I’m outside, in the shivery cold, wearing two shirts, my ‘smoking jacket’, sweats, socks and slippers. The moon is bright and directly in front of me, and I hear nothing but car tires whispering in the distance, an occasional bird who hasn’t realised that it is dark out, and a few thumps and bumps from the neighbours’ house.
It’s quiet because iDJ isn’t here and so there is no music playing – for a change. You have no idea how much I appreciate a non-musical interlude. He’s off buying me cream for my coffee and taking a brand new PC to its new owners – he does computer work on the side and fuck me but it took hours to set up a brand new Dell out of the box. Crazy. Hope he gets some cash for this. (Edit – he did)
Thumps and bumps are because we live in a semi-d. I share a wall with strangers. Well, not that we don’t ever talk but we have SFA in common, other than a dislike for the new neighbours in the estate who leave their yappy dog out all day and all night and never ever make it shut the hell up.
I smell the smoke of fires, mine and theirs – mine is coal and turf briquette, theirs is wood. The air is still enough that the smoke sifts down to me where I sit in the patch of light coming through our sliding glass doors. Shivering.
I don’t want to go in, even if I have a fire waiting. Outside it’s dry, and not windy, and my back feels ever-so-much better if I sit up straight in my Coleman camp chair. Sitting properly is something I do not do when huddled in front of the fire trying to blow my nasty cigarette smoke up the chimney.
I think I’m getting something. A cold, the flu, a bad reaction to having infected teeth. I haven’t been ill in over a year – I forget what the signs are. I feel weird. Stuffed up, but totally able to breathe through my nose. Achy, but just my neck. Headachy, but I’m used to that. We will see. I have another cold sore. This makes two in three weeks. A sure sign my resistance is low and I’m fighting off some horrible nastiness. For me to admit I don’t feel ‘right’ at all probably means I have something seriously wrong. Heh. Not. Heh.
We got free fish today. A friend of iDJ’s brought us cleaned and filleted mackerel. I don’t cook fish, I haven’t the talent. I leave eggs and fish to himself; he has the touch. I was mostly annoyed that I have to wash a raw-fish smelling bowl, and felt a bit odd that we were getting free meat out of the boot of a taxi. I guess that’s my do-something-for-the-first-time observation for the day.
A not new thing I’ve been wanting to mention is something that happens daily on my drive in to work. Same road, same time, every morning, I meet a school bus coming the other way. The bus-driver lifts a hand from the wheel and greets me. Every day.
How cool is that? I don’t know him, I don’t live in that town, and I don’t have kids on his bus. He knows my car and knows I’m there, and gives a little hello. I love Ireland. I would never get that in the States. I give it back, of course. Two ships vehicles passing in the night morning. It cheers me as I sit in my little blue and white box, music (that I love, a rarity) so loud I can’t hear my own engine, on my way to another day of work. I look forward to seeing that bus coming at me.
Himself is home, and the dog is tap-dancing in glee and the cats are talking to him – because he talks back, of course. I expect the music to start any second now, he’s standing at the Mac…
heretherebespiders 