Saturday, July 10, 2010

A Summer Saturday Morning

Wake up. Reach for Tony Hillerman book. No, should sit quietly for a moment first, just listening. Just resting the mind. Hear sounds of truck passing by. Flash goes off inside head. We need to move our cars. The guy moving the piano is coming.

Roger is still comatose, so I move the cars. We're getting rid of our piano because Roger's parents are sending their piano our way. It's much nicer.

I should wash last night's dishes. The girls and I had a movie night, and just let them sit. Cheri looks at me expectantly. No, I should take the dog for a walk. I'm just getting her leash as the piano guys pull up in the drive.

On the walk, I see a pretty pink thistle flower. Is it a milk thistle or a bull thistle? Cheri finds a disgusting flattened rodent and grabs it in her mouth. We walk for 5 or 6 blocks with it hanging out of her mouth. So gross! Drop it, Cheri! Drop it now, I command you! Whenever she swings her head around, I'm afraid she's going to fling it against me. She eats a large portion of it. Ugh. That's it. You're staying outside when we get home. Your mouth is nasty and you're probably going to vomit soon.

Get home. The piano is gone. In its place, a little square of dust and and small pieces of unidentifiable debris. A marker. A solar calculator that had fallen behind the piano at some point.

Still cool enough to leave the front door open, and make a cup of tea. I sip white tea. Feel peaceful and relaxed. Think about how to balance the day.

I think of these words from a Bjork song, "It's not up to you":

How do I master
the perfect day
six glasses of water
seven phonecalls

I would like to read my Tony Hillerman book, "The Blessing Way." (I am at a very crucial point in the story! It's insane to read the characters into this critical life or death situation and then close the book. But I was too sleepy last night to go on. So I abandoned them in the hands of a ruthless killer.) I would like to do my aerobic routine. I would like to drive up to the Fence Stile Winery in Excelsior Springs and sit in a beautiful setting and sip wine while Laura plays. I need to get supplies for Annabelle's Girl Scout day camp that runs all next week. Hit the grocery store and library. Make a dent in the pile of laundry. Take a shower.

Annabelle emerges, still heavy with sleep. She curls up on the couch and stares into space. Lilah goes out the front door, takes the bike off the porch, and rides up and down the hills on either side of our house, 6 times on each hill. I can hear the buzzing whirr of her bike tires as she passes the house. Then the squeak of the brake as she pedals back up to the house.

Now the AC is on and the front door closed. My tea is gone. I must begin to assemble some sort of structure on which to pin the day. Or....I could just continue to sit here on my ass.

7 comments:

  1. as i was posting my blog today, in which i start off by talking about saturday mornings in the summer, i saw the title of your blog! omg! is that not spooky and cool at the same time? i'm sitting on my patio drinking it (and coffee) in, because i know it will be gone soon! igual mente, mi hermana!

    ps i love tony hillerman

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  2. Omg--I posted a comment on your blog about how spooky it was that we were both blogging the same thing at the same time this morning. And then I go to my blog and see the comment you left, and see you used the word spooky! Is THAT not spooky??

    Tony Hillerman is wonderful. I am in love with his books. I am so happy that he wrote so many, so it will be awhile before I run out of them.

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  3. okay, now that is UBER-SPOOKY!! but, we are sort of a spooky pair, are we not?

    yes i love tony hillerman - i read all of those books and might even have most of them in paperback. but i think there are a few newer ones i may not have read, so i am glad to be reminded of them. beyond the plotlines, i was totally drawn into the culture.

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  4. I'm still comatose. What day is it? Is that rain?
    Annabelle is still heavy with sleep.

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  5. Yer both spooky. There are two good movies made out of Tony Hillerman novels. (Yes, I too am a fan.) One of them is better than the other. In the good one, Jim Chee is kind of a sweet guy, and a bit of a fuck-up. But in a humorous way. In the other movie, he's kinda ugly and rednecky. I didn't like that one so much. Sorry, can't remember the name of either movie. Google, help us. Both worth renting.

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  6. I was gonna go see two Hillerman movies last month--they were showing them at the Westport Library. But the showing conflicted with a Gamelan concert, and I chose the Gamelan. From what I've read of Hillerman so far, I see Jim Chee as a sweet guy who is a bit of a fuck-up. That's what makes him so likeable. I bet the other version of him was some lame director's idea.

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  7. I need to check out the more recent Hillerman books. I read several of his books many years ago, but I enjoyed reading them in rainy winter so I could be transported to those sunny, dry New Mexico landscapes.

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