Itchy

Yesterday was pretty quiet. I spent much of the day hanging around in the garden, reading Derek Jarman and walking the dog. Normal stuff.

My earlobes are itchy after their piercing. The aftercare instructions said not to touch them, so I'm avoiding that, and I irrigate them with saline solution twice a day. I'm not supposed to use alcohol or hydrogen peroxide -- not sure why -- and I'm not supposed to turn the earrings the way we were all told to do years ago. Apparently that's not really necessary. The rule nowadays is hands-off.

I just want to scratch them in the worst way. (I take itchiness as a sign of healing, but who knows?)

The dog went berserk in the afternoon when she saw something in the garden, leapt off the couch and barreled out the back door at top speed. She nearly knocked over my table and somehow smashed a potted plant on the patio -- an Astrantia -- while rounding a corner. So then I had to dig a hole and plant the plant, because I didn't have another pot to put it in. That made me grumpy, and that was the state I was in when Dave came home from work -- grumbling and cursing about the dog.

I sometimes forget that people can hear me when I'm in the garden, and I do curse when I get snagged by roses or blackberries or when there are other mishaps. Sometimes it's just under my breath so I sound like Yosemite Sam, and sometimes it's an out-loud "For f--k's sake!" I told Dave yesterday that I probably need to be more careful about that, given that there's now a 10-year-old living upstairs.

I just read a few days ago that actress Phyllida Law died at the end of July. She's one of our neighbors! In fact, she's the one whose front garden features the bathing beauty I mentioned just a few days ago. I've never met her but when we first moved here I would occasionally see her in her front garden --- not so much in recent years. I had no idea she'd died and her house seems unchanged. I wonder what the plans are there? Since her famous daughter (one of them) lives right across the street it seems possible there will be no change at all. Emma may just keep everything as is. I hope so. Every time someone sells a house on this street the new buyer guts it and does a massive renovation that takes a year, and there's noise and scaffolding and skips and concrete mixers, and it would be nice to avoid all that. Besides, her garden with its statuary and figurines is a wonderful island of quirky individuality.

I also read an article about a right-wing provocateur who has visited Dearborn, Mich. several times to stir up trouble. Nothing special about that, except for this wonderful detail included by the reporter: the provocateur "declined to comment, chewing up a reporter’s business card." What a great way to show readers that he's basically a lunatic.

Found this in Kilburn. I thought it might be Latin but according to Google it doesn't really translate into anything -- "how much as how much" in Italian. Maybe how much is enough, or how much is too much? Or maybe it's gibberish. Who knows.