The Princess was at her piano lesson, so I was booking it through the store. Coffee beans? Check! Ice cream? Not today. Wine for tonight’s pasta sauce? Right this way…
Every grocery store out here has a wine section, and I was on my way to find a run-of-the-mill Italian red table wine, when bump! I look past the Bear at the front of the cart and there is a big stack of wine boxes that I have just rammed. The bottles precariously balanced at the top went wobble-bobble-wobble before slowly tipping end over end and hitting the floor with a horribly pleasing POP POP POP POP clink! Red wine everywhere.
Store employees came hurrying out like ants from a stomped anthill and started the recovery process, with the possible help of FEMA. I was frozen. When the manager said, “You may want to step back. There’s a lot of broken glass.” I sighed and said I needed to know how many bottles to pay for. He assured me that, no, I didn’t need to worry about that and please would I move back? Thinking back on it, he was probably worried I would cut myself and sue the store.
I found the wine I needed in another isle and made my way to the register. The checker joked, “It looks like someone was murdered back there. Are you the one who broke all the wine bottles?” When I mumbled that yes, I was the bonehead to trashed the store, she got a little flustered and said she’d been kidding.
The Bear was more horrified by the whole thing than I was. When we got back to the van, he was nearly in tears over the mess and the waste and my embarrassment. But it didn’t last long. Once he was cheered up, it was the first thing he wanted to tell anyone we met for the rest of the day.
“Mama broke a whole bunch of wine bottles all over the floor at the store. And she didn’t even have to pay!!“
Life moves at such a brisk clip sometimes, and yet it seems way too mundane to post.
- How is The Project coming? Slowly. The sanding is done, and that’s a huge plus. (Although I have heard that I will be finding drywall dust all over for years to come. What a happy thought.) One of our fur people is apparently asthmatic and was having a dreadful time because of the dusty mess – not that it kept her from pushing past the barrier and going upstairs to roll in it. All the plastic has been taken up and we are now on to the stage of trying to wipe down everything so we can hang more plastic and shoot orange peel texture on the ceilings. I still hope to someday paint and perhaps even move back upstairs to sleep. I know…I’m a dreamer that way.
- The cat. The bald, psychotic cat who refused to poo in the litter box (who happens to be the same one mentioned above) is mostly better. After spending a few nights locked up in a bathroom with her catbox, she has gotten the right idea. The kids also got a life lesson about prayer: they had been asking God to please help Emma with her “little problem” so that Mama would not get rid of her nasty self. Now they know that God not only covers sparrows and lilies, but cats with elimination issues, as well.
- We just finished our third week of school, and life is good. Well, mostly. The new has worn off, so the usual whininess has kicked in. But most of our trouble comes when someone has down time – the school aspect is pretty great. Mostly I am struggling with my own attention span. But when the Bear is begging to do his math, and I overhear the Princess singing the praises of her new language arts program, I figure things are pretty well on track.
- As for my schooling…hmm. It is a good thing the distance learning course gives me a year to finish, because I am going to need all of that. I am starting to appreciate the genius of numbers and what mind-blowing things they can do (seriously, forget about all the biology stuff – the grand complexity and order of mathematics speaks to me of an intelligent Creator) but it still takes forever. English Lit is delicious fun, but I need to get myself in gear and focus.
- We need to plant some trees soon. Last spring we took out about a dozen alders, and the yard looks naked. Fall is the best time to pop them in the ground, so when I get a break in my busy bon-bon-eating schedule, I’ll get right on that.
Not exciting, nail-biting events. But add them up together, and whew!
Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.
Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.
Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.
- Sara Teasdale
Today the Bigs complained yet again about having to go to the commissary with me. It has become an entrenched habit.
I have explained that I don’t go there as a hobby or to interrupt their day. There’s just this small matter of having food to eat. I don’t go buy some, they don’t get supper. They remain unfazed and try to convince me that the case of mac and cheese from the last co-op order is sufficient for the foreseeable future.
So this morning Mr. MG informed them that they weren’t allowed to go with Moo and me. They would remain at home and work with him, emphasis on work. He gave up the lion’s share of his day (that he had planned on using to tackle more of The Project) so that he could supervise an intensive effort of cleaning and organizing the house. Scrubbing, mopping, vacuuming, emptying. He made sure that there were no idle bodies the whole morning.
I had a lovely time out shopping with Moo and came home to a fresh, clean-smelling house.
Also two kids who look at the commissary in a much better light.
