Followed By Tuesday...

...which I always have such high hopes for being a quiet, easy day and always ends up being a run around, appointments and errands day.  I keep thinking, "boy, when I retire I'm going to have endless days to just sit around and relax" but I hear from many retired friends that that just ain't so, that they're busier than ever.  I'm doomed to never have a quiet day on the couch.


I went out to fill the birdfeeders early this morning and noticed that the fence across the top of the retaining wall that keeps the eye doctor's office employees cars from parking in our yard is leaning quite a bit.  I don't think it's the crushing weight of the birdfeeders I have hanging from it.  Maybe someone got a bit enthusiastic parking up there.  I hope that the snow plow driver doesn't pile the snow in such a way that it shoves the fence over -- again.

On Sunday I installed the birdbath heater which is a good thing because the weather guesser said it's supposed to get down to 30 degrees tonight.  Brrr.

I've been craving apple pie and I noticed that there is at least a pie's worth of apples within arms reach on the tree that hangs over the fence.  Hmm, there might be a pie in our future, maybe one of those rustic flat ones that you fold around the apples.

October 21--Kadmat Island, India. It looked like everyone's vision of Paradise, a small thatched cottage nestled in a grove of palms at the edge of a white sand beach a stone's throw from the blue Indian Ocean. Picture perfect, right? Far from it. When Elaine got the letter from the lawyers that she had inherited an island home from her long-estranged father she thought it was a joke or a scam, but she had done her research and finally, after a visit from the junior Mr. Adams of Woodes, Adams & Blanchard, she had believed that it was true. According to Mr. Adams, Dad had lived on a small stipend left to him by a pair of maiden aunts, building a home on a tiny island off the coast on India, and when he died late last winter all of his estate had passed to her. Elaine's first instinct was to have the lawyer sell the property and be done with it but when she saw the photos she knew she'd have to go. It was the perfect time for a trip. She had accumulated nearly eight weeks' vacation and the company was pressing her to take it. The economy was down and business was slow so the timing was right. Jeremy, her boyfriend of the past fourteen years had left her for his yoga instructor who was almost ten years younger than Elaine, and her dog had died. She had come home two Fridays ago to find him stretched out in his little dog bed cold and stiff. That was the last straw. She had gone online and booked a flight to Goa, India, the coastal city closest to Kadmat, called Mr. Adams for copies of her ownership documents, stopped at the clinic for a tetanus shot and some anti-malaria and anti-diarrhea pills. Her wardrobe was more suited to a boardroom than a beach house so she bought some khaki cotton pants and shorts, a handful of cotton tees in neutrals, and some sturdy sandals all of which she packed into a carry-on with wheels and backpack straps that she bought at a dive shop.

I am totally ready to stow-away in Elaine's luggage and flee.  I know it's just because I'm feeling the pressure of being ready for the carpet guys on Friday but a tropical runaway sounds pretty darned good after the latest string of gray and dreary days--and it's not even winter yet.  I think I'm in deep doodoo.  Off to make errands go away.

--Barbara