Meteor Showers, the crushed foot and door & a skull bowl

We woke up tonight at 1:00 am and snuck out to see the meteor shower. This week for the Northern Hemisphere is the week where the meteor shower is best (only the moon is shedding light on the stars). The best viewing time where we were was between 1:00 am and 2:00 am and so with a few blankets we got into the van. We drove past beacon hill park, which has no lights and then out to the cliff side park behind it so the hill blocked the city lights. There, with as much dampening as we could get, we got out and wheeled to a bench and watched the meteors. With the moon and in the city, us sharing lap and shoulder blankets, we could not/did not see many. Most were between the big dipper, the horizon, and the little dipper.

We each stared into the sky, with a quick, ‘ohhh, did you see that one.’ And after a bit of staring up our necks were hurting, and so I chanted slowly, ‘Star light, star bright….show us our meteor tonight.’ It didn’t work the first time but the second time there was a vivid flash across the night sky of a second of a meteor hitting our atmosphere and burning up, a large one making vivid fireworks. We called it a night.

It was not the best of days before that, since I managed to smash a door....the door leading into the apartment....with my toe. Okay, yes, I was going outside for the first time in a LONG while and I had INDY on the SLOWEST speed. Our outer door requires turning and pushing a lever down to open the door, you can’t just push it forward with an auto lock (oh no, too many thieves!). And then, through it is on the far side I am suppose to push it forward by leaning all the way forward and even then it would not be enough to avoid INDY hitting the door. So we will have to deal with that issue another time. But what happened is, I have been having a rapid degeneration of peripheral neuropathy in my hands and arms in the last week or two and I reached out to grab and turn the lever down to allow me to push the door open……..and I missed. Yes, I missed a three inch lever completely, and my left foot, particularly my large toe, hit the door. I tried to stop but with the problems of the peripheral neuropathy, that was probably a half second delay, which was enough time to, it seems, crack the door. No, I can’t feel the feet but I will have it checked out (you know, once I get a GP). This depressed me terribly because I was going out due to enormous pain.

I don’t know if you have had bad pain, like I have described where it just comes and comes and never lets up, but it is hell. And recently my spine and my hands, which I use every day to ‘lock’ nerve paths in place have been giving me constant pain. Total pain. So last night I tried to watch a DVD series that I had bought. Only I had bought season two of a series I watched from when I was AB. And now, right now, it was just too slow. Can you imagine being in really bad pain and then watching a TV show like Murder She Wrote or another slow show where you are like, “Oh come on! Stop interviewing them it is X and just finish the DAMN show!” – basically I need the equivalent of riveting or fast shows: the cocaine of TV. I had just finished Dollhouse by Joss Wheaton which did that for me, and resold it but this one was not. So here I had wasted what little money I had getting a TV show new release which did not distract me from the pain. And my goodness, the pain. It just washes over you, and washes over you. This picture is the only one I can find now. One day I will find the right picture to show the way I can not describe it because even if you scream or you cry or you smash you head against the wall the pain just keeps coming down and will keep coming down as long and as hard as it can. Linda found me, crying, my hand claws curls in my lap, sobbing and she helped me to bed and I cried the whole way. And she told me that she would give me the extra opium pill to go with the night pill (the strongest pill we have), and I cried harder. I told her I had taken that pill, the fast acting opium pill which is exceeding my limit and damaging my liver 30 minutes ago and couldn’t take another for 4 hours. She said, if I couldn’t sleep, then we would damage my liver some more. It was a brutal, ugly, heart wrenching time, when even to pull me upright to not aspirate my pills while swallowing, Linda had to hold me and hear me scream, and moan as she pulled me up. She had to wipe away the tears as could not move and then we tried to sleep.

So today I was trying to make sure that didn't happen again. I was going out to watch Psych Season 3 from the DVD rental store. It has been out a while now. I wanted to make sure Linda didn't see the previous night again, that's all.

Instead I broke the front door’s glass, and likely my toe. And I called Linda and she was, “It is okay we have renter’s agreement. But maybe they won’t cover this.” And I was near hysterical because I know we were trying to save money and had really no savings and then I do this. I do this. I hated being disabled, I hated not being able to even get a job serving donuts much less a research or government job. I hated it. So I hated myself. I went down to the DVD rental store. They didn’t have Psych season 3.

I came home and that was it, I was broken and I wasn’t going to be going out in INDY again. I was and still feel a child, unable to do the most basic things, and emotionally scared, as I am only able to remember my failures, like this. Because I CANNOT LEAVE HERE with my current inability to open the door or stop even on the turtle indoor speed, without the ability to react, and with a door I was no longer strong enough to throw open and ‘race’ through before it smashed down on me (because a slow closing door lets THEIVES in – can you tell the manager is paranoid about thieves). The Manager called the owner. Owner says the cost is on me. So much for the freedom INDY was going to give me. I can’t have freedom if I can’t enter or leave the building, or if I live somewhere that my non-AB body limitations is going to cost me hundreds I DON’T HAVE every time I try to leave the apartment. And what about the stores I try to visit. So I am house-bound now, not just choosing to stay inside.

Linda came home and gave me a present that Cheryl had left before going on her trip. It is a Skull bowl, and here I am with my easy grip spoon mixing a broth (where is the dry ice to bubble over?). Actually I had ice cream in it tonight! BWAHAHAHA! It helped, but I still feel like a total screw up particularly with tape across the door and a big sign. And I did it with my toe. Property really is more important than humans in this town.

But in the end, like the elusive fireflies, I got to see some meteors, about three or four bigs ones and as many little ones. I hope, when Hawaii is possible and we go, that we go to the big Island where the telescopes for many countries are (including the largest in the US) as there is no light on the island in the middle of the sea and they say the stars leap at you (or you at them). That is something I want to see. A blanket, a scarf of stars covering me. Everyone I love is here on earth, but maybe I would geek a while and like to explore, just a little, up there, to places where none has gone before.