Yesterday was a busy day. I left the house at 6 a.m. to pick up my daughter-in-law and drive her to a doctors appointment. After a bit of unexpected detouring because of construction, we arrived at the doctor's office on time. I sat in the waiting room, planning to read my Kindle book, while she met with the doctor. A few minutes later, more people began streaming in.
As I sat there reading, I heard a big snore from behind me. I tried not to turn around and gawk, but all over the room, people's heads raised and looked in my direction. I turned around, too, so they'd know it wasn't I who had made the noise. Behind me, a man wearing a baseball cap with the brim pulled down over his eyes, was slumped in his chair with his chin on his chest.
All of us on-lookers smiled at each other and went back to our books and magazines. The guy continued to snore. Big, gurgling snorky sounds that wo uld embarrass you in church. I felt sorry for the guy, for he had not been there more than five minutes; he had to have been exhausted to have fallen asleep that fast.
After a while, a nurse came out and called, "Mr. Rogers?" (Seriously.) No one answered. She called his name again. Still no answer. When it looked like she was about to give up, I waved to catch her attention, and when she noticed me, I hooked my thumb out and motioned behind me. I mouthed, "He's asleep." The nurse smiled and came over, touched him on the knee, and woke him up. He startled and said, "I work nights!" and followed her to an office. I hope he made it home okay.
The Daughter-in-Law got a good report (and was cleared to drive). Before we left the big city, we made a quick stop by the hobby store. I just needed one tube potters pink watercolor paint. The store did not have that color - in fact, their watercolor paint selection (a store brand, I think) was pretty unimpressive - but - well, you know how it is. A person like me doesn't walk into a store like that a come out empty-handed. I got a pen, some nice hot-press watercolor paper, and a tube of olive green paint.
Yesterday was to have been my regular "office day," and I had expected to go to the office after returning from the doctor visit. I'd left my office laptop at home so that it wouldn't get stolen from my car, so after I took my daughter-in-law to her house, I had to come home to gather my work materials. Before I could get out the door, my phone rang with some business calls, and I ended up setting my stuff down and just working from home for the rest of the day.
Toward the end of the day, I swatched. It was the new olive green tube of paint that started it. I wanted to see what color it was on paper. This led me to dig out all of my olive greens to compare them. They were each a different color and texture. This led me to do the same comparison with all of the colors in my tube paint stash, and then I added some from the paint pan sets. I even did the swatches on a nice chart, labeling each color and brand. It was good exercise, good practice.
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A nice, gentle rain is falling this morning. We need it. Last week when I went to the vegetable garden to get dirt for a soil test, the dirt was dry as a bone. The mustard greens I'd planted a week or two ago were starting to come up, but not as thickly as I had expected. Also sprouting were purple hull peas from the dried pea vines that The Husband had tilled into the soil when we cleaned up the garden. Maybe this rain will bring the mustard on up. Unless we have a r-e-a-l-l-y long, really warm autumn, the peas won't have time to make; we'll just till them and the mustard back into the soil, come spring.
As I was roaming around the yard yesterday, I noticed that there was a large brown section of limbs in our pink spirea bush, and for probably the first time in the 20 years since the bush was first planted, I watered it, well and deeply.
I'd just been pulling weeds from the flower bed along the north side of the back porch and noted how dry the soil was, and since I was standing nearby with the water hose in my hand, I decided to give that bed a good soaking. When the water hit the soil, a little pencil-sized snake slithered out from under the leaves of that bed and into the bed of monkey grass that edges the patio. The snake was too quick for me to get a good look at it, but it was tan, with some sort of pattern on its back. It was likely either a rat snake or a copperhead.
I HAD JUST BEEN TROMPING AROUND IN THAT BED. In sandals.
I turned the hose on full blast and aimed a jet at the monkey grass, trying to run the snake off, but if he left the vicinity to escape the pounding, I did not see it.
For the rest of the season, I shall not be working in the yard without my boots.
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