Storms, salads, and a workday

Everything outside my cottage is almost eerily still right now, the ornamental grasses that I so love barely stirring. In the distance I hear occasional thunder that I am sure will move closer quickly. There were wild storms to the north of us last night with good-sized hail, and tonight storms are predicted for us. High winds, possible hail, possible flooding but little danger of tornadoes—praise be for small favors. Sophie is terribly apprehensive and sticking to my like glue. Jordan has laid out a candle and matches for me, made sure I have a flashlight, though none of us can find the good big one I had. It’s foolish in Texas, I know, but I sort of like that feeling of anticipation.

Today was the workday I wish I had every day. Sophie got me up a little before eight—our newfound routine with the crate works well, except that last night I didn’t latch it tightly and she worked her way out. (Tonight, with storms, I won’t crate her, because I know she needs to be close to me.) Anyway, she woke me a bit before eight, and I drank my tea while checking email, two professional lists, and Facebook. Yes, I am a Facebook devotee and ready to do battle with anyone who scorns that social medium. I learn a lot from Facebook, being careful about sources (okay, sometimes I slip up). And I’ve made new friends, re-hooked with old friends.

Today, on another list—professional for mystery writers—I contacted a woman who lives in Chesterton, Indiana. May not sound like much to you, but when I was a kid, we had a primitive summer cabin (really! No plumbing or electricity) at the Indiana Dunes State Park, on a high bluff looking down at the southern tip of Lake Michigan. We had to carry our clothing and groceries in through a mile in the woods, but I cannot describe adequately how wonderful that cabin was nor what great memories I have. Chesterton was the charming town where we went to shop. Author Nancy Nau Sullivan tells me it still retains a lot of its charm today. What a nice surprise.

Back to my workday—after checking social media, I spent the morning and early afternoon writing. Achieved 1,721 words today. Since I’m pretty much a first-draft writer, most of those are probably keeper words. But by two-thirty, I’d written my words, had my lunch, and was free to spend the rest of the day as I wanted, without offending my work ethic. So I read, explored specialty pages on Facebook—the New York Times Cooking Community and one called Reminders of Growing Up in Chicagoland. I didn’t end up with time to read much today, but that also is part of my ideal day. I am reading a novel that doesn’t really grab me and yet I’m determined to finish, which may account for my not working it in to my day. But I have two waiting that I am anxious to read.

To go on with my day: I nap somewhere around two-thirty and get up around four. No, it’s not sound sleep, but it’s a good time for me to doze and dream and plan—and write in my head. Then I catch up with Facebook and, most evenings now during the quarantine, I cook, and the family has dinner in my cottage.

Tonight it was Cobb salad—cut up a rotisserie chicken, fried some bacon, added cherry tomatoes, quartered artichoke hearts, crumbled blue cheese, sliced avocado. All dressed with leftover herb sauce I’d made the other night for salmon. Although I've written about Cobb salad as a composed salad, this one ended up more tossed. Still so good.

I know it’s self-indulgent and spoiled of me in these days when so many are suffering so terribly, but I would love to spend each day like this. I often think that I live in two worlds—in mine, where I am safe and happy in the cottage but out there is another where people are suffering horribly and dying gruesome deaths and medical personnel are risking their lives as are the people who make our world go round—delivery people, mail carriers, grocery workers and so on.

It strikes me that why I am so vehement against trump and McConnell and Barr and their cohorts is that daily my sense of moral outrage increases. How can they, how dare they play politics and satisfy their personal grudges and greed at the cost of the suffering and lives of Americans .what is it now—a million cases and seventy thousand dead? More than Vietnam? I can imagine no punishment great enough for their sins against humanity and against democracy. And because of them, I do not sleep soundly at night. But I do speak out, often and loudly.