Mars Trine Uranus: Report

So I got an unexpected call from a friend to meet for lunch just as I was finishing a big bowl of oatmeal, all there was to eat in the house. Had a cup of tea while she ate, waitress very friendly, friend asks if I know waitress, I say no but she is very friendly, waitress then introduces self as someone I met four years ago. I apologize.

Go to thrift shop with friend and find three tins I need for Christmas presents, fifty cents each, and a copy of Portnoy's Complaint for another fifty cents to replace the copy I left behind when I came out here.

Go to PO and mail three cards with photos inside, go to Walmart and run into used-to-be-neighbour till they abandoned house and moved to town, come back to house and watch Joan Crawford flinging herself about as a Broadway star and falling in love with Michael Wilding as a blind pianist.

Not a normal day.

Mars Trine Uranus

So I'm going to have new activities and new encounters, some quite unexpected, that will generate both excitement and personal growth.

I'm also going to be able to do quite extraordinary things, which I hope means I'll be able to finish sorting fifty years of printed photographs and get them all stuffed inside Christmas cards and on their way to their subjects and with any luck be able to set up the new printer which is due to arrive tonight and be able to scan the more precious of the photos I have and then get them into envelopes before they leave tomorrow.

We shall see.

Sun Square Jupiter

So here I am thinking I'm coming back to life after two months of the T south node sitting on my Sun in the Twelfth and then I realize what's happening. Too bad.

Venus Opposed to Ascendant

I suppose anything favorable in this for one-on-one encounters was wiped out by Saturn being in exactly the same place ha ha. Certainly the intake counselor at the health services place I've started to go to was unimpressed by my pitiful income and *all* I got was enrollment in the dental plan - cleanings for $30 a pop and a 45% discount on crowns and implants.

Thinks! Isn't Saturn bones and teeth?

Progressed Mars in Taurus

So a much-better-than-me-at-it astrologer friend listens to my whining about being so lazy these days and points out that one of the traits of Taurus is exactly that - laziness. Add progressed Venus also in Taurus and transiting south node stuck on natal Sun in the Twelfth and I feel I may as well just stay in bed till December.

Mercury square Midheaven

As good a day as any to drive three hours to El Paso to renew your Green Card and then turn around and drive three hours back without stopping.

Mars in the Eighth

Transformation? Of my credit card bill, for sure - of me, maybe. A cautionary tale here, but it will have to wait till tomorrow.

Jupiter Trine Moon

God this is a nice one, a bit like floating along on a fluffy pink cloud. Certainly helps with the transiting south node sitting on your Sun in the Twelfth, although I can't really pinpoint anything that's actually *causing*.

On the Moon front, I'm somewhat stunned to write I have been grilling - you know, lighting charcoal and actually cooking something on it, and for myself, not for other people. AND I've been sauteeing chard and spinach and arugula to go with whatever I've put on the grill.

Let's not get carried away here. I've only done it twice but for someone given to opening a can of beetroot and dumping a can of tuna or some tinned corned beef on top of it and calling it dinner it's a post-worthy occurrence, and whether it's Jupiter and the Moon or me actually behaving like a grown-up and following my north node, I'll take it.

Jupiter trine Sun

Damn - I thought this was coming later in the week and was all set to try and take advantage of it and broaden my horizons and all that and here it is, perfecting today and I'm still in bed.

I will be playing tennis in thirty minutes though so don't have time to chronicle the adventures of yesterday when B and I ventured far afield in pursuit of art, but there's a pretty good chance I'll be back later to do so.

That way I can have two posts in one day to make up for being absent for weeks.

Mars Trine Sun

I felt so vigorous and physically active I couldn't get myself to tennis lesson and instead spent the morning (!) getting the addition ready for airbnb guests this afternoon.

I did manage to get to the dump and to get gas and to get $ from the bank to pay the person to spread the gravel the gravel company dumped in the driveway last week but then he postponed till Monday, and as for programming the new remote to work with the TV, forget about it.

If this generalized sloth is indeed south node to the Moon there's another seven weeks of it, by which time I should have moss growing over me.

South Node to the Sun

I have another two months of this before it gets to 18 Aries 04 and if the way I've been feeling lately is any indication I'll be lucky to make it through.

Mars trine Pluto

A good thing this is in effect, as I have now added road repair to my list of skills. The astonishing rains of the past ten days have left a deep rut in the driveway, right where it forks. Reversing over it yesterday, before I knew it was there ha ha, the whole back of the car that got screwed on before I went to Florida got dislodged, and could now use a new couple of screws.

So far the materials used in road repair have been small stones, pine needles, kitty litter (well-known to be an especially durable patching material), and finally mud scraped off the parking pad and transported in the garden puller thing down to the rut and shoveled in to be finally covered with gravel scraped from another part of the driveway.

The chairs on the back patio have been covered and uncovered five times today, as the rain keeps on coming. I have airb&b guests on the way from Tucson, or would have left them covered.

In other news, the Marimekko trivets are now hanging on the hutch in the addition, which has freed up my favorite English Fish and Chips plates for use at the table. The holes in the Marimekko shower curtain have yet to be made bigger, which would make it usable, and there is still no curtain in the guest bathroom, just the two dollar folding paper shade that's been there since 2002. Little by slow, but nothing wrong with that.

Mercury opposed to Mercury

And I have no phone service and no outgoing email because of torrential rains yesterday.

Sun conjunct Chiron

So what do you do when the Sun conjuncts Chiron and you live in Silver City? You go to a blessing ceremony for the Gila - pronounced HEALA, of course - River as part of the annual Gila River Festival or Celebration or whatever it's called and prove to yourself just how unhealed you are by being totally unable to participate in any of the consequent rituals and ancient Sufi dances (okay, only ONE of those but still) - it's a long long way from 1674 First Avenue between 87th and 88th streets.

I did manage to hold on to the Golden Eagle feather when it got passed around and desperately try to think of a prayer to say, and when the earth was being blessed with water gathered from assorted oceans and rivers and lakes and seas I could recite that invocation along with the others, but when the Buddhist priest made his way around with the pine cone and little bowl of yet more water from I-couldn't-hear-where to anoint the willing I made sure to be in the outer circle, I passed on wading in the river to say hello and thank you and as for the Sufi dance when we were supposed to bob around chanting "Flow Free, Gila River" - well, it will take another decade or two out here before that becomes even a remote possibility.

On a slightly more down-to-earth level, I did write down on a piece of paper - commitment, you know - that I would write two lines of dialog a day, first thing in the morning after coffee and reading the Daily Mail and checking the stock market, so that that when the absurdly named 2015 Southwest Festival of the Written Word rolls around next year I could, if I felt as though I wanted to, participate at whatever level I felt comfortable at and introduce myself as a playwright to anyone who asked without feeling like a complete fraud.

That, I believe, is called making a goal and having a plan, and does come loosely under the healing umbrella. And is much much easier than participating in an ancient Sufi dance.

Sun in Six

Well in theory this is going to help me tether myself to the computer and work on the transcribing job I'm supposed to be doing, but so far - admittedly only two days in - I'm far too busy playing Lexulous in bed to get on with it.

Saturn sextile Jupiter

Well if this can pass almost unnoticed and you just have to know it's there and take advantage of it, I'm not sure where I come out.
In the past few days I have:

1. Taken the reading lamp I bought at Ikea in Florida in August out of its box, plugged it in next to the bed and can now read there without squinting.

2. Brought inside a burro's tail plant that's been on the front porch for the summer, repotted it, added the extra bits I've been growing in a separate pot and stuck it on a stand by the dining room window.

3. Re-re-potted the spider plant I split up into two and put it all in one pot to make room on the stand for the burro's tail. I did number two before I did that.

4. Taken out the sewing machine - O most miraculous of all - and altered a pair of size four Cherokee pants that I have had for three years by adding gussets and a very clumsy elasticized new half waistband so that as long as I wear a top that covers the *changes*  I can wear them.

5. Written this post.

Saturn square Moon

I sailed through the first two of these without even noticing but the third and final one hit with a vengeance. About all I can write really without crying but what a bitch of a transit to go through, and god only help the poor unhappy souls born with it.

Venus Opposed to Mars

Well this one got the back of the old rocking chair painted white and put in place behind the transplanted clematis to act as support - something I've been thinking about doing since the beginning of summer - painting the chair back white, that is, not putting it behind the clematis because they weren't there then.

Another lesson in full sun and full New Mexico sun - should have moved them from the front porch basically as soon as I put them there, but never mind, they have the winter to recover.

The trailing rosemary got planted as well, and as the final touch I took myself off to the university to watch a one-man show called An Iliad - the dreaded hour and three-quarters long with no intermission.

Never mind. All part of my not particularly successful attempt at following my north node and getting involved in the community.

Sun Conjunct Jupiter

And what do I do? Agree to go to a lecture by an artist on his work.   Free will? No comment.

Mercury Trine Uranus

So somebody came to paint the kitchen cabinets and I had no choice but to park myself at the computer and get some transcribing done - four hours worth of it, to be exact.

Then off to a friend's to watch the U.S. Open Mens' Finals, to find out that the Tennis Channel is always a day behind, so we watched the Women's Finals from the day before instead. You couldn't make it up.

Mars Opposed to Ascendant

Oh blimey, I thought, when I saw this, knowing I was playing doubles tennis and then a word game I'd never played before with two people I didn't know that well.

Sailed through both of those activities - deliberately keeping my mouth shut a bit at the word game - and even sharing a book of tickets for tastes at local restaurants with a friend was, er, a piece of cake; no arguments, no 'I'd rather go here', 'I don't want to do that', no disagreements over samplings that took two tickets, both in perfect agreement that we didn't want to taste the mesquite tortilla with agave nectar at the museum -  lovely lovely morning and early afternoon. No fights with cashier in supermarket, no fist-shaking from motorists on the way home.

