Estoy Nueces

Man, it is cold tonight! I spent a good part of the afternoon moving plants to the new shelf in the garage. The shelf was my wonderful idea a year or more ago and through Mark's workmanship and even better ideas and ability to put them into action, I finally have the shelf this year. I still yearn for a greenhouse but we don't have enough room for a real honest-to-goodness greenhouse. The shelf is a removable large shelf at the front of the second slot of the garage. The first slot is where we do occasionally park a car, usually Mark's when it is full of drums. The second slot is full of the '51 Oldsmobile and it remains there motionless most of the time. The shelf is above the hood of the Olds and just behind the garage door's windows. My tender plants can sit there in protection from wind and freezing temperatures and still get plenty of southern exposure sunshine through the day. Tonight we are only supposed to drop to 38 degrees, which is cold enough to hurt a lot of the plants and I am eager to see what temperature the garage goes to. This is an experiment. If we should start getting a string of freezing temperatures I might have to put a heater out near the shelf, but for now I think my spider plants and split-leaf philodendrons and a million cacti and sedums are going to be okay.

Me? I'm sitting here freezing and I'm contemplating lighting the fireplace. That would be cozy.

Today didn't turn out at all like I thought it would, some good, some bad.

I planned to meet a friend for coffee or breakfast at 10 this morning. I had promised my studio to the other morning show producer as of 10 a.m. I told my morning team that anything we had to do had to be done by 10 a.m. Through no fault of theirs and through the entire fault of the music director, we couldn't do any of the work we need to do to have shows on the air in the morning on Thanksgiving and the day after. I worked hard to get my own work out of the way and be out of the studio by 10. It wasn't easy because the studio temperature was easily 80 and miserable and the music, voices and banging of doors from the studio behind me was making work difficult.

Before 10 a.m. the friend I was to meet called to cancel because of changes in her commitments and I was relieved. This just didn't seem to be working out to meet today.

So I finished what I had to do and retreated to the silence of my car and looked forward to the silence of home.

My plan involved coming home and being home for a while. I am a homebody and I haven't felt like I've been home much lately. Of course, I was also thinking about getting a good nap and then going to see my friend Perfect C out in the country. I haven't seen her in weeks and she had come home from her long business trip to find her house wet and somewhat muddy.

I'd been relaxing and watching TV and enjoying the time home when my friend Grace called. Known for her ability to talk (like me!) I was ready to tell her that I was about to nap and couldn't talk long. But a crisis was in progress and it was Pecan to the rescue. I'm so glad Grace called even though it completely changed the direction of my day. Her husband had fallen and dislocated his finger and they were at the emergency room. I was needed to do something with the three-year-old and the three-month-old. Poor Grace does an amazing job of juggling all her responsibilities but throwing an emergency room into the mix without any helping hands was taxing her talents. I went to the hospital and watched the sleeping baby and brought toys for the active Max.

It was really fun to be around Max. I haven't seen him in a happy, fun-loving mood in a long time. Today he seemed quite content to let Mom go be with Dad and to stay here in the waiting room and play with the car I brought. We colored and wrote and talked and rolled the car back and forth and watched TV and smoked dope (just seeing if Grace is paying attention) and had a great time.

Dad got a cast on his fingers and arm and they finally were on their way home late in the day and so was I. You tell your friends and you tell your friends to call on you and you hope they will call on you (when there is something you really CAN do) and I'm so glad she called.

My own dad is sick this week and they've already let my sister know they won't be with her for the planned Thanksgiving. I've had lots and lots of Thanksgivings away from my family and am taking this week in stride (not being with them) but I think my sister doesn't quite know what to do. I think it is possible that she had never had a Thanksgiving without my parents. Since her in-laws live in Holland, Thanksgiving is never an issue.

I took a short nap this evening even though I was in that dilemma time of day when I don't know whether it is better to just hold out a while and go to bed early and sleep a good long time rather than nap. My fear would be that I would hold out and then STILL not get to bed until 10:30 or so and really make me cranky tomorrow. This worked out well. I slept but I woke up pretty naturally in about an hour and I do think I can get some things done this evening and then go back to bed at a decent time and all will be smiles tomorrow. haha Fat chance.

To say something on the bright side of my job, which I am going to make every effort to do... This morning Rudy's Barbeque brought in a bunch of breakfast tacos. One of the morning team guys had gone and gotten one for him and brought back one for another of the guys. Then the guy who is the gruffest with me and treats me like an imbecile more often than not (though not meanly) came to my studio and offered to bring me a taco. And he offered to bring coffee. And he brought me both. Very thoughtful and very much appreciated.