Taking a Break

Today just floated by without really getting anything on my To Do list done. Not that I don't have hours left to redeem myself, but I'm thinking of making a complete vacation of it. The weather finally turned stormy. Well, rainy and windy. Nothing like they've been getting pounded with north of us in Oregon and Washington. But enough to be moody and dark - just my cup of tea.

And speaking of tea, this morning was eaten up with little catch up phone calls and e-mails, I'm still behind but at least not more so, but I decided to play hooky this afternoon. I went to the tea house, by myself and a day ahead of our weekly visit. I was craving a spot of tea and some of the scrumptious peppermint scones we had last week. I had good intentions. To mask my indulgence, I intended to sit and write out some of my holiday organizational lists while I was there. This being a small town, instead I ended up bumping into folks I knew and chatting across tables and then talking tea with the owners. It turns out they hadn't made any peppermint scones today but they had a special - fish and chips! How could I pass that up! Ah well. I'll call it what it was - a little holiday gift day to myself. And tomorrow the employees are going to have an applie pie contest and the customers get to be the judges. Good thing I hubby and I will be back there for our date.

Next on the schedule (actually the only thing actually written on the schedule for today) was a meeting with William's English teacher to see what was causing his grade to hover around "just sort of passing through without caring". Turns out it was simply a matter of a little bit of this and that - not turning things in on time, tardies. Nothing serious. In fact she said when he's in class he's one of the kids who participates regularly and when he focuses he gets A's and B's on his assignments. So we all agreed he'd spiff up his act. I'm glad to know there's nothing major to worry about. I wondered if he was struggling with his spelling. Turns out not. That's nice to hear.

Are you all totally loving the Sci-Fi Channel mini-series Tin Man as much as we are!? We haven't been given such a wondrously new fantasy escape in years. Not since The 10th Kingdom. Or The Mists of Avalon. Or Dune. I think Zooey Deschanel (loved her in Elf) is the perfect Dorothy. I'd say the scarecrow (Glitch) is my favorite but honestly, I think all the main characters are spot on.

I'm also zooming through a second read of The Golden Compass before I catch the new film. It's one of my favorite books (well, the His Dark Materials trilogy is) and so I'm rather amazed at how much I had forgotten or didn't catch on the first read. I can hardly wait to see what they've done with it on the big screen.

Between Tin Man and The Golden Compass, my dreams have been very fantastical and odd. I keep getting my family mixed up with characters from both and in particular, Rosie mixed up with Pantaliamon. The sound of the wind and rain outside my bedroom window lends a surreal soundtrack to my dream plots, such as they may be. Phone calls usually are my alarm clock and they shatter any hold I have on remembering them. I'm left with disconnected vignettes or vague memories that I was going someplace or I'm supposed to be doing something....

Do you stop during the day and make a mental round up of all your loved ones? I do it all the time. If I'm feeling anxious or scattered it helps me feel like everything is back under control. I count off people and pets, when did I see them last, when did I last talk to them on the phone or online, where are they now? It doesn't help in any real way, I know that, except it mentally sets my internal worry clock back to zero. Let go of residual worries, start from scratch.

Let's see - hubby is at work. He just called to say he'd be home tonight after all. William is in his room playing video games, I can hear his music blaring. Rosie is usually curled up on my neck or under a blanket or sweater if she can manage, but she's sleeping at the end of the bed for some reason. Haven't heard from daughter in Washington in a couple of days, maybe phone lines are down up there with all the rain and wind and flooding. One son called about an hour ago to tell me about some real estate plans. Another just called me from an island out in the Pacific wondering where his wife was and why couldn't he get hold of her. So I tracked her down, she's in Yuma visiting her grandparents. Joshua left me a feather on the walkway today. My mom e-mailed me that she's busy putting up her tree. I assume my sisters are both at work or no, at this time of day, home making dinner. The cats are asleep here, there, and there, and there, and over there, and over there as well. It's like living with tribbles. Buck's in his doghouse, keeping out of the rain.

Okay, enough rambling. Maybe I'll go work on some gifts. Or maybe I'll just heat up my leftovers from this afternoon and get back to my book. They're just about to reach Bolvangar. And that's not a spoiler because you only know what that means if you've read it already. Or maybe I'll drag in some holiday boxes and make even more of a mess in the living room. Hmmm. Yeah. Put on the soundtrack to Elf. Or maybe see if there's any holiday decorating shows on HGTV. Whatever. Today's all about just going with the flow.