Dear Reader,
Word Raccoon is in danger of dropping a few plates that she has been so valiantly trying to spin. I am prescribing a moment to breathe and reassess. I have to do that with her every so often, and right now she is trying to do too many things.
The remedy is usually to make her pull back from all nonessentials and do something creative for a bit.
Researching a potential serialization while trying to work a new online gig while researching others while trying to finish a tight draft of the current novel before year’s end while trying to navigate relationships and everyday life while doing deep dives on important things while trying to write and send out poetry while keeping a household running while putting out little fires like why was my engine light on (oil change; all gone now) while figuring out what to do with the lovely tomatoes and basil someone gifted me yesterday…(edited: See the photos below the post; I figured out what to do with them)
No, seriously, WR refuses to do anything today before the creative. That’s why she works at flexible jobs. Between us, perhaps we can get the week which is almost gone back on track.
There was a sad, unexpected event this week. A former co-worker of Barry’s passed. I used to call her his “work wife” because she was his assistant and I think they would have been lost without one another in that place. She was only 52. She, her husband, and the two of us got together a couple of times after they quit working together, but life got in the way and it became another “we really ought to get together” situation, as happens too often.
The heartbreaking story her husband told us of her passing inspired a poem full of those tender domestic acts that you never anticipate could be happening for the last time when they’re occuring. Someone asked if I wanted to read it at the funeral, but it’s too evocative of the actual events. I would never share it without asking her husband, anyway, and later, much later, he might be glad to read it, but not yet. Job one is to see if there’s anything to do to help.
And life, in a completely different register, because it does insist on entangling joy with sorrow, offered a dinner last night for a friend and me who have birthdays in November.
Alas, the restaurant only heard about mine (behind my back!) and so WR suffered the unanticipated indignity of having a sombrero unceremoniously plopped atop her head AND her face smeared with whipped cream. This while the serving staff sang while wearing huge lighted skull heads.
She was a good sport, as she was among well-meaning friends, and she appreciated the free dessert, but she was also grateful that no one else was on the bar side at that moment. (Unfortunately photos and video of it were taken, though she teasingly dared anyone at the table to share them.)
WR’s efforts to get her co-birthday friend similarly decorated with whipped cream came to nothing, and out of the six of us at the table, WR was the only one who required a face cleaning afterwards. I think I saw her secretly licking her little paws.
One of the gifts we liked best (loved them all) is a sign that says “Pretty Girls Read Book.” I asked the couple, “Are you saying I’m pretty?” and we all laughed.
I know this post is impossibly tangled with joy and grief, with stress and happiness. Isn’t that life?
I want to write more (I know, how is there any more to write?) about the Chicago trip, and I will. But today I am insisting that WR spend time creating, as she wants to. Then I will make the marinara sauce while listening to an audiobook, because tomatoes and basil have a shelf life.
Later this afternoon I will do the work stuff, and then I will get my Covid vaccination. I know it’s late in the season, but my doctor wants me to stagger them because of the medicine that makes me immunocompromised. (I feel embarrassingly ancient even mentioning that stuff.) I can only hope the side effects will not make me unfit for tomorrow’s planned activities, such as bringing a load of household items to our son and Erica’s new place.
This weekend, our local high school is putting on the play “Our Town,” and WR and I will insist on going. It’s one of our favorite plays.
Today is overcast and auditioning for November in earnest, though the temperatures are still going to be unseasonably warm. That is not just me talking about the weather — it’s me being grateful.
My blog is one of my happy places. It’s where I go both to forget and to remember. And to hope to be remembered.
Drema
P.S. Tomatoes and basil became marinara sauce simmered for hours. It kinda smells like an Italian restaurant over here right now. Feels like a chicken parm night.
