An old friend called yesterday and we talked for an hour. I used to love to talk writing with her. She was in one of my old critique groups. But yesterday I found writing was the last thing I wanted to talk about with her. She was full of doom and gloom about the writing business, friends that we had with past published novels who could no longer find a home for their work, other friends who lost their agents, and on and on like that. She kept urging me to pull strings I might have to get my children's book read. I just don't want to do that and I could not make her understand. No one seems to get my disillusionment with the whole world of writing. I think that's what makes me want to write secretly without telling these people, or even my loved ones.
Back in the old days, when I was unpublished and sitting at my computer for hours in solitude, burning the midnight oil to use a cliche, I got much more kick out of writing that I do now. It was something that was only for me, and it was more fulfilling for me than now. This probably doesn't make sense and I wish I could explain it better. It was my dream and mine alone. I had things I wanted to accomplish, and it had nothing to do with fame and fortune. Once I had my first book contract all that changed. Everybody else got involved in it, watching from the sidelines, wringing their hands in solicitous greed, spoiling the self-satisfaction that should have come from that success.
I lost my way.
Spent $300 buying border fences for all the flowerbeds. We've given up on trapping the armadillo who has been rampaging every night. He leaves the beds looking as if they've been busted with a sulky plow. Hopefully, these sturdy little metal fences will keep him out of the garden. I hated having to do it. You don't see the flowers as well with the little fences binding them, but it was our last resort. As soon as it's light enough, I'm going out there to see if the fences worked to keep the critter out.
The little wren with the nest in the baby's breath basket is starting to sit all day now, so I expect her babies to hatch while we're gone to the Coast. I have been trying to carefully water the plant with her and her darlings in there, but it isn't easy. She flies out as soon as the watering can touches the edge of the hanging basket. I can't see well enough to know if I'm watering right into her nest or not, but I have been putting in just a cup at a time and no more. Next year, I swear, I will stop the nest building immediately. Wrens have a tendency to come back to the same nest building place year after year.
The morning glories have begun to twine up and around the trellises I made for the two wall containers attached to the wellhouse. I imagine they'll outgrow those little trellises quickly, and then will either drape over the edge, or go up over the roof of the wellhouse. I'm anxious to see what works. I don't have much experience with morning glories. I planted some at the Coast, too, and am also eager to get down there to water everything. I imagine it's all thirsty by now, if not deceased already. Don't know why I persist in trying to make something grow down there, with us going no more frequently than we do. Most of my efforts die if it doesn't rain. And it hasn't in a week.
This coming Sunday is the SO family's cemetery decoration day. We're coming back early to attend that, and also to make food to go along with us. That's going to be a trick with the plumbing problems we're having in the kitchen. As soon as the SO's kids left last Sunday, the sinks in the kitchen and the sun room, which are all plumbed together, decided to back up. I brought home some gel type drain opener, but that didn't work at all. So yesterday, when I came back from buying the fencing, I brought sulfuric acid. My SO poured half the bottle down the little sink in the bar in the sun room, but it actually seems worse now. We've said before we call the plumber, we'll try pouring the other half down the side of the kitchen sink without the garbage disposer and see what happens. Now, when we run the dishwasher the sinks all back up, and that was not happening before. We may be making this situation worse instead of better with our stabs at pretending to know what we're doing. The soonest we could get a plumber out would be Monday, and I really hate to go away to the Coast with this problem on our hands. Oh -- sigh! -- the joys of homeownership.
Onward ....
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