Tuesday, September 7, 2004

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I get to help my friend move 250 sheep into a newly fenced field. New field for me, too. I'll let you know how it goes. (I'm starting to get into this new getting up at 4:30 thing.) 10:27:39 PM    comment []

I've been out of sorts all day. It started at 4:30am, when cat Yoda wanted me to get up and--what? let him out? pour him some half and half? peel him a grape? But I was having none of it, so he kept up with the biting, the crawling under the blankets and back out again, the jumping onto the bed from great altitudes. I finally shut him out of the room and snuggled back in with the good cats (and one good dog) and, after giving Venus, that blazing harbinger, a good hard stare through the window, began fading back into slumber... and the phone rang. My 6 a.m. wake-up call. The day has been one stubbed toe and bumped head after another and by late afternoon I was sure I'd be disgruntled in perpetuity. Must be another menopausal symptom, I thought, or some very extended PMS. But I got on the phone with my younger son at the used bookstore where he works, and we conversed for an hour about nothing very significant while he bagged books and made change and I washed an enormous heap of dishes and fed the six field cats in the back room (and the tortoiseshell princess, who won't eat with riffraff, up in her tower) and the two dogs, and then washed the floor, and by the time I hung up I was cracking jokes and making plans and feeling like a Person again. How does that work, exactly? I've noticed the effect before: I go through most of a day like it's the end of the world, and then have occasion to speak lightly with a human for whatever reason, and bingo, my head emerges from wherever it had lodged itself and the light dawns. This reminds me of my exchange with the local postmistress last week. I'd driven the 10 miles to check my P.O. box. "My mailbox is empty," I complained. "Is all the mail out?" "Yep," she said. "Well then, why did I come here?" "Human contact, dear," she replied. "Just wait 'til winter..." [insert Psycho shower-scene music] 10:24:21 PM    comment []