Blooming

The second flower on the Christmas/Easter cactus is in full bloom. The more I look at the flowers the more I realize that they're really red-orange, not pink. The buds are pink but when they open they're red-orange. A much more acceptable color.

 

This morning a male Downy Woodpecker visited the suet nuggets feeder and actually got to spend a little time eating without getting shooed away by another bird or a squirrel. I tried to take its picture so you could see the red swoop on the back of his head but that didn't work. Trust me, it's a boy.

 

In the afternoon a quartet of Starlings came to mob the feeders. One of them landed on the suet nuggets, the rest of them just stood around getting in the other birds' way.

 

I dug out a watercolor how-to book and started it. It's supposed to be for absolute beginners but it emphasizes techniques that I'm not very good at so it's good I'm practicing. Today I'm not going to say everything that's wrong, I don't need to call out every booboo. I can see them, I acknowledge them. I'll do better tomorrow. I may even paint the same thing tomorrow.

 

This morning I had a Zoom critique session with cda which went well, then met the St. Agnes Class of '65 (or parts of it) for lunch, then I spent the rest of the afternoon working on the next manuscript. I wrote a 6-page scene and figured out where to slot it in. On my way home from lunch I went to the birdseed store and to pick up an Rx. I invariably head to the pharmacy when they're closed for lunch. Happily I could divert to the birdseed store and then backtrack a few blocks to the pharmacy. I don't understand why I am lured there between 1 and 1:30. It's just silly.

I put in a call into the dentist today because I went back to wearing the sleep apnea appliance last Wednesday and everything was going well until last night when the right side of my jaw woke me up in pain. I called to tell him I wasn't going to wear it anymore because obviously it isn't right for me but he convinced me to come in next week for another adjustment. I don't have a lot of faith that he'll be able to "fix" things but I guess I'll try. Naturally most people don't have this kind of trouble but then I can't have anything normal. I also suspect that people just stop wearing it and stick it in a drawer and never tell.

--Barbara