DIGGING OUT

oak tree dreaming

It was a matter today of getting the Catfish on the road and into town. More snow on its way with wind. On the ice that the ground is now, the snow with the wind has a likelihood of drifting like crazy. Needed some more cat food and cat litter, a prescription, a liquor store run, a visit to the PO. My friend Bob in Missouri is having a hip surgery and will be recliner bound for a few weeks. I mailed him a movie for his convalescence. His taste in movies is not similar to mine, so I did the best I could considering I thought he'd enjoy this movie, at least once and probably again not much later. First viewing leaves one with a lot of questions a second viewing answers. He's used to American films and this one's French. He has a PhD. He can read.

The Catfish was bound in ice to its parking place. I'd been out pecking at it yesterday, a bit at a time, chopping the ice with the corner of the plastic snow shovel, then picking up the blocks of ice and tossing them to the side. I got a little worked up chopping ice and reined myself in, took a break, thought about it, went back to it, chopping a way to the road for the 2 tire tracks. First attempt, it only spun. But that's where I learned it's the right wheel that carries the power. I'd been wondering. I'd have bet right wheel, but not with certainty. I dug around some more. Could not do anything about the inch of ice on the ground the wheel needed to climb. I could not chop through it.

A bag of used cat litter was in the trunk on the way to the dump. I took it out, tore it open and spread it on the ice in the tire track and some up under the tire. It walked right on out of there. Martha was watching. When she caught a whiff of the cat litter she was all over it with her nose excited, like, where's the cat, where's the cat? Martha lives with Fondella the cat. Fondella grew up from 2wks old with 6 dogs. She knows how to make a dog mind.

At the dump I found Carol and Drew Tuggle, friends here from Atlanta and Jacksonville. They came into the music store when they were on the mountain, going back and forth for several years. They took an interest in mountain music and they're people who come here aware we have here a unique and valuable culture here that doesn't need improvement. They also supported my art by buying 3 of the paintings of mountain musicians on wood. We have become friends. They asked me to go with them to the restaurant at Twin Oaks, the Big Pig. At first I declined because my head was full of the places I needed to go on this town trip between snows. As soon as I started the car I laughed at myself and said, What's the hurry? I followed them over there and confessed at the table to my mental block.

From there to NAPA for windshield wipers they kindly put on for me. I say kindly because it's a pain for me to get those little ends into those little clips to get the thing going. I eventually get it done, but am grateful for assistance. The other wipers had only one flaw. The one on the driver's side had a spot on it near the middle making a single line every swipe in the focus of my vision. It wasn't a problem, but it was a nuisance. This winter is a good time to have new wiper blades. I drove away with clear vision ahead in the day's light mist precipitation.

Walking the aisles in Food Lion pushing the cart reminding myself to get no more than I can carry to the house in one trip. Daily staples for the next snow storm. From Food Lion parking lot I decided to check to see if the chiropractor was in. I felt like my frame needed adjusting and primarily a nerve that runs from lower back and down the outside of the left leg to the outside of the foot. He knew exactly what I was talking about, named it. The sciatic nerve. I'm to cool the origin in the lower back with ice pack 8 times a day, an hour between. Friday I go back and he'll do his Mammie Yokum and we'll see what happens. It's not really painful. It's telling me something's not right. I see it like taking the car for a tuneup. He told me I'll be stiff and sore all over tomorrow from what he did today. I can feel it setting it.

I was thinking of what Jr told me of his one chiropractor visit. It was from one of his major accidents when his back went out of whack. He said he walked in the office and had to be carried out, never went back. There was a time Tom Pruitt was having some back problems. I took him to Galax to the chiropractor there 4 times. The 4th time, he wrote them out a check for what he owed them, told them he'd been there 3 times and all they did was take xrays and charge him for it. They aint doin him a bit a good. And we went home. He was used to the old-fashioned chiropractor who popped your neck and adjusted your spine by hand. He didn't understand the xray generation. I couldn't explain it to him. Like he believed the earth was flat, but I couldn't think of a convincing way to tell him it's a ball spinning in space. We both believed what we believed because we believed what we were told 2nd, 3rd and 4th hand. I don't have any first hand proof the earth is round. Surely there is some, but I don't know what it is.

I've seen the curve from a plane about 8 miles up at sunrise. That was convincing. When the sun was up I saw on the horizon of the curve what looked like white clouds on the horizon, but they were too jagged to be clouds. The Swiss Alps. On closer examination, they looked like teeth, a row of teeth on the horizon. Then I understood why they are called teeth in French, les dents. Their names are teeth. This dent and that dent. Momentary as it was, seeing the teeth of the Alps from such a distance they were a row of teeth, was unforgettable. It's one of those images I keep in memory, My Pictures, as clear as when seeing it. Photographs I've seen of the Alps were all made from below, looking up the mountain. They don't suggest teeth at all seen that way. But on the horizon, there it is. Chomp, chomp.