Cath, etc.

A Close Call

Our fourteen-year-old pup, Scout, survived a close call over Thanksgiving weekend.

He frightened us on Thanksgiving Day by

• vomiting a few times
• not responding to loves or pets whatsoever
• lying like a big ol' lump on the floor in spite of all the guests and commotion around him
• drinking very little and eating even less
• and the ultimate in scary--not snarfing up the few pieces of turkey that we always put in his bowl each year after the Big Meal

Normally these disappear in 2.4 seconds, tops, and it served as the ultimate clue that something was extremely very wrong with our furry friend.

I'm not gonna lie. It seemed like it could be the end.

Or could it have been something that he ate? After Scout's treatable decline last Christmas, we determined that we will not go to extraordinary lengths to save him if death is imminent. For example, if he gets cancer, we will only do what we can to make him comfortable until the end. We won't treat it. He's lived a good, long life. When it's time, it's time. 

But in the face of Scout being the exact opposite of himself on Thanksgiving, we were troubled with the question du jour: Is death imminent? We searched our hearts and determined that we couldn't live with ourselves if we didn't at least find out what was going on with him. So on Friday we took him to the vet.

It was a very long wait as they did their tests. We were very afraid of the outcome. I distracted myself by playing with my new iPhone. Mark focused on Scout.

$650 worth of X-rays, bloodwork, and urinalysis later, it was determined that he needed to stay overnight for rehydration. We'd see how he had responded by morning, then go from there--which was a $350 ultrasound by a specialist. Great. Yet another decision that would prove to test our resolve and all that that could mean. We hoped it wouldn't come to that.

Scout was whisked away to the nether regions of the hospital and we went home without him.

He's in good hands, I told myself. They will take good care of him. We won't have to wake up in the middle of the night to see if he is still breathing.

But still, the only times that Scout is not in our home is when he's gone for the four or so hours every six weeks or so to be groomed. Overnight is supremely strange. I found myself surprised when he wasn't lying by my feet in the TV room. Or instinctively, I'd think I should let him out, then I would have to remember that he wasn't home to be let out.

Knowing how miserable he was in that cage, assuming he'd have to don the Cone of Shame so he wouldn't pull out his lines.  Knowing that he thinks we've abandoned him.

When we got the call the next day saying that he had responded well to the treatment, that he was much more chipper and bright-eyed, I said a silent prayer while at the same time saying to myself so the little sh** ate something that he shouldn't have. It's happened before. Perhaps it will happen again. After all, this is pretty much this dog's MO. And every time it happens it costs us at least $600--and a ton of worry and heartache.

Ahh, dogs.

He's on a bunch of different meds to help clear up whatever has been going on in his tummy, a special bland diet in which I now get to cook for him (rice and eggs, mostly), and we've got to go out with him each time now to be sure he doesn't get into something else he shouldn't.

But I'm arming myself with information as a result. What is it going to look like if Scout is lucky enough to die from old age? His age-related "issues" (incontinence and arthritis) are currently sort of under control, so unless he gets cancer or something else just as awful, which should have symptoms of their own, what will "the end" look like? Here's what systemic organ failure in dogs looks like according to eHow.com under "Common Signs of Organ Failure":

In a dog, each major organ, the heart, kidneys, and the liver, will have its own signs and symptoms of failure. These specific signs of organ failure in a dog, will occur as they are prevalent to a particular organ. However, there are common signs, which will pertain to all dogs experiencing failure of any major organ. These common signs will include vomiting, diarrhea, weakness and loss of appetite.

Which were the exact symptoms he'd had on Thanksgiving.

So, not only did I discover that I wasn't being dramatic this past weekend when it seemed like this could be the end for our beloved Scout, I also learned that when the end is near, we will take him to our compassionate friends at the Lone Peak Veterinary Hospital, and they will help us through the process.

In the meantime, I'm just so glad that my ol' pal is here to live another day.  And while we have survived this close call, I'm sure that another is not far behind. Each one prepares us for the next. As Edward Gibbon says, "I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past."

My lamp is on, and it's lighting the way for my buddy, Scout.

Happy Birthday, Old Pal

Dear Scout,

In your 14 years of living you have been the best kind of friend. You are loyal, you are loving, you are dependable, and you are one of the best listeners I have ever known.

You have brightened our lives with your smile, your amazing ability to catch Frisbees, your love for ice cubes, the rope trick, and your mind-boggling ability to understand English.

