A Rainy Day

I used to dread rainy days with no outside connection, but I've had a lovely day today. Yesterday Sue, my neighbor, asked if I wanted to go to lunch at the deli but I assured her the weather was going to be so awful that I wasn't venturing outside. Well, I had envisioned one of those days where rain comes down in sheets all day long. Not so. We had thunderstorms during the night and another in the early afternoon, but otherwise it was just dull, wet, and cold. I called Sue but she had already made a hair appt., so we settled on a visit over a glass of wine in the evening, and I ate tuna for lunch--very good. I had kind of played with some expensive tuna in olive oil, and it made good salad. I piddled in the kitchen, cleaning the fridge, steaming some carrots for Jacob's supper, making the meat sauce for tomorrow's tamale pie. I did the laundry and lingered in the shower, answered emails, read comments on the www.petticoatsandpistols.com blog, just generally piddled, which for years I was no good at. After lunch, I read the Martha Grimes novel I'm reading and had a long nap. Got up, rushed around and put make-up and a better pair of sweats on, lit the fire, and made ready for company. Sue, Jordan, and Jacob all arrived about five, and we visited until Jacob's displeasure made it clear it was time to feed him. Sue went home to a veal stew she'd made from shanks, and I cooked us a meal of salmon and salad. Put a sort of green goddess sauce on the salmon--mixed mayo with pesto and added horseradish. Honestly I could barely taste it, but the salmon was, to me, just right. Jordan, as usual, declared hers undercooked and put it in the microwave.
Jacob was alternately charming and fussy--the privilege of an almost two-year-old. He has learned "no, no" and goes up to something, touches it, looks at me, and says, "No, no" with a question mark in his voice and eyes. I was loading the dishwasher, and he rushed up with "No, no" and started to close it (without pushing the tray in so that the dishes all clattered together!). I had not remembered to put up the cat's bowl of water so Jacob won't play in it, and he stood there and pointed, saying "No, no" as though he were reminding me I'd been lax. No kisses as he left but he did consent to rub noses. (Rubbing noses is something Sawyer and I do when he says "No kisses!")
Martha Grimes--I'm working my way through a series of British mysteries that a friend lent me. Once I get into them, sometimes halfway, I want to read through, but they don't send me the irresistible siren call that keeps me at a good domestic cozy while ignoring work that needs to be done. A friend who recently had chemo wrote that she was feeling better all the time and in the meantime "mushing through." I like the phrase. That's what I'm doing with the British novels--mushing through, and trying to figure out the differences, what makes some people love them so. The friend who lent them is a low-key, slow-paced person who thinks I rush through everything, whereas I think she dawdles through everything. So maybe that difference in pacing explains the difference in reading taste.
I also spent time today reading manuscript proposals--three down out of four, and so far I requested one, rejected two. (Someone asked me the other day how many manuscripts we accept out of a hundred proposals, and I couldn't really say!) I still have a home schooling magazine to study, a librarians survey to puzzle out the meaning of, and one manuscript to go--plus that Martha Grimes novel (Jerusalem Inn). Excuse me, I've got to go read now.