Loverly jubberly, life is good. Astrology is a wonderful tool, giving you awareness of influences at work in your life and enabling you to maneuver your way through the trickiest of circumstances if you stay conscious, not that there were any tricky circumstances to maneuver around. Hey, them planets can't be right all the time.

Hah! When will I learn? Never, obviously. Home to a message on the machine from the wonderful man-in-his-nineties in New York who I worked with years ago on an esoteric book he has had on sale on Amazon for four years. He has had a sale and can't understand the email. Could I call? And silly dopey gormless clueless fools rush in where you-know-the-rest picks up the phone and calls back.

Seller account? He doesn't have a seller account.

Well you must have, I say, or you wouldn't have anything for sale on Amazon. And knowing the answer before the question even formulates in my head, off I go - do you know your password?

Password? He doesn't have a password.

Well you must have, I say, or you wouldn't have been able to set up the seller account you think you don't have. I don't say the last five words out loud. What do you usually use for a password?

He doesn't have a password. Never had a password. For anything. Nobody ever asked him for a password. Password? Password? What am I talking about?

OK. Click on the Seller Account link and try to log in, I say, and there'll be something telling you what to do if you've forgotten your password that you've never had, I say, omitting the last four words and thinking I will never go to heaven.

Seller Account link? What Seller Account link? THAT Seller Account link, the one in the email they sent you. Which email? The one you're calling me about.

Best to draw a veil over the next ten minutes as we have several long-distance attempts for me to talk him through resetting the password he never had. Reading about the possibility of the password reset email going to his junk folder, which of course he has also never had, sends him over the top and, angry at himself for not being able to complete the transaction, guilty for taking up my time and humiliated at being what he calls so stupid, he is ready to forget the whole thing and not fulfill the order - the first order he has had in four years.

Much as I would also like to forget the whole thing I have a deep and enduring affection for this man I worked with so closely and have watched age over the past decade and say I will attempt to contact Amazon Customer Service and see if they can help.

I google ACS and get a phone number. I call. I tell them my name and then tell them it's not for me it's for - brief precis of the above. Let me put you through to Seller Support, they say. I get put through to Seller Support and explain I'm calling for an elderly man 2,500 miles away, brief precis #2, and I would like to get the shipping address for the sale he has just had. Yes I have his email address, yes I have his billing address, yes I have the order number.

Do I have the last four digits of the credit card he registered with Amazon when he set up the account? Er, now that you mention it, no. Let me call him back and get back to you. Do you have a direct number so I don't have to repeat all of this? Again, me being so psychic and all I know the answer to this before I ask it, and call A back to get the last four digits of his credit card number.

He gives me - after a suitable pause/hunt for credit card etc. - four digits. I call ACS back and ask for Seller Support. Naturally before I  get SS I have to give the seller's email and billing address etc. etc. No problem, now I have Seller Support, repeat my speech, give the last four numbers of the credit card - nope. No luck. Not the right four numbers. How about the last four numbers of his bank account? That would do.

OK. Back to the Bronx, given last four numbers of bank account after much discussion about routing numbers, account numbers, check numbers, weird little symbols that look like question marks etc., repeat the phone call, no luck, wrong numbers.

Decide cannot give up now and ask A to read me ALL numbers along the bottom of a check. Funny little thing that looked like a question mark turns out to a "7". First number he gave me is incorrect. Call ACS and get Seller Support and bingo! Checking account number correct. Thank God. Please may I have the ship to address for the order.

Well no, we can't give you that, but we can send a link so Seller can reset his password. Say first three people I talked to in Seller Support were ready to give me ship to address if I could provide all information requested. No no no, not our policy but we can send link for resetting password.

Back to the Bronx. Have you checked your email? No. OK, go and see - lo and behold! A 'reset your password" email. Twenty minutes by the clock and the password, which of course never existed in the first place, is reset, except that once we are finally - only 90 minutes from the beginning of my call back - in his Seller Account, according to him, nowhere in the email does it tell him the Ship To address for the order.

Reader, I no longer remember too much more. I know he found a Contact Buyer button. I know I told him to click on it. I know he asked me what to say. I know I told him to say "Thank you for your order. Please send me the shipping address." I know he asked me if he should say anything else and I know I said no. I know I told him to hit the Send button. I know he told me he got an Error message saying "Please Choose a Subject." I know I spent a lot of time explaining what a subject was. I know I spent a lot of time pointing out that if *it* said "Please Choose a Subject" there was a little triangle somewhere that would give him a CHOICE OF SUBJECTS. I know my voice had been getting progressively louder for the 120 minutes I had been on the phone. I know I told him I was expecting a phone call and would have to hang up but that I would call back tomorrow and we would sort it out. I know that if my horoscope tells me I can expect stiff opposition it will come to me one way or another, even if not quite the way astrodienst explains it will.

Mercury conjunct Neptune square Saturn

No idea how this fitted into the equation yesterday, what Mars sextiling the Midheaven and Venus trining Venus as well. All I know is two friends came over for a finger food lunch, I introduced them to Upwords and ended up with the lowest score.

But wait - Saturn was indeed lurking around as I got an email from the client I'm supposedly doing a transcribing job for that I can scarcely bring myself to work on, and we are to speak today about final corrections on a finished interview. How could I forget? So I am going to try to be a big girl and WORK - because it is WORK - on the transcribing job for a couple of hours before we speak at five. Gloom descends as I write that last sentence.

Perhaps Mercury being in six now will help, she said unconvincingly....

Sun Opposed to Mars

I always forget (!) that this is going to come after the Sun squares Uranus, but thank god it did, because I was still reeling from the snake incident when I got a call at five pm asking if it would be OK if the kitchen got painted today - meaning I had to swing into action mode immediately, even if my head was full of snake and what am I doing here.

Somewhat lost in all of this was a trine from Venus to Mercury, supposedly promising me a day of pleasant thoughts, easy intellectual exchanges with other people and general light-heartedness and good times. Ha! The slowest moving planet wins, and all that.

I was hoping I could slip in the kitchen cabinets as a little extra for M and S to paint, as well as the walls and ceiling, but no such luck. They have other work and planned to knock the kitchen out in one day, so I'm now faced with the moral dilemma of whether or not I remove the hinges from the kitchen cabinets before I paint them or do what my Aries self wants me to do and paint around them, a la Slapdash Studio.

Assuming that I'm taking the appearance of the snake as a little sign for me to shed my old skin and do things differently, it's the former. Assuming you can't teach an old dog new tricks, it will be the latter, Mars opposed to the Sun or not.

Sun Square Uranus

I knew there was going to be an Appointment in Samarra element to today when I cancelled my original plan of going to Big O Tires after tennis lesson to get the front left tire checked and came straight back to the house in a pitiful attempt to avoid the consequences of having the Sun square Uranus right at the time I'd have been at Big O.

I avoided those consequences all right but what I didn't avoid was the reappearance of the snake from yesterday, smack in the middle of the living room, where it went to ground under the ottoman, leaving me feeling sick, shaken, panicked and most of all clueless.

I mean what do you do when you have a snake under the ottoman in your living room? None of the advice columns I've read ever touched on the issue, presumably, of course, because no one ever asked them the question, but still...

First thing to do was remove Good Girl, down on her belly sticking her front paws as far under the ottoman as she could reach. That was easy. Put cat in addition, close door. Call friend 600 miles away and explain predicament. Get increasingly panicked while explaining and hang up to call Animal Control. Cannot find Animal Control in phone book, call High Desert and ask for number. Given number of Gila Wildlife Rescue who saved me once again from the perils of living on a dirt road off a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.

Very simple solution, really. Get a broom, get a box, sweep snake into box, take outside, go as far away from house as possible, release snake. Piece o'cake. Spend rest of day feeling sick, shaken and panicked but - aha! - no longer clueless.

Jupiter Sextile Uranus One More Time

OK, so I run into people I've been feeling guilty about ignoring for months (a good thing, in case you wondered - the running into them, not the ignoring), I'm offered the chance to make a little bit of money over the winter, Michael Lutin turns out to have a speaking engagement only five hours from where I live and then a submission opportunity that a play of mine actually fits pops up in my mailbox.

Full length? Check.
Unpublished? Check again.
Unproduced? Definitely.
Comedic? Black, but also a check.
Submission deadline? Midnight last night, just as Jupiter-Uranus aspect perfects.
Complete Jupiter-Uranus woo-woo factor? Play deals with death of the Princess of Wales, yesterday was 17th anniversary of *the fatal car crash*

Requirements: ten sample pages, resume, synopsis of play and cover letter.

Synopsis and cover letter I have, ten sample pages takes me a couple of hours to pick out  - I did five from Act I and five from Act II and had to reformat it all as switching to Word from Final Draft stripped out all the formatting, I added character breakdown and all that stuff, cover letter takes more time than I want to admit, and just as I'm about to hit "send" I notice the email address for submissions to the theater  has dot org at the end instead of dot com.

A quick google, and I realize I'm sending the play off to a non-profit dedicated to spreading cancer awareness, not quite the venue one would choose for a black comedy about an embittered middle-aged woman's search for her father, most of it in appalling bad rhyming couplets.

Nothing ventured nothing gained and all that, and I hit "send" anyway, looking on the bright side and realizing I now had a Word document I could send as a submission enquiry to a theater where I might have a remote chance of the play even being considered, should I, of course, ever sit down and actually research theaters in the U.K. that might take something unsolicited.

