You Won't catch Me Up There Anytime Soon

This is some of the exciting debris generated by the work that Bob and our good friend Don and his son Nigel did on our roof. A month or so back, Don was generous enough to volunteer his (and Nigels!) talents in the aerial repairs department. Of course, luck would decree that the days they decided to do the much needed re-flashing of our dormer were incredibly hot and unpleasant. But fortunately, what they budgeted three days for completion took only several hours...
I had forbidden Bob from going up on the roof. Maybe I'm nuts, but just think of the fate of Glenn Seator (did I spell his name correctly?) A Brooklyn based artist that fell to his untimely death while performing roof repairs! And after my peculiar foray into the "household accident" department, I am none too sanguine about displays of derring-do.
But the necessary work was done and we can breath easier when it rains. We can also begin some of the interior repairs that were linked to a dormer leak. (Remember that moldy blog entry several lifetimes ago?)
Here's another detail of the attractive camo tarp that was a feature of our roof. Good riddance!

Thanks again to Don and Nigel. We owe them a return on the favor, but you won't catch me offering to help with roof issues. (I am really afraid of heights.) The carport roof is as far as I venture and even that felt too high by half.

Remember Me? An Almost Normal Posting...

We actually managed to complete the digging of the new flower beds. This excites me as there are many things I con't do really well at present due to eye-ball adventures and mishaps. Alas!
But I did relate that I was able to de-sod the above area and in the final stretch, Bob pitched in and with Jules barking at rocks, the three of us made light work of finishing the basic initial layout. This makes me happy because it rained (finally) and I can transplant in some of my perennials. Interestingly, I often garden with many annuals and this year will present a reversal. I haven't been able to start things from seed and then have been too preoccupied to purchase annuals to edge and fill in (plus I would have had to babysit them in six packs) and now it's the beginning of June and what's left at the garden centers???!!
Gardening is always like that...
The other interesting factor in laying out these first beds is that I chose to make them really geometric. We'll see if I go wiggly in the future. But somehow, as there was nothing "organic" to start with- no trees, or walls, or walkways or pre-existing gardens- no nothing!- it seemed to me I needed to preordain a bit of strict order. I'm sure they will evolve from here!

Last in an Interminable String of Hallucinations!

And then I dreamt that I was a little girl, about seven or eight in a really remote Southern outback. There was a clearing, ringed all around by a vast swmp (the Everglades?) And in the middle of the clearing was a broken down rusted out pick up truck and  a very ramshackle tower that was barely standing. It was made of scraps of plywood and particle board and it was open on a couple sides. there was a ladder in the interior; I think this structure was used as a lookout for hunting or to see if anyone was coming. I was all alone and sort of trying to entertain myself, humming and picking up sticks. I was pretty lonely and aware of that. I looked out one of the openings and I saw a bear. I was scared so I began to call out, hoping someone would hear and schase the bear off. A few minutes went by and then I realized I wasn't alone; there was a young man, (somewhere between 15 to 20 years old?) but he wasn't helping. He looked disgusted and was talking under his breath like it really plagued him thta he had to take care of me or watch me. I was as afraid of him as I was of the bear.

The next thing I knew, someone was hustling me into a car and I was being driven away to a foster home. It had been decided that my family couldn't-or wouldn't- take care of me. I was strangely relieved and yet still frightened as I had no idea where I was going. (I guess I was feeling that no where could have been worse! But they let me take my dog with me; I guess it was the only family member that mattered. She was a large hound type dog.

Remember when my blog was about household fix up? I promise that will return soon. I actually mowed part of the lawn this afternoon. That felt great! Except for drawing a little on the computer, I really can't see well enough to make images in my studio. Let's hope for a speedy eye resolution! (Although, oddly, I feel like I'm seeing a bit better today. Go figure.)

Hallucination #3 (How often do You think about Paul Bunyan?)

