk outside and there be food growing and so on.

And I prefer it done so that after a lot of work and money in the beginning it will take care of itself in the longterm.

And did a search of dragon statues. Thinking of a homage to Robin Hobb. But there's nothing remotely good online.

My cello playing has lagged a bit recently. Still practicing but lots of 30 minutes practice days. Do finally have a nice high position thanks to studio adjustable chair plus bits of wood to stop crappy studio chair from slowly sinking.

Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time is wonderful not so much because of the anti-conformity message but because of the description of Meg's home. The genius little brother. The house out in the woods. The scientist parents. The bunsen burner. All those different kinds of sandwiches. The garden. The dog and cat. I don't understand why this stuck with me so. Somehow as a child I longed for it. The right place at the right time I suppose such that a scene that must have been similarly decribed in endless books just stayed with me so strongly as some beautiful ideal.

I used to have all four books. Can't find the three that follow right now. Loved this series so that I would try to imagine M L'Engle. Pictured here with long blonde hair. (She was about as far from how I pictured her as possible.) But the fact that I was trying to picture her just says something about how much I loved this series as a kid.

Schorching hot lately, also with a decent bit of rain. This is when stuff GROWS. The fish are ravenous. Although it's too hot for that huge tree I bought. Leaves are getting crinkly on the edges, which greatly annoys me. Today I saw a huge spider. A very thick muscular spider of a type that I've never seen before. Outside of tarantulas in Texas I've never seen such a large spider. I wonder if somehow it came with the potting soil and survived from somewhere much further south. It was such a monster though that I just couldn't not kill it. Feel quite bad, but damm it was a scary huge thing. Would not have been able to enjoy the garden much knowing it was lurking somewhere.

Insects are horrific creatures if you really think about it. But mostly I don't think that of them. The water bugs on the pond remind me of The Dark Crystal. The numerous dragonflys are beautiful to me. The bees love the water lettuce. Their butts pulse as they drink what I assume is a sort of nectar from the center. Tons of tiny grasshoppers in enclosed raised bed garden. They're cute. Also a praying mantis as pictured below. They're not so bad to look at. Probably the basis of the Pheng(sp) in Vance's Tschai. All the bugs and slugs in the soil don't bother me. Don't even particularly mind the quite large wolf spiders sometimes out back which jump and seem to change direction in mid-air.

But this one spider was too much. Although smaller than a taratula, it was far, far worse than a tarantula. And I don't know why exactly. Trying to forget but doing it all wrong indeed, thanks to the caffeine.

I changed clothes 4 times today as I was repeatedly soaked in sweat. Just a bit too hot. Although as long as I stay right by the pond I'm OK.

Was rude to J today. Feel bad about it. Got locked out and needed water badly. Still doesn't remotely excuse my rudeness to her.

I could go on and on about worthless things. More negative than positive but why do so? Wash away the negative. Talk about Dark Crystal water bugs. Are the baby fish part koi? They started out dark brown but now are gold with speckles. I'm hoping of course that they're part koi. They're changing colors by day right now, so we're watching closely.

Was thinking what a damm good thing my biological father had no contact with me. Have thought this off and on, but lately hadn't. Then heard on NPR about Obama and how he was almost certainly better off without his father around and it occurred particularly strongly that the same was the case with me. I already knew this yet have had a tendency to focus on the negative of what an evil man he was for not having anything to do with me. Now instead thinking, "Thank God!"