Friday, September 9, 2011

The two edged sword of catchup



Favorite second hand bookstore window. speaking of former lives...


Doing very well at the moment, amazing what sleeping can do for you, when you can sleep until you are ready to wake up, instead of forcing yourself out of bed because there's so much morning care that must be started promptly. I sleep till after 8, then it's so easy, just do my own breakfast, read the newspaper, loaf a bit. Just a few weeks ago, I never thought the day would come. And then so suddenly, it did.

But the other side of it is that it's hard to believe my former life is just that -- former. At the Asian store today, shopping for fruit, I went out of force of habit to the grape display and started to pick which variety looked good today, then remembered I don't like grapes, and was unthinkingly picking them for HP, because he loved them, and ate them every afternoon with his cheese and crackers, along with his medications. It will be a while before I remember, or get used to not having to remember. And before I buy enough fruit for one, and just the fruit I like.

The comparative ease of my life now is wonderful,but the pain of remembering how it got easy is the other side of that blade.

I can now do catchup on things like washing the curtains in the living room, which had been untouched for three years, since it was HPs bedroom and there was no time to take them down get them washed and dried and rehung between care times when I had to draw them for privacy, this being a ground floor only a few feet from where people stroll past out back.

So I did them today, and was surprised to discover that since I took them down a couple of hours ago, either the floor has dropped down several inches or the curtain hooks have slid up the wall in defiance of gravity. How else to explain that the curtains which brushed the floor this morning are now hanging a clear five inches above it? inexplicable. But Marigold and Duncan approve since they can easily look under them now to spy on the patio doings, instead of going to all the trouble of having to push them aside with their little fuzzy heads.

I guess the shock of being washed caused the curtains to shrink with horror, but they are now clean, very nice looking if you overlook a certain air of skimpiness. I'll pass it off as skimpy chic, maybe. This year's Fall Look: Skimpy Chic! you can also get venetian blinds that don't reach the sides of the windows. That fitted, tailored look is so passe, darling.

Oh, I know, we can market them through Target for the college dorm set: Floods for Windows!!! floods, for them as don't know US jargon, being pants that have shrunk above your ankle, enabling you to wade through floods, said type of pants also known as highwaters. Very apt in view of our new flooding around here, not,luckily where I live, but only a few miles away.

As well as laboring over the washing machine, I played some keyboard today, and recorder, and cast on a new skinny scarf in my favorite rolled edge design. So there's good stuff, too.

7 comments:

  1. Th3e poor dears! Well at least the cats get a benefit! Would be lovely to see your scarf.

    Take care until then.

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  2. With luck the curtains may drop back to their original length after the shock of being washed. Speaking of which, that is on my to-do list in the next week or so. Oh what fun!

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  3. At least it was your curtains that shrunk and not your underwear. (There! Never say I don't keep on on the sunny side of life.)

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  4. Visiting you again, and Google tells me it has never heard of me. Sounds like a teen out with its mother. Have to go with anonymous for a while.
    xoxo annie

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  5. Oh dear, didn't wash the curtain material before making? Happy for the pussycats though!
    xox

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  6. The mind is a funny thing...took me a long time to stop reaching for the phone to call my mother and husband's grandmother after their passing. The grapes are much like the shared grapefruit I wrote to you about, isn't it? Hopefully, over time, the sharp edge of grief will give over to the comfort of good memories, and a settling into your new life - Jean from Cowtown

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  7. I don't suppose the washing machine managed to switch itself onto the hot water cycle? The fuzzy critters could have been the culprits knowing they wanted easy access to their outdoor viewing? I have to admit I laughed when I read your reference to floods - I wore floodwater pants for years because I could never get anything long enough...oh the angst of it all!

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