I took the dog for a walk this morning. About 4 blocks from my house I heard barking and saw a large, muscular, short-haired dog running towards us from a block away. I started to cross the street (in case he just thought he owned the sidewalk,) but he veered out into the street to intercept us. So I stood up straight, sideways to the running dog, put out my arm, and in my deepest voice shouted “Stop!” And he did. I took a few steps toward the other side of the street, and he began growling and following us. I stopped, put my arm out straight again, shouted “Go!” He wouldn’t. So I tried “Stay!,” turned and walked away. I glanced back and he was following us, but at a distance. After we turned a corner and went one more block, I couldn’t see him anymore.

And that’s what I hate about walking in my neighborhood.

I reorganized the silverware drawer yesterday. The first time my daughter tried to get something out of the drawer she took out fork after fork and finally said, Aaaauugh! What’s going on? Why do I keep getting a fork instead of a spoon?

It was pretty funny, but at least she had no idea I’d rearranged. Since I’m the one that changed the order of things, it’s just pathetic every time I reach in to grab a knife, come up with a spoon, and come to a complete stop and can’t continue because I’m so confused. (Of course, at my age, there’s always the possibility that I’d actually meant to get a spoon and just forgot. That makes it even more confusing.) I never realized what a habit it is to reach in that drawer and grab without looking. I think I’ll wait til April 1 and switch it all back.

Well, I forgot to watch the Perseid meteor shower last night, in spite of the dog coming in to my bedroom repeatedly and waking me up. I didn’t want to put him outside, because he just gets in trouble barking and digging and eating strange stuff he finds around the yard if he stays outside at night. But he was driving me crazy so I finally staggered out of bed and opened the backdoor, but he wouldn’t go through it. Exasperated, I led him to his bed, in an attempt to convey to him that I wanted him to get in it and stay, and I discovered the reason he couldn’t sleep. The cat was sprawled across the dogbed.

Yes, the dog woke me in the middle of the night to tell on the cat. The cat is a bully and the dog is…very mild mannered. Or maybe he just knows that he’s not allowed to eat the cat and can’t figure out any other way to get her to move. So I tipped the bed up, the cat fell out, the dog hopped in, all was quiet until about 4:30am when the cat ran out of food in her dish and came in the bedroom and started nibbling on me. (I think she considers me an alternate food source, but I never hold still long enough for her to get a good bite.) And still I didn’t think to go out and look at the sky.

There will still be cosmic dust falling through the atmosphere tonight, if I can just surface long enough through the antibiotic/infection fog to remember to go look at it.

I have another infection in my left sinus. The doctor phoned in yet another antibiotic for me, but can’t see me until Thursday. The appointment desk acted like it was a major miracle to find me an appointment that soon (I called them Friday morning.) That may be, but I had surgery 5 weeks ago and this is the second infection I’ve had, or the same infection never going away more likely. It’s too bad the doctor doesn’t have time to take care of his patients.

I’m just grumpy due to pain and the worn-out way the infection and the antibiotics make me feel. I have the day off from work tomorrow because it’s my daughter’s birthday, but I guess it’s going to be yet another vacation day wasted on being sick. I frankly can’t remember the last vacation day I’ve had that wasn’t wasted on feeling sick. It was more than a year ago, I know, because I started getting the stabbing headache 1 year and 3 months ago. The last trip we took was 13 months ago, and mainly I just sat quietly in the car trying not to jostle my head.

In order to stop my spectacular nosebleeds, the ENT cauterized my left turbinate. It didn’t hurt when he did it. The check-out person waved me out of the office, Good-bye! Never come back! As soon as I set foot in the parking lot the pain hit. Oh well, I’ll feel better soon. I drove to work. Felt worse. Took Tylenol, the do-nothing drug. Felt worser. Then some kind of watery (but bloodless) discharge started dripping/gushing/dripping from my nose. I work alone at that library. It was just me and the poor library patrons, who all got a grumpy earful from me, in between disgusting gushes.

I was not aware of how much I complained that day until this weekend, when some of the same people came back in and asked me gingerly, from a safe distance, if I was feeling any better. Yes, I said, surprised, How did you know I was sick? Hoo boy.

You can’t really see it, but the finished brick patio is in the background. We finished it two days before my surgery. Today I went outside and stood on it and thought, the air is clear enough today that I could even get a chair and sit on my patio for a while. But then my nose started bleeding so I went inside. It’s hard for me to believe that nosebleeds are normal 4 weeks after surgery, and I’m glad I stubbornly insisted on another follow-up appointment with the surgeon so I can ask him about it on Tuesday. It could be that the continuously smoky air is delaying my healing, and if so, clear air will help, I hope.

I went to see the ENT on Thursday and told him I couldn’t breathe through my nose and one side of my face hurt. He said I might have an infection and gave me more antibiotics. I do feel a little better today (Sunday), but basically I have been going to work every day and then coming home and going straight to bed. The antibiotic is Avelox. It makes me queasy and shaky. Let’s see, any more complaints?

