orange.

I’d sighed earlier at the half-read “Box of Butterflies,” by Roma Downey. Rather than re-shelve, I re-homed it to my priority chair-side reading table.

Because, 1. it was only/already half-read and 2. it would be a light enjoyable distraction because 3. I was giving up on the missing missive.

To feed my belly, there was a quick reheat of lemony chicken and roasted zucchini with garlic. To feed my soul, I dragged a zero-gravity folding recliner, my lunch and the book outside. For while I was pleasantly afternoon porch-sitting in the shade of my massive oak, enjoying the lovely light breeze.

Readings, prayers and stories blended, touched me, encouraging an emotional urge to sad-cry. Though, not something I do much, I also don’t reserve them as a resource. No, my tears map; mostly chartered for overwhelming frustration or anger.

When I do give into melancholy, I self-console it’s not entirely squandered time; there is scientific data on the toxin expelling benefit of tears.

To be sure, my dead-end searching contributed, but the reason was indeed sadness.

Yep. I wasted a solid thirty seconds pity-partying, which is a bit of significance. If you’re inclined, go ahead and time thirty seconds. It’s a lot longer than you think.

I sniffled, wiped my eyes and closed them just for a moment being miserable and thinking about Jeff. And, then, everyone gone.

I blotted to remove the refractory glare of still welled tears, Un-smudging my glasses, I began again (because I can’t not finish a chapter, or a song for that matter.)

Soft-stop blink-leaking, something glinted peripherally. I expected to see Blu and his shiny gold collar tag at the screen. When I am out and he is in, HBlu’ll check where I’m at, what I’m up to and yell at me to let me know he’s monitoring. I say hello, tell him I’m fine and he lumbers back to his most recent favorite indoor spot.

I was surprised it wasn’t Sir Harley. It was a flitty thing.

It took another swipe-rub and a second sweep to determine it was a butterfly – in orange.

The flutter-by stayed around a bit. Dipping, rising, dancing for fifteen seconds or so, until the gusty stream took it wherever it was going next.

I couldn’t help but smile.

Orange was my father’s favorite color.

Then, I couldn’t help but frown.

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Booking (the search)

I was intermittently trying to find some important paperwork last week.

I didn’t find what I needed, so I set about searching seriously on Friday night.

Significant hours later, I still didn’t find what I needed.

I stubbornly continued my quest, walking around, room-to-room, Saturday morning and most of the afternoon.

When it became annoyingly apparent, I wasn’t going to locate what I was looking for, I started second-guessing if I ever had it in my possession to begin with.

Then, I had one more vivid, yet ultimately incorrect, vision of laying it on a home-office bookshelf ledge. Overflowing stacks house my rotating collection of haphazard gifted, lent, and free books. Some which I knew I’d read and needed to return or give away.

With last-ditch lackluster expectancy, I deliberately darted down another path of “perhaps” and “maybe, it’s…”

I’m a big sweep organizer. I gather everything and start over. The logical place to begin was to empty the book shelves down to the bones, hoping to find that illusive article between or under each mini pile.

I didn’t find what I needed.

Moving mildly dusty standing piles of books revealed those rarely observed support rungs at the back of the structure, oh, so, rarely dusted. Analytically, each title was carefully considered for retain or release.

Assignments concluded, I embarked on the semi-painful process of logically sorting everything back. Grouped by category/topic, but not alphabetically. I’d had enough of the hunt and impatiently wanted to just be done with it.

Favorably, my majestically restored library offered celebratory new-found room for future collecting. As long as the universe was acknowledging empty space, my growling stomach reminded me there was belly-room for my long-forgotten lunch, too.

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The Wrong Way (Cannoli Lesson Learned)

I’ve believed whole-heartedly that there is always a right way and a wrong way to do things.

I’ve also spent hours considering if that could even possibly be the case anymore, anywhere in this world.

If the right way is discipline, the wrong way must be the lack of.

And it’s all terribly subjective. And I do mean terribly.

There are countless mystified moments I marvel at the number of people whom must have agreed that something was a good idea way before it became a viable consumable.

