Tues. Aug. 26, 2025: Which Door Will Open Next?

image courtesy of Fabien via pixabay.com

Tuesday, August 26, 2025

Waxing Moon

Pluto, Neptune, Saturn, Chiron Retrograde

Partly cloudy and pleasant

And here we are, in another week! The last week of summer. The upcoming weekend is Labor Day Weekend in the US, with a Monday holiday.

Friday morning, I caught up on the dishes. The water went off just as we sat down to dinner on Thursday, which meant we’d finished the cooking and had the pots and pans as well as the plates, cups, glasses, and cutlery. There are only two of us, so it wasn’t that much. And then, of course, the cats’ dishes. Since I love dishes and have many of them, we weren’t going to run out of clean ones any time soon. And, if necessary, I would have gone out on Friday to get some jugs of water we could boil and wash them. (I couldn’t Thursday night, because the roads were closed, and when I went to Cumberland Farms at the bottom of the street, they were already sold out). I just hate having dirty dishes in the sink. But I got them done, and then there was room for the breakfast dishes! (Which were immediately washed).

My mother reminisced about how, in the 1930’s, her grandmother ran a hotel in a rural area without running water. She was known for her coffees and cakes, and people flocked there from the big cities on weekends. She brought the big sheet cakes down to the community oven to bake, and her husband had water buckets on a yoke and would bring in well water for the beverages.

So a few hours without running water is not that big a deal.

And I have some of her tablecloths from the restaurant. We still use them!

One of the ghostwriting projects was deemed as finished, and I was able to invoice. I turned around four medium script coverages.

I read a bit in the evening, and cooked a new-to-us chicken recipe from the cookbook we’re enjoying so much. It was good, but the pepper was out of balance, in our opinion. When we make it again, I will reduce the pepper, by about ¼ teaspoon, and we’ll see how that works.

Keeping a Taste Journal makes me see where we fall into ruts, both in terms of flavor and nutrition. Of course, the impulse is to make more interesting food in order to have something better to write about!

Honored the dark moon.

Up early on Saturday, and honored the new moon. Part of the reason we have the urge to do our “fall clean”  around this time is not just that it bookends our spring cleaning, but that we are in Virgo season, and Virgo is about organization and details.

I started a 90-day experiment of writing (in longhand) for 10 minutes per day in a particular style, to see if that loosens up a few things that feel stagnant. I’m doing it after the morning yoga and meditation sessions, and using the meditation timer. If it doesn’t work in that slot, I’ll switch it up. I felt I was just settling into the writing when the 10 minutes were up, though.

Housework, puttering, getting things organized took up most of the morning. A switch has suddenly gone off in Bea’s consciousness. She hasn’t wanted to be handled much since she moved in. Suddenly, all she wants is to be petted. We had a 40-minute session Saturday morning, and she came back several times during the day for more. She gets very purry (and a little drooly sometimes). It’s very cute.

I’m glad I ignored the advice of “experts” who told me I should force her into being handled a few minutes every day, so she would “get used to it.” I let her adjust in her own time, and now affection is something she wants, not something she just has to put up with. For her, it was the better choice. Every cat is different.

She’s even letting me brush her, which is a good thing, since everybody is shedding like crazy and their winter coats are coming in. I spend a lot of time brushing various and sundry who come my way, and then sweeping up cat hair.

Iris and Violet were small enough (even as adults) that I could just hold them and brush them over the garbage can, but NONE of this batch will put up with that indignation.

Whatever blooms in August and makes me sneeze and makes my eyes itch has popped. Yowza. It’s definitely not as bad as the first year we lived here, but it’s worse than last year, disproving the local who promised it would get easier every year. An herbalist friend of mine says goldenrod is often given a bad rap for this allergy, and it’s not goldenrod. I thought she also said it wasn’t ragweed, but something that grows beside ragweed, but I don’t have that in my notes, so perhaps I am mis-remembering. I will ask her next time I see her.

In my puttering around, I found a bag of dribs and drabs I hadn’t unpacked since we moved here. I unpacked it and put things in their proper places. They actually all had a proper place in the apartment, which was encouraging, and it was nice to find things I’d forgotten about. I also found my souvenir dog tags from MISS SAIGON (a closing gift for the company), and my backstage badge from one of the times I worked the TONY Awards. It was from 2001, which is longer ago than that all feels.

