wiped out, today. my whole body always shakes the morning after an infusion and i have my laptop on a pillow on my knee and my shaking is making the screen wobble. if i try to make myself sit still it makes it even worse. sorry, this is weirdly distracting. not that it really matters. okay, righto. so this is why i normally write on mondays. fucking jiggling laptop. fine, then. jiggle. okay. moving on.
i had a fairly ordinary infusion yesterday. i managed to talk linda into setting the iv pump to lightspeed right from the start by explaining that i run less people over on my way home. also, the nurse practising how to cannulate apparently took my advice to give it the old “she’ll be right” and just throw the needle in like your playing darts. and she got the needle in the vein on the first try. but this was after smiling at me as if i were feeble minded and patting my hand. it’s daylight saving now and i get into bed early after an infusion because sometimes you’ve just got to get fetal. but i hate going to bed when it’s still light, out.
i caught up on most of the gardening last week. for the last four (?) years, or spring seasons whenever i’ve been in the garden the old bugger’s been there to help. we’d spend a few afternoons every week getting things sorted out. tilling, sowing, yarning etc. this season i’ve done almost everything myself since he’s either been in hospital or recovering. it’s been a little weird. i’ve really enjoyed it but i also miss being shouted at. he rang on monday and asked if i would spray the weeds around his house. when i got there he was all proud for having mowed the lawns all by himself. he seems to be recovering well. also when i got there the wind had picked up and he said nevermind, he’d slowly go through and spray the weeds the next day since i had an infusion. i think he just wanted to brag about having mown the lawns himself. but you don’t want to wear shorts around his house, there’s so much stinging nettle.
ah, fuh… sit still you flipping epileptic laptop.
it was labour day on monday, so a long weekend. it definitely felt like a long weekend. most of the neighbours were here. we launched bob’s torpedo on monday morning. caught one dogfish. a little, inedible species of shark. jimmy and i went beach fishing on sunday night and caught two dogfish. ahh. on saturday morning my neighbour set his toddler down in the yard here and said, “here you go bud, play on the nicest lawns in rangitata.” you know what? you’re alright.
jimmy and i went whitebaiting on saturday afternoon. we took his little cousin. he’s 11. his mum died last year. we drove down the beach to the orari river, a smaller river south of here. one of my pet peeves is reading a book and having an author describe some location or geographic feature in such a way that you can’t form a mental image. if it’s an ancient, crumbling and seemingly endless stone bridge spanning a massive desert basin, just write that. then add that its proportions were all wrong as if it were built by a long extinct race of giants. rather than spending a whole chapter writing unnecessary things that made me lose track of. ah, okay.
so rather than describe it, here’s the orari river mouth:
some people whitebaiting in the waves:
jimmy went straight to the waves and i was going to as well but i figured someone had to set the young’n up somewhere safe to whitebait and that someone apparently wasn’t going to be jimmy so i took him around the boulders closer to where the first picture is. at high tide the waves were coming through there but only gently. when we climbed down the boulders we found an old dude who invited us to set our net in front of him. i stayed there with the boy most of the afternoon. i was tired. due for an infusion. so we just sat on the rocks there by the water. you could set your net down by a boulder and watch 10-15 whitebait slowly swim into it, then scoop them up. it makes a whole lot more sense than standing down on the beach getting smashed around by waves. and the boy was wooping and woohooing whenever a shoal of whitebait would swim near his net. so that was cool. i don’t think i could get either of my nephews to go whitebaiting. jake wouldn’t be slightly interested and bryce probably doesn’t have either the patience or the attention span.
jimmy went back the next day, sunday afternoon. i was too tired so i took an involuntary nap.
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