Can't get back on track

I woke up really late this morning. Not a good start for a busy day. I did, however, work a double shift yesterday with three hours' sleep, which is probably why I overslept, but I still have a lot to do and just can't seem to find my pace. Good thing for the Evil One because he reminded me the furniture guy was coming today to fix the chaise: two split legs and a split and bent cross piece. I hadn't showered or eaten and I certainly wasn't dressed. In short, I looked like I just got out of bed after a long rough night. Good thing though.

The furniture guy (very cute in that rugged, athletic, sexy, manly smelling way) put my ticket in the paid file because his company sent the guy out to steam clean the furniture on Wednesday and would have missed the appointment had I not called in a panic to find out when he would be here. Worked out for both of us. I got a shower and he came by to expertly repair my brand new chaise.

I will never understand why furniture makers no longer take pride in their work and make it to last. At these prices, they should have used something much sturdier as a stabilizer than 1/4" plywood. That's a job for solid wood -- like the 2x4 the furniture guy put in place. Now when I sit down on the chaise it doesn't sound or feel like it's about to collapse and I'm not afraid to put up my feet, which is why I bought the chaise in the first place.

So, thanks to working a double shift with very little sleep, an intelligent body that takes over and makes sure I get enough sleep, the Evil One for reminding me I had someone coming over today, and my sense of self preservation and panic to make sure I wasn't caught looking like a wild-haired hag who had been rode hard and put up wet or there would be stories floating around town about the wicked old witch with snakes for hair that lives over in Old Colorado City.

Here's to the happy accidents that surprise us and keep us on our toes.

Hell hath no fury

It is obvious that I need to be careful around the Evil One or he will corrupt me even more than he has already. A simple conversation or him telling me about some movie or book that had him riveted with laughter or whatever and I'm off and running to see what the shouting is all about. This time he dangled another bit of winning bait before me.

No doubt about it, Kurt Russell is still the hottest commodity around and the most versatile and believable actor. The Evil One's latest dangling bait concerns Breakdown about a yuppie couple moving from Boston to San Diego in their brand new fire engine red Jeep Cherokee. Amy and Jeff are living on their credit cards because they have both quit their jobs and are moving to San Diego to a new life and new jobs. One moment Jeff wasn't paying attention and he nearly crashes into a mud splattered truck fitted for driving around in the desert and crosses over into a reality where nothing is as it seems. And thus the adventure begins and doesn't let go until the very last moment when Amy has her revenge.

The Evil One was right. This movie keeps your interest every second of its run and doesn't let go. Heaven help you if you're catching it on a movie channel and not on DVD or on commercial TV where you can get up and go to the bathroom once in a while because you're not going to want to get up and miss a single nanosecond. Blink and you will definitely miss something crucial.

I guess I'll just have to put up with his insidious dangling bits of bait because he is usually right and knows me so well that he gets me every time in his diabolical traps of sharing ideas and dreams and succulent tidbits.

Besides, the Evil One is cute, too.

That is all. Go find Breakdown and settle in for a wild and hair raising ride.

Blue days

I am so used to seeing dogs on leashes with their owners following behind or to the side with plastic bags around their hands to scoop up the droppings. Not today. A beautiful two-year-old German Shepherd found a little square of ragged yellow-brown grass at the corner across the street, turned, assumed the tail-up position and let nature run its course. He took a quick sniff and bounded across the street. I watched for his owner to scoop the proof but all that followed was a black mutt with a white blaze on his nose, bounding across the street like an excited puppy seeing his family in the doorway. The evidence the dogs existed is still across the street in the little pie slice of green and brown surrounding by cement curbing. I can just hear the buzzing of interested flies in between the trilled warbles of bird song drifting through my window on the rising breeze. The sky is an impossible heart wrenching Colorado blue where the bare trees scratch the air with skeletal fingered twigs.

The weather has been beautiful the past few days and every time I look out the window I expect to see green buds lining the twiggy ends of tree branches just like the bright green spears of crocus and tulips thrusting up through the black soil in the yard downstairs. The grass is brown, but the promise of spring and the end of winter's sleep is in those bright green spears ripping through the cold and silent ground.

There is the faint scent of dust on the wind mingling with the clean fresh scent of rushing breezes busily sweeping streets and windows and air and my mind clear of winter's must and dust. I am anxious for more of these beautiful bright blue days but I know winter is struggling with spring and winter will win a few more bouts before spring's pastel flags and green spears are victorious. The mountain outside my window will be softened and shadowed by buds and leaves before long, but like the impossible blue Colorado sky it will remain a constant reminder of the strength and beauty right outside my door beckoning me ever closer.

More satanism

woke this morning to a molten copper horizon that lit bands of clouds with fiery orange light as the sun rose. The first thing that popped into my mind was the old sailor's poem: Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night, sailor take flight. Of course the sky wasn't quite red but it was obviously a warning that this day would be full of something akin to danger -- the idea that Harry Potter leads children to satanism.

I don't know where the Vatican gets off saying that Harry Potter leads to worshiping the devil, but I would have chosen a much more suitable focus for my claims, like The Ninth Gate or anything that glamorizes working or being an advocate for the devil, but since The Ninth Gate didn't make nearly as much money as J. K. Rowling's books about wizards, witches, and the honor, strength, responsibility, and growing friendship of three children battling evil in all its forms. Declaring Harry Potter is the road to satanism and a sure need for exorcism is like saying taking an aspirin for a headache is the next step to mainlining heroin or snorting cocaine. Maybe doing more than 3000 exorcisms in 20 years has something to do with it? Or then again, maybe he hasn't heard about the first satanic bedtime story called The Little Satanist. Only on eBay.

I wonder what the Vatican has to say about the wars in heaven.

That is all. Disperse. There are lots of red skies ahead of us morning and night.