Lightning of Zenith

Right before multiple visitors, the thing to do is just tidy up and make everything nice and calm. Right? RIGHT?? But instead, we are creating chaos that out of it, a new order may arise. If we're lucky. We have an enormous box of purged books sitting in the middle of the family room floor, and yet still the small bookcase that has to go so the new monster chair will possibly almost fit is not empty! I'm playing the puzzle game with moving other books around so I can empty the shelves of the remaining books that we still want, and then we'll be able to remove the bookcase. And put it where? You may well ask. Probably just in the attic for now. There is no available wall space. The crazy thing is that it just might work. I thought it was completely hopeless when I started, but maybe we can do it. The good part is that we're getting rid of more books. I think that's a good thing, anyway. I suppose it is a necessary thing. It is really taxing my patience, though. Like the book situation, there are too many bits and pieces to be stowed into my schedule right now, and discussing arrangements gets on my last nerve.

My knee is really hurting, too, which makes it hard to dash up and down stairs laden with books. I picked up Madame today and took her out for lunch. I was nearly thwarted by yet another street closure--right at the beginning of her street, so I had to go all around the back way to get to her house. BAH. She was standing next to her open garage door with her cane when I arrived. We had our weekly discussion of how to get the garage door closed. Since she has mislaid her garage door opener, there's only one way: go back into the garage, push the button, then go up through the house and come out via the front door. "Or," she says every week, looking crafty, "you could push the button and then RUN really fast and get out before the door closes!" And every week, I have to disappoint her by telling her I tried that, and I can't run that fast! It is true. The craftier door senses my presence and goes back up again, every time. So I did it the boring way.

We were quite the pair, as I was limping from knee pain, and she has a bad leg too. It is swollen for no known reason, so the doctor has told her not to exercise for awhile. Every week, Madame seems just a little less with it, and this is hard to watch. But we do have a good time chatting and then browsing a little before we go home. The Sparrowhawk is also not having the best of days, and this troubles me too. We slept pretty late, but he was still unusually tired. Dr. Music was late to his piano lesson, and then the Sparrowhawk had to end it early because he lacked the focus to continue. He still went out and mowed the lawn, and that sucked up most of his remaining energy. A thunderstorm was predicted--and is still going on. He decided not to go to the gym tonight. He was too tired, and did not care to drive home in a downpour. Normally I would encourage him to go anyway, but tonight I thought he was wise to take a break. We're all held together with baling wire at this point, some more tightly wrapped than others.