Shaking her head ruefully, she got up from her desk chair and went to the kitchen, where so help me god so help me jesus there on the floor by the french doors, presumably having just slithered its way under the door from the back patio, was a snake - not a very long one and not a very fat one but a frigging snake none-the-less - on the kitchen floor and about to wriggle off into the pantry and make itself at home curled up by the vacuum cleaner for ever unless I, Pamela Rose Reeves, having lived in a city for 67 of my 69 years, did something about it.

It involved a broom and a lot of hopping about and yelping, but I did it, and I leave it to you, Tonstant Weader, as Dorothy Parker said in her review of "The House at Pooh Corner" in The New Yorker, to google the symbolism of snakes by yourself.

Jupiter sextile Uranus

The excitement continues and it's only half past seven! Michael Lutin, who I've linked to so many times I'm not going to do it right now, is speaking at the ISAR conference in Phoenix at the end of September! Phoenix! Only five hours away! You can get a day pass! AND I think there's an Ikea there!

Wondering what the next twelve hours will bring...

Jupiter sextile Uranus

Goddammit every time I get fed up and think I'm not writing this stupid blog anymore because I can barely scratch up the energy to do it and who cares anyway, there's such a right-on manifestation that I have to put it out there anyway even if no-one ever reads it.

OK. So yesterday didn't go exactly as planned: M was over-scheduled and would have been hard-pressed to come and paint the bathroom and I said no problem, I could take all his stuff out and it could sit in the living room till next week and the airbnb people who were coming wouldn't mind that there was bare sheetrock etc. etc. So he didn't come and as it turned out, neither did the airbnb people because of car problems, but nothing that you could really put down to Jupiter sextile Uranus.

Today when I got online at 8:00 am I saw a message sent last night saying could I play tennis at 8:30? I could and did, and as a result of being *downtown* was walking back to my car right behind the very first two people I ever knew in Silver City, who had sent me an e-cards Christmas card last December - yes, eight months ago - and who I had been feeling guilty about ever since because I didn't send them one back. We got that all sorted out and they're coming over next week. (For added Uranian-Jupiterian stroke of luck info, I should point out this couple no longer lives in Silver but 30 miles away, so for me to run into them when I did I involved more *luck* than one might originally think.)

Then, along the lines of expanding my Jupiterian body of knowledge and all that, I took a deep breath and drove to Big O Tires where I was going to ask them to check my front right tire for a slow leak - this for me akin to climbing Everest for those who grew up with cars and learned to drive at 14 - but it was Saturday and they closed at noon.

Across the street to Walmart - where I bought a piece of ginger root - again, akin to someone who cooks buying fiddle-head ferns or Japanese blowfish - and then home to welcome the airbnb peeps and find an email from friends asking whether I'd like to caretake their house for the six months they don't live here, care-taking involving a weekly visit to water plants etc. etc., and obviously involving $ - an opportunity I could never have *predicted*. You just gotta be amazed.

Mercury Trine Midheaven

So a hideous and horrible thought struck me last night: that the reason I am moping around like a friendless waif (wrong word for someone weighing in at a healthy 125)  alone in the middle of the desert toiling away night and day at maintaining a constantly-in-need-of-repairs old house on a dirt road off a dirt road in a depressed little mining town in the Southwest is because I gave up my apartment in New York two years ago for not too many pieces of silver.

(I think the sentence - if that's what it can be called ha ha - above is proof once and for all that the writing instructor who told me I wrote as though I have to get every thought in my head out at once was right. I prefer to think it's because I have natal Mars in Pisces loosely opposed to Jupiter in Virgo)

Whatever, as the children say. It is more than possible that my present state can be blamed on having taken myself - unsupervised, of course - off of my anti-depressant medication several months ago. Just in case this is the true cause, I am now - unsupervised, of course - back on my anti-depressant medication and hope to soon be happily moving cinder-blocks and weeding and sweeping and washing floors and cleaning windows and putting salt in the water-softener and changing the kitty litter and going to the dump and generally enjoying my extreme good fortune which has me living in a beautiful house on a dirt road off a dirt road only four miles from Walmart in the mountains of New Mexico and owning Apple stock.

Venus Opposed to Moon

Well I don't know about indiscriminate affection but I did put on my most winning smile and ask M, who came this morning to do another layer of mudding, if he would be willing to paint the kitchen for me, seeing as how it's needed doing since the leak in the ceiling last - November? October? - and I am seemingly incapable of doing anything about it myself.

My request was prompted by two things; One, see last sentence of paragraph above: Two, I am going to have to buy a gallon each of the two custom-mixed colors in the addition for about two square feets' worth [?] of painting that will need to be done now that the leak is finally fixed and there are no more unsightly bulges up by the ceiling outside the bathroom.

Having to shell out for those two gallons solves rather neatly the question of what color the kitchen should be painted, when and if I ever got around to doing so. Any thoughts of coral, which had occurred to me while I was on my holiday in Florida, are immediately banished by a gallon each of custom green and custom blue.

I am looking on the bright side and telling myself those colors will bring the glorious New Mexico sun and the plants in the garden into the kitchen, metaphorically speaking, of course.

Mercury Conjunct Jupiter

Why I thought this would help me write the press release I'm supposed to hand over at 6pm tonight I have no idea, although my understanding of the situation in the Middle East was greatly expanded by an conversation over coffee yesterday with someone with - really and truly - extensive knowledge of the political situation there.

On another note, with the subject aspect ten  minutes from exact this morning, I've decided to end my anti-depressant-medication-free experiment begun in April after careful monitoring, and just took a 150 mg Wellbutrin tablet. We shall see.

Pluto Sextile Mars

Something's giving me the energy to work on the outside landscaping that's needed doing for years and this seems to be the likely *culprit* - retrograde or not. Another month and Pluto stations retrograde at 11:00 Capricorn and *my* natal Mars is at 10:59 Pisces, hence, I think, my activity yesterday with rocks and rebar and cement blocks and slump blocks and weed cloth and lava rock, and also hence the state of my hands today.

With Sun and Mercury in the Fifth the fun and joy and playing pranks continues....but you only have to do it once, I tell myself, over and over again...

Sun Trine Venus

Just as I'm about to lose interest completely because Jupiter comes to Pluto and all I do is transcribe (not my fault remotely, of course, that transcribing is the *thing* it turns out I'm putting effort into instead of trying to become a ballerina or a nuclear physicist) the Sun trines Venus and the manifestation is so ridiculously literal I figure I'll soldier on for one more day and do another post.

Supposed to play tennis. Rains. Play Upwords instead at the coffee shop where, last time I went, I saw a beautiful house plant in pitiful condition that I decided needed TLC from me (ulterior motive, get a cutting; once upon a time in New York I had this plant hanging in the kitchen window.)

Ask coffee shop owner if may take plant home and repot.  Permission granted. Name of plant: ceropegia woodii, known to those with no access to Google as string of hearts.

Jupiter Conjunct Pluto, Oops, I Forgot

Of course I did something involving my own personal power <hysterical laughter> - I transcribed one whole page.

This little saga began at least two months ago when I agreed to do some transcribing work after not having done it for at least four years. (For those fortunate enough to not know what transcribing entails, it involves being tethered to a computer by a set of earphones while using a foot pedal to control, in the olden days, a machine into which one inserted an audio tape, and now a software program into which a sound file has been loaded, and then typing, or keyboarding if you want to be technical, whatever the contents of the tape or sound file contains - usually an interview of some kind, sometimes, if all malevolent planets in the universe are lined up against you, a technical or academic conference in which all speakers are at least six feet away from a mal-functioning microphone. Favorite places for clients to record are restaurants at the height of lunch or dinner hour, airport runways or next to factory conveyor belts.)

So - yes, I say, of course I can continue with the job I was doing for you. I still have the disk with the sound files and I'll get going on it just as soon as I've washed the kitchen floor and done all the windows. I did find the disk immediately, but what I forgot was that, transcribing machine or Express Scribe, I needed a foot pedal, which took another couple of weeks to locate but was eventually found in one of the boxes I sent to myself when I moved out here 12 years ago.

Ok. Plug in the foot pedal, get the sound file loaded - this a production in itself thanks to the monstrosity that is iTunes 11 - place foot on part of pedal that is supposed to activate the software - silence. Repeat three or four times, checking the connection, breathing deeply, then decide I will need to buy a new foot pedal and go on vacation for two weeks.

Return from vacation $1500 poorer than when I left, plug pedal in again just in case, proving AA's definition of insanity, and then start scrutinizing every word on the web page for the software.  Discover that only one manufacturer's pedal will work with the free version of the software and it is, of course, not the one I own. Shell out $29 and download the software. Still no sound. After about an hour, see a fleeting message referencing a Set-up Wizard. Set up the foot pedal. I am boring myself to tears here and cannot be bothered to go on with this, but suffice it to say that yesterday, while the bits of old caulking were being scraped off the roof, I sat here and  - in spite of discovering that MS Word 2008, my version of the program, no longer supports macros and I will have to manually type in the names of the speakers by listening to the MP3 AGAIN when I am done - I transcribed a whole page of an interview before fleeing outside and beginning to frantically pull up weeds - ANYTHING to escape.

Jupiter Conjunct Pluto

I suppose it's good to have astrological evidence that this time the leak on the roof will be  fixed once and for all as it was done under this aspect - the many layers of cracked and brittle old caulk stripped right down and replaced with something so efficacious it can supposedly be used on wet surfaces - on the other hand it does seem to be carrying the mundane just a little too far.

