And it goes some more —

Dinosauric-machinery has taken up residence on my street for a week or so of sewer work. Because they do their business while I'm away at work, I come home to their somnolence, parked for the night, tucked neatly side of the street, the sharp-toothed digger positioned chin-down, hemmed in by those saw-horse things that announce No Parking (for the time-being). They appear so harmless, so placid, as if they couldn't, in a million years, make quick shredding work of just about anything.. As I said before, it goes and it goes, in spite of Stephen Hawking's dire warnings re: our extinction. Still we go about the daily business of breathing, and digging.

Today I endured major excavations of the dental variety, and my non-boutique dentist reassured me the tooth can be saved. He's doing some fancy sleight-of-hand, combining two crowns into one to hold my mouth together. O glory be. I imagine my teeth will outlive me.

The best part, thought, was that I walked to my dentist appointment, from work, then back to work, then back home again, through our rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood, over sidewalks heaved and broken, past million-dollar new homes, past houses boarded-up and overrun by decades of blackberry vines. Past urban chickens clucking up a racket. Every other person being led by a dog on a leash. The pug craze seems to be fading; the bulldog craze seems to be heating up. A few years ago I read that there were more dogs in Seattle than children, but I think that statistic has been tipped the other way, evidenced by an abundance of Cadillac strollers and precocious (and undoubtdly gifted) toddlers. Honestly, it almost makes me miss the crack houses.

Peering into the deeply-furred centers of irises brought me a curious kind of joy today, and the three miles of walking allowed irises with countless variations, and scents. The fact that winter is past (and it was mild here) makes me gasp with relief. The light has returned, and it's in every leaf and petal, every bee's wing, every water-sodden cloud, lighting the horizon from dawn to dusk. Time to inhale deeply, and store it all up.