V-Day 2010 Retrospective

The “Big V” (Valentine’s Day) is behind us now. I have to say it was about 90% successful. California Chef produced a wonderful menu, so at least this year I’m not worried whether the quality of the food was where it needed to be (in the past, I was the chef, and usually in waaay over my head…) The restaurant was full for about an hour and a half; service didn’t exactly go without a hitch (a certain husband who shall remain nameless screwed things up by running food out to the wrong tables… Once we sent him back to the kitchen to help the dishwasher, things in the front of the house improved immeasurably.)

Even though I didn’t have to create and produce the entire menu this year, I am still exhausted. Maybe not as completely exhausted as I was last year…I don’t know. Exhaustion seems to be like labor…you know it sucks when you’re in the middle of it, but when you’re out of it, you forget how bad it really was. I’m too tired to analyze to what degree I’m exhausted.

I wear every hat there is to wear when it comes to one of these special events. There is no delegating this stuff…I am it. I still had to procure all the supplies, create and publish all the marketing materials, decorate the restaurant, puzzle out the whole “reservations” thing, etc, etc., etc. And wouldn’t it be nice if, after weeks of running around behind the scenes to assure the night is a success, I could just BE the owner on the Big Night? You know, greeting folks at the door, going around to the tables and schmoozing, that kind of thing? But no…on the evening of February 14th, I WAS the appetizer/soup/salad station. No rest for the…entrepreneur.

I’m only whining because I’m so tired. We did good—our highest sales Valentine’s Day ever. Our highest sales DAY of any kind ever (under our ownership.) And thus, our highest sales WEEK ever. I absolutely know that, in the midst of the economic malaise that continues to beset our fair nation, I have nothing—nada, rien, zip, zilch, zero—about which to complain. The Universe has been very kind to us for the past several months. I just wish I wasn’t so tired that I can’t properly appreciate that…

Cross-posted from "Hot Flash Cafe..."

Bad Dreams

It's dark and cold and rainy outside these days, and I expend a lot of physical and emotional energy at the restaurant; so on my infrequent free evenings, the instinct is to hunker down into a nice warm chair in front of the fire…and the boob tube. This time of year usually brings at least one television show that I get hooked on in re-runs. Last year, it was "Boston Legal." This season, it's "Ghost Whisperer."

For anyone who hasn't seen "Ghost Whisperer," it's the continuing saga of a young woman who can see and speak to ghosts. Every episode finds our heroine (played by Jennifer Love Hewitt) encountering a new "earthbound spirit." Over the 42-minute course of the show, she puzzles together who the ghost is, how he/she died, and ferrets out what unfinished business is keeping the spirit tethered to its earthly life. At the end of each episode, through buckets of tears and confessions and revelations, the spirit crosses over to…wherever spirits are supposed to go.

The really unfortunate part of all this is that I tend to dream in "television show." Whatever tv drama I am currently immersed in makes frequent appearances at my nocturnal home theater. Which is fine, when you're hooked on something like "Frazier" or even "ER." And, these days, I'm kind of missing Bill Shatner, James Spader et al. Because at least their fictitious exploits did not give me bad dreams.

Two nights ago, I had a whopper of a "Ghost Whisperer" dream that upset me so much, I was on the verge of tears most of the morning after. I dreamed that my husband had died, and I knew this because he was standing right next to me, but I was the only one who could hear or see him. I was horrified.

Now, I am in possession of a bizarre but very effective nightmare defense: I talk myself out of bad dreams. That is, while I'm there in the dream, and things are getting frightening or upsetting, I say, "This is only a dream…" and I close my eyes and open them again, and whatever it was that scared or disturbed me is gone. The scene changes and I just…go on to something else. Talk about a control freak…I can even wrestle my dreams unto acceptable shape.

But this dream did not go away when I tried that little trick. My husband was dead, and I was insane with grief, and then, there he was, right next to me. Talking to me. And I kept asking everyone around me if they could see him, and of course, they couldn't. Because he was dead. And I had to accept that he was dead.

