After all that,

and the same day Luz got the board in the water up near Crescent City,

we made a trip to V-town Kaiser for blood tests and “telederm” wherein a very nice lady took

pictures of my skin for telediagnosis so the dermatologist could teleprescribe ointments, creams and antihistamines and said call in a month [from Colorado?] if they don’t work.

We hoped the lot would put an End to the Misery…that misery, anyway.

In the meantime we’d heard the not unexpected but sad news that our old friend Ingram had passed away the last day of May in Connecticut where he’s lived and worked for many years,

leaving his wife, a son and a lifetime of atmospheric, stately and oft lugubrious compositions.  I hadn’t laid eyes on him since October 1994 when he and his collaborator Jim Bengston

visited Radar Ranch and were memorably nearly stranded*, a visitation that resulted in my arm in the studio’s wintry window appearing on an ECM album cover a year later, a scene utterly

unlike these;

…daily walks, sometimes two, beginnings of June.

As for the Misery the recommended anti-histamines proved to be muddling at best and soon

abandoned** but were followed by a relatively productive period wherein, with a little help from Scott who was working with L to straighten out the backyard shade structure,

the ’45 was uncovered although apparently a person with healing ribs shouldn’t be driving it for another several weeks.   More astounding was an early Sunday morning rain, wetting

benches for any who ventured to the shore albeit

becoming clear and warm by afternoon; not much to report except

dinners in the yard,

Monday back to V-town

for Covid #4

and Bangkok Noodle in late light followed by

the near-nightly Britbox Sherlock.

*Four days later, Ing and Bengston long gone and back when we used to have winter, I had to laboriously DIG myself off the mountain, four wheel drive and chains.

**Four days later, fingers crossed, the unguents appear to have done their work unassisted by muddling antihistamines.