Thursday, June 04, 2009

Wednesday: Achiness and Fox

After the grayness of early morning burned off, another fine sunny day in Casco Bay. Husband and I took the dog for
a walk along Hamilton Beach after breakfast. The tide was high (but going out). The eiders and the heron all were
someplace else. The clearness of the bay held me enraptured. Taking off my dog mom hat, I dipped it in the bay and
then put it back on my head. "Why?" asked husband. "Is that symbolic of something?" I smiled as my feet struggled
for purchase on the rocks littering the southern half of the beach. "Nope. Just feels good."

The dog happily dashed all over the beach, snuck in a few quick swims when she thought we weren't looking, tried
to wrestle a large log out of husband's grasp. (He collects driftwood for firewood). There were no other dogs on
the beach today (the various labs that come during the summer hadn't arrived yet) so she contented herself by playing
with us instead. A lobsterboat went by and one lone comorant. The wake from the boat didn't reach the shore til it
was round the bend and out of our line of vision. The dog danced happily into the artificial waves.

We stopped to say hello to a neighbor across the way and then after a bit husband and I went off to the library book
sale. Himself got a book of New Yorker political cartoons and a Robert Parker novel. I picked up a copy of "Reading
Lolita in Tetran," and another book by a company mover and shaker turned blogger. I used the library computer to
hurriedly check my e-mails. Friend Ei had gone to the Bahamas to an ashram and she is now certified to teach Yoga.
You go gal! She's offered to show me some meditative yoga for the body aches and I may take her up on that. It is
the increase in endorphins that provide pain relief-- which is why meditation, craftwork, movement, sex all help with
pain management. My problem is that I want to know why I am having the aches. Is it a fibro flare-up? (I don't
take any pain meds for mine and consider myself fortunate that my fibro is mild enough to where I don't have to. And
fibro to me is sort of like an arthritis of the muscles. Doctors tend to blame the patients because often fibro is
severely painful and thus people want pain meds that actually work.) If not fibro, are the degenerative discs in
my back worsening? Is it the over age fifty arthritis thing that most people get? Or? Or? Or? (This is what comes
of reading Medscape for a hobby).

Actually I have a yen to go sailing on a boat, on a whale watch, or perhaps take a cruise somewheres. There is no
sailboat that we have access to, even up here. I require a second and possibly a third driver to get to the places
where a whalewatch can be had. (Interested, Ei? Maybe me, you, your daughter, a friend or two perhaps sometime this
summer or fall?) And as far as a cruise goes right now-- some rich unknown relative would have to die and leave me
a shitload of money. In other words, I am not holding my breath. I love water-- mother ocean, bays, backwashes,
lakes, creeks, waterfalls-- particularly if it is cold water that I am able to swim in. I swim like a fish, always
have. I can float on my back for hours and even fall asleep that way. I am more of an endurance/distance swimmer
rather than speed. But I enjoy water. As a kid once my mother and step-dad rented a sailboat and we went sailing on
the ocean near Lavallette New Jersey. That was a happy day. I can still feel the wind and the sun on my face,
remember the white hooded sweatshirt I wore, the orange life vest. I've been on a few boats since-- two cruise ships,
one row boat with a sail and a 5 mpg putt-putt motor on the Sacandaga with my old friend Kenny and then his secondhand
houseboat, and a neighbor's sloop up here in Casco Bay. Reading about the desert over the past fortnight has made me
thirsty for water. I sent off a few e-mails on the crappy connection that the library has and then we were off to a
late lunch. Since the grocery store was closed, we went to Calder's for a fish fry and onion rings.

On our way back, my eye was drawn to a reddish canid under someone's birdfeeder. Upon closer inspection, it turned
out to be a young fox, a kit determinedly eating-- I don't know if it was seeds on the ground from the bird feeder
or a corpse-- something. I was close enough to her where I could hear her crunching. The kit had red down her back
to the end of her tail which was white and four black stockinged feet. She had the sharp chin, the whiskers, the
bright dark eyes. She watched us watching her. The owner of the house came up from the back. He said the kit and
one slightly larger kit have been coming to the feeder. He hadn't seen the mother fox lately and said he didn't
"know what happened to her." He had seen both kits run off to the wooded lots across the road and he suspected the
den was probably in there somewheres. Although a neighbor or two had encouraged him to feed the baby foxes, he was
having none of that. I figured he was right on that account.

Another lazy evening here at the cottage (quesadillas for dinner), a walk for me and the dog, some reading time, bed.

No comments: