And It's Raining

I am grateful to the weather gods that it only really rained once when we were hauling sh*t out of Mom's place and that was the day after she died (which I thought was totally appropriate). I prayed extra hard that it wouldn't snow until we were done and it worked. The power of prayer, people, give it a hand. I am totally not referencing one religion over another, I'm talking about sending sincere words to whatever power controls my part of the universe and asking for a favor. I lean toward the Catholic because that's the way I grew up but I didn't pass that on to my kids. Sometimes I regret that. I raised a pair of free-thinkers who don't have a religious background to fall back on. Sorry, DS & DD, sometimes the familiar prayers and rituals are a safe place to find comfort and I'm sorry that I didn't give you that. Ah well, maybe that'll come through your spouses, fabulous women that they are. Rain is a perfectly good weather for my plans today. I've got the laundry started and as soon as I'm finished here I'll be heading downstairs to see if I can't bring a little order out of the chaos I made down there, especially over the last month. I resurrected a couple towers of Gillette shelving (DS & DD, you'll remember them as back porch pool supplies shelves) that were taking up valuable garage space, so two of them are in the bathtub sprayed with some orange cleaner to remove the years of grime, and then they will join their brethren downstairs to assume new roles as fabric storage. There will be psychic book shifting and other book shifting as well but I might as well start as I mean to go on and not do the job twice. Right? Right. That will also put me in a position to tend to the laundry without endless trips up and down the stairs. Organization, thy name is Barbara. (hold the applause, please) At least I hope it will be by the end of the weekend. Right now my name is closer to being "pack rat." (Shh, don't tell Durwood. I constantly accuse him of being the family pack rat and excuse myself from that appellation.)

December 2--Vincent van Gogh, Roses. Their aroma filled the room. Callie imagined it as white sparkles drifting like dust motes on the late summer air. She waited all season for this rose to bloom. It wasn't prim like Grandpa Emmet's hybrid teas. Those roses were like society women gussied up and on their best behavior in church. These white roses that bloomed at the tail end of summer they were like, well, they were like mistresses. Their dress was a little much, a bit careless. Their petals ruffly and sprawling, not as rigid as the others. Their fragrance was over the top too. These flowers were comfortable with themselves; they didn't take themselves too seriously. Callie always thought that if her roses were women they'd drink bourbon with a Coke chaser, dye their hair platinum blond, and tell bawdy stories and dirty jokes.

Heh, heh, heh. I'll bet you never thought of roses that way. Now you'll never forget them. I'm off to bring order from self-inflicted chaos.
--Barbara