The little brother to our two daughters, you have herded them up the stairs before bedtime, nipped at their heels when it's time to go to the bus stop, and allowed them to tease you relentlessly without ever (really) complaining.

You've been an amazing guard dog--protecting us even from our friends--and you've patrolled our yard with meticulous skill, chasing away those pesky cats and their attitudes, various invasive gophers and their bothersome hills, and those annoying hangers-on dogs down the street.

When the agressive magpies move in each spring and squawk at you around the perimeter, thinking they own the joint, you give them the what-for. 

You've had a steady diet of wasps and bees--your flying jalapenos.

Your love for chasing the garbage cans up and down the driveway twice each Thursday--a trick you learned from your mentor, Odie--remains the highlight of your existence even today. And we love that you love it so well.

Because you see, we love to love you. And it's all because we know how much you love us in return.

That's why it doesn't matter so much that you insist on eating the steer manure mixed in with the soil we used to set the patio stones so the moss would grow. That's why we don't mind too terribly that you eat small rocks, sticks, and who-knows-what-else on your nighttime rounds.

That's why we don't bother too much about the fact that you rub your snout all over the TV room couch, eat our dryer gasket--OK, I know, you were just a puppy then, and  it's high time I let that one go--or eat a bunch of grass in an effort to help yourself vomit--which sometimes ends up in our house.

It is, however, exactly why we've been so distressed by your recent decline.

It breaks my heart that you can no longer hear my voice, or anyone's voice, and that your rear legs give out when you try to walk up the stairs.

I worry that you are often incontinent, that you sleep as much as you do, and that sometimes it's all you can do to get yourself up from a sitting position, let alone a lying down one.

It frightens me when I walk past you when you're sleeping and you do not stir. I often watch you, my heartbeat skipping, to see if you're still breathing, like I did today.

We give you your medicine, we massage you at night, we clean up your spills.

Because we love you, Scout, as you love us, and wish that you could stay forever.

I don't know if you'll have another birthday, buddy. We're not even sure you'll last the winter. But since you can't hear me, and because I need to say it, I want to thank you, Scout. You've been the best dog that any family could ever wish to have.

I love you, Scout. May your remaining days, weeks, months--and dare I say--years, treat you with the same kindness with which you have graced our lives.

The Shattering of Mont Vernon

My brother and his family, our PLUs, live here:

 

In a bucolic community:

...in the woods of New Hampshire:

Where there is a village school, a town hall, a fire station, a general store:

...and not much else.

It is birdsong quiet during the day, you can see the Milky Way at night, there are wild turkeys on the sides of the road, and there's a pond around every bend:

There are 18 or fewer children in every classroom, everyone knows everyone else, and when someone is in trouble, the whole town pitches in.

They celebrate Lamson Farm Days in September, the Spring Gala in May, and every Halloween, the entire town gathers on Blood Road for Trick-or-Treating.

 

It's a place where old is new and history is ancient and tradition is plentiful and nature is everywhere.

Where a quiet country road inspires poetry and an orchard offers a bounty of baked goods.

Where twilight lingers, mist hovers, and rain is always in the forecast:

There are farm stands...

 ...and roadside nurseries:

 ...set in dreamlike landscapes like these:

It is idyllic, charming, quaint, and peaceful.

Until early this past Sunday morning, when four teenaged boys broke into a home and stabbed a 42-year-old woman to death in her bed and then attacked her 11-year-old daughter with a machete and left her for dead.

Until four local teenagers decided to burglarize a home vowing to kill anyone who happened to be in the house.

Until four wayward teenagers brutally and senselessly murdered a well-loved nurse, wife, and mother, who leaves behind a traumatized, broken, and survivor-of-a-daughter, and a husband who was away on a business trip at the time.

Until the shattering of Mont Vernon.

If it can happen here, none of us have ever been safe.

Ugh.

My computer has another virus. Oh wait, you didn't know about the first virus, or maybe you did because I got it by clicking on something stupid on Facebook that sent all my FB friends porn. That's a whole other story which has another story attached to it as well. And the fact that you don't know about said story(ies) means that I've been a bad blogger.

Which is part of my *ugh*.

