Speedy Monday

Today just flew by.  It started normally enough but when I got to the city bulk trash dump with the pieces of the old privacy fence the attendant told me that they don't take "lumber."  I had four pieces of old stockade fence and stood looking at the pile of dressers and tables and bed frames, all made of wood, all acceptable, but my little pile of stakes was rejected.  I had to drive almost 10 miles (far in little old Green Bay) to the "transfer station" which is where the garbage trucks unload so that the stuff can be transferred someplace for disposal.  And you have to pay to dump things there.  *sigh*  Since the last time I'd been there (over 10 years ago) they've instituted a minimum charge.  I should have just driven home and built a fire in the back yard but I didn't.  Durwood wasn't pleased that I paid to dump a bit of wood but I was determined to get the stuff gone TODAY. On the way home I swung by the storage locker to see what's out there and what I could pull out of there today and get rid of right away.  I'm determined to empty it this summer so we can stop paying $66/month to store things we'll never have room for in the house again.


Then it was time to shower and dress for my monthly lunch with some of the people I graduated 8th grade with a bajillion years ago.  Funny how I don't feel like we have much in common but I wouldn't miss the lunches for anything.  Besides I had a new dress to wear.  This is kind of a uniform, isn't it?  But it sure makes me feel like I look nice, kind of put together, and I feel proud to have made these clothes, even if they are all variations on a theme.

 

The other night I got out my swift and ball winder to get the rest of the yarn for the Montparnasse cardigan all caked up and ready to be knitted with.  I'm planning to make the back with the red because that's the biggest piece of the sweater and I have 2 skeins of it.  One of these days I plan to cast on a front and get another part of it done.




I rounded the corner on my walk in time to catch the sun as it started to sink between buildings.  I do love the sunset, don't you?

The rhubarb is growing.  Pretty soon it'll be ready to pick.  And I called the county horticulturist today and he told me that my blueberries might not bear fruit this summer but they'd stored the energy for this year in their roots for the winter so the dastardly bunnies that nibbled all of the branches down to nubbins didn't kill them.  Guess I'll be digging chicken wire into the ground around the bushes to keep the rabbits out or at least deter them a bit.


 
And, speaking of blue, this Bluejay is the one that flies in and lands upside down on the peanut wreath then flaps and dangles until it gets just the right peanut free before flying away.  Crazy and fun to watch.  Its companion stands on the ground under the wreath looking up in amazement and reaping the fallen nuts.

May 7--Sandro Botticelli, La Primavera.  She reminded Alex of a Flower Child, one of those young women who flocked to San Francisco in the 1960s.  She had flowers woven into her long wheat-blond hair and wore a flowing diaphanous dress.  She gripped the railing and stared into the sea as if the shape of the bow wave of the ship could tell her future.  Alex stayed sheltered out of the chill wind that blew her dress against her body and had begun to unravel the hair holding the flowers in palce.  He heard the ping of metal hairpins hitting the deck.

Once again I'm still up at 11 o'clock.  If only I could convince my bladder to let me sleep past 6 AM...
--Barbara