Three Umbrellas

When I woke up this morning, the heat was on.  It hasn't been on so far this autumn, and I knew as soon as I woke, and heard the low purring sound.  It made getting up a delight, instead of a thing-that-only-grown-ups-do,-and-I-guess-I'm-a-grown-up,-so-here-goes.  To step into the softly blowing warmth, weaving around my bare ankles, instead of the chill of the early morning -- lovely!

It's a beautiful day, too -- a thickly overcast, dull white sky, faintly glowing overall, without anything by which you could locate the sun, turn your head though you might. 

Raining steadily but softly, plicketty-plicketty, in a way that you might think was negligible, but would soon soak you through.  Glad I always carry an umbrella!  In fact, there are three in the car right now, since I left the giant emergency umbrella in the back seat, and brought my everyday Klimt, as well as the small rollup stuffed in the side pocket of my carry bag.  So I am ready. 

A small nap

So I've been doing a lot of house-cleaning lately -- since two of my sisters are spending nights with me this month.  I got my closet all straightened up and stacked tidily and squarely, instead of trying to balance yet more stuff on top of slippery mounds of belongings -- and thus was able to put quite a lot of things that were untidying my bedroom away on the two shelves of storage space that his apartment affords me.  

The house was slowly moving towards complete cleanliness, as (for once in my life) I was vacuuming, washing dishes, folding towels and dusting cabinets in my off-time moments, instead of slumping in a chair with a book.  Sister Sarah and her third-of-nine son Elliott were due on Thursday evening, but the house work was done enough that I agreed to meet Doug for lunch on Wednesday, and spend several hours hanging out with him as he smoked a Lovely Cigar after.  I then returned to the fray.  And had only to change the bedclothes on Thursday morning, when I climbed into bed quite early on Wednesday night.

It was about eleven-thirty Wednesday night when the phone rang.  I had been asleep for a couple hours, and was fairly far down.  It was my dad, and he told me that Sarah and Elliott were at the Portland airport at that very moment, and had been there since nine-thirty, waiting for me to pick them up.  I said, stupidly, still mostly asleep, "No, that's not true."  !!

So I raced into clothes and zoomed off to the airport, which is fortunately only about fifteen minutes away, and got them.  They were very tired, poor dears, after all the flying they had done, and then the waiting -- I got them home and fed and tucked up in bed as soon as possible.  But since I had arranged to have Friday off -- expecting them to arrive on Thursday, you see -- I had to work the next day, and so they had the day on their own in Northwest Portland. 

When I got home we bundled into the car and chugged up here to the Retirement Home, where Mom and Dad were extra glad to see our arrival.  Dad has taken them out to the beach this morning, and I sit in my favorite chair with no socks on.  I think a small nap is in order!

The so-you-can-sleep medicine!

Once again enjoying the peace and comfort of the Retirement Home!  My mom is puttering in the kitchen and my dad is puttering in the library/sewing room/staging ground.  I'm in my favorite chair in the living room, instead of sitting up in bed, but otherwise, the cup of tea is steaming at my elbow, and I'm feeling very relaxed.

It's a lovely grey and overcast day, constantly nudging you in the side and whispering, "Rain!" but never quite raining. 

I am suffering from some sort of allergenic head cold.  I had thought it was just allergies getting to me, but it has lasted too long, and progressed too far.  As a result of this, I took a couple of Nyquil capsules when I went to bed last night, and I would like to stand up and attest to their soporific properties.  I slept perfectly soundly, until my phone rang its six-thirty alarm, without a twitch.  I then got up and staggered to the bathroom, and was extremely surprised to see an unfamiliar woman sleeping on the living room couch.  I went in to the bathroom and peed thoughtfully, and when I came out I stood and looked at the woman for a minute, to make sure that she was there.  And after I returned to bed, I got up again and went out to look.  Yup.  Still there, still asleep, and still totally unknown.

Turns out that my parents' meth-head neighbor had had one of his noisy, shrieking, furniture- breaking fits, and had thrown his wife (girlfriend?) and their small daughter (eight?) out, and all their belongings after them, splintering the breakable ones all over the street.  My dad had gone out to investigate, and found the woman and girl silently picking up clothes and shoes and books and toys, and hiding them in the shrubbery, preparatory to walking in to town and waking up a friend.  My dad brought them in and my mother put them to sleep on the couches in the living room.

And I had slept like a puss-cat through it all!

It's Fall!

Gorgeous day!  Thick white cloud cover, quite low in the sky -- Big Pink disappears into it completely, well below its top floors.  There's a definite nip in the air -- time to start thinking about wearing my jacket when I leave the house!

So yesterday I started working on my costume for our yearly murder mystery Halloween party!  I'm a circus muscle man, (Death in the Big Top!) so I started out by spray painting two large styrofoam balls black, to make them into a fake barbell.  It took quite a while, since the paint kept running into all the tiny holes on the surface of the styrofoam, and I kept having to leave the house to catch some air and let my head stop swimming.  I painted the dowel that goes between them, as well.  Tonight when I get home from work, I think I will try blocking out the white letters on either end, saying 100 lbs.  Or maybe 500 lbs, since this is a costume party -- I can claim as many pounds as I want!  Didn't the world's strongest man set a record with 1,155 pounds?  So maybe even 1,000 pounds!    We'll see how well the numbers lay out over the curve of the ball.

Good news from my mom last night -- my sister Sarah is coming for a visit!  All the way up from Mexico, on a plane!  And not with all of her family in tow, just one son is accompanying her.  I'm feeling very happy about this, since it seems that she will relax so much more without having to run interference between her children, and feed them and make them behave, and all the caregiving things she would have to do were they all with her.  And she is staying for two weeks!  Two whole weeks of rest and peace and the sound of the ocean at Mom and Dad's.

Wow -- just raised my head and looked out the window at a young man taking a large hit off his pot pipe.  I know this became legal today, but it still gave me a shock to see.  I should accustom myself to this sight, shouldn't I?