And just as I was getting used to the fact that he was dead and he was a ghost, but at least he was WITH ME, he decided it was time to go. He hadn't stayed to tell me how much he loved me, or how much he was going to miss me, or how he would wait for me, and in just a very short time we would be together again. Nope… no tender touch, not even a playful punch in the shoulder. Just, "Oh, gee! Look at the time! Gotta go!"

Truthfully, it felt uncannily like every time I have asked him to take a day or two off, or leave work a couple of hours early, for a birthday, anniversary, something (anything) I felt was important. It's not that he never does take the time off…but I always have to beg. Over the years, my husband has not shied away from letting me know precisely where I rank on his priority list. And let me just say…it is not first place. So in this dream, I'm begging him to stay with me, and he's just saying, "Nope. Gotta go. See ya."

It upset the hell out of me because it was so exactly what he would do. It was disturbingly in character.

And I could have gone a long time—the rest of my life, even—without that revelation…

Lest You Think I've Fallen Off the Face of the Earth...

I have been neglecting “Coming to Terms…” again. However, I do thank all of you who gave me your email addy’s in anticipation of my taking “Terms…” private. I’ve decided not to take that drastic step, for the time being. If things should get weird again, I’ll revisit that whole issue…

I have been writing, but posting at “Women On…” (where my political commentary seems to be going over like a fart in church…) and “Hot Flash Café” (where most of my life force has been directed for the past few months…) But here is the nutshell update for anybody who’s interested:

The restaurant has been busy, so I have been either running around like a headless chicken or too tired to write anything that makes any sense. Besides being busy, we are going through more employee dramas…might be that we will experience some real crew turnover within the next couple of months.

All is not well behind the scenes at the café. We are in that space where long-term staff’s know-it-all complacency is running up against ownership’s desire to take the place to a new level. Staff is not particularly interested in going where ownership wants it to go. And is in fact planting its feet and pulling backward on the lead like a recalcitrant mule…

I hate the idea of having to indoctrinate a whole new set of employees. On the other hand, I hate having to drag my current crew kicking and screaming to the place we need them to be. It might just be a whole lot easier to start with a completely clean slate. I am torn between clinging desperately to the devil I know and taking the chance on throwing that demon over for…whatever else is out there. It would be just my luck that the “whatever else” would turn out to be infinitely worse than what I’m currently trying to manipulate. In the end, the choice will probably be taken out of my hands. The attrition has already begun, with the exodus of Flaky Cook and the impending exit of the Good and Faithful “D.”

To complicate matters further, business has been entirely wonky. We’re either empty or swamped, no in-between, and no predicting when or how. Mondays are improving, Mondays suck. Senior Night is crazy, Senior Night is tailing off. Fridays stink, Fridays rock. No rhyme or reason whatsoever. My crew of eight (and myself) were exhausted after our record December. But as soon as I made up my mind to post an ad and bring on more help, sales tanked. Called a halt to the hiring binge, and sales cranked back up to record levels.

As my mom used to say, “I can’t win for losing.”

And then there is the “small-town economy” dynamic with which we have been contending since Day 1. We have learned a lot about which conditions will spell success and which will spell disaster for those of us in the business of vying for the limited dining out dollars within our isolated little market. We keep tabs on the comings and goings of other eating establishments as vigilantly as a cat at a mouse hole. The demise of three local competitors in the fourth quarter of last year has been responsible for our current rosy numbers. One could almost believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel, if things could just stay this way. If no other fool would decide to muck up the water by dipping their ignorant and ill-conceived oars into it.

But then we get word that a new strip mall is slated for construction up the road a piece. And that a big-but-as-yet-unnamed restaurant will be going in. Which causes me to ponder an exit strategy, about which I morosely post over at the Hot Flash Café.

So my life is, still and forever, a roller coaster. Which I’m afraid might be starting to wear me down. But, just when I think I’ve had it, I get my second (third, fourth, hundredth) wind, and I go back at it with a vengeance.

