Read thin morning paper, growl at sports editor, never prints relevant information about local swimmers, certainly none about the best coaches or team in the area. Whose fault is that? Stare out of window and give the stink eye to the frisky and well-fed crow lining up his rear end over cute little car parked down below on the street. The crow flies away, does not splatter the car this time.
Back to the sports page. Young Irish kid kills the US Open more dead than when Tiger killed it years ago. Phenomenal. Phelps loses 200 Fly by a hundredth. He's tired, not tapered. He'll be a different swimmer in Shanghai. Lots of foreign swimmers at the meet. Aussies, Canadians, Koreans, Mexicans. How many train in the US? Young Canadian team trained here a few weeks ago and then elite group prepping for the meet swam here for three days, long course. Seem to have done well. I want to swim. Can't. Have a cold. Have to get well. Sigh.
Read the weather report. Sun today, patchy sun tomorrow, decreasing temperatures over the course of the week. Gotta get out into the sun and daylight today. Sun does not make itself known often enough during the summertime on California's central coast. Read the horoscope: "Pisces, you may or may not have someone important to deal with today. Best let events unfold before you make any judgements about them. Tonight: Be yourself." Be myself. Get up and refill coffee mug, get out two pieces of sourdough whole wheat bread. Chew on them, bit by bit. Toast would hurt throat too much. Plain is better. Look for potato chips. Damn, no potato chips. Need salt, need a healthy throat and no more cold. Being sick is the pits.
Make oatmeal. Irish oatmeal, coarse and real. Add honey and a dab of butter. Good with coffee. Nice coffee. Check emails on iPhone. Must answer some soon. Note to self: Remember things.
Clear table, fill sink, squirt dish soap, wash dishes. Grandma did this. Remember the little dish set, a gift as a child, pretending to wash dishes and arranging them this way and that. Bubbles in iridescent mounds that pop softly and reflect the ceiling light, swirling pink and blue glazing them before they explode into exclamation points of wet surprise.
Go out to garden wearing gloves and crocs, carry small trimming clippers. The roses need dead-heading, the alyssum look stressed, and the bougainvillea just will not come into color. Bracts are not forming, looks diseased once again. Time to kill it? Try to revive it again? Stand and water, wipe sweat off face. A horse does not sweat this much; it is not human to resemble a faucet when standing still on a tepid morning.
Pull weeds, haul hose around yard, water all the pots. Riots of color, lots of pruning coming due soon. Plan it, get it done. Sun's overhead, nearly summer solstice. Fine day so far. Sepia memory, dainty curtains over French windows. Willow tree over lawn and sleepy cats stretching, rearranging paws and dusty fur, claws extended and then retracted languidly, sleep overcoming them again. That summer. A brother and three sisters, banging doors, wind chimes tinkling like today. The beginning of something unforeseen and dark.
Kick off crocs, put away gardening tools, squint at sun on flowers, hose snarled in the yard. Fix it later. Fix it later.
Back to the bathroom, use more Kleenex, drink more liquid, time to rest. Small sounds barely heard. Sound is more noticed when it is absent than when it is present, when it is so familiar and so gentle. Open laptop, hear Mac opening chord, read more emails, think about writing. No good. Nothing. Think of exercises learned at writers' retreat. Interrupt own thinking with impulse to get a snack. So that's it. That's the pattern. Fall into the lull, the mental switch from deliberate thinking to free flow. Or not. If there's room for writing, writing can happen.
Notice crows cawing outside, glance out window and see crow above cute little car again, aiming. Don't look. Just clean up the mess later, park somewhere else. Devil bird.
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