Venus Conjunct Pluto, Over at Last

I suppose with no human to use all that compulsive energy on I put it all on the leak in the bathroom, and by the end of the day had convinced myself - as the hail came down and the water trickled down on to the exposed sheetrock I'd had a space heater pointed at for 24 hours - that the obviously needed repair to the roof would cost around $10,000. This figure is yet to be confirmed, but at least this morning, having not gone into total meltdown last night, I am not walking around taking deep breaths and, doubled over, clutching my stomach. What a big girl!

Venus Conjunct Pluto Take Two

But I forgot:

I think that Venus in my chart
Is crasser far than love or art.
Instead of "Oh I love you honey"
I got a great big bunch of money.

Apple dividend pay day, thank you God thank you Jesus.

Venus Conjunct Pluto

So I set the alarm so I could get up and see Venus and Jupiter together at sunrise (both of them sitting smack on Pluto for me) and thanks to New Mexico no longer being in severe drought they were both hidden behind cloud cover, but never mind; no sudden feelings of jealousy or possessiveness and thank God no one around to decide I'm in love with, so so far so good.

Only friendship-related thing I did do was call someone who got annoyed with me the last time I was in Boston and didn't get down to New York as promised to see her and has ignored me ever since. I of course have ignored her as well - it does seem as though Neptune in the Eleventh is dissolving every friendship I've ever had - but yesterday I picked the phone up and left a message.

Now off to Walmart where I intend to cleverly outwit any influence the stars may be exerting on me by using the self-service check-out and thus driving away unbetrothed.

Sun in the Fifth, or, The Slowest...

...Moving Planet wins, to quote Michael Lutin, which I suppose is why I'm sitting here wondering whether to pull out all the rebar I whacked into the driveway yesterday to hold back the corrugated tin I'm lining it with and move it all back a foot, say to hell with it I've got a little car and the UPS van isn't that big and spray paint it in place anyway, wash the kitchen floor, sweep the back patio, stake the Russian Sage, do a load of laundry, get yet another bag full of stuff ready for the thrift shop, weed the front steps, do some ironing, change the kitty litter or find yet another way to bring fun and joy into my life while Pluto slowly retrogrades back to sextile Mars in Pisces for me.

Venus sextile Neptune

Here's hoping with this in effect all day I'll get over the vague but definitely there feeling of being out of sorts I've had ever since I got back to the Land of Enchantment, where every single household object has been giving me the silent reproach treatment - dust me, move me, lemon oil me, clean me, throw me out - do something with me, for God's sake, don't just stand there.

The foot pedal challenge is all sorted out. Once I discovered Express Scribe allows the use of only one foot pedal - the one I don't have - with its free software I was able to purchase and download the *professional* version for half the cost of a new pedal, although it was an accomplishment I got less than excited about as immediately I got that figured out I got editing work which I completed last night ten minutes before deadline and then sent off the wrong file.

The fun and joy Sun in the Fifth is supposedly bringing me seems in somewhat short supply, overshadowed by Mars and Saturn in Scorpio in the Sixth. I did take a deep breath on Monday morning and call Hartford to find out exactly what the two-year-old insurance claim will mean to my annual rate but the agent in charge is on vacation till next Monday, and God forbid I should actually go on line and try to get some info that way.

No, I'll just wallow in misery and general discontent and disgruntlement till then, and look out the window at all the weeding I don't want to do and open the closet door and look at all the ironing I don't want to do and close the door again  and wiggle the legs on the dining room chairs and hope they don't dry out so much they come out of their sockets ...

I've got a good idea! Maybe I'll put myself in a pleasant country spot, just as astro.com suggests, because that will have a very powerful effect on me and I can go off into a mindless daydream for the rest of the day and watch English sitcoms on YouTube and feel all better in the morning. That's a good idea!

Oh shucks! I forgot! I'm such a dope! M is coming in 20 minutes because the sheetrock in the guest bathroom needs to be replaced after all, and he can't just scrape it down and mud it as he originally thought. I think with Mercury in the Fifth as well as the Sun I'll just play a silly prank on him and go and hide in the adobe till he's gone! That will make him laugh....

Ah, the human condition - 'tis a wonderful thing. I think my best bet is to have a Dr. Phil marathon of all the reruns I missed while I was away and count my blessings.

Sun Opposed to Moon

Nasty, this one, not one you want to be born with. Back from my holidays with the Sun in the Fourth, and now it's gone into the Fifth I have loads of editing work, NOT THAT I AM COMPLAINING, just a statement of fact.

But there I am all set to get going on a transcribing job and discover the foot pedal I found with such jubilation weeks ago doesn't work, and I get a call from another client when I told him I'd be busy all week and allow myself to be talked into looking at a new rewrite job (this, admittedly, with Venus square Venus) and then actually agree to play tennis (I SAID Sun is in the Fifth) at three in the afternoon when it's 85 degrees and then can't believe I said yes.

Like I said, nasty, and thank you God thank you Jesus this morning I'm back to my *normal* Sun and Moon sextile self.

Saturn and Mars in Scorpio and a Full Moon on *my* Moon

Close enough, anyway - off by one degree.
And the two malefics don't have to be in the Eighth for them to have a less-than-welcome financial effect, it seems, as I returned from my holidays back to the Land of Enchantment and Wifi to discover my one upcoming airbnb reservation has been cancelled and the neighbor I collided with, smashing up my beloved Volvo two years ago, is making a claim on my auto insurance.

No idea what for, until I call tomorrow, but you know it can't be good, especially as the Sun will be opposing *my* moon exactly.

Jupiter sextile Neptune

On my holidays in/on the Keys. No spiritual groups in sight to join so far but I did start the laundry this morning before we left.

Sun in Four

...and I'm supposed to be staying home but I'm on my holidays two thousand miles away in Margate, Florida.

Sporadic bulletins to follow.

Mercury to the North Node

So finally - finally - and giving myself the Aries prize for patience, I got the sewing machine to work yesterday so I could take in the black and white queen size polka dot top in thick high-quality cotton I bought in Town and Country Thrift Shop I would say - five? years ago.

It was when I still had the fabulous tub chairs that I gave away that year and - darnation (!) - I was going to upload a photo and realize I can't even do it from Picasa that I finally just began to use: have to use Picasa web albums and that's turned into Google+ and if I start fiddling around joining that another hour will have gone and Mercury is in the Third so I have a frantic pace (i.e., more than one thing on a to-do list for the day) so I say it's spinach and to hell with it - but I did finally realize the sewing machine needle was bent and replaced it and began to take in the polka dot top.

Hence Mercury to the North Node.

Sun square Venus...

...  and the cat throws up on my bed while I'm out at tennis lesson and then I eat three slices of cinnamon raison bread even though I don't like it.

Six hours later, with stomach returning to normal, I'm wondering how Venus conjunct Saturn and square Neptune yesterday could have resulted in a totally impromptu and very amusing dinner with two friends (victuals provided by one of them). Go figure.

Mars opposed to Mercury

OK so I got the sewing machine out - i.e., put it on the dining room table and plugged it in - and then with my obsession ha ha with doing things properly began to unpick the hem and the sleeves of the polka dot top I bought probably four years ago that is way too big and then I realized it wasn't going to rain and went outside and started to water and then by the time I came back inside it was too dark to see what I was doing because there's no overhead light in the dining room or living room because J doesn't read and he was the one in charge of remodeling the house when we bought it after 9/11 while I was stuck in New York going to Workers' Comp hearings where they were telling me it was all in my head and there was nothing wrong with me blah blah blah etc. etc. etc.

So I didn't sew anything.

Mars opposed to Mercury AND Sun square it

Obviously I should have stayed home but instead took myself off to V's on Thunder Road where all the houses are on winding paths marked with big rocks with house numbers painted on and of course I forgot her house number and went down several wrong turns and backed out of one right into the big rock marker  <shakes  head in disbelief>.

Mars Square Midheaven

I guess if your natal Mars is in Pisces you're less likely to get yourself in arguments while this is in effect.

Au contraire, I was falling over myself agreeing with anything and everything potential fixer of the sagging back patio canopy was suggesting yesterday, there really being no point whatsoever in my doing anything else as the whole operation is so far beyond my comprehension I may as well dispense with the supposed *consultation* and simply say "There it is. Fix it."

M is kind enough, however, to treat me as an informed client, a persona I make feeble attempts to go along with but blow every time I open my mouth with one of my helpful "Couldn't you just...?" suggestions, every one of which gets a polite, informative and lengthy response which always boils down to "No," hence my "If that's what you think needs to be done please just go ahead and do it" attitude.

Mars square Midheaven

"Initiate projects I might otherwise be reluctant to tackle," like opening the dreaded Picasa and groping my way through uploading photos? Not exactly appropriate to the season, but it's a start. 

Venus in Two

Lavish tastes? Would that include taking an Ativan two days in a row and knocking yourself out for 48 hours after a week of nonstop home improvement or would that come under Jupiter square Venus, for most of which I've been unconscious?

Forget about the lavish tastes - how about money in your mailbox and the moolah for selling the Polo boots on eBay becoming available? I like that one much more better.

So now I am conscious - vaguely - and am looking at the list of things to do and wondering if I should go on with clearing out the pantry, writing Anonymous and Me (hah!), finishing the Story for Sirjana about Salami deciding to hop all day with the side to-do of learning Pages, cancel my Slate account because I finally paid it off, make a list of personal property I want to bequeath to the four people I still know when I die, sticking photos of various and assorted clematis I don't know the names of in the garden book, get a load of stuff ready for Restore, ditto for the dump and the recycling center I've just discovered exists in town, add more steps to the pathway I'm making that leads to the airbnb entrance, ironing, making a summer dress from all the marimekko fabric I've been buying on eBay, redoing the three by five cards currently covered in crossing outs and scribble that constitute my list of website passwords, calling the plumber for the third time, looking at the Dripworks website for the Nth time but this time actually ordering something or slightly more prosaically and likely to happen, making the bed - not as simple as even it might seem as Good Girl is sound asleep in it.

