An amazing thing happened. The figs on my old tree are ripe. Hundreds of them are turning brown. For the next two weeks or so, I'll have nothing but fresh figs off the tree for breakfast, and for snacks throughout the day.
I didn't notice that they had been turning ripe. My youngest brother and next door neighbor noticed it when he passed the fig tree on his way to my front door to haul off my trash while he was hauling his. His fig tree is twice as big as mine. He scoffs at my fig tree growing abilities, and makes snide remarks about my vague claims to be at one with nature. I've had a tougher life than that sixty year old "boy". It shows in many diverse ways.
I don't fight the birds and the bugs for the ripe figs. There's plenty to go around. They won't last that long. I don't seem to worry too much if I have to share a ripe fig with these creatures. The fig sure ain't prejudiced about wot ets it. I eat figs all through the season that are half-eaten by June bugs. Ummm... ummm... Good!
That fig tree is the most success I've ever had involving horticulture. I think that's because it's a sturdy plant that don't require much maintenance. I lost last year's crop to a late freeze, but I could have been a little more attentive and prevented most of the damage. Maybe I made the right sacrificial rites to the right gods, but this year l got figs aplenty.
That fig tree has been a lesson unto me. I mollycoddled it too much. I wanted too much for it. When Ben and I were closing in the upstairs balcony and building two outside decks with a set of 16-step stairs connecting them, there was a time when it became apparent that the fig tree was going to have to be heavily pruned to fit the decks and stairs where they needed to be.
This was a tormentuous decision for me. It ought not to have been. Whatta wimp... eh? I knew it had to be done, but I couldn't bear to watch. What a fool I am is. Ben lopped it off and laughed at me. Rightfully so, as it turned out. The next spring, last spring, when the late frost hit, the new sprouts didn't have leaves on them yet, and so they were the only part of the fig tree that didn't have to grow new leaves. Oh, it was just awful!
No, it wasn't awful that the new sprouts were the only branches of the fig tree that didn't need to grow a new set of leaves. That part of it was just great. The ugliness showed up in the mis-shapenness of the new leaves on the old branches that had gotten frost-bitten. That was to be expected, I suppose, because the natural progression of the sap rising had been interrupted. I was glad to see new leaves come back on the frost-bitten old branches of any shape or fashion.
The awful part of it was that the unfrosted upon new sprout leaves were just huge and perfectly shaped, and they grew up under the old damaged branches with their half-hearted, second-growth, misshapened leaves and made me feel old and misshapened. Whatta drag, man.
This coming dormant season I'm going to cut another of the older branches to created even more new sprouts from the roots. They come up straight out of the ground, and it's easy to put a brick on them to start a new cutting. I intend for the fig trees I can get rooted and the bamboo grove I'm trying to start to be my living legacy for a while after I'm gone. I obviously don't have anything to add to the living language.
I just did something that may not turn out to be so odd. It may serve as even further proof that I got about as much sense as a box of rocks.
My wrists and shoulders are ate up with arthritis, right? I have whined enough to get that impression across. Would you not agree? Why are you still here? '-)
I wrote about a bad case of carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms ere now. A few years ago. I only remember the pain. It's the same pain I'm experiencing now. I just remembered that the solution to my problem then was to move my keyboard to a more bettah height. Then, I remembered how when I set up my digital piano adjacent to my computer rig so I could turn from one activity to the other handily (pun intended), The rigid non-adjustable piano stool that came with the digital piano was a different height than my computer chair, but I didn't connect that with what might me causing my carpal tunnel incident.
I'm pretty sure I'm stupid enough to have made the same mistake twice. Ergonomics. I'm breathing deeper. I'd bet good money getting my ergonomics straighten out is gonna make all arthritis problems go away.
The crazy thing about it is how I ignored the difference between the height of the piano stool and my computer chair. I used my computer chair for both keyboards. Its one of the executive type office chairs with all the bells and whistles. I just swiveled around to confront one keyboard or the other. Making the same mistake in ergonomics with my digital piano and my computer keyboard. This very expensive office chair I relied on for years is a little worn out, and won't stay where i put it, so I stopped messing with it. Fool!
This chair will adjust to any height and has four other levers to play with besides the height one. Why the hell didn't I adjust the seat to a higher position? I stopped writing for a while and did a web search on ergonomics. One article agreed with my conclusion that I needed my keyboard closer to my knees. It suggests two inches about the knees might be about right. That tells the tale. The tables and my digital keyboard where I put my legs under them are four inches deep. No matter how much I adjusted the chair I couldn't get the keyboard any closer to my knees. I gotta make other arrangements. Idiot! The first time could be attributed to innocence. I didn't know very much about ergonomics. The second time is due to ignorance. I ignored the lesson of my initial experience.
I know why. I'm just short of six foot tall, and have a thirty inch instep. I have a long body with comparatively short legs. Standard ergonomic heights don't work out right for me. I need for the desktop or keyboard height to come closer to my knees so I won't have to lift my hands so high to compensate for the difference.
I figured out and fixed this problem before, and the carpal tunnel and arthritis went away. With my arms held at my side and my forearms and hands held straight out in front of me, the keyboards I'm using need to be at a height lower than the bottom of my elbow. I shouldn't have to raise my hands past ninety degrees elevation to place them on the keyboard to type. One inch either way makes a big difference when I use one keyboard or the other for as much as 10-15 hours a day.
That may read like the ranting of a crazy man, but I love composing almost as much as life itself. Everything else leaves me unfulfilled.
I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
