Looking Up

I have come to realize that although I detest that it's dark when my alarm(s) sound I do love looking at the sky as it changes from dark to light.  Today I spotted a planet, I think, but the sky had gotten too light by the time I went out with my camera.  Do you look at your piece of sky much?  I love to see how the light touches the clouds and how the colors of the light changes as the sun rises above the horizon.  By the time the sun's well and truly up I'm past looking at it.  I like to watch the sun go down too.  Once again the angle of the light makes shapes and colors in the sky at sunset that the midday sun can't compete with; it's just illumination then, not poetry.  (Ugh, I just noticed that the roofs of the houses across the way are all frosted.  It's hard to believe that it was nearly 70 at this time yesterday and today we'll be lucky if it hits 40.  What a crazy place I live in.)  Durwood's wondering if the tomato people will be at the Farmer's Market tomorrow so he can get his bag o'tomatoes "one more time" before Jack Frost comes to cover the land permanently (well, it seems permanent long about February).  That means he'll roust me out to go down there in the early chilly tomorrow.  *sigh*  No sleeping in for this chicken, I guess.  Although I kind of don't like it when I do sleep in because then it feels like half the day's gone before I get both feet on the ground.  (Make up your mind, Barbara Sue, you can't have it both ways.)  (Why not?  Am I not the center of the known world?  Do not all the planets and heavenly bodies revolve around me?  No?  When did that happen?)  Durwood roasted slices of butternut squash sprayed with olive oil and sprinkled with nutmeg for us to have with our meatloaf last night.  It was yummy; you need to make that, you'd love it.  He's on a squash kick right now.  He discovered that according to the new Weight Watchers Points Plus plan winter squash count as a veggie not a starch and therefore have zero points, so we can have something potato-y that doesn't "cost" anything.  I'm hoping for another round of marinara sauce with spaghetti squash under it this coming week.  Perhaps I should mention that to him... yeah, I think I will.  I seldom "order" things, leaving the menu planning to him.  Hey, I did it all alone for nigh onto 30 years, it's his turn.  Today's Photo a Day theme is "listening to."  At first I thought it said "looking at" and that's why I hurried out to take pictures of the morning star but then I reread it and realized that, once again, I was wrong.  Is this dyslexia?  ADD?  Just plain and simple old age?  Anyway, here's my beloved iPod Touch; I listen to it in the car and at work, when I'm knitting and when I'm sewing.  I love it.  I realized yesterday that I don't listen to music on it ever; I only listen to stories so I deleted what music was on there to make room for more stories.  More stories, more stories, hooray!  I spent all of yesterday at work sucking stories off of CDs from the library and zorking them onto my iPod so I can carry them with me.  (I took my laptop along)  I don't keep them, that'd be bad like stealing, I just convert them to a handy portable format and then I delete them when I'm done, kind of like returning a book only I do it digitally.  Besides there's Overdrive which is a totally digital way to borrow things; I use that too.  There's also another way to borrow digital media but I haven't figured that out yet.  I need a tween...

October 26--Roman, Cameo Portrait of the Emperor Augustus.  Jillian turned the brooch over in her hands.  She squinted to see it in the dusty shop crammed so full of things that she was afraid to move.  She'd been looking for a cameo to pin on her blazer, one that reminded her of the one her grandma had worn on her Sunday dress as long as Jillian could remember.  "All those guys have had their noses broken," said a man's voice behind her.  She turned and smiled.  "Oh, Pete, you made me jump."  She held out the brooch to him.  "He didn't get to be emperor by not getting in a few fights.  Besides noses chip easily on these carvings."  She haggled with the owner, getting him to lower the asking price five dollars, and felt like she'd conquered Gaul herself.  Neither she nor Pete noticed the thin, dark-haired man who followed them when they left the shop.

And now it's time for Cheerios, a banana, and a shower to get this day started.  It's yoga day!  Yippee!  I missed it last week when we were away.
--Barbara Sue