Why does everything happen on Monday?

 

It’s been that kind of a Monday. I was behind before I ever started. Partly work issues, partly domestic. On the work front, I belong to a couple of online groups that prod you to check in with your plans and goals for the week. It’s a good way to keep focus, but it also means, at least me, that I should respond to some of the posts. Plus midway through posting about my upcoming week, I came to a startling decision: I’m stressing over Helen Corbitt, and it’s time to back off a bit. So tomorrow I’m going to wrap up the chapter I’ve been working on and then take a vacation—a week or more—and work on the upcoming Irene novel. Just for a change of pace.

I guess a lot of people feel that “start the week off right” syndrome, because I seem to always have a lot more emails to deal with. Plus right now, I’m deluged with political posts and solicitations. That are a lot of people, nationwide, that I wish I could support financially but I can’t, so I end up feeling guilty over them. I used to think I should just support those who represent me, but I’ve learned a a twofold lesson: the elected officials who count me as a constituent, don’t represent my thoughts or approaches to government, and it’s more important for me to support like-minded individuals in other districts and states. We’re all in this big boat together, ant it’s truy in danger of sinking.

And this morning my Canadian daughter and I got into an email political discussion, sparked by a NYTimes article she sent me. We basically agree, but we have different approaches—I like to say she’s the cynic, while I’m Pollyanna. At any rate, it took several emails for us to sort that out, plus she was reporting on their recent trip to Scotland. She keeps calling it the “trip of a lifetime,” and I can agree, because that’s how I feel about my one trip to the Highlands.

So it was 11:30 before I turned to the Helen Corbitt project and realized that what I wanted to write today didn’t fit where I thought it did. And realized I was temporarily burned out.

An interview with me was scheduled to post this morning on C. M. Mayo’s monthly post about Texas books—but it didn’t. When I inquired, she said she never got it. I couldn’t find it on my computer. Panic! But I did find it in the file for the Waggoner book, The Most Land, the Best Cattle: The Waggoners of Texas. But when I started to send my answers, I realized I hadn’t finished it. I must have started, gotten distracted, and put it aside—and forgotten. Usually I mark such on my calendar, including where the file is. Not this time. So I frantically finished the interview and sent it off—almost missed my nap. It will post first thing tomorrow, and I’ll share if anyone is interested.

On the domestic front, Sophie and I are having a war. I called the vet because she’s still wheezing and sounds awful; he prescribed a new medication. I gave her two pills buried in canned dog food. She ate around the pills. Then I tried cottage cheese.e She ate around the pills and left a few curds in the dish. Zenaida suggested “smashing” them, so I did that tonight—you can see yellow flakes, and Sophie has refused to touch her dinner, yet I know she’s hungry. I’m undecided between trying something else and waiting her out. I have explained that the pills will make her better, but she is unmoved.

To add to my day, our favorite a/c repairman came at 5:30. Now I’m not complaining, because I know how fantastically lucky I am that he came the day I called, even when I said it isn’t an emergency. The unit was working but not at full capacity, not putting out as much cold air as it should. Two hours of his time, and it’s working beautifully.

Zenaida was here this morning and left the cottage looking spic and span, so it was discouraging to have Donald, the a/c guy, clean the indoor part of the mini split and spread dirt on the floor. He did carefully move furniture out of the way and clean up after he was through. But I never concentrate as well when Zenaida is here—in such small quarters we are on top of each other. And she teaches me things about housekeeping that I’ve never learned in all my years, from spotting clothes to crushing dog pills (not her best one) and restoring stained pots and pans. Today, she completely straightened and organized my hall closet. It’s so neat and orderly! I am challenging myself to keep it that way.

Perhaps tomorrow will be a day with fewer interruptions. Tonight I did read the three and a half chapters I have on the next Irene novel, so that I’m ready to hit it tomorrow.

How about you? Are Mondays different from other days?

Coping with summer

Chicken stir-fry

Texas heat shouldn’t be a problem since we’re all quarantining anyway, right? Wrong. It doesn’t work that way. The other night, as we ate supper, Jordan glanced at the wall thermometer which is supposed to tell indoor/outdoor temperatures and announced it was 82 in the cottage. It does no good for me to tell her that thermometer has given up totally on the outdoor temperature and is wildly inaccurate about the indoor. Besides, I didn’t have a counterargument. It truly was hot.

It’s an old battle between us. I swear she has Mediterranean blood somewhere, and I lean toward my Scottish ancestors of the Highlands—Celtic and all that, but thin-blooded. I am cold all the time. I like my patio door open so that I feel a bit like I’m in the outdoors or bring the outdoors in to me and also so that Sophie can come and go as she pleases—mostly these hot days she pleases to stay inside. Jordan wants the a/co on and the door closed, which in summer makes me feel closed in.

Between them, Jordan and Christian “fixed” my living room a/c unit—the kind that sits up by the ceiling. I never can think what they’re called, but it’s both a/c and, in winter, a heating unit. Jordan washed the filters, a much overdue job, and Christian moved the fan from the first notch to the highest setting. Please do not ask why I didn’t think of that. And last night I also turned on the unit in my bedroom.

