So…..I made a mighty resolve to finish editing the stories and essays that will make up a projected book. Man makes plans and God laughs. I discovered that some needed material had been accidentally deleted from my computer. I don’t have hard drive backup but I do have hard copy. One of our few local computer gurus, a guy in town named Mitch, offered to scan it all to save me one hellacious re-typing job. I rounded up the materials and carried them to him. He took one look at the stack of pages and started tap dancing as to when he could get to it. Um, okay, I left the job with him, went on to do some needed grocery shopping, and thought about alternatives.
George has an old scanner that might possibly be moved temporarily to my computer. I don’t know how, but maybe I can figure it out. My new printer has a scanner, but I have not yet learned how to use it. No, I can’t just dive in this minute and try to hack my way through these problems—I also must catch up laundry, put a mess of groceries away, and get clean sheets on my bed. In addition I have a right hip and knee that are giving me fits and hiking all over Walmart looking for items that George can eat did not help one little bit.
It was a hot day to be in town doing errands with four birds in the car; they do love to get out and about, but they are a terrible nuisance. We had a brief stop at the VA Clinic where George explained that his inability to swallow was getting much worse and was told that he could not get any appointment sooner than six weeks from today. I searched the free book exchange shelves at the clinic and found a copy of Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter. We stopped at the thrift store where I bought various items and had a conversation with the check out clerk, who was roughly my age, on the subject of friends and family who say, “Oh, you mustn’t do that.” to us old folks but never offer to help change the lightbulbs in the ceiling fixtures or handle heavy loads. And, trust me, four cases of Ensure are indeed heavy. We were both tired when we got home. We unloaded birds, my computer, multiple bags of groceries, the Ensure, and my purse. We both went to bed and napped. There was nary a peep from the birds. They know when I must rest. No, I didn’t teach them that; they figured it out on their own. I had complete silence from two macaws, one Quaker parrot, one widowed lovebird, three elderly parakeets and even from the cage of four young parakeets. I did manage to read a few pages of Amy Tan over the course of the afternoon, between doing various chores. Visions of writing projects of my own danced in my head, but duty called. I did a load of laundry and wrestled with a dirty kitchen and finding a place for the groceries. I did a halfway job and called it good as my hip was hurting too much for any attempt at housekeeping perfection. I took another pain pill and struggled to get through basic cleanup of the kitchen.
I found messages from neighbor Kenny requesting various bits of information from me. He was kind enough to offer to build a website for me; I could not find anyone else willing to do it except for a total disaster a few years back that involved someone who shall be nameless taking my money and then doing nothing. Kenny wanted a sample blog post and this hurried and inadequate piece of writing will have to do.
George is watching a movie. He asked me to make him a drink and I did that. There is an excellent whiskey called Writer’s Tears. Right now I think I could drink an entire bottle.
No, I did not get sheets on my bed. The hell with it. It is eleven o’clock. Maybe I will get it done tomorrow.