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.