So I've been stuck upstairs in my incredibly neglected office amongst the sad and cluttered relics of my card business on my dinosaur of a computer realizing that it has none of the stuff I'm used to working with/on since I got my laptop almost two years ago and being frustrated because I can't adjust my chair right so I don't get shoulder cramps from using the mouse and I have to wait for-absolute-ever just to wait for it to accomplish the simplest of tasks not to mention the mass amounts of time it needs just to become functional after I boot it up every morning. I haven't had time to clean off the virus because

I've been c-r-a-z-y busy at work, working overtime full-time not part-time at all which makes me wonder if this whole voluntary simplicity thing is for me whatsoever. And while I have had a lot more than usual to do at work--OK, to be fair, a WHOLE LOT more than usual to do at work--I seem to gravitate towards that whole perfectionist, push everything to its limits, and let everything else slip aside kinda mode.

I swear that's where I feel most comfortable. And I hate it when that realization rears its ugly head every so often. Because ultimately it's completely unmanageable and leads me to burn-out.

Ugh.

I had two book club meetings in one week, both of which I put the reading of the book off until the last minute so I was reading non-stop for about 5 days the second week in September. Largely due to the *ugh* that pertains to work.

My father-in-law had surgery and then an emergency rush to the hospital a few days later and I've been worried and concerned about him and my mother-in-law all while having to stay focused with my nose to the grindstone. He's doing better now, thank goodness, but it sure has been hard being so far away, especially when they are having such a difficult time.

I haven't been working out regularly, just about one or two times a week which makes me feel like a slug.

As a result, in spite of losing 14 pounds, it's now only a 12-pound deficit and I'm at a plateau that my body hasn't wanted to bust through in, oh, say, a decade or so.

And every time I write in this blog I feel like I'm just so negative, but I guess anything would feel negative compared to the "bippy" girl I become when I write in the Moxie Fab World.

So I'm just stopping by to say *ugh.* It's been a long month, I couldn't even really tell you where it's gone, because I woke up one day and realized it was fall and I wasn't much aware that summer had come and gone. But then, when I really think about it, September has belonged to my beloved Paper Crafts, where I've been enjoying myself immensely, like when I found this poem in my morning cereal, and developed another Big Idea somewhere as I was walking between Fort and Relation Streets which will reveal itself in the Moxie Fab World beginning tomorrow, and a lovely editorial board meeting with our new Go-to Gals just a couple of days ago.

None of which are *ugh*s whatsoever.

But I didn't include a picture in this blog post. 'Cause my camera batteries all need charging and everything else is on my laptop. Which, as I mentioned, has a virus.

Ugh.

Rant

Dear Grocery Store Checker,

I bought several of these reusable bags at your store. I have two sets. In two colors. One set for each car. So I can be environmentally responsible no matter which vehicle I am driving. For it is, indeed, entirely too much to ask for me to remember to transfer my reusable bags from one car to the next. I'm covering all my environmental bases here. For I do not wish to contribute to putting plastic garbage bags into the ecosystem at this alarming rate nor do I wish to play any part in using up all the resources it takes to manufacture them so that they can be used an average of 20.36 minutes--the time it takes me to put my groceries in the car, drive home, and put them away in my cupboards-- just so they can be put into the ecosystem at said alarming rate.

When I come to your line, I like that you are enthusiastic about my reusable bags. You take them cheerfully, setting one up for my fruits and veggies and you set aside the rest for all the rest. You are apologetic when you forget my $.05 cent refund per each and grateful when I tell you that it's fine, I'm just glad I've saved a plastic tree or two. Then you laugh a little, and I feel good about having brought a little cheer to your day. It's like we have a relationship, you and I, for that one little minute, even though I've been in your line a thousand times and you still need to ask for my ID. But that's another discussion.

I'm writing you today to encourage you to think a little bit about why your customers are using reusable bags. Remember, I bought the reusable bags so I wouldn't use plastic anymore. Right? When you put only 3-4 items in each of my reusable bags (like you do with the plastic kind) and then have to resort to additional paper or plastic bags for what's left over, you are missing the point entirely. The reusable bags I purchased are sturdy--because they are--what was that? Oh yes--reusable. You can put all kinds of canned goods in one bag, you know, lots of heavy stuff, and while I may need to use two hands to carry the bag inside my home, that beats the alternative.

Also, if something already comes in a handy container that's easily carried--like a six-pack of beer, milk, or a turkey--I don't need a bag to help me carry it. It already comes with a handle.

