OT Contemplating becoming a hermit

[NightMist]

Yeah the last few weeks have been like that.

I've definitely got an incisional hernia, plus I have tendonitis _again_
this time all up my left arm. So the medicals pretty much want me
sitting around doing nothing. I really suck at that.
Just as a cherry on top I got a sinus infection (I am prone because of
that scar) which sank into my chest. So I am coughing a lot.
No surgery planned at present, unless something bad happens they will
probably just leave the hernia alone. I have been advised that investing
in spanx or similar foundation garments would be a good idea.

I was supposed to make a wedding cake, which the chest cold put the
brakes on. I had to delegate and I felt bad about having to do that. I
would have felt worse about coughing and hacking all over somebody's
wedding cake though.

Poison ivy crept into my garden beds while I was busy being sick these
last couple of years. My garden slaves were struck down most fiercely.
Especially DD3, she got a bit of sunburn on the first day and was
religiously smearing herself down with sunscreen and aloe. Which was
very effective in spreading the irritating resins from the poison ivy
very evenly all over every inch of exposed skin. She was in such bad
shape that we carried her to the doctor and the doctor made both
horrified and sympathetic sounds before prescribing prednisone and
soothing baths. The garden is hash, I just hope we got all the poison
ivy pulled out. DH and I went out and identified and marked it, I just
hope we didn't miss any. Yep, hoeing weeds is probably what did my arm
in. All garden slaves have now been schooled in identifying irritating
and dangerous plants. I even rang the extension to see if we should be
on the watch for anything in particular this year. Apparently there have
been more than usual reports about giant hogweed locally, so I made for
darn sure that DD1 (DGS's mom) knows what that looks like and what it can
do to a child.

On Monday I am going with DD1 to arrange for DGS's kindergarden placement.
For some reason the lady at the school wants to place him in a class that
is not quite right for him. We did the tour, and it would be a wonderful
class for a different child. DGS needs a more restrictive and structured
environment. Why on earth this woman is so keen on placing him there
when another school is holding a place for him in a more appropriate
class is a mystery. Everybody keeps telling us how confused they are by
her behavior and saying that she isn't usually like this. His pre-K
school has actually set up a pro-bono lawyer for us because they are so
unhappy with how things are going, and the kindergarden placement being
held for him is not even at that school.
I am sharpening my claws and reviewing logic and rhetoric.

DD2 totaled another car. She was coming back from a gig with a bunch
gear, a hoop dancer, a fire breather, and Potato in the car when an
oncoming car made a left turn right in front of her. She had been
driving carefully and below the speed limit because a deer had run in
front of her, and there are always more deer somewhere behind the first
one, so it wasn't as bad as it might have been. After making sure
everybody was OK, she found Potato and just sat calming her until the
police arrived. Just bruises and a broken nose in her car, nobody hurt
in the other one. A member of the local constabulary took Potato in for
the couple of days DD was in hospital being looked over to her insurance
company's satisfaction. Apparently the local vet screamed like a girl
when they carried Potato in to see him. The other driver was cited.
Again, I told DD she should get a horse. Now she is looking at mustangs.
*roll eyes*
About a week after she got home, somebody broke into her house and stole
her new snake Peanut. She is very glad it wasn't Potato, who is a more
experienced dancer among other things. I am still waiting for more info
about this.

Just because I clearly have nothing else to worry about, I got a phone
call the other day. It was from the American consulate in Puerto Vallarta
Mexico. An online friend of ours who has given great cause for concern
over the past year or so, had been assaulted there and had given our
phone number as someone to contact. Seems our number was the only one
she gave to the consul. She had walked and hitched to Mexico from Texas.
Why I do not know, as I said over the last year or so she has given us
much cause for concern. I am not even sure what she was doing in Texas
in the first place. I contacted the lady's lawyers, got the appropriate
permissions and emailed their phone number to the consulate. Hopefully
by now she has gotten some money (of which she certainly has no lack when
she is able to remember she needs to tell the lawyer where she is in
order to get some), and some ID and whatever other papers she needs to
get by. It can be very scary when a person full grown goes enough around
the bend that you have to worry a lot. There is just nothing you can do
but watch in horror, and hope.

