'Twas A Dark & Stormy Day

This must be what winter's like in Alaska, all day dim.  It's windy too and the weather guessers say we should have rain.  It's gonna be a great day in the neighborhood.  (did you catch the sarcasm there?)  It must have rained a bunch last night because the birdbath's filled up to the tippy top.  Sure looks like Fall out there.

All the other trees around here have decided to change colors now that our maple tree has lost all its leaves, except for the one in our neighbor's backyard.  That one, the tallest one on the block, stays green until all the other trees' leaves have changed colors, fallen, and been raked up, THEN it sucks its chlorophyll out of the leaves, lets them flap around in the Autumn winds showing off their colors for a few days, then flings them to the ground so we have to rake one more time.  Grrr.  And it's not even our tree.

(Something in the back room just said something.  I'm used to random beeps when a dive computer battery is losing its charge or the door sensor needs a new 9-volt but they only beep, this was definitely a voice.  The TV isn't on and there's no radio or cellphone back there, nothing's turned on, but I swear I heard an indistinct woman's voice say one sentence.  I think I might be haunted, you guys.  Kinda freakin' me out.)


Durwood called me at work yesterday to say that a Red-bellied Woodpecker had discovered the peanut wreath and was chasing Bluejays away, or at least not letting the 'jays scare it away.  We're not even sure if it's a boy or a girl bird (haven't had time to look it up) but he said it sure looked comfortable on there trying to wrestle a nut out.





Last night after supper and Antiques Roadshow I finally finished the edging of the Carmine Vintage Hankie Cloth.  I like it.  I might have liked it more if I'd made the outer edging the carmine but I wasn't about to change it, it's just a washcloth, a nice looking one but just a rag for mopping up spills and baby faces.  Cross my heart, I'm not casting on another thing until I finish the Oriole Wings Wrap.  No fingers crossed behind my back either, and it's the only project I brought to work with me today.  I'm going to turn on the puck lights over the desk (because it's such a dreary day) or maybe I'll get out the little high-intensity light that I keep in my knitting basket so I can see the dark brown stitches and knit away while I listen to Deadline by John Sanders, the new Virgil Flowers book I got with this month's Audible credit.

And maybe the work computer software will be fixed today.  Don't fret, I can still do business writing invoices by hand and looking up prices in catalogs and the credit card swiper thing still works, but it'd be nice to have the central source for all that info and function up and running again.  Although this way of doing business is making me think more which can only be a good thing at my age and level of brain decay.

Charles Predergast, Allegory.  The white goats mount the beach like ranks of storm waves, climb the dunes, and fade into the woods.  Palm trees with trunks of cupped hands wave their fronds in sinuous time to the far-off peal of steeple bells.  The lone orange tree on the headland hums its sweetness on the breeze, shiny green leaves offering glistening orbs of thirst quenching delight.  Celia sat, swaying with the palms, on the sand as the goats emerged from the sea, a basket of oranges on her lap.  She turned to offer an orange on her outstretched hand to a golden fish that leapt from the glittering water...  Her alarm clock buzzed and she rolled out of bed, her feet hitting the cold floor.  "No more midnight tacos for me," she said as she ricocheted down to hall to the kitchen for coffee.

Okay that's weird, but that's what came and you take the weird with the normal in free writes.  Doesn't mean I'm slipping off the edge, right?  Right.  I'm creative, not nuts.  (keep telling yourself that, Barbara, one day it might be true)  Well, I should probably get this posted and then get to knitting, I hear Virgil calling from my Kindle (but not creepy like the other voice).  Au revoir.
--Barbara