Monday

You know the saying "people hear what they want to hear?" Oh yeah! I'm sitting at the car repair shop. The Air Pressure Warning Light has been flashing for days. Ed checked the air pressure on all four tires -- it was fine. We're guessing one of the sensors is not working. Tell that to the guy checking in my car!

Your air pressure is off.

It's off because when you check it at home, you let out air, then you compensate, but it's not an exact science.

Well it's off. That's the problem.

No, that's not the problem. When we checked it, after the light went on, I promise you, it was perfect.

He cant hear it. The ears are picking up my words, the head is not processing their meaning.

This is not unusual. People tune out meaning all the time. I try a different set of words. That often works -- it unblocks whatever sticking point has prevented the head from doing its job. But today, perhaps because of the humidity, perhaps because I am an ancient woman who cannot be trusted to be in full command of her information -- we're stuck.

The story, however, has a happy ending. I drive home (after the mechanic did something to magically force the Air Pressure Warning Light to disappear) and I tell Ed the story. Together we delve into the car's information display system and we learn something new -- you can actually just ask the car what the air pressure is and it will tell you! For each wheel! No gauge required! In other words, Alpine Blue is programmed to talk to me -- whether the tummy hurts, the eyes water, the nose itches. (In the automative language of pressure, speed, and who knows what else.) I would not have learned that had I not gotten a mechanic who just would not take my spoken words seriously. 

In other words, in every frustrating situation, there lies an opportunity to learn something: about the world and yourself in it. About your car.

All this happened in the late morning. Earlier, Ed slept, I fed the animals and measured the amount of rain we got overnight -- maybe half an inch? It seemed more, by the sound of things, but the bucket tells no lies!

(autumn performers: nasturtium, until the first frost)

(dahlias, also until the first frost)

Ed is still asleep after my animal duty, so I go off on a solo bike ride. I have a packed day -- it's now or never.

And immediately after, Ed is awake and we eat breakfast.

This all seems prosaic and banal, but to me, the day is anything but that. Sometime in the middle of the night, I decided to start in on book 2. I've dickered around with ideas for it for many months and I finally came to some point of clarity in the gray light of the very early morning. 

Why do it? Why write this second book? I'm not one who worries much about leaving behind printed material for posterity. I mean, if today's news is correct, mammals will be extinct on Earth in another 750 million years. Who cares if among the ashes of our collective lost lives there will be shreds of books written back in 2023! 

But I want the challenge of writing again and I want to see if I can pull it off -- it's a tough project and I dont have the help of an interesting background to move it along (Like a Swallow coasted on postwar Poland material). Still, I'm psyched!

I'm giving myself two years for it. If I'm not happy with what I've written after that, then it gets dumped into the trashcan, recycled into another life as maybe a row of birthday greeting cards or cardboard boxes in which to ship your favorite Amazon purchases.

In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop. Just her on Mondays. 

In an effort to support Tati Co (the coffee shop around the corner), we stop by on the way home and pick up an ice cream.

It is true that if I buy something at the cafe every day, I will deplete all my resources very quickly. I'll have to quit traveling and sell off all my possessions. Nonetheless, I told myself that I will be a customer as often as I can, for as long as their numbers are just starting to grow. So, today -- it's ice cream.

And then home.

In the evening, Ed and I were thinking a bike ride would be absolutely perfect. He wants it, I want it. Unfortunately, it is not to be. The skies cloud over, the rains come down. And they will continue. The drought will have been a spring and summer event. We may well be in for a wet fall.