Back to the Land of the LIving

I feel, as the month draws to a close, that I can breathe freely again. This will be short. I simply wanted to end the month on a high note.

I have begun three more paintings of my own. I have a good amount of work from Stanford to keep me going for the next month or two. I try not to look past that, because one just never knows. I have work. It's work that I find rewarding. Maybe it's wise NOT to look past that point for now!

I will be submitting my short story called "The Secret Life of Mindy Walters" for a contest. Those who are too young to understand the reference won't be put off by the title one bit, and that working title makes me laugh. The challenge was to write a story of fewer than 3000 words or so, that show some aspect of modern life. Mine was 24/7 accessibility of moms. Mindy has taken off to go on the family vacation three days before her husband and daughter will join her. She has DESERTED them for her daughter's last two days of school, even. It begins with the cell phone call from the husband, with the texting from the daughter coming, too. She has a running conversation in her head about driving straight north to Canada instead of "turning right" to go to the Island.

The story may stink, but I sure am having fun writing it... my defense of all modern moms who seem to have bought into our culture's decision that we must be accessible, available, ON THE READY every hour of every day.

How I loved being wholly dispensable.

What else? There are major construction vehicles outside my home digging up the road to put in the remaining sewer lines. They decided, SIX years after finishing the sewer lines, that the twelve existing homes without sewer lines were not "dead." The town said we were a dead neighborhood. I asked whether that meant we no longer had to pay taxes, but they did not laugh. Turns out they'd put one of those places for MY home already. I live on a corner. So they are stopping at the house next door. When I asked, "So we've had the option all along to hook up?"

He said, "Well, I don't know. We may not have put the line deep enough for you to ever use, even though, technically you could. But because it's there, we'd have to charge you about ten thousand if you wanted us to extend the line to the the low part of your house. Isn't that funny?"

I said, "No, not really. This town gets me coming and going, huh."

He went, "Oh, yeah. You're the lady who just wanted to teach art, huh? Man. You probably don't think much of this town, huh."

"Not so much, no."

Fortunately, so far the septic tanks work. And we do have the lateral hook up... Maybe we could connect if it came to that. Perhaps this is one of those lessons in life again about NOT looking for trouble. I don't have to have anything done for now at all, and that's a good thing. I think I'll call the septic folks in the morning though, and have the two tanks pumped.

Uh-oh. There goes my cell phone...