random thoughts - Day 1,975 (Wednesday) - lunch and critters

Like many recent days, I woke up a little later than usual and still felt tired. There was coffee with Mom and email and a slow start to resuming dealing with the boxes. Time spent in the armchair surrounded by boxes and going through job postings online is time not spent finishing moving into the house, and that is the tightrope walk. 

View from the
lunch table.

There was lunch at The Old Mill with Mom, Sis, and one of my nieces for my birthday. The ducks and some gray geese were posing near the rocks when we arrived and our table overlooked a slow-moving, gentle stream. The dining room had several full tables and a waiter who was hopping busy. The conversational volume from the tables, combined with the acoustics, made us have to practically yell to talk and we joked how it felt like we were in a nightclub. 

The food was good. My lunch was wild mushroom ravioli in a creamy tomato sauce. Other meals at our table were a giant slab of fried fish and chips, teriyaki steak with potato, and chicken and pasta alfredo. Back outside in the parking lot in the 90-degree heat, we considered going to Mom's to play Yahtzee, but it was already after 2:00, and we were all full and tired and decided against it.

Back home at the ranch house, I sat around. It was 85 and stuffy in the house and I caved and finally turned on the two window A/C units. The game of "how long can I hold out?" felt less interesting when the air was closing in warm and heavy. And besides, it's my birthday. 

So cute!

Later, I took a ride to Aldi for a mini cheesecake assortment I saw there earlier in the week. It's eight of the cutest little slightly larger-than-bite-sized triangles of cheesecake on a tray. Two almost make a normal sized slice, so I had two and chocked it up to a birthday indulgence. 

Next door at Tractor Supply, the plant display in the parking lot looked dead and was still full-price. Inside, they had Halloween decor that included a skeleton rooster and a little cow dressed in a sheet like a ghost. They were almost cute enough to get me to open my wallet, but I remembered I don't need any more stuff and snapped back to reality. 

Around 6:00, when I was ready to walk to the mailbox, thunder began rumbling and I imagined being caught in a downpour and dashing back home soaked. The thunder stopped after about an hour, we were not delivered any rain, and the evening walk to check the mail finally happened. The pace was quick and I may start tracking routes and times and personal bests because I am that flavor of nerd no matter what day it is. 

Serious model potential.

Kiki emerged from her daytime napping ritual and ventured out to the living room. She puttered about and then posed on the rug like a model in a drawing class, which is a job posting I saw on the local community college website (for human models, not cats). Eventually, she slipped over to the open dining room window. She stretched up on her dainty little back paws, placed her front paws on the window sill, and looked and sniffed through the screen at the new world. So cute. Even cuter than a little cow in a sheet like a ghost.