On raccoons and procrastination...

Chilly, damp, overcast... not the kind of morning I can take my coffee to the deck. Though I'd have done so, since it's not a morning that Holly is here early. I can wander room to room, keep quiet, and drink my coffee. Peaceful, eh?

Poor kid was at loose ends a bit yesterday, but we managed okay. Mondays are like that. We have a routine here, and it works pretty well. At home for three days, she was following a different pattern, and getting her back into the swing of things takes a bit. She gets a little too sassy and demanding, and I suppose that's a response to wanting to build a pattern for her day on her own terms. It still rankles, though. Today, she's hanging with Meg for most of the day (amen--she needs mommy time badly). She'll be here for dinner time, though, so I'm making one of her favorites, Italian sausage, spaghetti sauce, and pasta. I promised her pool time today, but the weather does not look like it'll cooperate, but there's always tomorrow. She'll have swimming lessons, and that's about it on the agenda. Yesterday, instead of pool time (which she said she didn't want to go in, but then, when it was too late, thought she did, but y'know how it goes), we did a bead project and then read books on the deck. And AMEN, G came home early and let the raccoon out. 

Wait, what? 

Raccoon. 

The ongoing saga of Simon the Cat on Walkabout; so far, they've caught a grey cat that does not live here, and a bear played with the trap another time (and I had visions of the trap getting caught on the bear's head, but alas, that didn't happen), and yes, yesterday, a juvenile raccoon. Tim had to go to work, the police/animal control won't do anything (your trap, your problem), and the Fish and Game website makes it clear that again, your trap= your problem. I wasn't going to fool with it. Holly was preoccupied with the fate of the raccoon all day (and she apparently is scared of them), so when G got home, he donned heavy gloves and used an old dog leash to open the trap door. Poor Ranger Rick hesitated a few seconds, then scooted out, up a tree, down the tree, up another tree, down that tree, then off into the scrub brush. 

Still no Simon. 

I wonder whether Simon will be caught today. I sure hope so. It's weighing heavily on everyone's mind now. And frankly, if a skunk gets trapped, we'll be in a pickle. No one wants that nonsense. 

I might read a bit today. I didn't yesterday; things got busy. I want to read more fiction that engages my brain without making me work for it. I loved Klara and the Sun. I don't want to dig into Frankenstein yet. I have so many weighty "I should have read this years ago, and because I didn't, I'm a fraud" books (like War and Peace and Look Homeward, Angel and a few others). I have Grisham's The Widow, so that's likely going to be the one I choose. I also have a shelf full of nonfiction that I want to get to, but my brain is just not in nonfiction mode right now. It will be, I suspect, soon enough. 

It's funny how that all works. I get a serious reading pile built, and then I want well, not fluff, but things to take my brain in a creative direction. I crave the historical information in the books I have stored up, but I'm just not in a headspace to actually read them. But I will, because I feel guilty having either bought them or asked for them as gifts. And I love historical fiction! So I should read history as well. 

If I were a lot younger, I would probably go back to college to get more history classes under my belt and then get certified in teaching it. But since I'm old, tired, and have iffy eyes, I am not doing that. I'll just set myself a reading list. The chance of me ever getting hired to teach history is close to none, anyhow. Ideally, I'd teach in the humanities, so I could bring it all under one aegis. (Yes, I used that word. Showing off, I suppose.) And I do teach that way, but not "officially"-- o well. If the feds don't move the goalposts again (and they probably will, may they all enjoy exquisite torment in gehenna), I have seven more years. Then, if they don't fully loot Social Security, I might be able to retire in genteel penury. 

Sigh.

Not bitter, eh?

My big goal for the summer was/is to order my poems into a manageable full-length manuscript. They are all copied off, but I have not had any desire as of yet to get into that project. I should do it. And I will do it. But not today. I need a stretch of time, and housework and child-herding tends to fill up the time I have. But those are excuses, too-- I have no sense of urgency at the moment. I won't live forever. And if I want to get this done, now's good. 

Sigh yet again. 

Okay, enough old-lady rambling. My coffee's almost consumed. I may make a second cup. 

Ciao for now, and blessings all around. 

C