And while I appreciate that you have many fussy patrons who would like their meat bagged and double-bagged, even bagged separately from their other groceries, I'm just not that finicky. I don't get all bent if my perma-sealed chicken touches my refried beans. I'll be lucky if I can get that chicken out of its plastic sheath when I get home without losing an eye. Besides, if I choose a piece of meat that happens to be a little leaky, I do grab one of those recyclable vegetable bags you've got up there so it's not bleeding all over the entire place. If it's not leaky, then I figure the package it's in is good enough. Same thing with toiletries, cleaning products, and fruits and vegetables. If it doesn't come in its own skin, I've already protected it with one of those thin little see-through bags, which I will bring back to the store to reuse on my next trip...unless, of course, they contained something leaky.

In fact, by not understanding all these nuances behind the reason why I take care to bring you my reusable bags, you've created a whole new grocery-cart-emptying behavior. When I take my groceries out of my cart, I am careful to make eye contact with you and mention that my meat does not need to be placed in a separate plastic bag and hope that you'll convey that message to the bagger. When I see that he has not understood, then I've got to communicate it again, which makes me feel a little bit high maintenance and a lot whiney. When the six-pack of beer or the milk goes by, I've got to grab it before it gets into the bagger's hands, so now I'm feeling a little territorial and predatory. When the tiny bottle of aspirin I bought is about to be "wrapped," I'll feel obliged to say, "No thank you. I don't need an additional bag. The package it comes in is just fine." Unless of course I've had to intercept the bagger an annoyingly high number of times beforehand, in which case, I might just let that aspirin get wrapped in its own, special, protective plastic shell so it doesn't taint the rest of its little grocery friends. Which just makes me cranky.

For really, when we go to the grocery store we buy just as much packaging as we do food. And while I realize that we have to have ways to contain and convey the food we consume, we all really should be thinking about the tremendous amount of resources it takes to get the food we eat to the table.

Thanks for listening,

Cath Edvalson~a patron who's just trying to save a few plastic trees

So I Took This Class on Voluntary Simplicity...

It all started sometime around the time when Nicole graduated from college a year ago right about now.

Actually, it started way before that, when Nicole decided to be an environmental studies major, and actually it really started way way way before that when my mom would garden and make my clothes and find ways to stretch a pound of hamburger for a hungry family of five with 3 teenagers--but for the purposes of this blog post, we'll start at last May.

In our proud moment of knowing that we had helped to launch a college graduate into the world, there was a tremendous sense of relief.

For it seems as though we had been planning and saving and sacrificing and supporting Nicole and her dreams--and our dreams for her--since the very beginning.

We worked very hard. We saved. We stayed out of debt. We didn't fill our lives with a buncha stuff that we didn't really need. And all (OK maybe not all, but a lot) for that oh-so-important piece of paper and the opportunities it would provide her.

While Nicole was toiling through her senior year, Beccah was just beginning her journey towards her goals as a college freshman. It was the one year we had been dreading financially, well, pretty much since the day I did the math early on and realized that we would have two kids in college for one year, if all went according to plan. So, once we had cleared away the debt with which I came to our marriage, Mark and I started saving for our daughters' educations.

It was a lofty, far-in-the-future period of time that became part of the present and then a memory in the past much too quickly.

But once the dreaded year of two girls in college had passed, we were in a position to re-evaluate our prirorities.

This is where the class on voluntary simplicity comes in. Nicole works at the Utah Society for Environmental Education and they are an amazing non-profit organization that works to bring the environment into the dialogue of the community and environmental programs into the state's classrooms. As part of their mission, they offer classes that bring environmental issues to the fore, one of which is this class we took on voluntary simplicity.

The literal definition of voluntary simplicity is to "choose to live a simpler life." It's all about minimizing the things that take us out of enjoying our lives and maximizing the things that do. Of course, things like making a living, taking care of ourselves and our loved ones, and maintaining our living spaces can take up a great deal of time and energy.

For more on what voluntary simplicity is all about, click here.

The quote by Hans Hoffman on the cover of the booklet we read and discussed in the class says, "The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."

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Ironically, the trick is learning which parts of your life are the necessary ones, and which are the unnecessary ones getting in the way.

Throughout the course of the class we were asking ourselves questions like:

• How much money do we need to make in order to be happy?

• What does work mean to us and what is its purpose in our lives?

• Do we have the time, and maybe more importantly, do we have the energy, to do the things we truly enjoy?

• Could we live more with less?

