Adventures in Morning Musings

Posted on September 17, 2010 by Janice Hillmer

What went through my head upon waking up today (poor punctuation and all):

…it’s morning…get up, Janice. … get up now…really, i mean it… 1-2-3 NOW! …okay, one more try, this time for real… 1-2-3- GETUP! oh for goodness sake, you know that if you get up now you’ll have time for a nice cup of coffee before class. mmmm, steamy hot lovely smelling coffee…mmmm. okay, ready? get up now. get up. now. get. up. now. get.up.now.getupnow.getup.getup.getup.up.up.upupuppies puppies!….dang it, Janice, you can be such a moron…fine, if coffee won’t get you up, maybe your bladder will…you know you have to pee…no, you can’t hold it a while longer, you have to get up now…fine, so maybe you can hold it…for goodness sake, why is this so difficult? We go through this every morning…every morning for how many years? not counting naps, and the first few years where it didn’t matter, that means 365 days, multiplied by a lot of years…carry the 11.5…divide by something orange…haha brain, that’ll teach you to try and spring math on me before my eyes are open…oh, my eyes aren’t open…that might help…okaaaayyyyy….squint a little…good…one eye open…good…then the other…oh! it’s not raining…rub your eyes…good…keep ’em open…look for lizards…good…yes, you can blink…………IT DOESN’T TAKE 54 SECONDS TO BLINK!!! Open your eyes!! pathetic. Alright, one foot on the floor…that’s progress…now, just one more….NONONO, cat cat! This is NOT a good time to curl up on my stomach all cute and purring and snuggly…sigh. Late again.

Adventures in Working ’til the Cows Come Home

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Janice Hillmer

Sitting on my balcony this evening, I was enjoying a beautiful sunset and a lightly cooling breeze … and working industriously on my linguistics projects. Just as the world slipped into the magic moment that only lasts for about 10 minutes, and only on the very best of summer nights, I heard the tinkling of bells. For a moment, I thought it was the ice cream truck (well, the ice cream motorcycle with a chilly side car to be precise). Since I had just encountered my very first freshly made coconut ice cream on Sunday, I was prepared to skip downstairs and have another. Looking up, I saw it wasn’t the ice cream-o-cycle after all: it was the cows coming home. The small herd of cattle that moves from field to field near my apartment was making its way around the traffic circle and heading for the lane. Something about watching those cows heading home in the twilight after a long days grazing made me feel very peaceful and content. It also made me realize I’ve been sitting here typing for too long. I’m going to find some ice cream.

Adventures in Airing Dirty Laundry

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Janice Hillmer

I mean the title of this post quite literally. At 4:30 this afternoon, I aired my dirty laundry. If you want to know why, I should back up a few hours…

I had a fantastic lunch with my friend Britte-Catherine. (I had a grilled chicken, avocado and salsa sandwich on 7-grain bread, in case you wanted to know.) Afterwards, we spent a few minutes sniffing lovely lotions and shampoos in the drug store (yes, I’m a girl), until I accidentally squirted one up my nose, after which everything smelled like jasmine and cocoa hand cream (but now I have a very soft nostril, in case you wanted to know.)

While Britte-Catherine was still sniffing, I realized we were close to the flower market, and since I cleaned my apartment yesterday, all my tabletops were looking bare and neglected without their towers of books and lacy coating of dust. I also have a great moldible/flexible plastic vase that has been sad and empty for quite some time. Putting all these things together in my mind, (while trying to discreetly empty my nose of lotion – unsuccessfully, in case you wanted to know), I thought it would be a great idea to pick up some fresh cut flowers on the way home.

I bought a gorgeous bunch of red and orange orchidy kind of looking things and carefully unwrapped them when I got back to my apartment. I pulled out my vase and cheerfully arranged the flowers in it. However, they wouldn’t all fit, so I just arranged a few and put them on my bedroom dresser. I turned my back for a moment, and when I looked again, the vase had toppled over and soaked the cat’s carpet covered scratching post, so I spent 20 minutes scrubbing the hairy thing dry.

When I was finished, I tried again – but with fewer flowers in the vase. It looked sturdy, so I came out here to tell you all about my pretty flowers. Moments later, I heard the unmistakable sound of pouring water…the vase had toppled again. This time, it spewed all its water directly into my laundry hamper. Muttering under my breath, I hauled out my soaking dirty laundry and started hanging it up on the drying rack. I felt a little ridiculous pinning up dirty clothes.

Since I’ve had the vase for a long time, and have always liked it, and since the flowers are quite new, and I don’t know them very well at all, I have naturally blamed the flowers for both disasters. As a result, the whole lot of them are now sitting ignominiously in my mop bucket.