aug20-04 fri eve
9:55 p.m.

We are beat, Scott and I. I’ve laid down for a while after making and eating supper, hoping a rest will give me a second wind. He eats and goes out to do chores, then comes in and sits at the computer. I come upstairs and tidy the kitchen as I wait for the kettle to boil for peppermint tea. He cuts steak (our special guest’s menu request when I enquired) into cubes to marinate for Vincent’s visit tomorrow, and I put two clear glass mugs on the table for us, and pour boiling water into the teapot before covering it with the knitted cozy.

He tells me they got a ridiculously low price for some cattle at auction yesterday; the cattle were “stolen,” he says. He finishes with the meat and puts it in the fridge, and I ask if he’ll have tea. I imagine we might sit together for a while. But he ignores the teapot and goes downstairs, so I come in here, sit in this chair at the desk, glance over a couple emails I haven’t had a chance to answer yet, chat with Everett, who is reading here in the room.

*** 10:52 p.m. ***

This afternoon I walked around Grandma’s house, looking at her monkshood, her asparagus, her roses, hollyhocks and petunias, wondering WHO was that woman who sat in the back of her brother’s car en route from Westbank to Salmon Arm just three months ago and struggled desperately so that he and her sister in the front seat would not know she was crying? What were all those tears about, and why do I not feel the same way now? Was all that weeping really just “making mountains out of molehills” or was there shock that has passed or was it a normal grieving or fear, or what the hell was it and why do I no longer seem to be feeling the same way? Mom still has terminal cancer as far as we know. Am I more hopeful now than I was then? More resigned? Have I processed something through or just pushed it down somewhere less visible? Curious.

*** 10 a.m. Saturday ***

Cloudy and cool, but it’s a big day. We are borrowing a wheelchair ramp and picking Vincent up at the lodge to bring him out for a late-lunch barbecue. We won’t be able to get him into the house if it rains, though, so we have our fingers crossed against that.

It rained a bit during the night. If only it had done the same the night before! Everything wouldn’t have frozen. Our tomatoes froze right through the coverings I’d put on them. Local gardens are largely finished now.

xoxo
etc