Monday. Awoke this morning before the alarm was due to go off, up and out to breakfast just before six, home now at eight, the sun poking through the overlying fog/clouds, what looks to be a good day ahead.

Called my sister to say I was coming for Christmas and the family party on the 26th, thought better of it this morning and will call her to say I won't be able to come. Half of me says this is a cop out, not a good sign of mental health and all the rest; the other half says, OK, time to get our act together and get this apartment in order and finish one or two of these projects that have been hanging now since the beginning of time. Be interesting to see if that's a rationalization or not, but I did putter around yesterday without any hup-hups and put things in order here that have needed it for, well, a long time.

So we'll see. Time to take a different look at the photographs - I talk about that, sloth and all the rest - and tie down the life a little tighter so as to live the rest of it with some sense of zest and accomplishment.

As in watching Korean soaps written for children and complaining about it?

Well, that's the danger isn't it? Babbling on here, saying this, but doing that? We'll see. I'm feeling good. Still the same old aching sinus/upper palate thing and all the rest, but like a sore muscle, it needn't get in the way unless I let it. I see people scooting around on the sidewalks every day dealing with things way more complicated than an aching upper palate; we are, after all, no longer a child. Well, except for the brain. And our habits. And acts. And some other stuff, but otherwise we are level headed, been there, know the world for all its wiles adults. Right? Self?

What?

Later. The same old short walk over to and along the lake and back taking one or two pictures in the early morning light. Well, early morning: in the nine o'clock morning light. There was one Snowy and two Great Egrets standing in a well spaced line along the shore as I was returning, getting a picture of one taking off and another holding its ground. Funny looking damned birds, not like any I personally have experienced seeing until I began living here by a lake. Nice. I wonder how they taste when baked?

Later still. Not sure what got into me, but I stripped the bed, flipped the mattress and ran everything through the wash. I noticed the tag for the first time on the mattress advising you flip the mattress a couple of times when you first get it and then flip it every two months. I don't know how many years since I bought this one, but I haven't flipped it once. Until this morning. Another little nugget of useful information gained at this late date.

A walk to the morning restaurant to have lunch. I'd had a lighter breakfast and was hungry. No pictures, but an artichoke quiche, croissant and coffee. A very good croissant, the quiche alright. I've had it before and it didn't kill me so I was confident I could have it again without undo damage. This is not to disparage my morning restaurant, but to note the ongoing state of my palate. Which I seem to do about daily. Which is probably a little dull and boring after a while. Unless it's your palate, of course, or mine.

So, laundry done, bed made, mattress cover and cotton blanket washed in addition to the sheets and pillow cases, a ton of magazines read, partially read and not read now downstairs in the recycle bin. Yes, I made that call to my sister saying I was going to bail on heading north (she was expecting it - am I that transparent?). No problem, she said. Good. I guess.

Evening. An early evening, I think. Finish up with the guitar, turn over these thoughts I've had lately of putting up those framed photographs that have been sitting along the bedroom baseboard for this last couple of years. The bed has been disassembled and vacuumed, the bedding washed (as mentioned), the magazines that were sitting on the side chucked in the recycle bin, the recently acquired books put up on the overcrowded shelves. I no longer recognize the bed's side of the bedroom. What if I were to do the same to the other side? Hang those photographs? Finish out the entire room? Could the living room be next?

I'm speechless.

Little chance of that.