O fortunate and lucky me, is all I can say.

Mercury sextile Venus

Only one thing to do with this when you've had a week of Jupiter Jupiter Jupiter and you're pushing seventy - sleep.

I did get off to an energetic beginning by grabbing the shovel and placing two stepping stones on the pathway to the private entrance to the B&B, but the ground was too hard to do any more than that   and the back patio is in such a mess I had no idea where to start, so I took myself back to bed, pretended to read The New Yorker and next thing I knew it was 7:30 and the cats wanted their dinner.

Jupiter Jupiter Jupiter

All the way down in four - shelves up, other shelves moved, wall panel heater moved, towel bar up, curtain rod up, beautiful big mirror hung opposite big beautiful window, windows cleaned, new screens installed, concrete caulk put down in bathroom and holes drilled in tennis balls to go on top of rebar.

Definitely time to start to use Picasa.

Jupiter Sextile Chiron

An influence that will help me feel fairly optimistic and eager to expand projects I've already begun - plenty of those to choose from ha ha. Go on with organizing fifty years' worth of photographs, yet more clothes to the thrift shop, sewing projects galore begun only in my head, clean out the pantry, more Stories for Sirjana, paint the corrugated tin driveway lining, pick up more gravel for the newest garden pathway - the mind boggles.

With JDG here with his drill and tool box, looks as though the towel rack is finally going up in the guest bathroom.

Venus Conjunct Uranus

Well I knew it couldn't be me taking a tennis lesson after about three years and seeing all my old friends again because it was days since I decided to do that and Uranus doesn't fit with that scenario, but even knowing if you can imagine it it's not going to be Uranus, to hear that a friend has MRSA blew me away more than I thought anything could.

Jupiter Square Mercury

Well, the story about Salami deciding to make his life more exciting by hopping all day continues, if not apace, although no satisfactory conclusion has yet been reached.

Other than that as a *result*, didn't notice any opposition from others to my big plans, probably because I didn't talk to or see any one. I now cannot think of the word that means "in contradiction to that" - not being able to think of a word happening increasingly frequently, just as an aside - but as it happened I got a little bit further with my very big plan of getting everything I don't want or need out of this house.

No easy task, and I have to keep reminding myself that I will only have to do it once, assuming I can cure myself of my addiction to thrift shop shopping, which, I have come to realize, substitutes for entertainment, or more truthfully, is entertainment for me right now. That and watering.

Mars Opposed to Sun

Not a disagreement in sight, just me with a rake in what's left of the light trying to give some sense of being cared for to the triangle in between the driveways to the front and back of the house - the space I used to call the Bermuda Triangle because anything I planted there disappeared in a week, victim to drought, deer, rabbits and my lack of knowledge of horticulture in general.

But I was so much older then, ha ha, I'm younger than that now, and I have an eight foot high hollyhock growing and just beginning to flower in the, er, north garden, which anchors the end of the triangle closest to the house.

It's the scorched and barren wasteland at the other end I'm trying to make look tended, for want of a better word, and it's so frigging hot the window of activity is short, hence the raking around in the dark last night.

O for Picasa to be able to post images, although without a *before* only another struggling *gardener* in this drought-stricken wild-life-rich wind-blown corner of New Mexico would see anything that looked like an accomplishment. Yes ma'am, everything is definitely relative.

Earthquake! Earthquake!

Blimey. I know I've for Jupiter opposed to the Midheaven right now but a 5.2 earthquake (in New Mexico) is going a bit far. Good to know the house foundations are stable though.

Just like me, she says, flat on her back, waiting for it not to be one hundred degrees so she can move.

Jupiter Sextile Ascendant

So there in the mailbox is a notice there's a package at the PO and when I get it it's an I heart New York tee shirt with the heart made up of lots of little paw prints, a pair of work gloves and a pair of socks, the socks especially appreciated as they're the ones that barely cover your feet but are made of nice thin cotton instead of terry cloth, and it's in the mid-nineties every day here at the moment. God bless Albert.

With Jupiter opposed to the Midheaven, sextiling the Ascendant and about to square Mercury - and of course in its exaltation - life seems pretty good these days for a twelfth house Aries Sun, and only the start of the monsoon season could make it any better. It's all relative.

Jupiter Opposed to MC, continued...

... or is it Venus in the First, not that I'd ever associate Venus with corrugated tin. Whatever it is/was, yesterday as soon as it was cool enough to go outside I started lugging all the logs that were supposed to be forming a *rustic* boundary for the driveway up on to the slope of the hill and dragging down the bits of corrugated tin (iron?) that I bought at an estate sale way more than a year ago that I want to replace them. Definitely time to sort out Picasa so I can upload pictures here, even though of course there is no *before* shot.

I'd go on, but I slept till 8:30 after my engineering exertions and need to go food shopping while it's still cool enough to go outside, Department of Very Boring Details.

Jupiter Opposed to Midheaven

So this must be why I was cleaning the soles of a pair of Ralph Lauren Bowery Boots with a toothbrush last night so I could get them on eBay and get them out of this house. I need to clean up any leftovers from my past life that are still affecting the present adversely and get all this crap that people have left behind out of the way to clear space for the exciting new life that I know is waiting for me as soon as there's an empty corner it can fill.

The black floating shelf and the two small white ones that I have no idea where they came from but have been here for years went on to Recycle Grant County - I'd put the link but it's a closed group so it wouldn't do you any good when you got there - AND the wood burning hobby kit I bought at BigLots when Bogie died in 2006 and I thought I'd make a grave marker for him and have never opened got bundled up with them - all four pieces for $10 - come and get it but no one has yet.

Now the big question, having looked at Bowery Boots on eBay, is do I buy a pair of shoelaces so the ones going up for auction look better, or shall I be lazy, not buy shoelaces, and risk not getting as much money for them than if I did? More will be revealed.

Venus Conjunct the Ascendant

I had this in my solar return a few years ago and it seemed all year long people gave me things - a set of four chairs for outside, a fire screen, a truly fabulous hat (which I lost).  Not exactly all year long, but more largesse than usually comes my way.

Thursday, with subject title in effect, D and I played tennis and the first thing she did was hand me a new pink hat she'd bought in ABQ. And in next year's solar return, not that I look ahead or anything....

Venus Trine Midheaven

Good for creative endeavors - does that include moving tree trunks around to widen paths in the enclosed bit at the back of the house and setting up three smaller ones around a big one to make a, er, rustic table and chairs in the ever-evolving still not finished after four years front *garden* outside the addition?

Whether it does or not, that's what I did, as well as finishing off my taxes and - wonder of wonders - filling out the beneficiary forms for the two bank accounts that have any money in them and mailing the whole lot off, in some weird state of I-can't-quite-believe-I-am-actually-doing-this-after-all-this-time that I might soon get used to.

Mars Square Natal Nodes

While transiting Mars causes bloodshed and mayhem across the globe as it sets off the Grand Cross, closer to home it got me to sit down and tackle my 2013 taxes - that and Sun and Mercury, both in two right now, I suppose.

I made a valiant attempt, anyway, calling Citibank to ask why I didn't get a tax report for selling stock in a brokerage IRA - oh right, I remember, because I didn't withdraw the funds so there was nothing to report...

Commercial affairs - hah!

Transiting South Node on Mercury

Is it this that has finally got me listing stuff on eBay, after thinking about it for months if not years? Yesterday, with the aspect exact, the Flax tunic I bought myself four years ago for my 65th birthday when I thought I would try and upgrade the way I dress (keyword: thought)  sold for $36, with no watchers at all for the Jones NY jacket and the Western shirt with appliqued cowboy boots I shouldn't even have bothered to list but never mind.

If it doesn't sell it goes to the thrift shop and either way I never have to look at whatever it is again and think that I want to put it on eBay. Now if I can just get the Ralph Lauren Polo Bowery Boots that J wants me to sell listed then maybe I can move on to the 50 or so Mutoscope cards Curtis gave me about 30 years ago and then of course there's the brand new pink Timberland boots I bought myself here two years ago for $15 and have never worn...

Better get a move on though because the node is moving on, next step Sun for me, and God only knows what happens then.

Venus Square Moom

Played tennis at 7:00 am - first time since February 12 when broke wrist - back home, potted plant for L, loaded car with non-smelly recyclables, drove out to Mimbres, lunch with L at Living Harvest, remembered to hand over plant, drove back to Silver and went straight out to the dump to unload, back to house, got room ready for b&b-er, drove back *downtown* to play Upwords with B, lost as always, back to house, watched The Lone Ranger and fell asleep. 

Sun in the Second

So I'm supposed to be reflecting on my values and the things I value and examining my relationship to the resources of my life, whatever that means, to quote Prince Charles in a slightly different context, although he's an appropriate person to come to mind as he too, I believe, has a significant relationship with the plants in his life and spends a fair amount of time chatting away to them if not constantly digging them up and trying to find new homes for them where they will be happier. (That, I believe, is done for him by others, except come to think of it it's not as his plants very probably get put in the right place from the get go as both he and the people who do his planting for him have a deep understanding of horticulture and know exactly what kind of soil and location will make each new addition to the garden grow and thrive, completely unlike me out here in the middle of nowhere weeding the Gila.)

Which segues neatly into what I do indeed currently value, which is the life of *my* plants outside, although not for one second would I say I have greater control of my life through them, whatever that means. (Sorry, astrodienst. Not with you on that one.)

