SnowFlea of Celeste

Some days are a series of mini-gumption traps. This is more likely to happen when they begin at 5 am. My stomach was hurting and I couldn't go back to sleep, so I finally slouched off downstairs. It was freezing cold. This was the coldest day of the winter so far. I tried to read a couple of books, but couldn't get interested. I was somewhat interested in "Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book," a compendium of recipes. I'm fortunate in having friends and relations who like to eat vegetables, and I need some new dishes to try. However, it made me hungry so I put it aside. Finally, as a cold silvery dawn began to shiver in the east, I was overcome by exhaustion and went back to bed for an hour or so. Therefore, everything started later than I wanted it to. The Sparrowhawk went to the dentist and to get a haircut and mail letters.

I finished vacuuming upstairs and started basically pottering around, carrying this and that up and down stairs and taking things from one room to another and putting things away and so forth. It's the end stage of getting the house ready for visitors and it always feels as if nothing whatsoever is being accomplished! We moved things around in the living room to make room for the Christmas tree, and the Sparrowhawk swept the floor. Then he brought the tree in, and we got it situated in the tree holder and managed to get it pointed more or less straight up. Victory! It is a beautiful tree--but then we say that every year! We haven't decorated it yet.

I was trying to finish cleaning off my desk, and I needed some file folders and hanging files. I knew we brought a bunch of them home from my mother's apartment, but couldn't find them for the life of me. I was in the freezing cold attic looking in this box and that box. No folders. Finally I thought they might be in the Sparrowhawk's desk--and they were. But when I pulled them out, I saw that some had been labeled in my mother's shaky old writing, with names of things and people that were important to her at the time. This was the final gumption trap of the evening. I couldn't face throwing out these bits of her. Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

I will need something to occupy me at home tomorrow, as I go on a clear liquid diet and start the horrid prep for a colonoscopy on Friday afternoon. I dread this more every time around. I hope they'll find nothing, as usual, and I won't have to do it again for at least five years. One thing's for sure, it's a hell of a way to say "Merry Christmas" . . . .