Now leaving the comfort zone

As I write this post, my new (from the Humane Society) Jack-Rat terrier is draped across my arms and lap. My feet are up on the sofa because my ankles are swollen. They swell pretty much every day now, even when I'm wearing TED stockings (prescribed by my doctor and purchased in the same store where you get commodes and railings for your toilet and shower), which I didn't today because it's July and hot. This would be a good reason, too, to shoo the little lap dog away, but her sweet dog sigh makes it impossible.

Leaving the comfort zone has been on my mind for weeks now. My clothes no longer fit properly. My hormones are not at all themselves, at least as I have known them these last 37 years or so. My eye glasses no longer work, so I have pairs of readers -- all in zingy stripes and polka dots -- and Internet-ordered prescription glasses littering every desk and bedside table. The client for which I did the majority of my billable work over the last several years has been forced to create a leaner profile, and I have begun working for a new client, on a Mac, and the job is different and more demanding, and I am just too old to be having to disrupt my existence so completely. It's not comfortable and I don't like it.

Xingu has lost two teeth in two weeks and looks like a gap-toothed giraffe, with his skinny long legs, brown skin and blonding hair. Krang goofs along happily, replacing his old commuter bike with another old commuter bike, mowing the lawn and piling papers on his bureau until they topple. The new dog has a dreadful name because we are reading Harry Potter and "Winky" was more apt than Luna or Padma or Fleur. We are putting in some desperately needed new windows, but only on the north side of the house: the side nobody sees but us. The job transition kept me from planting a vegetable garden for the first time in 20 years or so, and the plot that should be overflowing with green tomatoes and eggplant is filled with self-sewn mustard and cosmos leftover from last year. Everywhere I look I see some kind of slop, anarchy, lethargy, disrepair, stupidity or dirt.

I spend too much time in my fantasy world, where I live a gracious existence with household help. Not only is there enough money for essentials, there is also enough for summer opera festivals like Santa Fe and Glyndebourne. Picnics on the ground, handsome and soft-spoken and witty men, well tended women in attractive linen dresses and tasteful jewelry. We listen to Mozart, maybe a little Verdi, some bel canto. Chamber ensembles play during lunch. The air is scented with lavender or sagebrush, and the breeze blows just enough to fluff the furze of gray hair we all wear with equanimity if not aplomb. We are easy in our loose skins, in love with music and oh, so comfortable.