Mainlining Patrick O'Brien

I wish he had written more than 20 books. But I may have a Tony Hillerman festival next.

The day after I last posted, my contractor called; he had the Horrible Cold or possibly flu. He seems inclined to come back to work. Willow disappeared for 48 hours, making me think she had been chomped by a coyote. She was shut into the front glassed-in porch and very glad when I let her out. I was glad she was not part of the less-differentiated biomass, but I wish she would stop being mean to Marten.

My son, with whom I am only rarely in touch, had a fight with me, apparently because he is unhinged. This has not contributed anything good to my general mood, except for making me want to spend Christmas in a Muslim country. Or Buddhist or Hindu, I'm not fussy. Mars?

So I contributed to my NPR station in hopes of winning the 9-day trip to Greece, and made the person on the phone laugh by telling her I was more eager for the presidential campaign to be over even than the fund-raiser.

If I get the actual work (a) writing an log of the things I have been applying to for the NH Unemployment people, b) a small thing for a small nonprofit) done I will go meet one of my oldest friends today, where we will both try not to be too gloomy. She has reasons but we should probably both go on a course of therapeutic nitrous oxide.

I think I am going to try knitting Arwen, since I seem to have yarn already. The daughter's quilt is coming on (one of the few beings whom I can tell to "get tied" and have it be a friendly gesture?).

We still have some beautiful leaves, and I am actually cheerier than I sound. I think I had a mild almost asymptomatic case of that Horrible Cold, because I needed to sleep ALL THE TIME and had stupidity and a headache I only rarely noticed but it was a corker, for about ten days.

The possibility of someone wanting to rent a month here has been a great help in energizing my desires to tidy, but I keep doing deep-tidying that doesn't much show, just results in filling the car up (the recycling station/dump, mostly). I have always thought putting one's summer (or winter clothes away for the winter (or summer) was kind of lame in a too-rich-for-your-own-good way but it does get things off of the chairs (bed, floor, vacuum cleaner) in the bedroom.

And I have purple finches. Outside.