Rain, and a surprising work day

I want to say that the Lord is confused—rain and temperatures in the 70x in early August? Never happen in Texas. But I suspect that man’s carelessness with earth has caused that confusion, whether it’s the deity or nature’s forces or a combination. I would contently say I’ll take it, whatever the cause, but the current extreme violation of the environment is a great worry, always lingering in the back of my mind. That fantastically expensive wall between the U.S. and Mexico is not only dumb, it’s going to do terrible damage to the land and critters in a wide area. I wring my hands in despair.

Nonetheless, I was almost chilly in the cottage this morning, sitting still and working at my desk. When I napped, I didn’t turn the a/c on as usual but slept heavily under a cover. Sophie decided to be loving and affectionate—head on my chest, tongue busily telling me how much she loves me. I think she was hungry.

Two service people today. It cost me eighty-six dollars to have a technician tell me that my refrigerator is fine. It does not need a new water filter—he showed me how to read that option. And the reason it keeps freezing expensive asparagus is that I let plastic, etc., poke out of the vegetable drawer. That keeps the exterior door from closing tightly, warm air sneaks in, and the refrigerator works harder. He also showed me how to adjust the air flow to the vegetable drawer and, when the time comes, where to replace the water filter. Most important he gave me the model and serial number. Maybe it was worth the cost.

Then two men came to give me an estimate on cleaning my area rug. They walked in with great confidence that they were taking it to clean, and as they rolled it up I asked about the price. Expensive but not out of line. It will be back a week from today. Meantime my living area looks bare.

The big deal for me today was that I read to reacquaint myself with the manuscript I’d been focused on until publishing chores and stuff distracted me two or three weeks ago. An instructive exercise—I caught typos and misspellings, of course, but I found contradictory facts and things that plain didn’t make sense. But as I read I got a better sense of my characters, and the way the novel will work out became much clearer in my mind. So it was worth it. Downside is I edited out a lot of words, going backward instead of forward. And having figured things out, I have to go back and do the reread one more time. Will Judy ever get past Chapter Six? Stay tuned for the next installment😊

Lucile’s, a local restaurant that bills itself as a stateside bistro, is having a crab festival, and we went tonight. Betty had a soup she said was spicy, which I wouldn’t have wanted because of the spice but also because I thought a heavy base, with meat, would hide the delicate taste of the crab. They offered a crab and shrimp Louie salad, and since I’m allergic to shrimp I convinced them to make it crab only. So good.

Home, reading. Rain has stopped, but it still has the feel of a cooler than usual rainy day.