Tuesday

Well that was a first! Typically, I write portions of an Ocean post throughout the day, as time permits. In the evening, I work on the photos, with one eye toward a movie Ed will have selected. I finish it all off and, if my eyes stay open long enough, I do a final edit. Then I publish.

Last night, Ed and I plunged into a discussion of sailing when I was in the last throes of wakefulness. As he then sidestepped into a phone call with his sailing friends, I retired for the night, forgetting to do the final edit, forgetting to publish, forgetting pretty much everything except that the world felt complicated and the simplicity of sleep was suddenly very appealing.

That has never happened before.

I woke up still in the thick of a hundred messes and complications, but honestly, it's like the ugly carpet you put off replacing -- once you've been stomping on it for days on end, you forget that it's even there. You get used to most everything in life, except, perhaps, a tragic loss. I have no tragic losses to knock me down now and so I bounce around, a little bit dazed by how much is at play, all swirling around me (retired people tend to favor predictability), not unlike the snowflakes coming down on the farmette lands.






Yeah, snowflakes. Not that we mind. These are the snows that quickly melt. The early signs of spring have not forsaken us! Yet.





What's so confusing and discombobulating? Well, everything that should follow a known and familiar path is a little twisted right now. Adjustments must be made!

Take the cats. I think there are some skirmishes between the little ones and the shed cats. This means that Calico and Cutie are even more jittery than usual. Feeding them is a challenge.

Then there's Ed's sailing. He has another trip forthcoming and he is trying hard to convince me to join up with him for at least some portion of the journey. I love going places with him so very much, but I explain to him that sailing even on so called gentle waterways (say a river) is, to me, like getting on a long and bumpy flight, where you feel miserable and squashed and bored the entire time. At least the flight takes you to someplace you want to be. The sailboat trip is it! At the end of it, you simply return home.

My own travels are still in place for spring, but it is true that I study carefully the data on the spread of the coronavirus. If things get even more complicated, I'll have to cancel the whole thing. And no, I did not buy travel insurance. I did the purchases in early January when we were all as innocent as the first petals of spring flowers that rise up above the half frozen soil.

As for my mom -- well, we're proceeding full speed ahead with the move in a couple of days. I have to put some order into the chaos of this. I have the weekend to work on it.


So let's dispense with the generalities. How about today? Was it gloriously spring-like despite the snowfall? Maybe. I watched the day unfold through sleepy eyes. Ed had a very early appointment and so we ate breakfast right about at dawn. (My very sleepy co-conspirator.)






Then the clouds rolled in, the snows fell, the clouds moved on. A good day for farmhouse work!

In the afternoon, the kids were here of course. 

We read (or rather re-read) many Katie Morag books.











Too, there's the art...






And there are the stories.





And dances and prances and a million glances. All good, all loving and kind.

In the evening, I stirfry a bunch of veggies into my sizzling shrimp.

There ought to be a proverb for this type of day: don't measure your snowfall by the number of snowflakes that come down. Or something comparable.

Now, back to the movie, the photos, then on to a quick edit and a click for publish. So predictable, so nice.

Monday

Sunny, busy, early spring-like, so busy.

Well aren't we all!

For me, there is an acceleration of mom stuff. I want to have her in her new place early next week. That's ambitious, but doable.

But first, breakfast.






Then I get busy. Lists, phone calls to various sources and resources -- all this before a meeting with my mom and a staff member of the new facility -- uff! Good time management is a skill worth having, even in your retirement.

But there is still time left for a walk. And here, Ed and I take advantage of the new development's network of quiet roads. This is one good consequence of losing farmland to a massive new buildup next door: we now do not have to get in the car to go somewhere for a safe walk. We've got the the newly emerging neighborhood right by the farmette land. And it's not all parceled lots and mushrooming new houses. There are still pretty landscapes to behold. Like the one across the road from us.






This is when the sun really takes hold, chasing away all remaining clouds and giving us brilliant spring light. The kind you can only dream about in December.

And in that dazzling sunshine, I then set out to pick up Snowdrop and Sparrow at school.










It surely had to have been the best part of the day!

And yes, I fell asleep tuckered out, forgetting to click "publish." When was the last time that happened? Never!