Running Late

I seem to have "the slows" this morning, you know, when you stagger around aimlessly and get nothing accomplished.  I like to wake up and begin my day at a trot but, see, Durwood was still sleeping in our bed (not his napping bed next door--no, no, not in the next house, in the next room, sheesh) so I couldn't open the shades or make the bed or fire up the Kumquat (laptop) here.  I did switch on the Wii (it's in the living room, yes, I keep the shades drawn) to take my daily body test (weigh in) (it wasn't good news) and made a pot of coffee, then checked the Photo a Day theme of the day which is "angle" and it brought me up short.  What angle?  Do I have an angle?  I sat on the floor in the living room and shot up into the maple tree through the houseplants and window frame (meh).  Then I sat here and took a shot out the window (meh)... and inspiration just this instant whapped me upside the head.  Hold on, I'll be right back...  Okay, I'm back.  How many times have I taken a picture of the maple tree from the porch in the early morning?  A blue million.  Well, I scampered outside and stood with my back to the tree trunk and took a picture from there.  My first shot was back toward the house/porch, a reciprocal of my usual angle (meh) but then I looked up and BOI-OI-NG! there it was, the exact right shot for today's picture.  (you're gonna love this one)  Ta-da!  Gorgeous, isn't it?  *huffing & buffing my nails*  The horrifying thing I noticed when I went outside was the frost (FROST!) on Beverly's roof (Beverly's my car).  I don't mind the cool temps or the windy days but I am just not ready for frost--and the birdbath was frozen solid this morning when I went out to top it up.  Gah.  I don't want to have to go out and drain the fountain then dig out the birdbath heater and get it all set up yet.  It's too early.  Wah.  One of the things on my to-do list yesterday was to swamp out the microwave.  It was looking pretty darned frat house-ish.  Various soups and beans and tomato-based items had spit and sputtered in there, it needed cleaning.  I boiled a Pyrex cup of water in it for a few minutes to loosen the crud and ran a sink of hot-ish water that I shook some baking soda into.  (what?  mom told me never to use soap to clean the fridge or micro so there isn't any soapy residue to give us the runs, baking soda works great)  I wiped and wiped the floor, sides and door, then I started on the ceiling and came away with a sponge full of... paint chips, uh-oh, the paint's peeling off.  Is that bad?  Does it have lead?  I googled it and all of the discussions came to the conclusion that it's not dangerous, so we'll keep our eye out for one on sale and just use a cover on everything until then to keep paint chips out.  Good god, if it's not one thing, it's another.  Don't you love modern life?

October 8--Flemish, Emperor Vespasian Cured by Veronica's Veil.  Gloria hated the tapestry that hung in her mother-in-law's living room.  It was the most depressing thing she'd ever seen.  It had gorgeous colors--gold, red, and navy blue--but it showed some sick old man reaching for a relic hoping for a cure.  You could see by the looks on the faces of his attendants, and the room was full of them, that there wasn't much hope.  Gloria's favorite attendant was the man holding the sick man's arm.  He was looking straight out of the hanging as if to plead with the maker to weave faster, to get it over with.  She knew that there was no way to avoid inheriting the thing even though they didn't have room for it.  Douglas was an only child and he had no backbone where his mother was concerned.  Maybe she could convince Douglas' mother, the insufferable old bat, to donate the monstrosity to a museum before she died and reap the accolades while she could still imagine herself as a patron of the arts.

And now it's time for me to make myself presentable and go to work so I can collect my hard-earned pay.  Yippee!  Hey, are any of you thinking of doing NaNoWriMo next month?  I am and if you are we could trade encouraging emails.  My yoga teacher and one of my old writing group and I are going to cobble together a support group, but I thought I'd send out a tentacle to youse writer-y types.  Exit, stage left.
--Barbara Sue