I am such a coddled little Denver sunverite. This 40-degree, cloudy morning, I decided I would clean the house, which it needs only slightly less than the garden needs attention. After breakfast the sky cleared and I headed out into 50 degree sun.
I mopped the winter's filth from the porch swing, the capitals (they're really not), and the doors, then removed the screens from the security door and washed them and my are they more see-through now.
I weeded (grassed, mostly, for which I'm grateful) the bishop's weed on the north side of the house. I guess I should put a border along that property line. The next project was to hoe out the north easement to be ready for vinca, arriving the second week of April, but however non-strenuous the project is, it is also tedious and results in unprotected topsoil (which I could cover with a tarp, but that didn't work with my excuse-making). Vinca, I decided, is tough enough that the still mostly grass and not more tenacious weeds wouldn't pose a big problem for it. In the meantime I transplanted some new shoots from the south easement.
When I had finished with the north side (where I cannot be seen from the porch) and the temperature rose to 60, Blake had accompanied me somewhat, mostly chattering. But occasionally shrieking (two black standard poodles, a golden retriever), so I put him inside, leaving the cage door open so he could prance on the top or in his box. Soon I heard him yell and looked in at him: he was not on his cage, on his own windowsill, nor even on the lower sill, but on the sash of the actual pane, which is of course too narrow for him to perch on, and I took this to mean he wanted out again.
I was done with the front, and willing to break from my unHeraclean labors before tackling the back (amending the vegetable beds, separating the lovely black moist loam resulting from lasagne mulch from the sunflower seed husks that didn't break down as readily), and so Blake occupied one capital and I another, with water and Lonesome Rangers, Homeless Minds, and in less than 15 minutes the sky had clouded over again.
I could have, say, put another layer on: a short gardening skirt and a sleeveless tee is not an outfit I should feel entitled to wear on the last day of winter without chilliness. But if I were goosebumped, so would Blake be. So in we came to await more sun, which, three hours later, isn't going to happen. It is supposedly 60 degrees outside and in, but I don't believe it. Blake and I are on the couch waiting for snow, I swear.
We read, and had a nap (which I felt entitled to, having not slept well), and read, and someone's head got pet, and I am still freezing cold just because I am looking through the window at a cloudy sky, despite socks and a hoodie and yoga pants and the perfectly reasonable temperature on thermometers inside and out.
A couple of times Friday evening I saw Blake begin to lift his left leg to scratch his head, then stop. He does that sometimes anyway, but now of course I wondered if it was from pain or injury. Today he lifts each leg over its respective wing readily, and I am sure he is fine. Which is good, because I didn't relish the prospect of dosing him all by myself. The medicine is supposed to fall on the back of his tongue, the more easily to drip down his throat. Ha, I say.
I was thinking I could pour some on the freckles on my shoulders and chest, which he often runs his tongue across, feeling for any imperfections that his concern for my aesthetic would require that he then try to nibble off. Or perhaps I could wait for a yawning fit, when his mouth opens nearly as widely as my own.
Yesterday we weighed a reluctant buddy on the food scale: 102 grams. Today he's had chow and a piece of cereal and spinach and sprouts and I gave him a piece of white chicken meat to shred, and yesterday I bought him a grannysmith apple of his very own to have by slices.
Way back when it was sunny and I wasn't freezing, I was thinking about going for a bike ride. Now, of course, I think that if I go outside I will shatter like an icicle. I am supposed to flap Blake, though, who is right now perched on one foot atop my ankle, eyes closed from the bottom up, crest relaxed. I can't disturb him now.
Hence why we are both fat.
Hoo boy, yes indeedy, yesterday I opened my closet to dress after my strenuous day buying new china, shopping for groceries, eating sushi, and preparing "the guest room," and before I donned regular clothes I tried out my little black dress.
The first time I emerged in this dress, in 1990, my boyfriend fell off his chair. The night I finally kissed CXJ (my motto: or die trying), I wore this dress (and other men that night were interested; that man was a brick wall of latent heterosexuality). It is a fabulous, simple (hence LBD status), linen frock. I can zip it, and there the story ends. To zip it, I hauled my bosom northward, displaying excess cleavage. No one wants to possess (or see) armpit breast. I didn't try to sit in it, and it no longer skims over my ass but my ass juts. Very attractive. Plus my belly didn't use to touch it (because I didn't use to have one).
Exercise and rather less chocolate. Onward.