Chickens, Roses & A Wet Dog

There is much to discuss today.  I took a pint of blueberries that were just past human consumption but not yet garbage over to Henny & Penny & Kiev & General Tso (that seems to be the current pecking order) and they went wild for them.  So wild that they almost forgot that they don't like to share. 

When I went out to get the paper this morning I saw that the rose had bloomed again.  That's my favorite feature of Dad's rose; it blooms in spring on the "old wood" (last year's canes) and then spends its energy growing "new wood" (this year's canes) and blooms on it in late summer until nearly the first freeze.  I don't know what variety it is but it has to be an old one because it smells like roses are supposed to smell.  I took one to work with me on Wednesday and it perfumed the whole desk area.  Mmm.  Reminded me of Dad and Grandma (the original family rose lover) all day.  After I took rose pictures I went out back to take a sunup picture (as usual), took one of the laden apple tree too, and noticed a little downy woodpecker on the finch feeder that was merrily pecking away so I took its picture too.  It didn't even flinch at the camera flash.  That's concentration.

Porter and I decided to walk south to DePere instead of north to the overpass today.  I'd gone a bit early because I needed to be back for the Roto-Rooter guy to clean out the rental's drains so there were a lot fewer people out.  When we get to "downtown" I cut over into Voyageur Park to walk on the path right along the river.  Today I paused at a place where flat boulders make rudimentary steps so we went down to get right next to the river.  Porter decided to get right into the river.  I was surprised because she hates to be rained on and fell into a pool this summer and is very shy of bodies of water now. She splashed in the shallows and even lay down to have a little drink.  Maybe she liked it because it's shallow.  For whatever reason she was a fan.

Mrs. Boss told me yesterday that Mr. Boss will still be working this month after all.  That means that starting next Friday while she's in Idaho for 5 days helping her mom get ready to move and almost as soon as she gets back she's off with a group to Cayman Brac diving for 9 days, I'll be working.  Mr. Boss will work Saturdays and Sundays and I've already got permission to close the store for Durwood's important doctor appointment on the 17th but that's going to be a lot of working.  In the past that only meant more money in my pocket and less time off but now that I'm a Senior Citizen collecting Social Security we have to be sure not to pay me over the SS monthly limit, so we agreed that whatever I earn over and above she'll just pay me in October when I'm off for those 2 weeks.  Brilliant, don't you think?  We both kind of got there at the same time.  The most annoying aspect of it is that only Wednesday evening I plonked down thirty bucks for an intensive month of daily yoga classes.  On my way home from work yesterday I was very down in the dumps about that but I've printed out the yoga studio's schedule and I can make a class, usually a gentle yin class, just about every day.  It'll mean I'll be up and out early a couple days a week but it's only a month, I can do it.  I'll just pack my work clothes in my backpack along with some fruit, granola and yogurt for breakfast after class and everything will be hunky-dory.

September 6--Artemesia Gentileschi, Esther Before Ahasuerus.  Neal slid off his chair when the alarm sounded.  The klaxon echoes in the empty office.  He'd thought he was the only one in the building so late but he heard voices coming from the stairwell.  He flipped off his computer monitor before he left his cubicle as he always did but didn't power it down.  He thought he smelled smoke and looked back the way he had come.  He remembered from his orientation lecture not to take the elevators in a fire so he went past them to the stairwell.  He felt the door to make sure it wasn't hot before leaning on the crash bar.  The door didn't open.  He tried again, this time putting his shoulder into the effort but the bar was locked.  The smoke was getting thicker, billowing toward him from behind.  He pounded on the door and shouted, sure he heard people on the stairs behind the door.  He whirled in the increasing smoke and ran to the stairs in the opposite corner of the building.  That door was locked too.  He grabbed a phone off someone's desk.  The line was dead.

Can you tell I just listened to a story about the planes crashing into the towers on 9/11?  I feel like I was channeling a bit of The Towering Inferno too.  It had nothing to do with the painting because I didn't know who the people were or what they were doing.  I've got wash to fling around and have to go to the birdseed store for peanuts for the bluejays.  They were out when I stopped on Tuesday and this morning the bluejays were complaining.  Oh and it's time for lunch too.  Yay, lunch!
--Barbara