Sacrifices

I slept late this morning: 7:45. I'm usually up between 5 and 6 AM, but this morning I slept so good I didn't get up every hour or so to visit the bathroom. Of course I did have to sit in the bathroom longer, but that's a small price to pay to sleep deeply and wake refreshed. I balked at my usual morning ritual, a new one I started this week. I don't know if it will work but it did heal the rough spot inside my cheek where I have a tendency to bite down every once in a while. In fact, the ridge that causes the problem by sticking out is almost gone, so who knows? It doesn't hurt to attempt new things and I learn so much from the people on the herbal medicine tribe I joined. I even get to share some of what I've learned over the years. There are so many different tribes I'm sure you'll find at least one that suits your needs or sparks/shares your interests. If you do go join up, you'll find me at fixnwrtr, as always.

I've so much to do this weekend I don't know where to start. One thing I do want to do is take a walk to Bancroft Park with my camera and my canvas bags and pick up some fresh produce from the farmer's market. I haven't done that in a long time because I've either been gone or too busy working to even think about venturing out. I also need to finish some painting and get some writing done before I jump back into the working fray so the squirrels can flash and entertain me with squirrel porn. Not the first sighting and certainly not the last.

I am tempted to turn on the lamp because the morning sun doesn't really hit this room, but at least it stays cooler than the sunroom where I work. Maybe I should consider using the sunroom as the living room and the living room as my office, except I'd never get all the furniture in there and still be able to move. I'd have to settle for the couch or the chaise. No, the sunroom is the best place for the office for right now.

I showed the landlady the pictures I took yesterday and she was ecstatic about the picture of Pastor. She said she didn't have anything recent and due to an interesting bit of happenstance at Office Max a couple weeks ago I bought two packages of 4x6 photographic paper (buy one get one free) and this morning I cropped Pastor's picture and will print out a couple copies. It will be my first chance to print something other than mailbox labels that can withstand the weather, look good and be a little hint of who and what the tenants here are like. I'll take pictures of the mailbox labels and post them later after I come back from my trip to the farmer's market. I'm craving fresh organic produce and a walk in the sunshine even if it means getting caught in the coming thunderstorm brewing over my mountains now fading behind a thickening veil of fog and clouds. It's hard to believe this sun spangled view can be so suddenly obscured by rain and darkness as the clouds hide the light behind charcoal slashed puffs of gray and white but it will happen and the oh-so-green that last year was a pale burnt out reflection of green will be brighter and cleaner with leaves bowing heavily with pregnant seeds about to burst their yellow pods.

The neighborhood is far from quiet but the sounds are soothing and familiar: children playing with and chasing each other and questioning their parents, horns beeping, couples talking, cars shushing by, squirrels scrabbling along the trunks and branches, the wind rustling the leaves and delivery truck doors banging. Girls walking up the street laugh together with the particular teenage glee at the belief in their immortality and the eternity it will take to reach old age while chafing at the bit to be 18 or 21 and free to come and go as they please, feeling they are being denied their rights by adults who have forgotten what it is to be young. I haven't forgotten.

I haven't forgotten the time either, and it's time for me to put on some clothes and saunter over to the park before all the produce is gone.

That is all. Disperse.