I accomplished very little of substance today.

I made an early breakfast, two butter-basted eggs on gluten-free toast with a juicy mandarin orange.  I wrote my blog with the heating pad smack against the shuddering muscles in my back.  By eleven, I’d lured a friend out for an early lunch, because the dust in the house had started to unnerve me.

By 1:00, I’d found a pottery bowl at another friend’s garage sale and finally met his husband, whose Facebook page I follow with positive glee.  A fine couple — funny and loving; both professionals, with three little Schnauzers that came out of the house one by one to greet me.  I drove back home with an endless smile that didn’t fade until I came into the kitchen and smelled the burning coffee in my Bodum.

I couldn’t make myself do anything after that until about five, when I took myself in hand and carried the winter-weary plants out onto the porch.  The sight of pink buds on the begonias startled me.  I pinched a few dead leaves from the relentless green giant that I’ve nursed back to health after every stint inside, and repotted a flagging cactus.   Two years ago, I’d stuck it in the old rabbit planter from my mother’s house.  While the jade plant that I bought at the same time has inched heavenward, and the companion aloe needs its own zip code now, this little Opuntia microdasys has barely survived.

Maybe it will do better on the porch.   I do a search online for its common name and discover that folks call it, “bunny ears”.  Funny that it didn’t thrive in a planter of the same name.

When the plants have been watered, I fry a little tofu and eat it with  peanut sauce — also gluten-free but from a bottle.  The sun sets while I’m reading outside, and I begin to feel chilly.  I wander back into the living room and tell myself that I’ve wasted an entire day with nothing to show for it but some straggly vegetation in last year’s clay pots on the deck.

With a jolt, I realize that my gait has worsened in the thirteen hours since I got out of bed this morning.  I glance at the bottle of muscle relaxants and shake my head. Perhaps I’ll have another orange instead.  It couldn’t hurt.

I’m waiting for something but I don’t yet know what.  I’m hoping that the sunrise will bring understanding and break this lethargy.  Meanwhile, the old dog finds her favorite spot near the register.  She doesn’t realize that the  furnace once more has fallen  motionless, like the sentient beings in this silent dwelling.

It’s the eighth day of the fortieth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.