A is for Aardvark

Tilly Bud over at the Laughing Housewife says many bloggers are doing their alphabets in their blogs.  I thought I would try it too, but fear anger if I drift into politics or other topics that are not pleasant. (Whew!! politics starts with a “P” so I won’t go there). 

Tilly plunged right in with anger, but I try not to go there either. 

Image via Wikipedia

I find anger is tied to my perceptions, and if I look at my perceptions, I might not get angry.  Anger is bad for my blood pressure.  When I had a stroke, I was complaining about a boss I didn’t like, and still don’t like after all these years of reflection.  Fortunately, I was with a co-worker who became a boss later on and who always tensed up if I mentioned the former boss who some of us did not like very much owing to his duplicity and self-serving approach to management.  If I mentioned the old boss, my new boss would began waiting for me to drop over, again.  My new boss was a sensitive guy with a Che Guevara poster in his office (oh-oh). He had concern about my having another stroke on his watch. When I had the first stroke he ran out into the hall and yelled for our co-worker who called the nurse and dialed 911. 

I have not lost my temper since the stroke, although I have been angry.  I have learned how to regulate my anger.

I reminded myself of this when I went searching for books on women’s reproductive rights this morning.  I am assembling the books for my term paper. When you see the indignities women suffered in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, you can become awfully angry. 

No, I am not going to write about the A-word associated with pregnancy. I don’t need to squabble over something I wrote an MA thesis on.  I know all the arguments pro and con, and don’t care to revisit them, although I must do so when I work on this paper.

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Aquilegia Goldfinch

I have begun my annual effort to bankrupt myself buying flowers for spring planting. Surely, I tell myself, I can squeeze yet a few more plants into my garden which is stuffed, full, sated. I swore I would not buy any more plants, but I am weak. So I have ordered the new Aquilegia Goldfinch, a native plant and also known as Columbine. I also ordered a few more Helleborus for shady areas. Several of the established Helleborus are blooming now.  That is my problem.  I get excited about a particular plant when it is blooming, and then like a different plant several months later and try to plant it in the same location. This won’t happen with the Helleborus, however as they are mostly shade lovers and look good almost all year.  I am putting new Coryopsis plants in the sunny bed with the Japanese Anemone which is well established.  We will use the post hole digger to insert the Coryopsis.  The dahlias I had last year have died and I did not dig up the tubers which rot if exposed to freezing temperatures.  I assume it got that cold once or twice this winter, but I may be surprised if new foliage emerges in a spot that looks dead.

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Arthritis, another A-word that has afflicted me more and more as I grow older making gardening a real challenge. Thank goodness I have help. I have an appointment with a back specialist on Tuesday.  He works with my shoulder guy, who only does smaller joints…shoulders, elbows, hands, knees, feet.  “Dr. Hughes is great.” Dr. McConnell tells me as he gives me another cortisone shot in my right shoulder. The disks were deteriorating and the spine arthritic five years ago.

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I could go on with these A-words, but time goes short and I must get back to my books.  I could not read earlier.  Some days my brain clicks away, others it seems to freeze.  This morning, I was slightly frozen. Hopefully I have thawed by now.

Oh yes aardvarks….I think of them because I had a friend named Athalea  Honeycutt who loved aardvarks and cardigan sweaters. Come to think of it, maybe it was my friend Mary who loved aardvarks.  Mary was a serious girl who always gave me a “look” if I strayed off the straight and narrow (like sailing  paper airplanes at Jimmy Fuller who used to tease me in algebra class…”She can’t stay away from boys,” my dad told Miss Neely when the algebra teacher complained). Jimmy did not write notes, but every note Mary wrote was signed with an aardvark.  She called her imaginary friend Ethel.  So Mary, wherever you are, I am alive and well and thinking of you and Ethel this morning.  And Jimmy, I hope you realized your dream to become a psychiatrist. 

Dianne