I’m putting aside a stack of mending. On sunny days, when the light is good, I will mend things now and again, and catch up. I got behind in the mending. I found my darning egg, which means I can mend some favorite socks.

I read a memoir by an author whose work I somewhat know about her relationship with her mother, who was a more famous author. It’s very well written, but I came away with two impressions of it. One was that she felt the need to justify the medical decisions she had to make, which, ultimately, are no one’s business outside the family. The second was that she needed a book that would catch public interest and earn the money to pay those medical bills, which it did, and which I totally respect. But I deeply felt that none of the information in this book was any of my business, and I nearly put it down several times not to finish it because I felt my presence as a reader was an intrusion.

I also started reading ENOUGH ROPE, which is a collection of Dorothy Parker’s poems. It’s subtitled “A volume of light verse” and I hope that’s meant to be ironic, because every poem I’ve read so far is formatted in the style of light verse, but is actually about heartbreak and/or failed suicide attempts. If the subtitle is not meant ironically, I worry about a lack of reading comprehension. Dark humor? Definitely. Light verse? Um, no.

Heated up leftovers for dinner. Started meal planning for the holiday weekend.

Slept well, and the cats were not amused when I lounged in bed until 6:30 on Sunday. Fed everybody, did the longer yoga sequence, did the meditation. Tessa finds it fun to knock me over when I’m in a balancing pose. It’s funny after, but not when I hit the floor! Day 2 of the 90-day writing experiment went well although, again, the 10 minutes flew by and I was just settling into the rhythm.

We had a big breakfast (yay, something different to write about in the Taste Journal), and then I did the Community Tarot Reading for the Week and scheduled it to post. Bea ran away with the Star card from the Marseille deck after last week’s reading, so I’m sure I will be searching for it for months. When I find her stash, I will find it, along with catnip strawberries, toy mice, and whatever else she’s hidden.

I got some ironing done, but most of the day was pretty quiet. I needed to rest my brain, and did so by reading. I finished a book I’ve enjoyed so much, A TRACE OF DECEIT by Karen Odden. The writing is just gorgeous, and the mix of literary fiction with elements of art, history, and mystery perfectly blended. I think it’s categorized as “historical mystery” but it’s much more than that. It was hard not to finish it and immediately start it again as a re-read. I’m looking forward to reading more of her work.

I read another book, a mix of historical/alt reality/mystery/fantasy that was the next in a series I enjoyed, and that was a fun read. Hit the spot. And then I read a book that I’d heard a lot of good stuff about (in a different genre), but found it far too formulaic and tropey, and the writing was just meh. It was fine, there was nothing wrong with it, but it didn’t grab me the way other books in the genre have, and certainly not the way the other two recent reads did. I kept getting too far ahead of it, waiting for the characters to catch up, and then getting annoyed with them. While there’s often comfort in knowing the basic expectations of a genre piece, I also want to enjoy the journey getting there WITH the characters, not arrive 100 pages ahead of them.

Cooked dinner, making up a recipe with sauteed onions, pork, and green enchilada sauce that turned out very well.

Pulled myself together and went to the closing reception for “The Work of Becoming” at FutureLabs. It was great to see my fellow cohort members and talk with the gallery owners. The gallery and I are talking about working together again.

It did, however, also feel very much like the closing of the cohort chapter, although the connections and continued work together for many of us will continue. Unlike the separation anxiety I had at the end of the 2024 cohort, this feels right. It feels like we’ve all progressed together, and can now take that out into the world, as individuals, and as a collective. I am deeply grateful to Assets4Artists for these opportunities these past two years. I got to try things I would have never dared to on my own, and gave me a set of tools that can be applied to all kinds of work.

Of course, now I have to go out there and use these tools!

But I feel like I have a good foundation now, even in these intentionally chaotic times that are created to break us.

Picked up my piece and brought it home. I have to figure out how and where to store it. Because of the tarot cards sewn into the piece, it can’t be rolled on the hanging bar, nor can it be folded typically. Right now, it’s folded atypically until I figure out what to do with it. I might sew a custom muslin bag for it, fold it atypically, and then be able to store it like that.

Had trouble getting to sleep, but finally slept and was up at the usual time. The ghostwriting client paid me, yay, I can cover September’s bills. I’m debating whether or not to order print copies of the Nina Bell books to sell after the reading. I’d have to order them now and hope they get here in time.

