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hand-sized
Sunday, August 21 2016
location: Twenty Ninth Pond, Essex County, New York
My guts were better today but I was still not back to normal. My breakfast was a pot of coffee and toast buttered with faux butter, and while the toast seemed to do good things, the coffee did not.
After a cleaning and packing jihad that left the cabin almost the way we'd found it (I also filled all the holes the dogs had dug in the yard), we began our long drive back to Hurley, listening to podcasts along the way. My guts had me feeling nauseated at times, though when I'm in this condition, that's often more of a hunger signal than anything else.
Our only stop on the way back to Hurley was at the Honest Weight Food Co-op in Albany, though it turns out they must have a café by that name near The Egg (in the brutalist North Korean part of Albany), because that was where Google Maps sent us initially. The Honest Weight Food Co-op is a great place to shop, but there is absolutely no shaded parking anywhere near it, so we were forced to leave our car running with the air conditioner on for the benefit of the dogs. We shopped in two stages: first, just to to get something to eat for lunch, and then for provisions to take home. There wasn't much shade available in the outdoor eating area either. I had something of a tempeh bacon sandwich and picked things out of a salad Gretchen had bought.
While back in the store grocery shopping, I kept taking samples from the kombucha tap. The sour ice-cold pro-biotic fluid seemed to be doing wonders for my stomach complaint, so I ended up buying a couple bottles of another kombucha brand.
At some point I went out and checked on the dogs. You never know with a beater car like ours; it could've stalled or something, and then the dogs would be trapped in a car with the windows all rolled up on a somewhat-sunny summer day. But no, the car was still running, the AC seemed to be working, and Terry Gross was nattering on about something from the car stereo.
When we returned to the car with the groceries, both dogs were in the front seat. As usual, to take our seats, we had to direct the dogs to the back. Neville went without any problem, but Ramona was being resistant. I turned around to look and saw a hand-sized puddle of brown glurp containing a few kernels of corn. Ramona didn't want to be near that. Initially I thought it was a puddle of diarrhea, but it had no fragrance as I frantically scooped it away using a crushed beer can and the cardboard core of a depleted toilet paper roll. With a little water at the end there, all traces of that disaster were gone. But then a few miles down the road I spilled water all over Ramona in the process of offering her some to drink, and I felt so bad that I let her lie in my lap for the rest of the ride. Mind you, she weighs somewhere between 60 and 70 pounds.
Back at the house, I felt tired and listless and I kept taking antacids to quell the burn. Eventually I took a nap in the greenhouse so as to avoid the noise from Gretchen's television watching. Celeste (aka "the Baby") was in the greenhouse with me, stretched out on the floor looking adorable. She's friendly and even sweet at times, but she's the least-cuddly cat I've ever lived with.
I went to bed early but then awoke in the night and puttered around on my computer. At some point I noticed I had a hand-sized patch of reduced feeling centered on the outside-middle of my right thigh. A little internet research revealed this to be a symptom of a common problem called Meralgia paraesthetica, caused by a number of things including weight gain, diabetes, and excessively-tight pants.
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