For the last three months I have been reading accounts of merchant ships torpedoed by WW I German U-boats and sunk. I read about the tons and tons of wine, wheat, typewriters, furs, machinery, and metals that found their final resting place on the oceans bottom. I read about the hundreds of horses which were drowned in the holds of the sinking ships; the 30,000 pounds of dinosaur bones which were carefully recovered from a Canadian site, only to sink to the sandy sea floor; and about the loss of human life, simply because these poor souls were at sea doing their jobs during wartime. I am going on vacation, and just in time.
I was reading about our destination -- all sun and fun and sand -- and searching for the name of an excursion company who will take us snorkeling. I love to go out on the catamarin and feel the rise and fall of the ocean under the canvas hammock of the boat. And mostly I love to look down into the reefs at the brightly colored fish going about their lives. In searching for my snorkel trip, I learned that there will be not just coral reef to explore, but shipwrecks. Shipwrecks... hmmm. Before I would think, "Shipwrecks! Cool!" Now I think, "Shipwrecks.. I wonder what the story is."
When I went to feed the fish on Sunday, they were romping around the pond, knocking pots off the plant shelves, and tearing up the water clover. They would not eat, being far too busy chasing each other about. Meanwhile, my little dark brown baby fish is now almost completely orange. The pickerel has bloomed, as have the yellow water iris and the blue flag. There is one water lily bud poking its way out of the lily pads, and a new calla lily is about to bloom. The butterfly bush is starting to open up into purple spikes, and the trumpet vine flowers are just begging for a hummingbird to come by. Best of all, though, is the bats who have found the bat house! If I smash my face against the stone wall of the house, and look up into the box with binoculars during a very sunny part of the day, I can see their little ears and noses moving. Mosquitos be gone! Summer is just a week away.
My knees hurt again. Don't let them tell you that scoping works if you have arthritis. It does not. They do feel a little better than they did before they were scoped, just not what I had hoped. If I stand up too long, or walk too much, it will be three days before I can move again without pain. Biking is perfectly fine, does not impact them unless I have stood for too long or walked too much the day before. Aleve helps. Durnnit..
