I'm Thankful For...

a no-Durwood morning.  That's today's Photo a Day theme and  I can tell you need some explanation.  See, I married a traveling salesman so I got very used to long stretches of time without him home, especially after the kids were off on their own and I had the whole shebang to myself.  Then his job changed so he worked in town, coming home every night, but still he was away 5 days a week.  Then came retirement.  The real thing.  Not his "Gillette retired me in 1999 but I've been working at a different job where I still get to travel and collecting Social Security since then" semi-retirement but real, not having a place to work, time to collect unemployment because they just stopped putting me on the schedule and I've paid in a fortune over the years, staying at home 24/7 retirement.  Gah.  Neither of us is wired for this.  He wishes he was out on the road and I want my silent house back.  Oh, we're way past the stage of tagging around behind each other, past the resentment of space invaded, now we just miss the old ways and old days.  He's taken over meal planning, grocery shopping, meal making, and kitchen cleanup, plus if I sort the dirty clothes he'll do the laundry and if I carry up the basket of clean clothes he folds them.  (Dreamy, right?)  I guess that my only beef is that he has the house to himself when I'm at work 3 days a week and he's almost always home when I'm here so I'm seldom home alone or if I am it isn't for very long.  Oh, I can go away but it's not the same as being home alone; it's not the same let my hair down, bone-deep, only one TV playing relaxation.  He doesn't care if I knit or sew or surf the web, I don't have to dance attendance (he doesn't either), but I realized that I'm having trouble focusing (menopause or late-onset ADD?) so my writing has gone right down the dumper the last few years, and I wonder if it's because of the lack of silence, real only-the-furnace-sounds silence.  I'm signing up to do NaNoWriMo again next month (I should do that once I hit "publish") and I'm worried that I'll fail miserably.  I can't even think of what to write about... although... I just bought a Yellowstone guidebook (I know we just came back but it has awesome pictures and just enough history and science to satisfy my curiosity), maybe I can write a story set there.  Hot-diggity-dog, I had an idea.  Whew.  Now I have a chance, now I have hope.  Geysers and bison and bears, oh my.  (Ya-freaking'-hoo!)  Durwood's off to breakfast with his Census 2000 buds, then he's got some Festival Foods coupons that expire today that he needs to spend, so I think I'm going to hit "publish" and have another cup of coffee while the silence reigns.


October 6--Michele Todini, Harpsichord.  The water rose and there was nothing they could do about it.  There was too much and it was moving too fast for there to be a way to divert it, so they shifted their efforts toward saving their belongings.  It never crossed their minds that they might be swept away in the torrent.  Not until they saw the body of one of the neighbors float past the house.

The wonders of the human mind...  All that from a detail photo of a gilt harpsichord base showing a panicked-looking, naked cherub (modestly fig-leafed) holding the instrument out of a fake ocean.  I've already ordered and received the 2013 Art Gallery calendar and Mensa 10-Minute Crosswords calendar so the continuity of bedtime prompts and morning brain exercises will be preserved.  Bet you're relieved.
--Barbara Sue