Can’t live with it, can’t shoot it, I guess…

2009: Blog Year-at-a-Glance

It weighs heavily on me that I have written nothing here for three weeks. No jolly holiday entries, no 2009 epilog entries, no political exhortations…not even a rant about the restaurant. My only excuse is that we did record sales at the café in the month of December, and dealing with that while trying to carve out some kind of personal holiday season left me with little energy for much of anything else. And then, on New Years’ Day, I came down with The Crud (a term coined by one of my former bosses, which referred to the nasty winter cold/flu/whatever to which we managers usually succumbed sometime during or after the holidays—no doubt brought on by the stress and long hours thereof…)

Feeling a bit better this morning, I sat down to write my traditional “year at a glance” New Year’s entry—the one where I take the first sentence from the first post of every month as the story of my year. But I realized that my schizophrenic opening, closing and re-opening of Coming to Terms left me with two months of 2009 where I did not post at all. So, because I want to do this anyway and I want to quit kicking myself for neglecting my writing, I’ve decided to use posts from Hot Flash Café and Women On to fill in for the months when Terms lay dormant. It’s all my writing, right?

So—here it is:

January--I set about the task of de-Christmasifying the house when I got home from work today. (Posted January 10th… I’m right on schedule—haven’t touched any of it yet this year. Planning that for…later.)

February--It's true…I stopped publicly adding to "Coming to Terms…" (And then started, and then stopped, and started again…)

March—(From Hot Flash Café)-- Yesterday, one of my employees whispered to me that she’d “heard on the grapevine” that one of our competitors has not paid their rent in four months. (A hint of the scary prevailing climate in the small business world…)

April--I finally have things arranged so that I don’t have to tote a computer back and forth to work. (…so that I can walk to work. Which I have done exactly once in the ensuing nine months. Go me!)

May—(From Women On…) Here is a headline that really disturbed me: Churchgoers More Likely to Back Torture. (And I did try to keep my political wits about me…)

June--I know...I said I was closing down this journal... But someone, awhile ago, wondered what had become of the stray cats I had written about. (Oh, yeah…that on again, off again thing...sneaking up to being on again...)

July--If it seems that I am neglecting my blogging, please forgive me. I have been spending inordinate amounts of time online…but I’ve been attending to other things. (Off again?)

August—This has been a hard week. (Aren’t they all? But that which does not kill us makes us stronger…)

September--Coming To Terms is coming up on its sixth birthday. Six years. Wow. (That fact alone made me realize I couldn’t close it down…)

October--An amorphous sense of discontent has plagued me lately. (Likely chafing against the economy-spawned sense of spinning my wheels this entire year…)

November--I grew up in Estrogen Central. (A little rant about the trials and pitfalls of inducting a male into the heretofore estrogen-heavy crew of the “Hot Flash Cafe…”)

December--It's not escaped my notice that I tend to head right for the keyboard when I'm stressed, unhappy or overwhelmed. (No…duh?)

2009 was…a year. A year that I realized, on my walk to the mailbox after work today, was not all that bad. Only a few minor traumas, and some really good memories. And in spite of the economy, the Café held its own, with only one or two small panic attacks along the way.

So, Happy New Year, Everyone! May 2010 bring each of us a little peace, a little calm, and one or two of our heart’s desires, large or small.

Lisa :-]

Happy...

It's not escaped my notice that I tend to head right for the keyboard when I'm stressed, unhappy or overwhelmed. Of course, my life isn't all about negotiating the minefield of small business ownership, and trying to duck pieces of crap flying off the fan blades. I just tend to sort of…bask in the good times, rather than run to the computer and bang out a blog entry. So…in an effort to inject a modicum of balance into this collection of frustration-laced essays, I feel compelled to relate some stories of the past week.

Let's start with last Saturday. Saturday was holiday D-day for me—the day that would either make or kill my entire Christmas season. It was the day my chef, the Husband and the Good and Faithful "D" ventured up the hill to a home that could well have been featured in Sunset magazine, to cater an eight-course meal for a group of six couples. Six couples who had heretofore held their Christmas gathering in the "Wine Room" of the Benson Hotel in downtown Portland. Not just a tall order…think Mount Everest.

We had never, ever done anything like this before. And, to the nail-biting frustration of Li'l Ole Control-Freak Me, the success or failure of this little endeavor was almost completely out of my hands. I'd handed the controls to the young man with the knowledge and the creds to carry it off—California Chef.