Being as I can't do much else I have designed and done the math for some
more quilts. I have designed some more knitting projects. I have
designed some needle run laces, some combination kinds, and a couple of
bobbin types. I have sketched out some clothes that I have to do math
for, may as well plan out some flat patterns since I am not going to be
sewing anything soon.
I am allowed to spin for 20-30 minutes a day, treadling the wheel is some
serious exercise for the abdominal muscles and they don't want me to
overdo. I am painting some too, it is not a one handed thing, but I
cannot sit about with my hands folded all the livelong. I am considering
doing some batik, and then teaching one of the DDs to do the dyeing
part. DD1 wants to learn tie dye, so she is likely.

So I have been shopping for a nice cave, away from noxious weeds, noxious
people, and idiot drivers. On a quiet mountaintop that just happens to
have an internet connection and is on a reliable postal route. That
probably violates the rules of the hermit's union, but what the heck! My
cave, my rules.

NightMist


--
I'm raising a developmentally disabled child. What's your superpower?

[Ginger in CA]

Oh, I am so sorry to hear all this is going on. Just never a dull moment around your life, is there?

Is there anything we can do, other than sending good vibes your direction? Will you be designing a door for your hermit cave?

Ginger in CA

[Bobbie Sews More]

Dear Night, what a mess you are in! I don't know the words to use to tell
you how sorry I am! With all your sitting around, would you be able to do
cross stitch embroidery to keep your mind busy? Once I had one arm in a
cast, and the other in bandages and after a week or so I decided I surely
could do cross stitch, if nothing else. I was bored silly, but cross stitch
was better than nothing! And then I read a few books just to have a change
in things to do. I couldn't bend my arms to feed myself. DH placed my
pain pills on the kitchen counter so I could pick them up with my tongue,
and put water in small paper cups so I could pick them up with my mouth to
drink. I was also in a mess and it seemed to take weeks to be able to do
anything except watch TV and limp around the house.
You are in my thoughts and prayers! Barbara in SC

"NightMist" <night...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:kpi4el$ck0$2...@dont-email.me...

[Polly Esther]

Real hermits have gators to assure privacy. I don't know if any of ours
would consider cave-dwelling but I could ask. Polly

[NightMist]

Either my patron deity is playing with me, or at some point I made
somebody fond of chinese curses mad at me.

I would be happy to have my recovered garden slaves build a moat for
gators. DH wants to build a moat and fill it with komodo dragons. I
think gators would be more...domesticatable...


Other than thinking good thoughts and making suggestions for cave
decoration I cannot think of a blessed thing anyone can do. I just need
to vent now and again or my head will explode.

I have a cross stitch project that I drag out and work on now and again.
I have a hard time getting interested in them for some reason, but
eventually I finish them.
Curiously, combing fleeces is a very one handed process. So I am
shopping around for fleeces, though usually one reserves from particular
sheep well in advance of shearing. Just to give you an idea, I can get
baby alpaca fleece for about the same price per pound as domestic sheep's
wool roving (and adult alpaca for about half that), so combing is not a
bad thing at all. Roving is wool or fiber that has already been prepared
for spinning. I am by this point thinking is some interesting directions
with this. Blending alpaca with silk and making myself something nice
once I can knit again, getting some of the less expensive domestic fleece
or some of the cheap adult alpaca and mohair and making a stab at proper
woven tapestries, still looking to find a good source for the assorted
bast fibers, flax, ramie, bamboo (yes you can get bast bamboo as opposed
to rayon of bamboo) so I can play with those. I've this notion about
blending a little carbonized bamboo with ramie and tencel (tencel is man
made from cellulose, but different from rayon). These fibers are easy
enough to find, it is finding a really good price that is the difficult
bit. I am also looking for a nice big stick to use as a distaff for
these long fibers. I may just get a dowel and see if one of the
woodworkers in my life can build a stand to get it high enough off the
floor for me. Maybe I will get lucky and find a warped pool cue at a
yard sale, that would work a treat.

I am babbling again, a sure sign of madness. Like you needed a sign! lol!

NightMist

[Bobbie Sews More]

"Polly Esther" <Poll...@cableone.net> wrote in message
news:b24omp...@mid.individual.net...

> Real hermits have gators to assure privacy. I don't know if any of ours
> would consider cave-dwelling but I could ask. Polly

I've been thinking about the gators in FL that go through a large concrete
pipe to get to other bodies of water. If Polly's gators won't come guard
your cave, then I'll check with mine about spending some time with you!
Will you also need owls & buzzards to be there? You will really need
something to clean up any messy intruders.
Barbara in SC, but will be visiting FL in a week or so to check on the above
"pets."