the winter of my discontent

I've been a little cranky lately. Not I'm-going-to-turn-my-home-office-upside-down mad, but the mixmaster of life events is sort of trying what's left of my patience.

I think I'm handling it rather well. After all, I sat mildly at the computer and goofed off with my latest winter crush Pandora (a music genome project - www.pandora.com), alternating my seven-times-fire-ant-bitten hand with quickly expiring ice packs and a surprisingly effective cold laser machine. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I did nothing wrong. These little fuckers invaded our home and created a full-on interstate between the port of entry cranny in the wall and our fricking clothes. Not all of them, either--select garments. Thankfully, the lion's share of their amor consisted of my white turtlenecks (sorry, I'm still stuck in the 1970s--so shoot me) where they were more highly visible.

They didn't get me right away. I know how to pluck them off and start mashing them between my fingers (straight pressure, no matter how much, will simply not work) such that they didn't have a fighting chance...that is, until they started dropping down from the hangers above. Geronimo! And when one started stinging, it's like he sent little telepathic or subaudible signals to the others, because then I realized ten other ants had converged onto my fingers and I got multiple stings in seconds flat. I'm mildly allergic, so my reaction is rather pronounced. A single bite will swell my hand up such that my big-ish knuckles completely disappear. It will burn and itch, and get hot and hard, and it will take 4-5 weeks to completely recover. Yeah.

Then I had a no-show. A year and a half ago, this wasn't exactly surprising, as there was a significant drop in the quality of prospective new clients, but this was different. This was one who'd been with me, faithfully and without fail, through thick, thin and everything in between, for the last 4 years. Suddenly one evening, no call, no show, and no email. It has been determined that this client is physically OK, nothing happened to them that night, and without saying as much, nor any reason why, their actions said loud and clear that they weren't returning. I can't help but take that at least a little personally. I mean, this change in the therapeutic relationship was so abrupt, and with no explanation given, that it causes me to wonder what I did wrong, after all this time. Definitely a cause for the reflection that a retrograde Mercury oh-so-willingly encourages.

Yeah, let's talk about that renegade Mercury, now that I mention it. That little leprechaun (who is normally benign) got a wild hair up his butt and started running backwards and took every shred of our sanity with him. Ever wonder why one day every word you utter gets taken the wrong way? Or why you can't get your computer to function to save your life and every avenue you try doesn't work either? Or why you unknowingly send your electric bill payment to the telephone company and vice versa? Heh. Blame that guy. Don't let him fool you, he's got a smirk on his face the whole time. He reigns supreme, too, for about three and a half weeks. Then he does an about face, and he's back to his old benign self again. Hey, at least the full moon is past.

Heh, I guess it's time to turn Pandora back on. It was sedating my fried nerves. Nothing that Pandora and a little chocolate can't fix. But just wait...we haven't even touched upon Clinic Camp yet.