My input into the catering affair was reduced to making sure if Chef said, "I need…", whatever it was he needed materialized forthwith. I adopted an attitude of almost aggressive indifference to Chef's preparation…knowing I had no basis for useful input, I opted to step as far away from the proceedings as I could. I let Chef fill our fridges to bursting with his prep, put my head down and set myself to the task of running the rest of the business. With a vengeance.

Late Saturday afternoon, I sent the little posse up the hill with my exhortation to "Make us proud." Then I turned around and attacked the work I couldn't get done all day while Chef monopolized every appliance and surface in our tiny kitchen with his last-minute preparations. In chef's absence, it was up to me to handle dinner service for the café. Luckily, we were just busy enough to keep my mind off what might be going on up the hill.

At 8:45, I was putting the finishing touches on my scoured grill and "T", my front-of-the-house girl of the evening, was rinsing and polishing the stainless steel sinks in the kitchen. The back door opened, and the "Conquering Heroes" began dragging empty coolers and assorted dishware down the hall. "Oh, crap," I whined ungraciously to "T". "We just got finished cleaning up and now they're going to come in here and trash the kitchen….!"

"Great to see you, too!" sniped the Husband. Oops.

A few minutes later, after finally swallowing the trepidation that kept rising up in my gullet, I asked:

"So… How'd it go?"

Young Chef, who had up until this time maintained his inscrutable quiet, replied with a one-sided grin,

"Well…we got a standing ovation."

Yesssss!

Going Underground

Perhaps some of you who have tried to visit in the past twenty-four hours have met with the notice that this blog is now private and you have not been added as a reader. I'm coming up for air one more time just in case there is anyone out there who would like to be invited to continue to read after I take "Coming to Terms..." private for good. I know many of you come here from "Desert Year" but have not become official "followers" of the blog, so I can't find you to ask you if you'd like to continue to visit.

This blogging road has been a long and strange one. "Coming to Terms..." was born in 2003. It came to be as part of AOL's "journals" experiment. We neophyte bloggers grew, networked, made friends and built a community. Which, as everyone knows, AOL razed last October in favor of...I'm not sure what.

I've seen many people come and go. Had many friends who I no longer "see." I suppose that is something that happens in "real life," too. But it has been painful for me, because this Land of Blog is where I did a great deal of healing after several terrible years. I know it still is, and can be, a place of great healing and sharing. But, apparently, not for me.

The thing is, for all those six plus years, I could never get any of the people I care about in my real life to read my blog. Unfortunately, since this past summer when I inadvertently invited some people associated with the cafe to read (not taking into account that some of what I have posted here is not consistently flattering to the people I work with) I have acquired some new readers. Readers with local ISP’s who visit several times a day—almost obsessively. I can only assume these readers have a not altogether kosher agenda, since they don’t choose to leave comments or interact in any way. I have no idea what kind of harm they might mean to cause me, or could cause me, but I can’t afford to ignore them and wait to see what happens.

Hence the need to take “Coming to Terms…” private. It’s a move I hate to make; though I’ve given up the idea of acquiring NEW readers, every once in awhile, an old j-land friend I haven’t seen or heard from in ages will stop by and leave a comment. I’ll have to hope they can find me some other way…

Anyway, as of…sometime later this week, “Coming to Terms…” will close its doors to the public and be open by invitation only. So…if you would like an invite, please leave your contact information (I'll need your email address and I promise I won't spam you or even email you, except an invitation to the blog...) in a comment.

Otherwise, goodbye… And thanks for reading.

:-]

Eight? Seven? Six? Whatever...

I’m back-ordered a couple of days on “thankfulness…”

No great excuse, here, that everyone (or no one, evidedently...) hasn’t already heard. I got caught up in café issues, worked twenty-four hours in two days, and was too worn out yesterday to even pick up the lap-top.

As I mentioned, business has been good this month. Good for any month, but especially spectacular for November. I thought, “Wow, maybe we are finally starting to get it, and people are starting to get us.” That would have been a great feeling. But, as has been the case almost every other time in my life when I thought I might actually be responsible for my own success, I discovered that it is more a case of things over which I personally have no control, causing our good run.

