Sorry I've been "incommunicado" for awhile. Is that even a word? It's really hard for me to tell if something is a word anymore, since I've been looking at so much Hungarian, etc, at the the temp-job-in-a-box that by now the English alphabet looks a little half baked to me.

The Hub is out there fighting with the lawn. He has requistioned a new electric string trimmer, though, in his Glorious Quest to keep us from being overtaken by the grass. The electric string trimmers are much less expensive then the gasoline powered ones, and his gasoline powered one was 10 years old, so no wonder it crapped out.

My "workend" is filled with a number of challenges, not the least of which is....

what to do about the algea growing in my pond. We went to a great deal of trouble to drain the pond, clean it, and get the filter running, only to have it be over run with algea. I thought that the running water prevented algea from growing, but, apparently, I was wrong, or else the filter isn't strong enough, or something else is wrong. It's all very mysterious. I have to go down to the local "real" garden center where people actually know what they're talking about - that would be R.D. Bauman & Sons - to get some answers. In the meantime I just tossed two bottles of some kind of deadly chemicals in there to see what that would do for the situation ( there are no fish or plants in there. Just algae. Lots of algae) I felt kind of creepy doing it - like Morgan le Fey, or something, with arms outstretched over the pond pouring in this weird, cloudy liquid.

But, my natural curiousity has been sabotauged by my ongoing asthma / lung infection / whatever. Normally, I wouldn't toss anything into a pond or onto the yard or garden until I had fully researched it, knew exactly how it was going to work and why it would work that way, etc. Not being able to breathe well is hell on one's patience, though, and I just want to get the green slime out of my pond.

If I were, in fact Morgan le Fey, the powerful magician, enemy of King Arthur and seductress of Merlin, I'd wave a magic wand and clean my wood floors. That's another project. Hardwood floors are great since they don't hold dust and other allergens, but when "gunk" ( that's a technical term for what comes in on the shoes of a handyman Hub) gets stuck to the floor it's a hassle to clean it up. But nevermind. While we were at Lowe's getting the string trimmer I bought some Murphy Oil soap, which I will apply with the tried and true Elbow Grease to get the situation under control.

Given my lung capacity, I suppose that'll be it for the rest of the night.

But I can't complain. Well, I can, I do - all the time. And you hear me! What I mean is, I shouldn't since I did, in fact, ask to have asthma....and knew very well what I was asking for. My first husband has it, and, when we were married, he got pnuemonia. He didn't seem to be getting better, and his doctors seemed to me, as medical doctors always seem to me...unconcerned, blase, and unavailable. And I was so frightened about his condition, so afraid that he would just stop breathing during the night, that I prayed, "Dear Lord, please take it away from him. Give it to me if it has to go somewhere, I'd rather suffer myself then listen to him suffering." It wasn't just desperation either. When I was kid the other girl scouts used to BEG me to tell ghost stories, and if I couln't think one up I'd fall back on "The Monkey's Paw" - be careful what you ask for, you might get it.

Of course, bacteria is no respector of persons. It didn't take divine intervention for me to catch baterial pnuemonia, and it was an awefully bad strain that year. Thus, adult onset asthma, and now here we are. Now The Hub, who had nothing to do with it, has to listen to me rattle and wheeze.....which I know would have been the outcome regardless of my prayer. I just think the fact of my prayer makes me.... I don't know, exempt from the goodwill another person who had a chronic illness might encounter. I've got that attitude like Warren Zevon had, that "as a matter of fact, it does suck, but I did it to myself". I do wonder why I think that though. After all, my prayer though heartfelt, WAS altruistic, and bacteria are just bacteria, lookin' for a place to go and reproduce, sort of like people who move to the suburbs....it wasn't like I was just going to leave the guy in the apartment by himself on account of he was contageous! No one would do that! I wonder why I do think I'm responsible for every bad thing that ever happened to me? I suppose I could blame Catholicism for that, but that's too much work, and I'm in the habit of blaming myself anyway.

Nothing like a good circular logic question to chew on while putting off doing the floor!

And, yes, by the way, I would do the same thing over again. Even if I were Morgan le Fey, even if there weren't bacteria, only magic and prayer and even if an insignificant speck such as myself COULD make such bargins with the Lord. Even if it only helped my ex, who is now my friend, just a little bit.

Maybe that's why I think the way I do. Maybe I just want, so much, for my life to be of some use. That's what a want on my tombstone: "She was useful". Kind of like a good floor cleaner.