Yes! The doctor said, take these antibiotics and then I want to see you again in two weeks. But when I dutifully took my piece of paper up to the check-out desk, the check-out woman was on the phone, grilling someone about something they were supposed to send to her. I stood there for a while, then she motioned for the paper. She then waved me away and whispered, “Call if you need us.” I said, (not whispering, since I wanted her to hear me over the person on the phone,) “I’m supposed to come back in two weeks.”

Still on the phone, she looked over the paper, and shook her head. But if I wasn’t going to come back in two weeks, I wanted to see the doctor again immediately, because that brought up a lot of questions I hadn’t thought to ask, like: Will I ever be able to breathe again? If I’m still in pain 6 months from now, is that normal? So I was stubborn. “The doctor said he wanted to see me in two weeks.”

She continued her phone conversation, then finally ended it with the words, “All right, I’ll tell my husband.” That doesn’t sound very work-related to me. Even if she were married to one of the doctors, I think she’d call him Dr. whatever during a business call. Anyway, then she could talk to me and she said, “There’s no indication here that the doctor wants to see you again.” I didn’t know what to say, so I just repeated, “The doctor said I should come back in two weeks.” She said, “Sometimes that happens in the course of conversation…”

Sometimes what happens, doctors say stuff they don’t mean? What? Or is See Me In Two Weeks code for This Patient is a Pain Get Rid of Her? The woman looked at me, I looked at her. I felt like a dummy, but I couldn’t think of any other way to put it, so I said for the fourth time, “He said he wanted to see me in two weeks.”

“Well,” she said, “if you feel a need to see the doctor, of course I will make an appointment for you.” Okay, I get it. So long as I admit that seeing the doctor is just some silly notion of my own, not a serious idea of the doctor’s, I’ll be allowed to return. Fine. Whatever works. So on July 29 at 8:30am, just for a lark, I’ll be back.

Last night the smoke cleared and I saw the moon! It’s been so long since I’d seen it I had to go look in the newspaper to find out if it was waning or waxing. I still felt terrible yesterday and spent most of the day lying down and reading old Calvin Trillin essays. Funny how in politics the names change and are forgotten (at least by me) but the same stuff just keeps happening over and over.

So back to work again today. I am not looking forward to it. I have a group coming for storytime before the library even opens. I know I don’t have the strength to deal with all the piles of work that have built up in the last week and a half. Plus there were already a few piles of things from before my surgery, because my little one-person branch has been so busy this summer I often can’t think beyond the moment I’m in. Living in the moment. That sounds very zen but it has led to over-tiredness and clutter. I have to find some balance. Where does one find balance? I’ll bet it’s hiding at the beach.

Yesterday was my first day back at work since surgery. I thought going back on a Saturday was a good plan, since I would only work one day and then have two days off. But by 1:30 I was looking at the clock thinking, isn’t it nearly 5:00? My sinuses hurt so much, I was dead tired, and I was pretty shocked by how bad I looked when I saw myself in the restroom mirror. After I got home I got a chill from the air conditioning in the living room and had to go lie down in the hot, un-air-conditioned bedroom with blankets over me to warm back up. I basically went to bed at 6:30 and slept for 12 hours. I didn’t really feel any better this morning, but this afternoon I’m beginning to perk up a little. Plus I took 4 aspirin and two cups of tea.

I think I would feel better if I could go for a little walk, but the smoke has only lifted a little, it still isn’t good air to breathe. My friend told me she saw a star last night.

The first really smoky day I was walking the dog and the thought crossed my mind, maybe I shouldn’t be out in this. But then, bounding up out of some storage area of my brain came the long-forgotten litmus test of my childhood: Does it hurt to breathe? Nope. Keep walking.

A few days later a woman was kvetching about some outdoor happening that had been cancelled due to air quality. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’m from LA….” Stop right there! I know what you mean! Does it hurt to breathe? Well, what are you doing, taking such big breaths, anyway?

It’s funny that I hadn’t thought about that in more than 30 years, and yet it came back to me like an automatic reflex. All those school years being forced to run around outside during gym class, when it did hurt to breathe, but nobody with any authority cared. The brown horizon, where there had once been mountains. The politician who made a speech while standing outside about how clear the air was, when you could see the pollution all around him. (Who would vote for such a blatant liar, I remember thinking. Everybody. He became mayor, and then later senator, and then finally governor. It was the emperor’s clothes with a twist: point to something that’s there and say it isn’t.)

Luckily for me, back in those days my house was close enough to the ocean to blow away the worst air most of the time. I wish I was there now. “Permanent damage to your lungs!” the TV keeps saying. What about my newly carved out sinus passages? I should be sitting in a sealed house with the air system set on recirculate, but I just don’t have that kind of house or cooling system.

It goes without saying that I’m better off than people with asthma or a heart condition, or a burned-up house. I’m not a little baby and I’m not elderly. It could be worse, it could be better, but it doesn’t rain here until the winter, so even if they manage to put out the fires, I’m afraid the bad air isn’t going anywhere soon.