Shape Shifting

i. Watered

Penny Cooper & Pearl Duquette insisted they wanted to stay outside in the planters last night, when it was supposed to rain:

"We want to get watered!"

And they did. The damp darlings, this morning:

They did get watered, and so did the garden, so I don't have to water with the hose this morning.

The temps dropped 20 degrees overnight too--into the 70s--which is great because the a/c went out yesterday, one of the hottest days of the summer.
It was okay because I knew a cooler front was on its way.

I have to call and get a repair person... One of the tasks of a house sitter, but a rare one.

Hm, wait––not so rare.
Luckily I've only had to call a vet twice in all these years of pet sitting--both times for minor, resolvable things;
but one cold winter when I was house sitting Joanna's, the furnace died.
That was scary.
The feeling helped me imagine what it was like to live through these winters in pre-industrial times...

ii. "Do you know how your house works?"

Speaking of industrial times--Steve of Shadows & Light blog had wondered about the OXO can opener I couldn't figure out.

This is it, below.
It's oriented horizontally to the can, and it cuts UNDER the lip of the can, so there's no sharp edge. You use a little grabber mechanism (on the opener) to lift the lid off.

I can't figure out a can opener, how am I going to survive an apocalypse?
That line about how your house works--that's from Max Brooks's Devolution––the scary book I read in the isolated lighthouse airbnb on Lake Superior––about a group of people so dependent on Amazon delivery and YouTube yoga, they have no idea how to do anything practical when everything falls apart.

I sometimes think I should learn basic survival skills... and then I don't.

Probably the most important skill, though, is being able to weather huge changes psychologically.
Also, getting along with others in stressful times. That's fun, eh?

iii. Basically, be a shape-shifting hostage negotiator.

Okay, then.
I'll get right on that.

In post-apocalyptic books like the one I'm reading now, Earth Abides, one sudden catastrophe changes everything at once.
We are living through many massive changes--it's like a slow-motion apocalypse;
or, not an apocalypse (not necessarily), but for sure we are living through massive changes.
I mean, we all have been, for years now, right?
The coming of the Internet was like living through the advent of the printing press, at light speed.

WE ARE HISTORIC!

I think it's like the Fall of Rome (or other empires)--some cataclysms rattled the infrastructure, but the whole edifice took a hundred years to fall down.
In the meantime, other ways of life were growing up.
Latin was morphing into Italian, and the other Romance languages.
The tendrils of the Church were curling up the columns.

What's morphing now?

It's interesting.
The main character in Earth Abides says CURIOSITY is one of his main reasons for staying alive when he's almost all alone the first year. 

He's a young scientist (a geologist?), and his mind likes to explore and observe. (The few people he meets that first year are in such shock, they can't connect with him in any meaningful way.)

I'm no scientist, but I feel that way too, as writers and readers might.
The world is a book we are both reading and cowriting:
What happens next?
What role am I playing, and,
What choices do I have?

iv. Like Putty in Your Hands

Choices.
They are usually rather small---prop up that tilting aqueduct with a brick! Plug that leak, or another...

This morning I read more about exercising with hand arthritis.
You should exercise your hands as well as the rest of the body to help with arthritis, but lifting  kettle bells in gym class is too hard on my hands.
Gym Teacher (GT) helps me work out alternatives, but I have to be the one who determines what works.

I have hand exercises from a p.t., but I don't always do them.
Hand and Finger Exercises to Ease Arthritis Pain
This morning I ordered hand putty, as an exercise aid. (It cost $8, incl. shipping.)

'll be better at doing the exercises if they're more like play.

Hey, that's who I am, in part--a person who plays.*
I like that.

__________________

*P.S. Oh---I just remembered there's a theory of that, a book I've never read---have you?:
Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element of Culture, by Johan Huizinga (1938).

Homo ludens = Playing Human, like Homo sapiens = Knowing Human

From Wikipedia "Homo Ludens":

One of the most significant (human and cultural) aspects of play is that it is fun.

Huizinga identifies 5 characteristics that play must have:

1. Play is free, is in fact freedom.
2. Play is not "ordinary" or "real" life.
3. Play is distinct from "ordinary" life both as to locality and duration.
4. Play creates order, is order. Play demands order absolute and supreme.
5. Play is connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained from it.