It's the exact opposite. The plants, at the moment, are controlling my life as I spend the greater part of the day running around after them covering them up with shade cloth and bit of old sheets - the ones I haven't already dug up and moved to different locations, that is.

Any day now I'm going to download Picasa so I can add photos to this. In the olden days I used to be able to upload straight from my computer but Larry and Brin have put a stop to that, the creeps. Come to think of it, that's something I really did value, but enough of this nostalgic whining. The Sun has moved again.









At this time you should reflect upon your values and the things that you value. During this month-long transit you should examine your relationship to the resources of your life. At this time you need to express yourself through your material and nonmaterial resources, using them to define you to yourself and others. Now you want to have greater control of your life through the things that you value. On the material level this may mean that you will acquire possessions in order to gain more control over your own life or over other people. On the psychological level it indicates a need to assert your value system. But remember that others have a right to their own values. You should stand up for your own, but not by obliterating someone else's.

Venus Trine North Node...

...and Sun trine Moon, which just happens to be at the degree of AAPL's  Sun, which makes it a fitting day for the stock split to happen and, with Venus also trining *my* North Node in Capricorn, me to spend a happy hour trying to figure out what the new split-adjusted dividend will be.

The financial obsession, with Mercury now retrograde in Two, took on a new twist with me calling Dish and telling them I was fed up with getting special offers for new subscribers and what could they do for me as a long-term loyal customer - the answer, leaving me somewhat stunned,  being taking $27 a month off the bill each month. My God it's so easy when you just do it, which Nancy Reagan, of course, always knew.

Sun Sextile Sun

Taking stock? Ha! Watching the Aladdin segment on the Tony's and can't for the life of me understand why Soldiering On hasn't been snapped up by now.

Almost frightening myself with how productive I'm being, if finally looking through and sorting and filing months' worth of mail can be considered productive (and it can). Even made a start on getting taxes ready to file and am working on gardening book (!!!!!) while watching Broadway's Best.

Next?

Venus Sextile Mars

I have this by progression for the next couple of years so I'll have to make sure I have friends over every couple of months so I can keep the house clean.

The corner shelf unit in *my* bathroom and the high-end closet organizer that sits on a shoe shelf under the window have been pulled out from the walls for a couple of weeks as a supposed nudge to myself to clean the baseboards behind them, but  all I have done is lean over them both to get to the sink and cleaned my teeth at arm's length. You can get used to anything when you're lazy.

Have a friend come over though with the subject aspect and out comes the Spic'n'Span and the flannel sheet I was going to return to Land's End because it lasted only two winters but after five years realized that wasn't going to happen and cut it up for rags and I have a clean bathroom - magic. Or celestial influence. Take your pick.

Venus Square Pluto

I think that Venus in my chart
Is crasser far than love or art.
Instead of "Oh I love you honey"
I got a great big bunch of money.

The above, written for one of Michael Lutin's astrology classes, proves true yet again as my 2012 New Mexico tax refund, contested by the state and requiring additional proof of withholding, sent probably three months ago, * miraculously* appears in my checking account as this aspect perfected this morning.

Mars Trine Uranus

So I managed to get two bits of twisted metal - remnants of the chicken coop - into Zippy, along with a disintegrating old tarp from the woodpile, an ancient Marimekko comforter and six bags os smelly trash, and do yet another trip to the dump, but the really surprising part of the day was sitting down at nine am to start transcribing work and realizing that even with the software replacing the transcribing machine, I needed a foot pedal.

Could I find the foot pedal? No. Do I think I threw the foot pedal out? Would like to think not, but it's looking like a yes. Could it still be in Cambridge? Anything's possible. Will I have to order a new one? Yes.

And there is a God, I realize. After deciding I would spend $150 on a genuine from 1963 pink Marimekko dress on eBay I managed to stop myself at $310.50, with the auction ending at $315.50. Bidding had stopped at $67 when I entered the fray, going higher and higher and always being outbid but driving the price up nevertheless.

Somewhere in the world the winning bidder is sticking pins into a faceless voodoo doll, while I'm listening to Judy Garland singing "This is my Lucky Day" over and over again.

Sun Square Mars Part II

There really isn't one. Yesterday, with Mars trine Uranus, I didn't go back to writing, surprise surprise.

Sun Square Mars Part I

So of course this is the day I decide to do something with the slump blocks (!) given to me I think three years ago and also to attempt to move the compost heap, definitely something I wouldn't try without energy (idiocy?)  beamings from above.

The compost heap has been a mistake from the start. Rather than spend $200 on one of those new-fangled drums on legs things which I know from word of mouth work very well and are simple to operate, I decided it made much more sense to spend - don't remember - $25? - on a piece of black rubber with holes in it and four plastic stakes that turn it into an unwieldly free-standing bin that you throw all your scraps into, so that the compost, such as it is, forms at the bottom and you have no access to it because you keep throwing stuff in on top and the only way to get at what's on the bottom is by dismantling the whole thing and having a great big mess of eggshells, avocado skins, grape stems, orange peel and whatever other remnants of your diet that make compost scattered over an area three times the size of the bottom of the bin and then having to somehow dig out what has actually turned into compost and then reassemble the bin and put all the stuff that hasn't back in.

Disclaimer: if I had done it properly this would  not have been the case. I know I didn't keep it wet enough. I know I should have added more topsoil than I did. I should have dug around in there more often and mixed it all up. I should have put in fertilizer to help it along. All of that would have helped, as would reading the FM, but I didn't and the result was what I was faced with yesterday, and as this is turning into one of the longer posts ever made I think I'll do it in installments.

Sun Conjunct Uranus

Well, I was an hour off with this but 60 minutes before it perfected there I was pushing the One Click button on Amazon buying myself a Roomba 770 so I too can take adorable and amusing videos to upload to YouTube of the cats following this around and going for rides on it - much more likely, actually, will be videos of tails disappearing behind doors, knowing how brave both these guys are when it comes to vacuum cleaners, but perhaps they'll be different with the Roomba.

After yesterday's second day in a row of allergy misery, and remembering the clouds of cat hair I'm discovering everywhere, this seems like a perfectly reasonable purchase to have made, especially in light of the $45 that would be burning a hole in my wallet if I hadn't spent $15 of it on yet more allergy medication yesterday afternoon. Never mind. Lots more to go on eBay. And Sun now coming to square Mars, so God knows that's next.

But if this is a fore-shadowing of what will happen when Uranus hits the Sun next year, them Apple stocks had better start to climb.

Sun Sextile Pluto

"Under this influence you will be able to make changes in your immediate environment and to reform circumstances that you have been unhappily contending with for some time. "

Thank you, astrodienst, as usual. I would say cleaning the bathroom fits very nicely into this category, especially as by the time Thursday rolled around I'd already been working on it for a week. No sense in overdoing it, you know, especially now I'm almost 70.

So in this *session* I repotted the poor old cactus that's so top heavy he has to be propped up by the wall and managed to get him to stand up by himself, AND I pulled the cabinet away from the wall to reveal piles and piles of cat hair, presumably a major contributing factor to the constant misery my scratchy watery eyes are subjecting me to. Cleaned up the cat hair but left the cabinet pulled out because of course I'm going to go through everything in it and throw most of it out before I put it back.

Also discovered my long-lost Elsa Peretti absolutely plain had-it-for-ever bracelet, got out the silver polish (!)  and cleaned all the black off it so it looks like the silver it is and attempted to do the same with the little Iranian pill box I was given many moons ago which had also turned black.  

No success with that until I realized it was probably brass and switched to the appropriate polish.

And later in the day, yet another circumstance I've been very unhappily contending with for some time - the crowded back patio - got changed when a truck rolled up, someone who'd seen the listing on Facebook got out and handed me $45 and off went the little Joseph Cornell table, the metal chest of drawers and the child's kitchen play unit thing. Yeah Pluto! For once.

Mercury in Two

Well, the little tortoise lamp I had up on the Facebook page sold last week and now it looks as though the pretend Joseph Cornell table, the green chest of drawers and the child-size play kitchen hutch thing will be going as well.

Espresso cups I bought in Santa Fe for two dollars sold for $11.25 on eBay. No bites yet on the Ghost jacket for $4.99 but never mind.

Cats are going to miss the kitchen hutch. They've been taking turns sitting on top of it being monarchs of all they survey. Back to the tree trunks.

New Moon in First Near Uranus

Three degrees away - does that count? Close enough to go through an album of photographs from 45 years ago and throw away most of them and sort the kept ones into three piles - one for me (smallest), one for friend from that time having birthday soon and one for my sister, also having birthday soon.

Biggest discovery was my wedding date - November 4, 1968, something I've never been sure of, although if I dug out the divorce papers ha ha they would probably have it.

Slowly slowly slowly I am getting a handle on this house, now that I have two useable hands again and no mystery bug to lay me low. Tomorrow it's yet another trip to the dump with as much of the destroyed chicken coop I can fit into Zippy as possible - and Sun to Uranus in three days time.

Perhaps I'll get an inkling of  how Uranus to the Sun will manifest next year, she said brightly, going to make herself a drink...

Venus Conjunct Mercury

Invited out for lunch for belated birthday, invited b&b guests for dinner and attempted, reasonable successfully, to duplicate dessert served at lunch for dinner.

Recipe somewhat insultingly called No Skill Fruit Tart but actually worked well in spite of many reviews from people saying crust was horrible and they ate the fruit out the middle - NOT seen before I made it.

Jupiter Sextile Jupiter

"In good working order," says astrodienst, and I go back to the clinic for my blood work results - words I have never written before in reference to myself - and lo and behold, my cholesterol is *normal* - the good kind is where it should be and so is the bad kind, instead of the bad kind being off the chart where it's always been before when I've had it tested, admittedly not often but still.