The result was that the cottage was at a chilly 70 degrees this morning, and I was chilly—not cold, just a bit uncomfortable—all morning. I kept the door closed in the afternoon but opened it again this evening for company on the patio. Tonight, the unreliable thermometer says its 81 in here, but I am quite comfortable. Jordan is engaged with a guest on her front porch, so I don’t have her take on the temperature.

We haven’t been cooking “dinner” much, since when dinnertime rolled around Jordan said she was too hot to think about food. So last night I had a hot dog, and tonight it’s tuna salad with cottage cheese. Tomorrow night, though, we plan to do salmon—I bet we do it in the oven, rather than asking Christian to grill.

We always try to make Sunday night dinner special, and last Sunday we had chicken stir-fry. When I suggested it, Jordan said, “Oh, good, Christian loves to stir-fry.” Later Christian said, “I’ve never made stir-fry before.” But he gamely found a recipe, followed it, and created a truly wonderful dinner for us. Monday night I fixed steak fingers, something I used to fix for my kids all the time. Had a hard time making Jordan and the butcher figure out what I wanted—minute steaks or cube steaks. With some surprise, after I’d blown a fuse trying to cook supper, Christian said, “The meat is good, Juju.” Watch for these recipes in an upcoming “Gourmet on a Hot Plate” blog. Along with two easy sides, which I’ll feature tomorrow.

I am knee deep in fixing edits on my WIP. The editor was kind, but some of her edits make me feel really dumb to have made such mistakes or omissions. She skewers me on two points—misogyny, for directing cooking instructions at housewives when in truth, a lot of career women and men cook these days. I know that, because both my sons are terrific cooks.

The other, which I am sure will delight Jacob, is that she suggests I use old-fashioned language. I’m trying to correct, because I realize thirty=somethings won’t talk like I do. But Jordan, bless her heart, said tonight, “You’re the least old-fashioned person I know.” Made my day. If I asked you “THE” question about a relationship with a previous partner, what would you think? Yeah, that’s what Jordan thought too.

Stay cool, safe, and well.

Another sunny day

happy hour, 

Jacob's new activity center

Kind of hard to see the basketball hoop, but it's there

That’s the weather, not my disposition. Sunny and gorgeous all day, even venturing toward hot. I had the a/c on in the afternoon, and it was comfortable. Discovered last night the a/c in the bedroom is not working. I called today, and the repairman I’ve known for twenty years called back. Missed him so will call tomorrow, but I hope it’s something he can talk me through over the phone. Otherwise, it will have to wait. Much as I like and trust him, I am not ready to have a repairman in the house. Yesterday, we should have had Zenaida, who we are all crazy about, but as Jordan says, she’s been cleaning other houses and who knows what she’s been exposed to. I expect to pay her though for days missed.

The big news here today is that Jordan created an activities space in the driveway—moved the cars out and pulled Jacob’s basketball hoop and tetherball into the space left. Much consternation about weighting the basketball hoop down so it would be stable, but a trip to the hardware for sandbags was averted by using various pots and a couple of concrete blocks we had. Jacob has been out there several times today—I hear the “Thump, thump, thump,” and it makes me happy because I know he’s moving around and keeping busy. He’s strictly limited in activities away from the house and must observe the six-foot guideline, which most of his buddies are ignoring.

We had happy hour tonight on the patio, with our neighbor who is quarantined in his guest house just opposite the patio. He’s been traveling, and I guess he has to wait out fifteen days since his arrival back home. Nice to visit with Jay again, though it’s sometimes hard for me to hear him.

Otherwise, days are falling into a pattern. I remember years ago I knew a doctor’s wife who bred Cairn terriers—we had a couple of her dogs—and had a busy life. So I was astounded one day when she announced she was covering the switchboard at her husband’s hospital in a small town from three to eleven. When I asked why, she said, “I just find the more you have to do, the more you get done.”  I am now finding the reverse of that—with no deadlines and not much pressing me, I get very little done. I have lots of reading to do—some for pleasure, some for research—but every day I manage to fritter away the day without much reading.

Part of it is I am glued to news—on the TV and the computer both—keeping up with both politics and the pandemic. It becomes like an addiction. I am dismayed that the local news interrupts the daily White House press briefings—not because I want to hear trump but because I want to hear Fauci and even Pence. These days Dr. Fauci and Governor Cuomo are my heroes (I love the latter’s line, “My mother is not expendable, and neither is your mother.”) I also have increasing respect for Secretary Mnuchin because it sounds as if he really tried hard to reach a workable, negotiated settlement in Congress. Pooh on the Republicans who are now quibbling over minor details.

We have relatives in New York—the Bronx to be specific, though one daughter lives in Manhattan—and I am worried about them. Emailed with them today, and they are well, pretty much quarantined. But the Manhattan daughter, who has had to rethink her wedding plans, is an R.N. and her orthopedic unit has been converted to care for COVID-19 patients. That worries me a lot. My nephew, a physical therapist in Baltimore, has been cut back to half time with a corresponding cut in pay—and they have three young children. Hard times all around, and I am hiding away here in my cottage, grateful for my many blessings and especially for my Jordan.

Stay safe and well, my friends.