random thoughts – Day 1,418 – (Saturday) – the sun

Welcome back sun splotch.

The sun was out today. It appeared through the kitchen window in the morning and as it rose higher, it cast a rectangular patch of sunshine reaching from the kitchen towards the dining room floor. When Winston was alive, he would follow the sun spots around the house and nap in the patches. Even when he had lost his vision, he managed to find the warm sunny spots. 

The sun may have been shining, but it was still cold out. The runner in the bathroom had a couple grungy spots because I often wear shoes in the house, and needed washing. 

In a dry snow, the rugs can be covered with snow and swept clean. In warm weather, they are often laid out in the driveway and cleaned with the hose, dish soap,  and a plastic scrub brush, then draped over the deck rail to dry. 

Bathtub rug cleaning.

The January snow has mostly all melted and sits in dirty patches around the yard, unsuitable for rug cleaning. On a 30-something degree day, there was no way I was going to try hosing it down. The next best timely solution to the dirty rug situation was the bathtub. It will probably take a week to dry. 

During the afternoon, the magic yellow ball blazed in a cloudless sky. Sunglasses would have been helpful during a brief trip across the river, but I had forgotten them. Later in the day, it shone through the sheer drapes that cover the sliders, hitting me in the eyes as I sat in the adjoining living room. It was glorious. It was about time.

Late day sun.

The other day I heard that there were only seven days with Sunshine in the entire month of January. Talk about depressing. I couldn’t find a news story to back it up, so right now it’s hearsay and not admissible in a court of law, but it definitely fits how I remember the longest, grayest, and most dreadful month in forever. 

The rain, the snow, the perpetual cloud cover, scarcity of sunshine, and the steady flow of flood alerts explain the widespread epidemic of sour moods and discontent that had spread throughout the land. Maybe the return of the sun will help us all bust out of the funk. Today's blue sky and sunshine was a great start.