I had planned to turn up my toes for a few minutes after lunch, and then to walk to the Post Office and to the Library. I have had a marathon read between the days before Christmas and today, when all thirteen of the books I had ordered came into the Library at once and all fell due on Friday the 13th.
I really did quite well. I finished Alan Bradbury's 'I Am Sick of Shadows' about midnight last night, which left me with just two books unread, - two books that I was unable to renew because someone else, somewhere in the Okanagan, was sitting on the edge of their easy chair, reading lamp lit, waiting to read these popular tales.
I looked at the blue tote bag that held all these books, and considered the four blocks I would have to walk to the Library.
"Take the cart", - said Charles magnanimously.
The cart makes me nervous. It is a big cart with large wheels, made for fields and uneven ground, and I have seen Charles do wheelies on it, - that cart is adventuresome and dangerous....who knows, - it may even have as mind of its own, as is the way with Charles' canes......
"Take the car", says Charles, understandingly, - and so I pick up my keys, go down on the lift, open the garage door and the gate to the fence and back up into the lane.
I stop at the Post Office and mail my letters, lug the big blue book bag into the Library, and am lucky enough to be able to renew the Emma Donoghue book at the last minute. Somebody else had turned in a copy for she who was waiting anxiously for 'The Sealed Letter'. This made me quite happy, and I left the Library, popped in to see my dear DIL in the Variety Store she would so dearly love to sell and bought a bright Christmas throw and two table runners which will look cheery on someone's tables next Christmas, - my first contribution to the 2012 Christmas present box.
At the grocery store I add a bag of frozen shrimp to the necessities, thinking of a nice easy stir-fry for supper Sunday evening.
On to the Bank, where I make a deposit, - always better than a withdrawal - and then I browse next door at the pharmacy - not the pharmacy which Jenifer owns, where the order of business is strictly pharmaceutical, but the pharmacy cum newspaper/magazine stand, gift shop, vet supplies, the occasional shelf of groceries, and newly added, some belly dancers' jingly belts and a few glamourous sheer scarves, shirred through silver rings with bells and chimes attached. I buy one of these scarves for a beautiful granddaughter, and even consider the belly dancers' jingly thing-a-ma-jig, but decide against it......
When I come home I hear on the weather report a forecast for snow for the next FIVE DAYS - I am elated. It has been such a satisfying afternoon! And here it is Happy Hour already....
For supper I cook a wonderful hamburger that Frank had mixed together with some kind of copacetic genius, and during the evening, while I have been writing this, Charles turned up the television and I quickly went to listen to the most magical wild and tempestuous music, - two violins, a viola and a cello, played with such a fusion of concentration and abandon by four young people from the Chan Centre in Vancouver. I was totally bewitched.
It's been one of those lovely days, and when I lock the doors for the night I will be sure to look and see if the snow has arrived!