(Okay! You can skip this postng if you think other peopl'e s dreams are boring! But you're not stopping me. You have to indulge the wounded warrior! But I think drug/me inspired dreams are different.)
I dreamed thta I went to look at a studio for rent. The buiding itself wasn't any great shakes, but the studio was cheap and had clean sheet-rocked walls with windows up high. In short, it was okay and seemed private. I think there were three or four other spaces available in the same building.
So I went outside with the woman who was showing me the studio and althought it was night time (in my dream as well as "real" time) the sky was all sort of lit up and a funny yellowish color; the way it sometimes looks if it's going to snow and it was cold. We were standing in a space between the studio building and a two story colonial looking house.
I asked the woman, "Are there any spooks or ghosts in this building>" She said, "No but Paul Bunyan does hang out here often". I looked up past the roof of the house and there was a man- no doubt Paul Bunyan!- about sixty feet tal and leaning on the roof of the house. He was wearing a big plaid shirt and a gigantic dark blue knit hat. (He llooked like the guy on the "Brawny" paper towel package before they "redid" him.)
He looked friendly enough, sort of smiling and leaning on crossed forearms; I'm not sure if I rented the studio or not.

More Visions!

The dreams just kept coming! I had this equally detailed dream the next night that I was friends with a Marie Antoinette-type person; a totally debauched, teenaged wealthy and/or royally connected young woman. We were all dressed in the height of fashion (for the eighteenth century) with sumptuous velvet and embridered gowns- no! creations. We were laced and corsetted and draped and arranged such that we could barely move throughout the apartments, but boy were we dressed! The rooms in my dream were very tall- like 15 foot ceilings, but not wide across so that alot of the space was narrowly vertical. The walls and giant doorways were adorned as much as us: there were elaborate burgundy and pumpking colored tapestries and woodwork. It was like living in a wedding cake.
We were apparently bored and stoned and we were looking for trouble. We had brought goats and large birds (some kind of emus or ostriches) indoors and we watching them try to climb on the furniture, which we had piled up on top of each other. And on top of these piles of animals and chairs and tables, we had placed some children of the "hired help". We were making the children into lamps by forcing them to hold candles and light bulbs in theire hands and on their heads. It was pretty splendid and really terrible!

Visual Interlude #1 (and Hallucinatory Story #1)

(I've decided that I need some sort of creative outlet while my eye heals. I can't really focus close up (or far away!) so maybe drawing on the computer is the answer. So here's offering #1. (I think I was influenced by that Tommy Bahama shower curtain we have, featured in a previos blog post).
Anyway, some fortunate combination of eye drops, pills, pain killers and anesthesia gases has prompted some very deep sleeps and some very odd "dreams". It started with the dream that looked like an early sixties French film...
I was at the beach, but in France in the early sixties. Somehow I was both watching this dream, and in it at the same time. Many people were walking on the boardwalk, all dressed in very stylish knee skimming skirts with large polka dots and lots of giant Jackie-O sunglasses with chiffon scraves in ice cream colors. Handbags on short strpas draped over forearms but with those elbow length gloves that ladies used to wear. The men were wearing fedoras and suits (remember: we're at the beach) with slim legged suit pants and their lapels were edged in contrasting colors. In brief, ebveryone was dressed to the nines. Large cars with fins were gliding past. There was an odd slowness to the way people were moving, sort of like we were all moving through a kind of medium, like the air was made of vaseline or jello. (Could be I'm seeing blurry...)
And then there was a man who somehow stopped time. He made a gesture or blinked his eyes and everyone was frozen in place except for him... and me. I somehow saw him and what he was doing. He wasn't aware of me observing him so he created miniature disasters, like knocking people's drinks over so they spilled on their perfectly confected clothes. He took several eggs and scrambled them together slightly and poured them on a woman's table so that her arm was coated in yolk. He kept performing tiny destuctive acts and then the affected people would wake up to these small transgressions, utterly unsure of what had happened and how. I guess I was like an overarching conscience, observing but not judging. The dream just looked great: so classically stylish and modern, in the best sense of the word.

Pah-Thetic (Puh-Thetic?) Any Guesses on Spelling?

All is not lost! I have discovered one thing that I can do that isn't too reliant upon good eye sight! I am able to sit on the ground and carefully peel away the sod from where I want flower beds. I don't exert any actual physical effort (I'm not supposed to lift anything heavier than ten pounds), I don't actually move the sods or rocks- just sort of leave them in demi-mounds to be carted away by others (Bob and Jules) and I don't even have to look carefully at what I'm removing as it's just grass. I've been a bit stir crazy and there are so many things I CAN'T do that locating one wholesome activity has saved me. And don't you worry. I have on an eye patch along with safety glasses!! But this picture is sort of pathetic, no? It's gardening for third world nomads on the steppes of Russia...