Last week Maurice Cavalier died; I had AAA tow him back home since I had only gotten a quarter of a mile down the road. Fortunately, I didn't really need a car, since I didn't have to drive anywhere far away and I would be leaving in a few days for a long weekend to Hancock for "Camp TML". No problem, I thought, I'll just do a bit more biking. Oh, except for the darned heat wave we were having. Ack.

So, after riding out to Falmouth to go to the chiropractor, I decided to continue on the Boulevard to do some shopping at Hannaford. As I cruised into the parking lot in the 95-degree heat, I passed a display featuring some kind of race car and several scantily-clad ladies. I waved hello. They were very friendly, an amazing feat considering that standing around on asphalt, in spike heels, in heat and humidity baring miles of skin except for the parts of you that are squished into short-short-shorts and tops made of some extremely unbreathable-looking black material does not sound like fun. I hope they were getting paid a lot.

As I rode over to the bike rack and parked, I thought, geez, maybe next week there will be an xtracycle here displayed with some total babes in bike shorts to grab all of those guys who just need a little more encouragement to get out of the car and on a bike. But wait a second...I already see lots of guys on bikes when I'm riding around, but it would be really fun to see more girls on bikes. How do you get more girls on bikes? Probably not with beauties wearing hot pants...how about a few fit, charming guys lounging around, ready to show ladies how cool biking is? Hmmm. Though it's harder to lounge around against a bike than against a sports car (unless you have excellent balance...) Maybe a chocolate lab puppy in a saddlebag would help? Clearly this needs some more thought.

After the first night in Hancock I woke up with the sun and, thinking it was late and I was being a slug, I tossed on my clothes and went downstairs to the kitchen, where I realized that it was 6:30 a.m. and the rest of the house was asleep. I grabbed a book and headed outside to one of the hammocks on the porch for some early-morning sunbathing and reading.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell, was a fabulous read. I finished it later that evening after dinner and now I want to go through the bibliography and read up on some of the research he cited. And hightail it over to the library to get out Gladwell's Tipping Point.

We played a nice gig tonight at the Center for Cultural Exchange (at Longfellow Square). The crowd was high-energy and the band sounded great--we had a separate person doing sound for us, for once! My left hand is so, so, so close to 100% after 6 years; I can almost taste it. I think full mobility will be another year out, at year 7. Where did I read that it takes 7 years for all of the cells in your body to regenerate? Is that a weird coincidence?

The very cool thing is that, if all goes well, I will actually have better than 100% "violin mobility" since this time my left hand technique is better. I can already get through most music I need to play using far less muscle than I did before; it just takes me more time to work out what motions I need to make to be able to play it. With a few more neural pathways in gear I won't be working as hard. Come on, brain! You can do it!

The squash hugelkultur is cooking along. I refuse to water it, because, I mean, it's squash! You don't plant squash, you wait for the squirrels to bury seeds for you or for it to come popping out of the compost, (thereby telling you that your compost isn't getting hot enough...), but in no way do you coddle it. Same with tomatoes; I didn't plant any tomatoes this year. And then, when I suddenly had 150 volunteer tomato plants, I remembered throwing a tomato plant on the garden last year. I see that I will have cherry tomatoes, probably later than everyone else because they planted themselves from seed, but as it required no work on my part (except for a gigantic amount of thinning), I'll take it. They're very conveniently coming up in the peas, so when I slash the peas down in a few weeks maybe the tomatoes will really get going.

I suppose I am coddling my squash a little bit, because I filled in the brick mulch I started, but that's it. Time to go out and do some heavy gardening, which in a mulched garden means: eating peas.

One of my adult students came into her lesson today bubbling with excitement because she is starting to feel this "center of the universe" feeling that we've been working on in lesson. She told me all about it and then looked at me suspiciously: "am I being brainwashed?" Heh. I assured her that no, she was just starting to feel the same incredible rush that I get when I'm playing the violin using my new technique. It does feel great, and it is addictive, and I suppose maybe my students and I are all a little brainwashed, but in a good way. At least I'm not using it for evil. :-)

In the same way that my violin students tell me I'm the only one who tells them, "nice armpits!", I wonder how many people (when faced with a super-frisky cat who is pouncing all over whatever it is they're trying to work on) say "oh, knock it off; go play in the mannequin."

