Great Medical News!

Thank you, Dr. Renee Pietzsch! That pain Fiorella has been feeling in her footsies lately, especially the left, more pronated one, has been diagnosed at last--arthritis. And Dr. Pietzsch knows how to combat it, first by padding the arch of the offending foot, then by having Fio rub oitment on the top of the arch, and then, if all else fails, puncturing the arthritic cyst that has formed thereon.

Fio celebrated by going out and laying a cartload of rocks along the driveway--strangely, her feet don't bother her as much when she is out on the acreage. Then she came in and searched through her car and the house for the instruction page and prescription the doctor had given her, but couldn't find them. Her head bent in shame, Fiorella will have to call the doctor's office tomorrow for second editions.

The Sonnet Sonnet

Yesterday was Poetry Day so here goes

         

    The Sonnet Sonnet

A sonnet is the clever use of rhyme

In patterns such as Petrarch might employ

Or Shakespeare's playful whimsy intertwine

For centuries of lovers to enjoy.

A sonnet is an unrelenting beat,

The blood's intrinsic pulse of weak and strong,

That runs full-tilt for five iambic feet

In three times four plus two, a discipline of song.

A sonnet is a message of the heart,

Of Wordsworth's wonder, Milton's heavy hand,

Of Keats's classic skill, of Shelley's art.

Of Browning's love songs from a foreign land.

    While others seek the chessboard on a day,

    The sonnet is my choice of game to play.

Personal Evolution

For thousands--maybe millions--of years, our ancestors trod the earth barefoot, like the Amazonian and African tribes do today, but Fiorella herself belongs to a tender-soled sub-species that grows pens behind the ears, glasses on the nose, and squawks like a cat caught in the door if there's a tiny pebble in her house slipper.

Don't mind me.  I live to laugh.

Fio's Feet

Fio's feet have been troublesome since childhood, when pull-no-punches Mother observed they were large, low-arched and high-topped, simian-heeled, and fan-shaped.

To further agitate Mother, Fio couldn't stand a shoe to touch her foot anywhere.

But Fio stuck to her guns, and now, when she doffs her size ten (wide) Crocs, she looks down at unblemished feet and straight toes. When Mother took off her 7AAAAs, her feet were masses of corns and calluses, and her toes were misshapen.

In the eternal mother-daughter competition, Fio think she won this round.