and miles to go before i sleep
when i opened the door on my return from work, mei-mei was not there to greet me and dart a peek at the outside world behind me as usual. no, she came trotting towards me from the bedroom, appearing quite busy, in a great hurry, and rather resentful to be interrupted for greeting duties. she literally grumbled on the go. she allowed a hello and a quick cheek scratch, then darted back to the bedroom, all in a tizzy of excited vocals. i soon followed to take off all my day clothes and don my slouch wear. i found her focusing her rapt attention on yet another stink bug (i just dropped one outside last night!). she was nose to bug right beside the wall by the closet. said stinker was attempting what i imagine was a desperate crawl up the wall, but they move so slow, you can't exactly see their panic. periodically she reached out a paw and batted it off the wall and patted it on the carpet again. but somehow she lost track of it. when i turned around i saw her peering intently under mohammad's dresser. but the stink bug was on top of the dresser in her bed. either this is a sneaky and sassy stink bug or there is more than one and i have a bit of an infestation. i don't know if she ever kills them or if she just likes to play with them.
when i went downstairs mom was just home from her new favourite grocery store, and all in a lather. i haven't seen her this chipper and chatty in i don't know how long. she bought a money tree, and a little spring mixed flower display, and some pretty and fragrant primroses. she then proceeded to show me many treasured items that she purchased at the glorious freshco on blundell and no 2 road. "the produce is so beautiful there! look at this celery! and the prices are way lower than anywhere else! look at these two boxes of strawberries! only such and such price!" she fairly bounded about the kitchen in joy as she put away her delights, which included an interesting salty snack made from chickpea flour and a present each for bethany and me--lindor dark chocolate bar with sea salt and caramel bits. i remarked that she seemed very euphoric. i recognize it, having been euphoric myself many times in my life. (ask heather about tuna and cheesies on our road trip down to california). later i heard her telling bethany that she bought us chocolate because she was at her favourite store, and she was euphoric. lol
then she told me that evan the grass cutter (butcher, i say) lopped off one of the flags she put to protect the daffodils which he mowed down last year. this is as i predicted. then she told him what he had done and said "that's why my daughter hates you." then she laughed. shocked, i said "what! you told him i HATE him?? i don't hate him. although i'm very displeased when he lops off our flowers and trees and damages our containers." later she decided to text him. i was surprised she had his number. she told him she had a correction and basically, what i just said. he said to make it up to me he would prune and spray and fertilize my roses. so i agreed (because i have been greatly neglecting them) and i told mom to say that i would forgive him then. she was a peacemaker. lol.
we did our blood pressure, practiced our choir songs, and played a couple of games of boggle. at which point it was past eight and i pulled myself away. and the last lines of that robert frost poem came to my mind. so i looked it up.
the woods are lovely dark and deep
but i have promises to keep
and miles to go before i sleep
and miles to go before i sleep
and so i memorized it. and mom answered it with some lines from another poem by w.h. davies,
what is this life if full of care
we have no time to stop and stare
we decided that when one of us says our poem the other must answer with their poem. i decided but i think she's game.
so anyways mohammad, the lover-man-of-my-heart, is in ramadan time right now. ramadan changes all the times and patterns of life. he must wake up before dawn to eat and then breaks his fast at sundown. mohammad said fasting at ramadan is not only to do good to the poor and give them money etc, but also to soften your heart and have understanding of what it's like to be hungry. to empathize because you get a taste of what it's like. he does all his best cooking during ramadan. preparing soups and salads and the like. his break the fast is near to my daily breakfast time so we often eat around the same time. every day the time for him is a bit later because the sun stays up a few minutes longer every day.
last night and the night before i only slept 5ish hours. i think it's because of my new medication. because this week i take one at night and one in the morning. and one of the side effects is interrupted sleep or insomnia. so that's bad. i cried. but i decided to go on a walk because i needed some energy for my day. hubs came with my in my digitals. we had a nice time. and i felt much better. it did give me the energy and cheer i needed for my day.
my dr said i can take the night dose with the morning so i did that this morning. i hope tonight's sleep is lengthy and deep.
i asked uncle fred to share some stories he knew about dad's lacrosse playing. he obliged with two good ones:
Sure. I can tell you what I know. He played when I wasn't around mostly. He played for a team in Prince George with uncle Mike and uncle Allen. They had a bit of a reputation for fighting. Mike was small like me and in one game was taking a beating when your dad and uncle Allen joined the fight which triggered a bemch clearing brawl. The picture in the paper showed them in the fight and the headline read Clarke brothers take on the Molsen Oldstylers. I was only 13 at the time. When I was 18 we lived in Cranbrook and your dad started a Lacrosse program in that town. He coached and played and so I played one season with him. It was a tough game and I loved it. In one game the ball went into the corner and your dad who was playing defense yelled at me.to hussle in and get the ball. I darted in and got there at the same time as the opposing defenseman. As we scrambled for the ball the guy hit me in the face with his stick. Acting on a surge of adrenaline I dropped my stick and jumped on him. My arms were wrapped around him and my feet left the floor. (He was big) your dad told me to let go so I wouldn't get a penalty. When I did the guy hit me and I was down on the floor looking up. I saw your dad step over me with his fists swinging. I was the only one not bleeding when it was all over. I felt a sense of pride sitting in the penalty box next to my hero brother. None of us on that team had really played before and your dad taught us all the basic skills and turned us into a team. It was a great time.
i shared it with the sibling chat and said i wanted to find that newspaper article and jawn found the prince george citizen digitized and found a report of a game that might have been the one uncle fred was talking about--but's it's not exactly as he remembers it... any way that led me down a rabbit hole of finding all the news articles that mentioned him.
Comments