Yes, dear readers, there is, indeed, phuckery afoot… And if you find some, you can blame it on all the crazy shit we’ve had going on in April. There was a pretty hefty earthquake in New Jersey (that’s unusual) a few days before a total solar eclipse ran across the east coast, which hasn’t happened in well over 100 years and Mercury is in retrograde. I know… A lot of people think that kind of thing is bullshit, just like they think people acting crazy during a full moon is crazy. All I can say is, go work in a nursing home for a while. You’ll know when it’s a full moon without needing a calendar to tell you so. They all act like lunatics every month the night of the full moon and there’s no explanation for it. Just as there’s no explanation for retrograde behaviors…

So I’ve been on hiatus for a while again, but it’s not without reason… I hadn’t been feeling very well for a few months and it was getting worse after TJ moved into his own place until one day I felt so bad I had someone insist upon taking me to the urgent care. They did an EKG and, as I knew, my T waves were abnormal as they’ve been for about a decade (no surprise there, whatever it is they do). But my Q waves were also off, so the doctor wanted me to go to the ER. I was willing to go by squad as she suggested, but I think she still felt the need to scare the shit out of me, “If you don’t do this, you could die!” Jesus Christ, doc, dial it back a few notches, I already said I’d go by squad, good grief! My stuff at the ER (EKG and bloodwork) were a bit off but I wasn’t in immediate danger, so I was sent home and told to follow up with my cardiologist.

The day I had my appointment, I stopped in the hippie dippy store because I had something to drop off to the owner. I casually told her what was going on so as not to play the “pity me” card (something I loathe). She could tell I was scared, though… I did a bit of shopping (this gorgeous necklace being one of my finds) and before I left she asked if I wanted her to do a quick healing, so I said yes. I won’t turn that down. Any help I could get I was going to take.

She also gave me this pink quartz heart (for free) for my heart… I was so touched by this act of kindness that I held it in my hand all the way to my appointment and also all the way through my appointment and the EKG they did. Now… I know the nurse practitioner I saw doesn’t trust the ER because she said they don’t always get the electrodes in exactly the right place (you’d think they would with being an ER) on the EKG, so she ran one again. It literally showed not only no issues with my Q waves but also none with my T waves when they’ve been messed up for a decade at least. Coincidence? I don’t think so… You can’t tell me different people in the ER, the nurses at my GP’s office and all the people my cardiologist’s office were all wrong and only this one guy who did my EKG that day is the only one who knows how to do it correctly. In fact, the only thing wrong on it was that my heart rate was one beat slower than the lowest they’d like it to be, which is no big deal. But I was puzzled as to how my EKG could just magically be fine. She told me stress could have caused all those issues with my waves being off (I asked), but I really didn’t fee any less stressed then than I did before walking in that door. So you can call it bullshit if you want, but whatever it was the hippie dippy lady did, it seems to have actually worked! I wasn’t much of a believer in that aspect, but I can’t deny it now…

As I said, I have been pretty stressed since TJ moved into his own place. I feel bad for him… He moved back here because he missed home and I’m the only one that bothers with him. His father, the Sponge, still wants nothing to do with him. He’s been struggling and I’m the only one who can help him and I don’t have the means to myself. Morticia went through this period where she started calling me again. Of course this was during a period of bad health again,,, And instead of doing something about it, she was calling all her friends looking for pity, which none of them would give it to her. Understandably, every single one of them didn’t want to hop on board the pity train and told her to see a doctor, which she already had. Why she called me, I’ll never know. She knows I don’t give her pity and I tell her flat out her doctor is a quack. Edema in your legs that bad can mean a plethora of issues, none of them good. But her doctor knew it wasn’t congestive heart failure by taking her vitals… You can’t tell by that! You need an EKG and specialized blood work to check a certain heart enzyme for that, none of which was done. I told her to get a new doctor as that office was the same one my great aunt and late brother-in-law went to. Guess what killed them both…?

I’ve also been having some strange visitors… It started with the female cardinal (above and her mate you can see as a speck of red through the branches). She came every day, now several times every day, to cheep loudly and peck at the window like she’s knocking. She won’t stop until I get up, go to the window and acknowledge her. At first, everyone thought she could see her reflection, but I didn’t but that… This window is behind an overgrown arborvitae. It gets little sun back there and, as you can see, the window is filthy from the snow and tree gunk I haven’t ventured back to wash off yet (it’s just now starting to get warm enough to bother). So I opened the sheer curtain to see if it would deter her. Nope… That’s when she started coming multiple times a day. She’s my “peeping tom”, always looking in the window like she wants to know what we’re up to. Then, just.a few mornings ago, I heard a very distinct coo from the outside of the AC unit. I jumped up and looked out the window and, sure enough, there was a mourning dove and his mate! I was so excited! I told them it was a safe place to nest here and I think they’ve done just that because I’ve been hearing the cooing and I’ve seen them a few more times. In fact, I hear one of them now as I type this. It’s so nice!

