Four days out of circulation, no appetite, very weak, much sleep with much coughing when awake. I dragged my unwilling body to the excellent doctor's clinic at Lakeshore and Islington today. I lost seven pounds in one week.

Waning crescent 1% full tonight. Clouds and rain have come in spoiling three days of crisp, clear light. I had a Chauncy Gardner like cab driver recently. I said that it had been raining enough that maybe we would see some wild flowers early as http://aphotoaday.blogspot.com/ reported from San Francisco. "Oh no, very bad", said my driver, "Everything must come in slowly, slowly. The trees must produce their flowers all in good time to produce good fruit for good seeds that will continue to make more trees."

such a good picture deserves a new post.

Having dipped below 250 pounds last week end, I am celebrating by grazing on Chips Ahoy, tea and cereal. We are quite often too house bound, work bound, or just lazy to go out and buy real food. At other times we go on great vegetable buying safaris, make soups and salads and eat plenty of broccoli, which I prepare in my own special way. Our diets are....varied, but always with buckets of tea.

Last night , after Cathy had taken the dog out, we watched The President on 60 minutes. In The White House garden, a magnolia was in full bloom. Then the Amazing Race took us to Jaipur and, as usual, we had our obligatory visit down Wisteria Lane. Slept well. The streetcar was 25 minutes late this morning and then I fell asleep on it, waking up near Degrassi Street,(the real one). I skipped Starbucks and was late enough for work to give them an extra twenty minutes at the end of my day. A M, the big boss's birthday. Pizza and cake. We've ordered HDTV and it is spectacular, spectacular.

Bellini's La Sonnambula (?), Pavarotti duet

Early days at NASA

Less pills, better sleep. Almost better. Slanging match with David. I ended up getting very cross and he de-escalated. Reservedly friendly later

IF SOMEONE SAYS “ARE YOU OKAY?” YOU SAY?
Oh, so, so.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Tall, English twit
WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
When she laughs
HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Better
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
Awareness
WHAT’S YOUR MOTTO?
We, who are about to die, salute you/Never complain, never explain
WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Unconditional love, (lucky me)
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Sex
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
I love her
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Birth, now, death
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Older
WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Are they happy today?
WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
My MP3 player on random play
WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Movies
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
I'm scared of being scared
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
If I told you it would not be my biggest secret
WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
Water
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Love 'em, mostly

Went to bed very early, but woke at three. Took a sleeping pill to sleep fitfully until 5.40. Now at work very tired and somewhat sleepy. Slept on streetcar for about forty of the forty five minutes to Crawford. Two minutes late for work.

The clients are been shown accommodation for single men over fifty nine. I feel a little envy. Of course our home is luxurious, but it is far away and I have lived small sways of my life alone. I always enjoyed them.

Less than Friday and Saturday, not enough, but still healthier than Thursday and before that. No more head aches.

Another nine, although awake for about twenty minutes at three, the dead of night. In the jungle, the something jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.

Click here for polar bear gallery

Suitably re prescribed by WD over the phone, I slept nine hours last night, at last.

Bulbophyllum Makoyanum, half flower orchid of Hawaii.

Another week, another few dollars, even today, when I stayed home sick, under slept. March madness, I suppose, joined by all the usual older person's complaints. I'm getting too old to be old. WD says that the recompense for all the inconveniences of old age is still being alive(!). I called him and he indicated how I might improve that elusive sleep hygiene.

Spell checking is, very slowly, teaching me how to spell.. Now I want one of those programs, which bypasses arthritic fingers, by letting me talk at the computer which turns what I say into written text. I will blog on right up to my demise. It would be nice to finish with a joke like,"bugger Bognor", or, "Either this wall paper must go, or I must".

At home, mainly by myself, I did fall asleep a couple of times today. Perhaps I should never have given up the beta blockers, which, thinking I would be at work today, I took again last night since my tremble had returned in force.

Must run to watch, "The Fifth Estate", about injection sites.

Will I meet Twyla Tharp in heaven?

Spoon

Full moon tonight and last night sadly masked by clouds, although I did see the sun set and intimations of a blue sky beyond scudding clouds this evening.

This ignominy took place in a major world city only seventy six years ago yesterday. I guess that as similar things happen today, we don't notice them enough. Remember, the men who forced him down the street wanted this picture to be taken and publicised. Today our 'spin doctors' are a great deal more subtle.

Changing barometric pressure

They're dropping like flies. I thought it was just me, but so many people are not sleeping well, have head aches, have colds coming on (that never do come on) and that generally are out of sorts and stressed.
Some people say it is because of changing barometric pressure. I've never heard a doctor say this, although there are plenty who will talk of allergies, rag weed, dust mites and other causes of physical malaise, which, in my youth, were only talked about by CRANKS.
But back to the barometric pressure. Will one day these changes and differences be reported on the evening news to alert us to spring and other seasonal fevers?
The sense that lots of people are also under the weather is actually a great relief for me. I know when I began to feel a little off kilter and when this progressed to something quite a bit worse. It would be comforting if someone could tell me that it will all be over by April, or Easter even.
Maybe that's what Easter really is. The fresh start.
I will post this on two blogs because I want to garner opinions about changing barometric pressure.

There is still snow on the southern side of our yard, underneath the fence.

I notice funny, dry buds. Were they there all winter, my eyes blind to them?

I stopped to look at a squirrel and it stopped to look at me as if it was wondering if I would give it some food.

I also stopped for a delicious three minutes in the middle of all the hubbub at Yonge and Dundas. I watched a spot on the sidewalk over which a tiny piece of paper blew and listened to all the noises including a fire engine and a small man playing a long eastern string instrument with a bow. At dusk I stole some lines from Hopkins:

I caught this evening

In sunset's glory

The jet stream high

Of a silver fish

As it swept smooth on a bow bend.

Would it approach the moon

Sleeping on her back

High there

Or disappear

In transparent clouds?

I have pink eye and now it is bothering me.

Day at home, as I needed to be out in Nobleton at 9.30 for teeth cleaning. My wonderful dentist, whom I followed out there, when he moved from his downtown office, was actually not there. He now has a very pleasant younger partner who examined me. My dentist, (my hope is that I will die before him), will now work two days a week. Ironically he sold his farm, the reason for moving out to Nobleton in the first place, and has moved to a condo in our suburb. I love the drive out there three times a year. The land right now is brown and still has some snow on it. Beyond his village is a moraine and I drove up there today. Many plots of land for sale as, apparently they will put in sewer mains. Already great tracts are being prepared for roads and more sprawl. It reminded me of Santa Ponsa when I was twelve. Something to write about some day.

Home in the early afternoon, some boys are asleep and some blaring their U tube music. Slept poorly last night although not because of any unhappiness, perhaps because consciously and unconsciously I knew I had the day off, mainly to myself, today.

We have had garbage problems ever since we moved in and, very fed up, I got through to our city councillor's office. They have been great and most of the problems are fixed. Then last night a neighbour, noticing that they had smashed our little composting bin, offered us hers as she keeps her compost for her parents' garden.

Very cold, beautiful clear skies. Half moon sleeping on its back. Lots more stars than downtown.