"But I'd barely eaten anything for ten days when the blood was taken," I say. "Remember I came because I was sick and not feeling well?"

"Doesn't make any difference," says the P.A. "All your blood work is good and everything's fine."

Not for a second do I believe her but I'm not about to suggest they run all the tests again now I've been eating *normally* for a week.  I haven't had the bill for any of this yet but I'm getting used to one arriving weeks after any *treatment* is finished, so I just say thank you, may I have a print-out and make a mental note to lay off the macaroni and cheese for the week before I go back again in November.

Sun Trine Chiron

Now I think this was supposed to give me the chance to bring painful events from the past to light and deal with them in a different - more healed (?) - way, but I have no memory whatsoever of shopping in Walmart as a child, let alone using the self-service checkout.

I have plenty of recent memories of Walmart, all of which tell me if I don't get there by 9:30 am at the very latest I should put off going till the next day, but needs must when the devil drives (a phrase I have never understood but seems particularly appropriate here) so there I was on Monday afternoon at three pm waiting for a self-service checkout to become available (!!!) and reminding myself over and over that I had made a conscious decision to buy groceries at just this time and there was no point whatsoever in having a temper tantrum and I should just get over myself.

Truly amazingly - as I have weaned myself off of all medication and am no longer taking either Celexa or Wellbutrin - I was able to hold on to this feeling when I punched in the code for green grapes, saw the cost come up on the screen, bought them - as I thought - and then saw the dreaded "Unexpected Item in Bagging Area - Assistance Needed" appear, while the red light began flashing and the screen froze.

The person responsible for giving assistance was probably on his first unsupervised day at work and I counted to 200 before giving up while he stabbed away at the screen in a valiant attempt to sort it all out, somewhat along  the lines of a chimpanzee writing Macbeth if you wait long enough, and when he finally made his way to When shall we three meet again? I was able to go back to my self-checking out.

Blackberries, Whiskas, PowerAde, Clamato Juice, Fat-Free Half-and-half  - all was whizzing along merrily until - oh horrors - the basket was almost empty and, with sinking heart, I realized I'd grabbed two cans of white satin spray paint for sprucing up the outside wicker chairs and may as well have grabbed a couple of gallons of vodka.

(Perhaps more (less?) enlightened states don't have this law, although for all I know, NM being the only state in which I ever buy spray paint, it's federal, but whatever it is, no one's allowed to buy spray paint here any more unless they're over 18, something a self-check-out counter is incapable of determining.)

This, perhaps, is where Sun trine Chiron kicks in, at least the "It can also prevent you from hurting others" bit,  for Mr. Assistance Needed was knee-deep in unmarked kids' clothes merchandise at an adjacent register attempting to write The Merchant of Venice and somehow I had the forbearance to wait until he got to The Quality of Mercy is not Strained and was able to verify I'm 50 years over the legal age to be allowed to buy spray paint without interrupting him and pointing out perhaps he needed to go back to associate training school and learn how to troubleshoot. The end.

Jupiter Square Sun

No wonder I've been on a roll for the past three days - this guy was lurking in the shadows turning me into the Energizer Bunny and getting me to the dump twice in three days. Finally something resembling a table and four chairs is appearing on the back patio, with yet another piece of un-wanted and un-needed furniture listed on Buy and Sell Grant County.

No takers - well, one, but no truck - but it's listed and it's off to PT for the wrist for me and then back to start again.

Venus Conjunct Sun

No other people in sight but beautification of house and garden continues, albeit slowly, and the bar of chocolate I've had for so long I wasn't sure where it was disappears - into my stomach, that is.

Haven't been near sugar since getting sick two weeks ago, and with any luck can now continue to avoid as unless I buy more there isn't any ha ha.

Mercury in Two

Mercury goes into the second house, it squares Jupiter and I finally put the unwanted bookcase on Grant County Sell and Barter and the phone rings before I've gotten off the office chair - man comes and picks up bookcase and gives me ten dollars, everybody happy.

AND I realize yet again I don't know how to use Facebook and hadn't responded to woman who wants tortoise lamp when I thought I had, and she wants to come and pick it up this Friday for another ten dollars.

I know it's all relative, but what with Apple splitting seven for one and this as well, I feel like a very lucky girl.

AND I listed the espresso cups and saucers I got in Santa Fe for twenty-five cents a set (!!!!!!!) on eBay. Finally it seems I'm capable of movement. Allelujah!

Saturn Square Moon and....

...Saturn sextile Jupiter at the same time - it's what happens when a natal moon and Jupiter are inconjunct, not mine, of course, just a moon in general...

So I have a foundation for success here along with emotional loneliness or something and a general feeling of being cut off, or I'm supposed to, and all I really want is to start to feel well again after the bout of whatever it is I've just had.

I have just had a lesson in what Progressed Moon opposed to Mars square Uranus really means, as once the explosive diarrhea passed - how's that for a throwaway line? - I started to open the boxes I ordered while it was in effect and it was a bit like Christmas. Ooh, I wonder what's in this big box - oh, it's the birdbath, of course, someone with two cats prowling around all day outside really needs a birdbath...

The birds haven't noticed it yet, which is definitely a good thing, and it sure do look purty, but a birdbath? That Jeff Bezos sure has a lot to answer for.

OK, post finished. Coherence next time.

Sun Square Moon

and Mercury trine Neptune and Venus trine Pluto and Sun trine Jupiter all on the same day and the self-prescribed antibiotics left over from the almost infected abrasion on my arm when the cast came off worked just enough for me to fall out of the big bed and toddle through the living room to my tiny back room and actually stay on my feet for ten minutes or so at a time before breaking out in a sweat.

Mercury trine Neptune? I did start to watch "The Wire" but only in a (Sun trine Jupiter?) attempt to organize the downloads and lasted about 15 minutes, and in a true Sun trine Jupiter moment thought I could give my sister and her husband miles enough for their flight from Spain, not just the U.S. segment, overlooking the minor detail that international is 40,000 miles round trip and domestic 25,000, but other than that I feel as though I've done basically squat - and that that's been going on for far too long.

Ever since I broke my wrist in February I've done nothing to the house - oh oh, whine alert. Erase.

sick

to albuquerque with a friend on monday for overnight trip, returned on tuesday with mars trine uranus to boxes everywhere i ordered online over the weekend, no idea what i've bought, in bed asleep ever since and about to close my eyes again after the effort of writing this.

Progressed Moon Opposed to Mars Exact

So aspects to the progressed Moon are supposed to be exact for two or three months but to obsess, as I'm so fond of doing , yesterday and today this aspect perfects.

All I can say about yesterday is I had shit loads of energy but it wasn't what you could call, er, focused - five minutes of this, five minutes of that, ten minutes of something else but not too much actually accomplished, unless you count planting Salad Burnett seeds, rooting some virginia creeper, photographing it and promising myself I'd start to keep a garden book again, washing sheets and taking wads of cat hair out of the lint catcher, doing one set of exercises for my wrist (supposed to be three), emailing the woman I stayed with in New York to thank her, going to Walmart and finally tracking down cactus and succulent soil and then going to a friend's house for dinner and having to borrow a flashlight because I forgot to leave the porch light on at the house.

Oh, and agreeing to go to Albuquerque with her on Monday and staying overnight, when I've been back from the east coast for less than a week. Hmmmm....

Venus Opposed to Chiron

One of the things Sun sextile Mars seemingly got me to do on Wednesday was pick up the phone three weeks after I was supposed to and make an appointment for physical therapy for my wrist.

Lo and behold, I was given an appointment for the next day - yesterday, Thursday, with the subject aspect - putting me in touch, literally ha ha, with a real live healer whose name I can already not remember but who I liked a lot and whom I'll be seeing twice a week for the next month.

So as I'm writing this and reading what astrodienst has to say about  Venus opposed to Chiron and thinking boy, did they get this one wrong, I remember the phone rang at about eight last night as the aspect perfected. I'm two rooms away from the answering machine and couldn't tell who was calling but as I was already in bed reading with Noodles and Salami curled up next to me bodies actually touching - O hitherto unknown event and requiring an explanation far too detailed for me to go into right now - I didn't get up to answer it.

That's my excuse anyway, but it does give me pause when I read "you should find out which experiences you actually avoid," but I'm tying myself up in so many knots here I'm far too lazy to attempt to untangle them, and as progressed Moon is currently exactly opposite natal Mars for me I think I should be doing something far more energetic than lying here typing. And I say it's spinach and to hell with it.

Sun Sextile Mars, Part II

It might have gotten off to a slow start but by 7:30 I was wiped out and took myself off to bed to watch "Chopper," which was so violent I lasted only ten minutes and have to make sure from my sister that was really what she wanted me to watch as it's hard to believe even someone with Mars square Pluto could find it enjoyable.

(Immediate cancel: how long have I been studying astrology? Of course someone with Mars square Pluto would enjoy watching "Chopper." Didn't she once tell me she thought the First Ladies Detective Agency books were OK but a little too much like Noddy?)

Moving on, once I did get myself out of bed it became clean out the icebox day which morphed into using the dishwasher for all the nasty little containers whose contents got dumped that came out of the fridge and then into using a toothbrush dipped in white vinegar to try to get the mineral accumulation off the faucet unit because the water softener has been off because I couldn't deal with 40 lb. bags of anything with my wonky hand - still wonky but not nearly as wonky as it was.

Leading neatly into another major achievement of the day - calling for an appointment to start physical therapy, something I was supposed to do before I left for Boston, and getting an appointment for 10 am this morning, which means the end of this post as in theory I'm going to go to Walmart first ha ha. Trust me. I got a lot done.

