Song of the day: “Did it again” by Shakira. Strangely enough, it was pounding into my head when I woke up this morning…and that while the power was out due to the storm.
Rain, rain and more rain. Aaaargh. It drove me so friggin’ bonkers that I literally shouted “the sun, the sun; I’m out!” when it peeked from behind the clouds for about half an hour this afternoon. Seriously, this winter I have discovered that I am most definitely not an inside person anymore. Really, two years ago I would have gladly stayed inside for a solid three months without ever giving a peep, but no more; staying inside is giving me hives, I’m sure of it. Hah.
But let’s get down to business, ‘cause I’ve got serious writing to do yet. Writing is going a little better again; I’m not passing out during the evening sessions at the moment so that means I’m actually getting somewhere. As of yesterday evening (another miserably rainy day, grrr) I’ve hit 85.000 words, which means that I’m going to have to start thinking about wrapping the story up. I need a 100K after all, and considering I need to finish it in less than four scenes, it’s going to be a close call, that’s a fact.
Most of the past miserable rainy days were spent with indoor projects again, in this case the wood and glass wall we’re making for the living room. Some final touches had to be seen to yesterday (prior to painting, which is happening even as I write this) such as putting lead paint on the bottom…lots of water damage possible with ninety-something dogs…and attaching the wood to its wood and brick surroundings.
Little sister and I hung these quilted panels in front of the second floor banister throughout the house, so that looks neat again. Also had to change clothes twice yesterday, considering everything was so bloody wet that my trousers were completely soaked after every chore. The worst being, emptying the pantry of floodwater again. It was bad, I tell you, which isn’t a surprise now that most of Andalusia is suffering through a rather serious deluge. People are being evacuated and rescued by firemen, animals are taken out of their flooded paddocks to higher pastures, and on the overall, everyone is being downright miserable with the weather. Can’t blame them, either, considering I feel quite the same.
Our luck, despite the flooded pantry (it comes from the back of the house where water seeps straight through the rocks) and bathroom, is that we really do live on top of the mountain. The only way we get an actual, hold-on-to-your-socks flood up here is for all the ice on the world to melt in a single instant and cause a dramatic Tsunami ‘bout 800 yards high. Hah.
Well, apparently I am still fully capable of freaking myself out, just like I could back in the day, ‘cause silly me was looking for information on witchcraft on Wikipedia when I somehow ended up on the page about Gregori Rasputin. Nothing new there, since I’ve known about the man for a long time…or at least the broad strokes, due to movies and books.
And yet, I was intrigued as I read about this rather scary looking dude (seriously, he’d do well in a horror flick) and the rather gruesome way he came to his end. I don’t know, but anyone who has to be (a) poisoned with cyanide, (b) shot three or four times in chest and head, (c) beaten into submission, (d) castrated on the spot and (e) wrapped in a carpet and ropes to be thrown in a frozen river, just to “give the spirit” has to possess some serious bad juju. I ain’t joking, all that happened prior to his drowning in the river and still they found him in a clawing position under the ice. Yikes! Talk about persistent; I would find a psychopath in any of my fictional books surviving such a long row, unrealistic. Suffice it to say that the reading material seriously freaked me out.
Afterwards, I of course ended up at the witch trials of Salem, the Spanish, Portuguese and all those other lovely Inquisitions, only to end up feeling a tad…ehm, yeah, UNCOMFORTABLE. I hate it when I can’t control my curiosity and end up like that.
There was also some nice bits of historical research, such as the mythical stories of Ireland, and how their tales of history are basically the same as those of the Greeks, Hindus, Buddhists and all those others, only described with different names and places. Fascinating how they all tell of the same incredible events, and it makes one wonder how much of it is true. Oh, the thoughts of a variety of books kept tumbling through my head. So very tempting, but a temptation I have to stand strong against considering I’ve got more stories-in-progress than I have the time to write, darn it.
All of this was interrupted by a six-hour blackout, which didn’t make the rainy day any more pleasant. Oh my Gawd, I’d forgotten how bloody annoying it is to be without electricity. Everything was dark, wet, cold and gloomy and I don’t suppose that helped my “uncomfortable” state either.
Knight II is on antibiotics, and though the big lump on his side is still there, he doesn’t seem to be bothered by it so much at the moment. Clue’s drain is out; we put him on the kitchen counter yesterday, cut three stitches loose and removed the rubber. He’s fit as a fiddle again, and doesn’t care a fig about the most recent injury. Such a happy dog, our Clue.
The seedlings in the new seedbed are doing well. Small green sprouts have jumped from the soil and are slowly filling up the bottom of the glass-covered container.
After another morning of four hours, without electricity the sun finally broke through for a bit, allowing us to head out into the yard and put the new, rather massive, batch of thyme into the ground. It’ll remain to be seen if they’re going to make it, but if they do they are going to look rather grand in their rocky ground behind the fence to the bottom garden.
It smelled rather splendidly too, all that thyme. From the trimming that needed to be done on the small bushes, I filled an entire crate with scented twigs, which I brought up to our tenant. She so badly wants to be useful that I figured she might as well look through the branches and sort out the ones we can use for drying. The last couple of days we haven’t been able to do much of her exercises, but today, when the sun was out for a bit (the clouds are back, by the way. Looks like rain) we took a short stroll in the paddock and sat there for a bit as she caught her breath. The way we figured, what with the bad weather predictions persisting, it would do her well to catch some fresh air while she could.
While yesterday we missed lunch again, I made baked potatoes with peas, corn and peppers on the side, so at least we won’t go hungry again today, hah.
There was another rock-fetching trip; big brother and I gathered mostly big rocks, seeing as we’re going to need quite of few of them for the bottom of the wall’s foundation, but as an effect my shoulder muscle knotted up yesterday morning (hurts like a son of a gun, I’ll tell ya that much) while I was pulling my pants up, darn it. That’s a first. Guess I picked up bigger rocks than I’d expected, and was ready for.
Well, that about sums the past couple of days up, doesn’t it. I’m sure that there’ll be plenty of annoyance and frustration in the next few, since the clouds are persisting and there is definitely more rain in the air, aaargh.
I’m going to see if I can go outside for a bit yet, before it starts pouring again.
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