And heaven help me, I’m turning into my great aunt, the old lady who liked to sit at her kitchen window and watch the birds flock to her feeder… Except I put my feeder out front under the arborvitae since the birds are nesting there (less for the moms to have to travel). I do have one out back, however, outside my kitchen window… It needs a bit of repair before I can start putting feed in it again, but I can see myself being just as nuts. I was when I had it filled last time… “You’ll never believe it, I saw a tufted titmouse today! I haven’t seen one in years!” And yes, I can identify a lot of birds just by looking at them. But on the off chance we get an unusual visitor, I keep my field guide to birds that I used long ago for an 8th grade project in the dining room so it’s handy and ready to look up whatever newcomer I get… Jesus Christ… Have I really turned into that much of a fucking old lady?! Next thing you know I’ll be putting out a bird bath, suet, the works! Don’t get me wrong, I love wildlife and I love that it shows up at my house. But if I turn into a crazy bird lady, I’m going to drown myself in whatever ornate bird bath I buy for the little feathered fuckers…

But enough about birds… Let’s talk about the crazy bird lady herself, hahahaa! So a few things (aside from the fact that I guess my ticker is fine)… I got new glasses! Aren’t they funky?! You know, I’ve had the thicker, plastic frames (of varying types) for probably close to a decade, now. And much as I loved them because of their shapes, I was really getting bored of my last pair and the fact that every time my face got sweaty, they’d slide down my nose and fall off. I was done, I wanted to go back to a pair with nose pads. And I was thinking I wanted round frames again, but whenever I’d gone to places with round frames that I’d tried on for shits and giggles, they looked bad. Thankfully, my eye doctor gets funky frames and these babies caught my eye. I just knew, these were the ones! Even the woman helping me agreed and everyone at the office that saw them loved them! I’ve gotten so many compliments! I do with every pair I get, even from strangers, but this pair really makes me feel great! My only issue is adjusting to how light they feel. It’s like I’m not wearing my glasses. It’s weird…

I also had a birthday a few days ago… Aside from asking for every one of the Animal Crossing LEGO sets (which I did get and build), I had found this on eBay… It’s an original 1977 pressing of Dennis Wilson’s solo album Pacific Ocean Blue… Not many sold back in the day, so if you can even find an original pressing, you’re usually paying a lot of money for it. This one was $76, but I put it on my birthday list because the vinyl looked mint in the pictures. You can’t imagine how surprised I was that this was one of my birthday presents! And one of the first things I did was take it out to inspect the vinyl. “Mint” is actually a poor description of this vinyl… It’s positively virgin!!! It looks as if a needle has never even come within 10 feet of it! It’s so damn beautiful that I was positively beside myself! And I promise you, it’s going to stay that way! I have this album in my iTunes library, so I can hear this masterpiece whenever I want. It would sound richer on vinyl, but I can’t compromise it…

But by far the best birthday gift I got was the one the universe gave me… I’ve always wanted to see a total solar eclipse, but they never come anywhere near where I live. In fact, the last one we experienced was back in the late 1800s! So yeah, we don’t get them often… I would have had to travel quite a few hours to get into the path of totality, but 92.6% was pretty damned close! I knew about this eclipse for over 15 years and it was the only reason I was looking forward to turning 51, because it was going to happen on my actual birthday. How cool is that?! That’s one hell of a present!

As is usual when we get any kind of astronomical event, it turned cloudy… But in a way, that was alright. It gave everyone the opportunity to get pictures, not just people who had special lens covers (thanks to my new neighbors for giving me an extra they had) for their phones. When the sky had a thin enough cloud cover, you could look at and take pictures of the eclipse, so even if you didn’t have glasses like I did, you could still witness something so amazing and beautiful! Plus the cloud covered pictures make it look kind of ominous, like the apocalypse all the Bible thumpers thought was coming because of this eclipse. Seriously… to think that in this day and age when we know what causes them… Unreal…

So I’ll leave you, dear readers, with a picture from my birthday party in my Animal Crossing video game. Zell (the antelope) hosted my party this year, but my best buddy Punchy (the blue cat) was there and so was Kabuki. It was really fun, actually! These are some of my favorite villagers that I adore. What a better way to spend my special day!