Wednesday started out just copying Tuesday...coffee, toast, fresh air and critter-care, work-out, shower and on to work (computer, computer, computer - trademark screenings, emails, blog posts.) No originality at all! But sometime after lunch, I felt a change. Not in the routine, but in my attitude, where all real change takes place.
After work, I chased the clouds from my brain, determined to make the best of the few short hours of Wednesday that were left to me, rather than fall victim to the overwhelmed blahs of the day before.
I called my mom - that's always a good use of time. I stopped at our tiny grocery store for bananas and tomatoes, and donated a $1 to the Leukemia Society...or some other worthy cause. I'm not really sure which one - I was still talking to my mom and just nodded agreement to the teenage cashier's question (how could I resist, even if I wanted to? I remembered him as a kindergartner in my librarian days.)
Frankie met me in the driveway and escorted me to the house, where he performed his daily inspection of the front bathroom (he peeks in, tiptoes a little farther, stretches his neck and looks all around, then, once satisfied, he turns and heads back out the front door.) Tom had beat me home and already had chicken on the grill (that helped with the attitude) so, after I gave Frankie and the puppies their treats, I washed the green leaf lettuce and gathered the rest of the salad fixin's.
Tom and I make a good team, dancing around each other, seeing what needs to be done and just doing it. We've divided up some chores, now that there are no children at home to boss around, but mostly we just fill in where needed.
I had a mission for the evening - a list of goals - but before I could move beyond the first load of laundry, we decided to take a walk to check on the pond. (I wish I had thought to grab my camera on the way out the door.) The recent rain didn't fill the pond by any means - there's only about a foot of water in the lowest end, but that was enough to make Max happy. He waded in and promptly laid down. Charly followed Tom down the hill to the pond, but despite the Lab in him, he's not a water-lover. He tiptoed around, but he's not fond of a wet belly. Frankie and I stayed up on the road - I already have one pair of muddy tennis shoes, and didn't want another, and Frankie was singing up a storm about all of the bugs he was finding. Lots of big black beetles. He was back in Frankie-Lee mode.
Next, we crossed the earthen dam under the cypress tress to the other side of the pond - it used to be such a pretty view, standing there, looking out across the pond. But now there's a big wall of dirt splotchily draped in fake Easter-grass green, instead of a pretty marsh. I turned away.
We followed the trail down to the little pond, where the water is actually up to Charly's belly and it's so clear we could see orange crawdads swimming around. It's a little grotto, and green fern usually drips around the edges, but the drought has left it's mark - the fern still hangs in places, but it's brown and lifeless. Yet, I'm optimistic it will return. It's a native - tough and resilient.
Back on the porch, my agenda briefly popped into my head, but skittered away at Tom's suggestion of ping-pong. It was almost too dark, but we don't keep score anyway. We played off the house, the porch ceiling, the ground, and once, almost off of Frankie - he was standing near me on the rock ledge, getting drinks of water from the natural recesses in the stone surface. He's quick, though, and skittered away just before the ball hit him, wings spread wide and squawking his protest.
Finally, when we were playing by sound as much as sight, we laid down our paddles, came back inside, and I finally turned to the computer. But not to work on my book, unfortunately. Not yet. My mission today was more practical: I consolidated our college loans...the ones for our kids. Why didn't I do this sooner? We have been drowning and..okay, it's not necessarily a lifesaver, but it'll cut our payments in half and help us stay afloat until I can write my bestseller and make a million dollars (how's that for a financial plan?)
And now it's done. Work, walking, ping-pong, and a grabbing a lifesaver. All in all, it's been a pretty good day.