Sun Sextile Mars

Something seems a bit off here - 11:20 (a.m. at least) and I'm still in bed, although I've managed to spend close to $100 on clematis and ornamental cascading oregano, which I've bought three times before and it's always died. Also managed to write one sentence on the piece I'm *writing* on 9/11, and will not allow myself to get out of bed to start gardening until have added one line of dialog to Anonymous and Me. Could be worse.

More to come. We hope.

Cardinal Grand Cross on Nodes Revised

Er, that comment I made last Wednesday when Apple announced its seven for one stock split about my annual income doubling - well, see, that just happened to also be the day that Venus opposed Jupiter for me and, er, see, when someone told me that a seven to one stock split meant whatever dividend was paid would have to be divided by seven I said of course it didn't, the dividend stays the same, you just get seven times more of it than you did before...

I hate it when other people are right.

Progressed Venus in Taurus...

...trine progressed South Node in Capricorn - this was within two seconds of exact when MV called to see if I'd be willing to work on his book for him. Two days later, with Pluto smack on the natal South Node, I broke my wrist playing tennis, but that's another story.

Cardinal Grand Cross on Nodes,,,

...Uranus squaring both. Apple declares seven for one stock split and raises dividend, thereby increasing my annual income by $13,000.

Slightly stunned and return to news item every ten minutes to ensure date not April first. It's not.

Driving with the Eclipse on Mercury

So AFTER I made a reservation for a flight on the 19th of April I realized the lunar eclipse fell on *my* Mercury the day before the flight, of more significance than it might sound as flying from Silver City involves a three hour drive to the airport first.

OK. So first my bnb couple ask on Monday morning if they can possibly stay another night.  Of course, I say, my eyes turning into dollar signs the way Bluto's (?) used to in the Popeye cartoons. But aren't you getting ready to leave, they say. No problem, I say, I don't need to leave till the evening, I'm all ready basically and all I have to do are last minute things.

So I wave them off at 10 am on Tuesday, eclipse happening overnight Monday, and immediately strip the bed and wash the sheets because friends will be spending the night on the 20th, while I'm away. Sheets out of washer, into dryer, towels into washer. Have said will drop off cats at kennel between twelve and one. Quick sweep of floors, dishes washed, sheets out of dryer and onto bed, towels into dryer, clothes I'm planning on wearing on trip into washer. Need to go to Walmart for grapes and jerky for plane and decide to go on way back from Kennel, four miles past Walmart on way out of town.

Get Pretty Boy into real live cat carrier easily. Grab Good Girl and manage to get her into cardboard what you bring animals back from shelter in when you don't have a real carrier carrier. Holding two top flaps down when she pushes up against top and as I have no strength in left wrist forces it open and hides behind washing machine. Wait ten minutes to see if she'll come out and for reasons unknown to self decide to take Pretty Boy then and take Good Girl on way to ELP. Kennel closes at 5:30.

Drop off Pretty Boy, harden heart and refuse to look back, go to Walmart, do shopping, take home. Take towels out of dryer, fold and put in guest bathroom, remember must spray non-native plants with Deer Out as when deer realize house is unoccupied will leap fences and devour any green. Decide to spray right that very minute as realize if put off again will remember as pulling car out of driveway. Spray all outside non-native plants. Start to load toiletries into wheelie bag. Look at clock and realize need to get skates on if to get Good Girl to kennel by closing time.

See Good Girl outside on back patio, pick up and toss into car, close door. Realize need to crack window, open door a chink to get arm in, Good Girl escapes and runs away. Go back in house to put clothes in dryer, realize didn't turn on washing machine. Turn on washing machine. Look at clock. By time clothes washed and dried, kennel will be closed.

Do a walkaround of house, collect all necessary cords and cables and chargers and put in computer bag. Clean out litter boxes. Water house plants. Out clothes in dryer. Look at clock. See Good Girl on front porch, pick up, throw in car, drive to Kennel. Arrive at 5:15. Carry squirming Good Girl into kennel, drop off, take one look at Pretty Boy lying docile in shoe box bed, drive back to house. Open dryer, roll up clothes and put in wheelie bag, take off for ELP, heading past kennel for first time.

Get to ELP, find hotel, repack bag, leave a lot in car. Sleep, get up, drive to airport, told at check in desk have missed flight and will have to go on standby for next. Decide to go to gate anyway, allowed on, bag checked. Flight to DFW fine, flight to LGA fine. Now have to take bus to US Air terminal for final hop, go through security again. US Air refuse to take home-printed boarding pass (accepted by American on both other legs), have to go to desk. Official pass accepted.

Get to Logan, luggage lost, appears with no name tag, told must always have name tag on luggage.

Picked up by T, get lost, find selves at bus entrance to South Street Station, $50,000 fine. Drive into parking lot, drive out of parking lot, no fee except being asked why took wrong turn. Now in downtown Boston rush hour traffic, home in only 90 minutes.

Mercury Sextile Uranus

So the futon has been gone for five months, leaving behind a fetching black line on the pale green wall which its iron back pushed up against for twelve years and I've had the roll of  Marimekko wallpaper frieze to cover it up for three months, and, with airbnb people arriving this evening today was of course the day I chose to put it up.

The result, for someone with only one usable hand and one pair of eyes to scrutinize straightness, was remarkably successful and once I recovered from looking at bright pattern which I usually avoid like the plague I was quite pleased with myself.

I'd post before and after photos but Google won't let me upload straight from the computer any more. I have to go through Picassa which I have yet to download, and also find a more visually appealing blog template, so until whatever transit that will support both of those activities rolls along, almosteveryday will remain text only. Free will? Hah!

Progressed Moon Square Uranus

OK, so maybe this is why I went haring off 60 miles away to Glenwood last Saturday to fill my trash bag with rummage sale clothes for a dollar. I'm  not paying as much attention to astrology as I have in the past, hence the shorter and shorter posts in here.

All I know is I went to the informal knitting group I go to sporadically last Thursday, after not being able to knit for months because of cast on arm, and felt very itchy (metaphorically speaking) and restless and the two hours went very very slowly.

Moral: do not go to a knitting group on the day the progressed moon squares your natal Uranus exactly. Choose, perhaps, a more exciting pursuit like watching an adventure movie on telly.

Venus Trine Saturn

This is usually when I start cutting up curtains to make a new frock, but I was saved from that by a friend who'd got her days a bit mixed up and wanted to take me for a birthday lunch.

So much for sobriety and stability - it was Little Toad Creek for a pint of lager and the sewing machine stayed exactly where it was.

Sun Sextile Moon

I have this natally, and seeing as how it was my birthday yesterday it was in effect double time, I suppose. No people around to be at ease with me because I was at ease with myself, and no friends or close neighbors around to have harmonious relationships with, but lots of phone calls and emails, some expected, some not, and no argie-bargies, just a lot of thank yous.

Made an expedition out to the car and brought in the loot from Saturday's trip to the dollar-a-trash-bag-full-of-clothes rummage sale, sorted it all out and washed it, put shorts on and went outside and watered and started cutting the yellow vinca, got the wheelie bag out and started figuring out what I'll take east, watched Dr. Phil, now all caught up, knitted a couple of inches of cardigan sleeve - blimey, just might be returning to life.

Mars Trine Moon

And also, on my astrological birthday, with this in effect, I signed up for a free week's trial of Skype Extra or whatever it is and spent a pleasant three hours looking at a fixed image of my sister who doesn't know what an image of a video camera looks like and watching Lloyd, the Morongo Valley cat, wander from room to room of his house. Two girls, one boy.

Sun Conjunct Sun

Many happy returns to me on my astrological birthday, when I set the tone for the coming year by having chocolate cake for breakfast and doing some pruning and watering in the *garden* in the afternoon.

I can knit again, albeit slowly and awkwardly, so am catching up on unwatched episodes of Dr. Phil and in general returning to something like normalcy since that fateful day on February 12th when I lunged for a ball, tried to return it with a backhand and have spent the time ever since recovering from a broken wrist, just in case anyone reading this missed the news flash.

Wrist is now in a removable splint but will spare readers images until arm begins to resemble an arm and not a chicken's neck.

Mercury Opposed to Chiron

This one passed by completely unnoticed, proving, I suppose, that at the age of 68 I am *healed* enough to be able to survive a fleeting transit to Chiron unscathed or that I'm an insensitive boor unaware of my own feelings or those of others.

Maybe it's the upcoming Mars trine to the Moon, but I had the best day in ages having now discovered that the misery of the past six weeks was caused by an allergic reaction to - yes, you guessed it - Good Girl the short-haired cat, cue memories of the winter I spent in New York several years ago with long-haired Sweet Pea, short-haired Mr. Patches, the cat I saved from death row and fostered for five months, and a constantly dripping nose. Thanks to Amazon and Animal Dander Allertox my turkey wattle cheeks have gone, my eyes no longer sting and itch and water, and I am a new woman, ready to face whatever else Pluto on the south node and Uranus about to square them both will bring.

Venus sextile Venus

Finally, after about six weeks of misery, my eyes are returning to something like normal and great patches of the day go by when I'm not *bothered* by them. They're still little slits but I suppose that's here to stay, but to not have them watering and itching and making me want to rub them into my head is truly a joy. It's a bit like when I used to transcribe for a living - simply not doing it is like being on vacation.

Anyway, slowly slowly slowly something like energy is beginning to return. I finished getting the B&B room ready, went to the dump oh joy oh joy and realized I'm capable of knitting again, albeit it slowly and a bit awkwardly. Not a chance of "All Aboard for Toyland" being finished by Star Child's birthday, but I might get both sleeves done. Glass half full and all that.