It was a stunningly beautiful day – sunny and actually too hot to plant my tired bum on the deck box. Trying to get myself motivated to spend a few hours every day working on my second novel but it’s been weeks since I ‘retired’ (again) and I’m still not feeling the writing bug.
I’ve been fiddling around trying to get sourdough started (again…still). After going through a bag of freshly milled organic flour, this is the last hurrah for my attempts. Part of the problem is that the inside of my kitchen is fairly cool – great when you’re rocking batches of cookies or roasting a chicken, but not so good for encouraging those little bacteria to multiply faster. I mean, cakes, quick breads and other things are fine but breaking the code of sourdough has eluded me.
There has been a lot of emotion this week for some reason, as I’ve been caught up with remembering my parents and thinking of the meaning of life. A good friend of mine got her diagnosis from her oncologist today – she needs to have ‘preventative chemo’ but thankfully, no radiation. And because she has to be scrupulous about germs, I wouldn’t be able to hug her even if we weren’t a few thousand kilometers apart. So we text and I send her jokes and pray for her recovery.
As always, though, there are other more mundane things that go on around us that make you go, “Huh”.
Usually Remembrance Day is a watershed for seasonal decorations and the beginning of mall madness, but it just seems too early. The department stores have had Christmas decorations on display for months. I tell you, the sight of snowsuits in July is depressing, but the shelves have been stripped bare. The kids are back in school, and Covid or no Covid, parents have to get back to work as well.
Starting those shopping engines is simply a sign of the times, but I’d like some signs that this autumn warmth would last until mid-November. Still, the tire place that stores my snow tires and snazzy rims called me to come in – the installer-dude says they’re crazy busy already.