Monday Minutiae

A lot of walking around in the kitchen this morning as the two guys are getting back into the weekly work grind. Willie packed his lunch, ate his cereal, did a fast read of the skinny Monday paper, grabbed his bag and coat and headed out the door.

Bill's getting stuff stuffed into his lunch bag as I type. There goes the winding of thermos top for his green tea. I notice this father-son combo each have their morning routines, and they stick to them faithfully, peacefully working around each other in the kitchen.

It's a rainy day Monday, and I'm trying to think of something enlightening this morning. One needs to do such things on a dark, gloomy morning. Even the horses chose to stay inside their stalls rather than coming over to the fence near the house to stare at the door and to hope I'd hurry up and get out there to feed 'em.

For some reason, Bill's even hesitating rather than heading out the door. Oops, hesitation ceases.
"So long," he just said, and off he's gone to work. The house is ever so quiet.

I'm thinking about how I'm going to spend this day, and right now, those boxes of apples out in the garage seem to be calling. This year the handy-dandy apple peeler, purchased after a lecture from my friend Susie "Sky" in Colorado, will get a little more use.

She told me about the handy-dandy apple peeler after I told her how much time I had spent peeling apples last fall---little apples too. Peeling a little apple is just as much a pain as peeling a little potato. And, this year I have lots of little potatoes, thanks to that early September one-night frost we had here.

Anyway, today I'll let the handy-dandy peeler do its thing today and then see how much applesauce I can dump into quart jars. Nothing better than cold applesauce in the middle of the winter to go along with a hot meal, especially ham or chicken.

I've been scurrying around on the dry days in between the wet days to get the yard cleaned up for winter. I'd say we have about one third of the leaves yet to fall, and I've been able to pick up most of those two thirds which have already hit the ground.

Yesterday was a good day for that; plus, I cleaned up an area behind the barn filled with weeds and scattered boards. There's supreme satisfaction in cleaning up a mess, even though it takes us forever sometimes to decide to plunge in an do it. It's taken me nearly three years to decide to clean up that spot behind the barn, but it's looking good now.

Speaking of plunging in, I saw myself on television last night, prime time, no less. No, I'm not out there looking for fame. This was more my vicarious self, as I watched the young lady on "The Amazing Race" try to overcome her fear of heights on that water plunge in Dubai.

A major portion of the end of the program was devoted to her as she ALMOST did it but then stepped aside to let the team behind her do the plunge. Her boyfriend and teammate tried every ploy known to man, including insulting her and trying to push her down, to get her to keep their team in contention.

Nothing worked. They're no longer in the race.

I could identify with her SO much because of my fear of heights. In some venues where I have to look down, I've gotten almost sick to my stomach. I can think of a couple of baseball games a few years back where I spent most of my time walking around the concession area rather than watching the game. Our seats were up too high.

Same thing happened at a concert once in the Spokane Arena, all of three stories. So, I can't even imagine getting up where those teams went last night to take that plunge. I empathized completely with the young lady. The potential of one million dollars could not persuade her, and in my mind, her decision was very understandable.

Well, have no fear. I'm gonna shut up now and push myself into motion on this gloomy, gloomy Monday.

First, it's shovel 'dem apples out of the barn; then it's get dem apples out of the boxes and, "Let the peeling begin!"

Have a nice Monday.