Nerve…..

Last night Laura went home with a friend and the two of them went to the school’s production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Even at 9:30 PM, when she came home, her animated recap of the show meant she found it excellent.

My assignment was to meet her after the show and bring her home. I thought about the trip several times over the day. I had been out the day before, for a month overdue haircut.  By chance my neighbor and I realized we had planned destinations to the same real estate area for the same time, and she said she would take me. “Why didn’t you ask me?!  You’ve only been home a couple of days!!” And so forth and so on, and the company was nice and we stopped for lunch on the way home.

But the weather changed to freezing rain yesterday afternoon. I fretted a lot, and by afternoon called my sister, and she retrieved Laura. I also arranged with the neighbor who mows all summer and shovels all winter to add me to his itinerary. For fifteen dollars he will shovel and salt porch, steps, drive; and clear the car.

My neighbor is satisfied, so this winter I’ll give it a go. I think I also will add a remote starter to my car. I scraped a lot of ice last year. But this winter my nerve has deserted me, and I’ll see if windshield wipers can deal with slushy ice.

Remember that great new warp on my loom last July? In the two or three weeks between the first rehab session and shoulder surgery, I wove up a tube of pumpkin thread and most of a tube of turquoise thread. Then I had my shoulder repaired. The doctor was keen on weaving as therapy, but I effectively brought that to a halt by vaulting over the walker and back into rehab.

I came home from this rehab to three bobbins of turquoise left to weave. At half an hour a bobbin, I can honestly say, I devoted an hour and a half to weaving this week. I wound off a tube named Kiwi to my empty bobbins. It looks like a can of canned peas to me. I like that color.

Gone, too, are days of endless weaving. I am far slower than I ever remember. I'm still good, nice selvages, even beat. Then my arms stop, my hand does not release the shuttle. Done for the day. I compared it to losing nerve, but only for a second. Muscle is more like it. I'd guess those front muscles. Deltoid? I don't know. A lot were shifted.