Still Dark, Dark, Dark

I know, whine whine whine, but I feel whiny so you're just going to have to deal.  I intend to go to yoga after work today so maybe that'll perk things up in the mood department here at 1510, something has to.

Have you read the Hunger Games trilogy?  Yeah, yeah, I know they're young adult books but they're very well written and have interesting characters and... and... and... they're a thought-provoking allegory of today's "blame everyone else" culture.  I re-watched the first movie on my Kindle Fire yesterday at work because Lala told me last week that the second movie, Catching Fire, is coming the end of next month and we saw the first one together so we need to do that with the second one too.  She's the one that told me about the books in the first place so it's only fitting that we watch the films together.  What?  How many of you are Harry Potter fans?  *raises hand*  Those are kids' books and adults still read them.  There's a raft of books with patterns to knit approximating sweaters, etc. from the movies too, and they're in adult sizes so I can't be the only adult wanting to dress up like Harry or Hermione or Dobby.  See, in one of the HP books Hermione learns to knit and makes hats to free the house elves but they don't want to be free so Dobby, the house elf that Harry freed from the Malfoys and who now works at Hogwarts, takes them all and wears them in a stack on his head, so some genius worked up a pattern to knit a hat that looks like a stack of hats.  Brilliant.  I want to knit one.

I'll be glad when Mrs. Boss gets done with her month of flitting from pillar to post, from Idaho to Colorado, home for a few days to do laundry and repack, then she's off to Orlando for a trade show, then she's escaping to the Keys for a few days' diving.  I'm ready to be back to my boring rut, thank you very much, there's too much thinking for me to do when she's away.

I'm in one of those moods when I'd like to scrape everything out of the house and start over from bare walls.  Oh, I'd scrape it all into the backyard first so I could pick through and let back in the things I really want (and most days Durwood would be first back through the door, most days, but then I'm certain that there are days when I'm not his first choice either), then I'd have an "I'm Sick of This Crap, You Want It?" sale before donating the remains to Goodwill or the Salvation Army.  But I never will, so...

October 29--Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher.  This was the first day at the end of winter when the air was warm enough for Mariette to open the window.  The rush of cool clean air swept around her and she imagined that she heard the winter-weary house sigh.  She did her best to keep the house clean but in winter the air got trapped inside.  By the end of March the house smelled of cooking, coal fires, and feet.  She lived for today, for the sound of the window latch grating open and the bicycle and canal boat sounds that floated in on the breeze.

Don't you love that first day that carries a hint of Spring?  How you open the house and sigh?  Yeah, I'm pretty much hating having all the windows shut and will for the next, what, six months?  Arrgh.  Okay, on that happy thought it's time for me to toddle down the hall, read the paper, eat breakfast, and go off to keep the world safe from SCUBA diving once more.
--Barbara