My answers? As follows:

• How much money do I need to make in order to be happy? We are very, very fortunate in that we could be happy making less money. We would have to cut back, sacrifices would need to be made, but we could be happy.

• What does work mean to me and what is its purpose in my life? For me, work is all about contributing to something greater than myself, being creative and engaging my brain in ways that are meaningful to me, interacting with people I care about and who also care about me, and to feel that I am helping to make the world spin a little more smoothly by bringing joy in the form of the product I help create and finding joy in the people I get to know through that product. If I were in it for the money, I'd be doing something else.

• Do you have the time, and maybe more importantly, do you have the energy, to do the things you truly enjoy? As much as I love my job, it completely drains me. Like many of you, I arrive home utterly exhausted with not much left to give. It's the age-old argument, can any of us really have it all? For me, I would like to be able to spend more time with my family and friends, hike more, write more, garden more, cook more, entertain more, and to stay on top of household tasks and errands better. Like most of us, I'm sure, I'd like to be able to breathe a little slower and enjoy a little faster.

• Could you live more with less? Yes. I could. Emphasis on live more.

Mark and I agonized over these issues. We talked as honestly with one another as we ever have. We looked at all the scenarios.

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Bottom line: Mark is the main bread-winner in our family. If we were going to make any changes, it would not be with him. But if we made changes with my job, he would benefit greatly from the time and energy I could commit to tasks that would take pressure off of him at home.

The other bottom line: I love what I do as creative editor at Paper Crafts magazine. I didn't want to quit. If I learned anything from looking hard at the answers to the aforementioned questions, it was that the work that I'm currently doing is extremely important to me.

 

Underscoring the point: The economy. What if Mark got laid off? What if the economy continued to tank beyond what it has already done? How could we even be considering such a thing in such a volatile time? And as we continued to explore our values, we began to realize that we are considering this because it is such a volatile time. The rise in gas prices last summer, the plummet of the stock market in the past few months, and the lay-offs that we all have been mourning have, in fact, caused us to take this very hard look at our priorities.

I decided to approach my editor-in-chief, Jennifer Schaerer, to see  if I had any options.

She listened. She nodded her head in understanding. She was more receptive than I could have imagined, although I shouldn't have been surprised because bottom line: she is an excellent manager who is very tuned in to her people and will do what she can to make them happy in their lives because she knows she will get better work from them in the long run.

Did I have any options? It turns out that I absolutely do.

Effective May 1, I began a 24-hour work week. I continue to perform the tasks essential to being the creative editor at Paper Crafts which entails, among other things, overseeing the content in the magazines we produce, writing and sending out the calls for submission, trend-watching to keep our publications fresh, overseeing the content for the PC101 column, writing the Moxie Fabs column, and hosting the Moxie Fab World blog.

My esteemed colleague, Susan R. Opel, has received a promotion in the bargain, as she will be performing the tasks that I will no longer have time to do, mainly overseeing submissions judgings, sending out acceptances, and following through with designers in the project-acquiring phase of magazine building. She is a rock star.

I am very happy that my need to cut back turned into a good thing for my dear friend, Susan.

I am very grateful to have a flexible, open-minded boss and a supportive team.

I am grateful to have an opportunity to be a more attentive wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, and in many respects, creative editor.

I am very grateful to have taken this journey with my husband and life-partner, for together we are stronger in our purpose.

I am very grateful to have the chance to live a simpler life.

If It's Not One Thing, It's a Dozen

 

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In November, we needed to get our 1998 Honda Accord inspected. The "check engine" light had been on since a couple of days after it passed inspection the year before. We'd been driving on a prayer for just this shy of a year.

So, we took it in to the shop, thinking that it needed a new catalytic converter.

It actually needed a new purge control valve on the fuel cansiter. The shop ordered the part. The wrong part came in. They had had our car for a week.

We picked it up for the weekend and took it back on Monday.

It cost us $200 and the "check engine" light came back on immediately. They had had our car for a total of two weeks. Needless to say, we won't be going there again.

Took it to the dealer, they fixed it for real, it cost us $250, but the light stayed off. They had our car for three days.

The clutch started making horrid noises sometime in February. Took the car in to a different shop. It needed $2400 worth of new transmission. They had our car for a week.

After a few days of driving, 3rd gear was grabbing, so we took it back in, they fixed it on warranty. They had our car for another week.

The engine light came back on the next day. The code says that it needs a new catlytic coverter.

