Photographs: December 2008 Archives

It sometimes feels to me as if life has two strands, and that their developmental processes are reversed. The physical strand - the health and strength of the body - deteriorates over time, while the internal life of the mind, spirit, whathaveyou - tends to grow richer over time.

If we're living Twizzlers (or oversized DNA, as I keep picturing it), one of our strands is always in a state of decline, and one is always in a state of growth.

Not sure what to make of that, but I thought I'd put it out there.

My so-called holiday week has been a bit like that. A lot of up-and-down. Spent yesterday and today largely rendered immobile after having hurt my back doing one of those ordinary activities that seem to prey on aging backs like vermicious knids on little orange men.

A friend came over yesterday (as we'd planned weeks ago) for what we were pleased to call our Anti-Christmas. We made cookies. We ate them all. (I finished the last half-dozen by myself, after she'd gone home.)

We watched a really brilliant movie. We drank a velvety, spicy wine (goes great with nutmeg-brandy sugar cookies, by the way). We ate a little of my leftover (but homemade) lentil-tomato soup, as a nod to nutritional value.

We knitted. We posed Spiderman in funny scenes. We texted and sent silly pics to friends in faraway places.

I said, at one point, that if it weren't for the horrible back pain, it'd be a perfect day. And she said, "Ah, but if someone weren't in horrible pain, it wouldn't be us, would it?"

True true.

PS. Reading back over this, I realized there's an error in logic here. It's not as simple as that one thread is always in decline and the other is always improving. In the second half of life, that pretty much describes it. In the first half, physical prowess improves until it reaches a peak, usually in young adulthood. But there's a narrowing of personal possibilities after a certain point in childhood, and then a somewhat stagnant period in young adulthood (I'm sure everyone in the world would argue that point with me, but I think there's some truth in it) before the mind/spirit starts to grow richer again. And it does seem that the body is weakest when the mind is strongest, and vice-versa. I could be completely wrong, of course. Just taking the (raw, unformed) idea out for a spin.

Okay, so I made the damned bread. And it was okay, I guess, except for the fact that I was so daft and unfocused that I left out a key ingredient, and accidentally made it fat-free. Which is not such a good idea, breadularly speaking.

It tastes better than it ought to, but I had the devil of a time getting it out of the pan, and I fear for its long-term survival. I mean, it's all well and good and has a nice texture now, but once it's a day old or so I wonder if it will dry out prematurely.

Pleh. All that work. And vacuuming. And climbing onto a precarious tall stool with wounded knees to unscrew my overly conscientious smoke alarm from the ceiling. And climbing back up to screw it back in.

Knees still cranky. Probably have to stay off the bike tomorrow too, damn it all to hell. Plus, it's going to snow and be very windy out - not the greatest weather for cycling when one has a trick knee or two.

Watching Butch and Sundance shoot guns in Bolivia. Took pictures of most but not all of my unfinished knitting projects earlier today but thankfully many of them didn't come out well so I don't have to unveil that particular part of my life for your amusement.

This one of Kitwich being in love with the Malabrigo silky merino I bought for my sister's gifts did come out, though. Looking back over the blog this past month it's been a very heavy dose of cat pictures, which suggests two things, to my mind:

a) I'm not bringing my camera with me when I'm out and about, and/or
b) I'm not having a very good month.

Both of which are true.