My latest mind-thumper was an ice-cream error. That’s the nicest way I can think of wording it.

The bottom line is this: Ben & Jerry’s Cannoli ice cream tastes nothing like any East Coast, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts cannoli that I’ve ever had. Even the weird Tennessee ones, were better than the medley pint of unidentifiable uncertainty purchased.

I couldn’t figure it out.

I’ll give it ‘creamy.’ I’ll also award it nearly flavorless, maybe a bit of vanilla once in a while and I can’t confirm cannoli shells or shards or chips. Remember the old chocolate lined Nutty-Buddy cones? That summer convenience store single serve frozen flavor comes close.

Why is this my direction tonight? Honestly, because I didn’t want to.

Once a week shouldn’t feel so hard. Still, some days, it does. Today was one of those days. Long and…. long.

However seemingly self-righteous, the right way to proceed is for me to honor consistency. Remain proud. Be disciplined, if only for the reminder next week that I own nearly 13 steadily maintained years of written history. There’s an innately pre-determined pressure to reward myself with internalized-bragging rights overrides almost every objection I’ve ever come up with.

But, anyway. The reward tonight is not cannoli ice cream. Because, I persistently plowed through that in three servings last weekend, each separate scoop no more definable than other. I wanted to believe it would taste better each time. I also wanted to believe it would make me feel better; physically, mentally. Which is how I came back to what I always come back to: my version of reward-driven ego isn’t usually healthy. It’s more likely damaging, which is a psychological exploration for another episode of “Not Wanting to This Week.”

The thawing end-note for my Tuesday evening melt is that I did it.

Plus, I get to offer this sweet nicety:

Ben & Jerry’s Chip Happens lives up to its ambitious description. The Crunchy Potato Chip Swirls are indeed crunchy. Brand confidence restored.

Cannoli Lesson Learned: Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby. Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing.

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Quarancat-thing

This is Tigger-Lilly.

She started showing up after the only-one-time baby striped thing. The big orange cat has only been by once since TLilly planted herself on the porch.

Tigger’s been routine for a little over a month now. Based on loose evidence, I’ve deduced she is a girl. But, then again, Jeff thought Miss Fred was a boy at first, and he was more familiar with animal anatomy than I am.

This golden tortoise-girl is ear-clipped and collar-less. I suspect she’s somewhere between 9 months and a year, a homeless catch-and-release or hopelessly lost. A shake or an itch will create a Pig-Pen dust cloud. There doesn’t appear to have been any weight gain since I’ve been feeding her, so two homes seems unlikely. I’m also light on the feeding, twice a day. She eats quickly and over-eats to the point of regurgitation if she’s not monitored.

It’s taken three weeks for her to stop jumping away if I breath too loudly, tap my foot or swat at a bug.  She still bolts when I open the door, keeping wide berth, then coming closer again, carefully.

Lill’s way more interested in Blu than me, steadily seeking out his feline companionship, showing no fear – she knows he’s her kind. She follows Sir Harley and I on our weather-permitting, early morning garden walks, jabbering away the whole time. On our way back around the house, she gets louder, mewling impatient tones of “c’mon!” and demanding breakfast.

Blu is alternately ambivalent, jealous, stunned. He’s only territorial now when he remembers to be. She is patient, and forewarning; always announcing herself if she is behind him, always rolling over when she is in view. Her up-front-ness and squeaky approach have greatly reduced HBlu’s confused fused hiss vocal dying-zombie protests.

In the last few days Miss Lilly has eaten from my hand, let me scratch her back for 10 seconds while she ate and has owningly hit my legs with drive-by’s.

She’s persistent with Blu. I’m persistent with her. And, thankfully, Blu is less consistent in his affront.

I’m anticipating it will take at least another month of being/working with TL for her to not skitter. It’ll probably be another few weeks past that until she stays close enough for long enough for me to consider trying to secure her to a vet.

I don’t think we’d have any progress if I wasn’t working from home with a later schedule now, as well.

So, there it is: a happy quarantine thing.

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