Ugh.

This morning I loaded up the dishwasher and pushed the button to start the cycle. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Apparently we're in the market for a new dishwasher now, as soon as we finish washing all the dishes in the old one.

And on top of it all, our main floor bathroom is under construction. We haven't had a sink for a about six weeks. Last weekend the toilet came out. After ripping out the tile, we discovered we'll also need a new sub-floor.

We're a mess. But I still don't have a car payment, I've been wishing for my dishwasher to break for a couple of years now, and the bathroom will be pretty when it's finished.  :)

We're hangin' in there. If it's not one thing it's a dozen. I think by now we're up to about 13.

If Prayers Were Butterflies

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If prayers were butterflies I'd build you a menagerie with my own two hands

With mitered corners, solid soldering, leaded glass, its framing painted as white as the snow

As each prayer is uttered, this garden of nectar would fill with monarchs and swallowtails and painted ladies and Karner blues

Who would flit from one dewy blossom to another, drinking in the nourishment that sustains them

Each one shimmering with the grace and beauty contained within the heartfelt entreaty that was its creation.

On cloudy days (such as this one), you could enter the conservatory, sit upon the sturdy bench I crafted especially for  you

Lean against its embroidered cushions, sip the glass of red I placed nearby, while noticing the handkerchief with a fine crocheted edge

With your name stitched in cursive in the corner.

It is there for all  the tears you have not yet shed

While the butterflies approach, one by one, each leaving its kiss on your cheek

A soft, hopeful whisper,

An appeal for wholeness,

The nourishment you need to sustain you--

A prayer bestowed by a butterfly.

15 Things: Comfort in the Strength of Our Gifts

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1. I'm starting to feel as though Winter's grip upon me is lessening I know this has been a common theme this week I wasn't kidding when I told you about the mold
2. After 30+ I-got-nothing minutes staring at a blank screen last night here on Cath, etc. trying to conjure up something, anything--I have been mired in winter's block
3. I woke to a mind bursting with ideas and inspiration, propelling me like a run-away truck through the day and into the evening, even now my patient boss Jennifer bearing with me my lightbulb moments
4. As I ponder this, my 200th post I never knew how much this world would come to mean to me
5. Sanctuary in a crowded space with many distractions so many interesting things to pursue!
6. I find myself most in this
7. As the economy tanks how long is this going to go on I'm starting to think that there's no one left yet untouched
8. And businesses are restructured it's such a difficult time
9. And friends try to find meaning  it's always most dark before dawn
10. In situations beyond our control it's all so far beyond our control.
11. But in the midst of it all, it does feel as though spring might be coming sing to the rafters the light is returning
12. There is a sense of lilt, a hint at lightness, a lifting of spirit
13. That was noticeably detected even by my husband today I could feel his optimism the moment I walked through the door 
14. A sense that even in this proverbial darkness, we will find the light. Does it feel to you as if we may find light?
15. I'm just hoping that, in the end, we can all find the light together for there is light in the connections between us and comfort in the strength of our gifts.

Deliverance

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I start growing mold sometime right around February.

By now I'm starting to disperse spores.

Winter's blanket, tight, wet, and heavy, envelops me in a sheath of rankish darkness as I squint in what light there is before 7 am, my breath a lonely ghost, humidified.

In spite of the dank stillness, my fingernails crack and split. I wonder will they ever be the same?

The mold settles in gradually, as it is wont to do, attaching itself to the folds in my neck, beneath my cuticles, behind my ears. It grows slowly as the days lengthen by the smallest of fractions, the sun a stranger in its frigid horizon. And through the sun's abandonment, the mold creeps ever closer, crawling inside, inching towards my brain--its pervasive grip, smothering.

It does not smell, this moldy crust, and I am grateful for that. But don't let that fool you. Its powers lie elsewhere.

As it feeds, it secretes anxiety and an unknown chemical that causes colors to dim. It initiates a general malaise that is followed by entropy which in turn causes more of the vitriolic fungi to multiply and strengthen its grip.

In it, a vicious, turbulent, downward cycle full of vinegar and venom.

Until today.

When I felt the endorphin rush of a good, energetic workout, the release in a good conversation with a close friend, and the implied warmth of a bright, dependable sun shining brilliantly in a robin's egg sky.

8 more days of February. 8 more days until the promise of spring and the hope that is sunlight.

8 more days until deliverance.