Morning routine went well, although the 10-minute writing experiment was more of a practicality brain dump than something creative. And 10 minutes doesn’t feel like enough. If I still feel that way by Day 10, I may increase it to 15 minutes. If I can settle into 10, I’ll leave it at 10.

This week has to be about a lot of practicalities, and I spent some time sorting them. Once I have the basic map in my head, much like driving, I can change direction as needed. The script coverage job is wrapping up this week, and I’m in good shape on that. I would have liked more work in our last hurrah, but as usual, they tried to over-pile on us over a couple of days, and pushed us to working on a weekend, and I chose not to. It will be good to have that door definitively closed next week, and get the final payout.

I paid some bills and order cat litter and treats. I had an in-person meeting  first thing, which went well, then ran some errands, including picking up my mother’s new prescription. That “question” that kept going around and around was whether or not to put it on auto-refill. Since the doctor wants her in for bloodwork a week after she starts the new medication, I said not for the moment. Why couldn’t they have just cleared that up the first time I came in, last week? Instead of the round-and-round for days?

My mom will be able to get the updated COVID booster (probably) in November (unless all the COVID shots have been pulled, which I heard is on the table). I will not. CVS has the sign up saying it’s time for free vaccines for everything including COVID, but is not actually allowing any COVID bookings. I may see if I can get one through some other venue. It’s not like CVS has been easygoing about any of it since the beginning.

Canada, of course, has approved all the effing vaccines.

I would really like to live in a country with health care instead of a death cult.

Picked up a few groceries. Swung by another place for an impromptu meeting to get a few things sorted, and that’s all good.

I managed two more errands, one successful and one not. Hauled everything home.

I got an extension on the anthology story (all of us involved did), which takes immediate pressure off me this week. I will still work on it, but I don’t have to panic. I got my next ghostwriting assignment, 6K due on Sept. 9, which I will begin today. I turned around two medium coverages and thought I was finished with it all, when one more landed in my queue. I might wait to tackle that tomorrow (it’s due Saturday, but I am not working Memorial Day Weekend).

I started reading a book that I’d heard a lot about and just hated it. The protagonist fit the “too stupid to live” category, the author (not the character, but the author) made fun of people who choose not to conform, and the choice of where to switch POV chapters and to whom didn’t work for me. I read about 50 pages, then skimmed the rest and was more and more frustrated. So that goes back. Started another book about which I’d heard good things, but it’s in present tense, so nope. I’m not being paid to read it, so I’m not wasting my time with it.

Finally picked up SHARP by Michelle Dean, a nonfiction book about smart women breaking rules. It’s terrific. It has background material for several of my projects.

The entire day, I had a feeling of disquiet and unease, but couldn’t really nail down why. I woke up at 4 AM and realized why – someone is trying to push me into a project with a timeline that is not realistic. So I will write a kind, but firm response proposing a different timeline that has much more chance of working. If they accept it, great. If not, we can both move on. With the sense of relief, I realized THAT was the thing causing the sense of unease yesterday. So I will deal with it and not worry. (Saturn retrograde influence). I also had to laugh, because the whole sequence mirrors the Community Tarot Reading for the week that dropped yesterday. Of course it does, because tarot is a tool that brings up and translates what your unconscious already knows, but your conscious mind hasn’t yet caught up with.

Bea has decided that when I sit in meditation, the time is better spent petting her, because, after all, I am JUST SITTING THERE. And the 10-minute writing experiment proved again, to be too short. I will have to expand it to 15. I hate stopping just when I hit the rhythm.

This morning, I do the polish on the Llewellyn materials and get that off to my editor, work on the anthology story, and work on the ghostwriting. I have a meeting in Lenox late this afternoon for the WAM literary committee, and I have to make sure everything is organized for that. I have some emails to get out about yesterday’s meetings, so everyone knows everything they need to know. I need to work on a proposal and take a look at some grant applications. I looked at one yesterday which I don’t think is a good fit, but there are a couple more, and a residency application that I think would make more sense.

I have to help my mom with some paperwork, too, and contact the post office to see when they will resume mail delivery. If we were supposed to go to the post office to pick up our mail during this time, then they should have let us know. Not to mention that the Sidewalk Chewing Demons have moved on to the next street, leaving gaps between steps and sidewalks, chewed up ramps from driveways/parking lots to the street, and yards dug up. Not acceptable.

Lots of detail work today. Have a good one!