Month: August 2015

In Tucson, we get the monsoon. That goes something like this. “Ugh, it’s hot. And bright. And–wait, where did that cloud come from? Oh, it’s coming this way. Maybe we’ll get some–“ And that’s when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the side. FWOOSH!! from the other two clouds you didn’t even know were there. Okay, it’s maybe not that sudden. But if you’re walking north, especially if you’re listening to your Walkman personal music device, you could totally get blindsided by a storm from the south. Once I was in a house and it was pouring rain on one side–and the sun was shining on the other. You could not even see the clouds from the windows on the west side of the house. Other times, it’s deceptive. The clouds start building around lunch time, and you’re keeping an eye out the window, thinking of the glorious storm to come, watching those cumulonimbus climb higher and higher…and then nothing. One spectacular sunset, but no rain, and by ten the entire clear sky is staring down at you going “gotcha.” But as soon as you decide that if you see it coming, it’s not actually coming–then it really gets you.

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So, if you remember, I finally got a diagnosis of trigeminal neuralgia and was put on medication a month ago today. Life has been…interesting. I’m on a schedule – I take a half a pill at 9am and again at 9pm. I have alarms set on my phone so I don’t forget. I also need to eat something with it so I need to always have some type of food handy. I try to eat healthy things. The nausea has gone away.

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Some of you out there are probably aware of a podcast known as Welcome to Night Vale, which takes the guise of the community radio of a small desert town somewhere in the US where, as I heard it said somewhere, all conspiracies are true. It ranges from being completely absurd (Hiram McDaniels, literal five-headed dragon, often somehow manages to pull off the disguise of being Fred Chen, normal human being) to creepy (there is a faceless old woman who lives in your home whom you only ever see out of the corner of your eye, if at all) to intriguing and sweet and occasionally feel-punching. As a podcast it works great. They have traveling live shows, which follow the same basic structure of the radio show, and is not as distracting as you would think to be able to see the voice actors even though they in no way resemble the characters they portray. But now they’ve got a novel coming out in October and I find myself…conflicted.

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Time for another garden update! Here in southern Ontario, it’s the start of prime harvest season. Early crops like raspberries are over, veggies are coming into their own, and my partner and I just bought finished eating our first basket of peaches – my very favourite fruit when they’re in season. What does that mean for our backyard plot? Well…to be honest, we’re having a stressful summer. First problem: the tomatoes. In past years, we’ve been given seedlings by the elderly Italians next door, and planted them quite close together. This year we bought them from a garden centre and spaced them farther apart. Suddenly they’re sprawling out all over. The main stem of each is staked, of course, but what to do with all the branches with fruit sagging to the ground? I’m slowly building a weird-looking system of multiple stakes for each plant and also trying to prune them back. At the same time we’re battling hungry squirrels and an evil tomato ailment called blossom end rot. Right now the tomatoes are taking up way too many of my mental cycles.

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