A Little Bit 'O Mothers Wisdom

On this Sunday mornin' fer ya. (In case you were wondering, I affected a Welsh accent for that part but since all my accents come out sounding like an Indian/German mix, I only spelled in a Welsh accent. And since I don't actually know what a Welsh accent is, I REALLY only wrote in an unknown accent, then labeled it as Welsh.) OK with that bit 'o book keeping out of the way, let's move on.

I am on day 3 of a raging, angry infernal bacterial infection. The differences between a viral and bacterial infection are, 1. bacteria generally requires antibiotics and 2. They make me hurt in every conceivable place. Also, if you google bacterial infections you'll learn that they can poison your blood and kill you. If you Google them after you've already googled the side effects of Bactrim (Or whatever antibiotic you've been prescribed) aye yai yai....forget it. You're doomed. Which leads me to Motherly Wisdom Nugget #1: A Little Information can be A Lot of Trouble. I know there's a cliche there but I can't remember it. If a half a percent of people report a flesh eating bacteria reaction from a certain infection, it's going on the side effects. It doesn't mean you're going to get it or even need to know about. But if you read it, the next 5 or ten days are going to be filled with hyper vigilant monitoring. And that, in a nutshell, is me. It's almost guaranteed that if I read a side effect I will have it. Within minutes.

So, I asked my Mom for some help. My mom believes that you get more of what you focus on and what you focus on effects the landscape of your existence. For example, if you look at the glass as half empty, you see lack and emptiness and that colors your world. If, however, you see the glass as half full, then you have something and you are grateful and fulfilled. Over simplified, yes. But Already I can hear the kids waging war upstairs. So, she told me instead of focusing my attention on how many bad things could happen to me, to visualize the Bactrum coming in like stormtroopers and slashing the little green bacteria throats. And to imagine the Bactrum rescuing my poor POW immune system and they get together and fight.

Say what you want. It's day three and I feel the wind turn. I'm stiff and aching from being locked into a fetal position for 36 hours, but I can feel the white army winning. And I didn't spend it scared. At least not all of it. At the very least, I'm not scared of the antibiotics anymore and that's a big thing since I'm pill-phobic. And I think I'm pill phobic because I'm Elvis reincarnated. But that's a story for another day.

I'm one hot mama. My doctor said so. According to her, I've had a fever for the last year. Yesterday on the boat we ran over what was probably the corpse of a mob hit. It was dark, it could have been a stick, but my bets are on the corpse theory. Also, my dog learned how to speak good morning. It's slightly disturbing. She just said it and it's four in the afternoon. For Pete's sake, Bambi, learn how to tell time or shut the hell up, right?

I have been so STINKING GREEN this year. First of all, we bought rain barrels and attached them to our gutters so we could conserve water and still have a garden. We switched all our lightbulbs and faucets to conserve water and electricity and I've used the clothes drier ONCE since May. Two loads of laundry a day go out on the line to dry in the sunlight. And we've been buying all of our produce local and I've been riding my bike more to go places (with the little ricksaw on the back toting the yunguns.) I've attached the TV's and computers to power strips that I switch off when we aren't using them The only ungreen thing we do is pollute Lake Whitehall with our motorboat twice a week. But that boat is so darned fun! I can't believe I used to hate it. Last night we took sandwiches out to the middle of the lake and drifted while we ate and the sun sank behind a pillow of pinkness. At one point the surface of the water - which turns into glass at sunrise and sunset - bubbled as if there were a diver beneath the surface. The bubbling continued, some fifteen feet away from us, for about two minutes then stopped. I've no explanation for it at all except that the swamp thing was about to come out but saw our boat and thought better of it. Thank God for that because the swap thing scares the shanizzle out of me. I'd tangle with a lot of things but "Swamps" not one of them. Today is 8-4. I wonder if something magical will happen. I expect so since I dreamed about my dad and a pegasus and a little bitty fat turtle. So now I'm off to water everybody's gardens. I am the keeper of the green. PTCakes garden is the garden of a scientist, organized and full of the products of a brilliant mind. My mom's is the garden of an artist, lush and trailing and colorful. Peace.