For once I got to the camera in time, but didn't capture the exciting through-the-neck-hole exit (exciting only because of the last-minute drama of wondering whether she was going to be able to get her back legs out, or keep dragging Valkyrie around the bedroom).

Valkyrie is a dress form that I convinced D. to help me make out of brown paper tape. It cost $7.50 in materials and $50 in sushi to placate D., who was pretty grouchy at being sucked into another one of my crazy projects. It took a few hours of me standing around in plastic getting covered with brown paper tape and D. several hours of taping. Valkyrie is a husk of me as I was in 2002, so (scarily) 10 or 15 pounds lighter than I am currently and, as I see from the "neck view" photos, with a left shoulder blade that is winging out quite a bit. I still haven't gotten all of those muscles back on the left side. Feh.

It wasn't until yesterday, when I was clearing space in my closet for D., that I suddenly felt apprehensive. Though he'll only be here for 4 weeks, we haven't lived in the same space since 2001, when I was fresh out of the hospital and only semi-mobile (his apartment was safer for me). Thinking back to that time, which was physically, emotionally, and relationship-wise, a time of turmoil, I actually got a little queasy.

Then I got a hold of myself and reminded myself that actually this time it will be much easier because I know what I can and cannot control. For example, the only thing I can control is my own behavior. I can't control D. or his moods or his actions or what he thinks. Or how he feels about me. Or how he feels about my cat. Heck, I can't even control my cat. So there it is.

On Tuesday I stopped by Goodwill and came out with 2 great dresses for tango, a top, and a dress for biking/dancing, all for $24. Yay! Then today I walked into the ReStore to see if they had any paneling (they didn't), and discovered a 7-foot wooden corner cabinet, with huge glass door and crown moulding, that was perfect for the newly clear Murphy bed room. I guess it's technically a china cabinet, but it will be a great for clothes or books or whatever. So perfect. And $225, making it even more perfect. And then the lady in front of me in line said, as the guys behind the counter were making comments about how I was going to get that huge cabinet home on my bike, "I can help you move that in my van..." Done. Cool. I decided to finish my lucky streak by heading to Marden's, where I found a bunch of round-head, square drive screws that are exactly what I was looking for to finish the Murphy bed. By the pound. Portland carpenters, get over to Marden's!

The latest "Alcohol Can Be A Gas" newsletter (here) says that the book is done! Yaaaaaaaaayyy! It seems like another lifetime when we were at SolFest talking up alcohol fuel, but it's only been four years. I can't wait until my copy arrives!

The other day I awoke from an accidental afternoon nap thinking about how excited I was to have whey! Almost a pint of it! (from making cultured cream cheese out of homemade raw buttermilk. Yay Maine, for making it legal to buy raw (unpasteurized) milk). And then for some reason I got this song in my head, but only the part where they sing "oh way, oh, way, oh way, oh, way" and I couldn't figure out what song it was and it was driving me crazy so I went downstairs to find D., only he was curled up on the Murphy bed, fast asleep. I wandered into the bathroom to find Bonita curled up on the counter, fast asleep. Argh. The whole house! Asleep!

Later D. woke up but couldn't help me with what song it was. But I'm still excited about the whey because now I can make lacto-fermented vegetables! Yay! In fact, I started my first batch of pickled carrots tonight. Very exciting.

This Spring I was feeling sort of blah about food and my health. I read a book on macrobiotics and thought that wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Fortunately, when I was in Alabama my godmother treated my mom and me to massages. We drove into the countryside to the cozy home of the therapist, who mentioned that she is also a nutritionist and a member of the Weston Price Foundation. And she had copies of Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions for sale. I'd been meaning to get my hands on a copy of that for years now, but somehow never did. It was just what I needed.

So now I'm happily eating homemade yogurt, which does not make me phlegmmy (unlike commercial yogurt, which always has extra milk solids added to it, even the organic brands), and making buttermilk, and now I get to culture veggies! Wicked good.

It's one thing to have someone else sharing my space. It's another to have someone else sharing my space who plays a loud instrument. There has been adjusting by both of us. D. has gotten the attic as a practice space, since it has a door and a bunch of carpet to absorb sound. Bonita has appointed herself Bandoneon Mascot, first sleeping all day upstairs on D.'s suitcase and then sleeping in progressively more unlikely spots. Here's the best one so far. The bandoneon is extremely loud. Maybe she is deaf in addition to being partially blind??