Two local eating/drinking establishments have closed their doors since October 30, which has had the effect of leaving bigger slices of the same dining-out-dollar pie for those of us who remain. So while I’m thankful that our numbers are good this month, I know better than to go into paroxysms of joy about how we’re finally on our way and there’s nowhere to go but up.

We need to carpe diem. We need to take advantage of this little windfall the Universe has provided for us, try to impress those folks coming through our doors who perhaps have never been here before, or who perhaps have been here but had a bad experience and didn’t come back, and are going to give us another go. I hope we can do that.

So, while I’m grateful for the chance, I won’t say that I’m thankful for somebody else’s misfortune. I KNOW that “There but for the grace of the Universe go I…” We’ll just keep our noses to the grindstone and try to maximize the opportunity.

That was going to be the extent of my essay on gratitude for today, until I logged on and looked at my email. There was an email from an old J-land friend, one who just recently “found” me again. He is one of these people who used to post very rarely, but when he did post, his insights into his life used to just blow me away. I thought I had lost him forever when AOL dumped us all over the side.

The email I got from him today was very much like his old blog posts. It was an essay about his dad, who he just found out is very ill. Truthfully, I don’t know if I was meant to receive the email. It’s possible that I just got added to his “reply all” list by mistake. Either way, I felt so fortunate to receive that “letter.” His writing was, once again, simple and forthright and powerful, and brought tears to my eyes.

And it reminded me, all over again, of the friends—many now lost in the ether—that I made and cherished in the days of AOL-J. This simple, powerful letter, that I may have received by mistake, was what the journal community was all about back then. So much more intimate, so much more meaningful, than the games, quizzes, and superficial “status updates” of Facebook and Twitter.

It reminded me of why, in spite of all the changes and losses and disappearances, I’m still here.

I can’t give up this place. Lonely and forsaken as it sometimes feels, now, I cannot leave. The memories alone are enough to hold me. And there are always the friends who are still out there, somewhere.

Thank you, Thomas. It was good to remember.

And I wish the best for your Dad…

Nine: Thanks to You...

Today was my first day off in three weeks. I’ve been working hard, stressing out, spending a lot of money on labor and not figuring out why that cannot equal my actually being able to take a day off now and then.

But today, I did…almost nothing. I had my nails done. I threw some laundry into the washer. I wiped down my vanity and the inside of my shower in anticipation of the cleaning lady’s visit (I don’t mind leaving some dirt for her to deal with, but I have a real problem with anyone seeing how slovenly I’ve really become.)

And I sat for hours with the computer in my lap, playing solitaire and flitting back and forth between Facebook and reading blogs. It was just like old times…except for the Facebook part.

I realized that the thing I’m grateful for today is…

This.

“Coming to Terms…” My blog. And the community I found, quite by accident, when I cast my line into the AOL journal pond six years ago. Six. I can scarcely believe it.

I have friends that I would not have had it not been for this amazing, frustrating, challenging, blessed medium.

I know there are not many of you left who come here and check up on my drivel. I sort of screwed the pooch on that one, “closing” my journal, as I did this past spring, and then opening it up again almost immediately. I found I couldn’t let it go…couldn’t let it die. But I pretty much shed myself of most of the readers I had left…

I know there are some of you out there who stop by and don’t comment (“Feedjit” never lies…) Could you do me a favor? If you have a blog, and I don’t go there, could you say hi and leave a link? I hate one-sided conversations, you see…

Anyway, to those who knew me when, and to those who know me now, and to those few of you in both camps…

Thank you.

You light up my life.

Ten: My Parents' Last Gift

It’s November. Here in the Pacific Northwest, that means autumn is hanging on for all it’s worth while winter stomps on its fingers. Warm wet storms spiral up from the south, icy arctic air blows down from the north, and somewhere around my back door, they duke it out.

As of November 2007, the blustery, schizophrenic weather will forever remind me of my mother’s last months. I always believed that it took the winds of a powerful Oregon storm—in fact, it’s gone down in history as the December 3rd Hurricane—to carry her recalcitrant soul into the light. Much as circumstances had dictated an unwelcome distance between me and Mom in her final years, her passing nevertheless left a jagged hole in the fabric of my life.

My parents—mundane, predictable people that they might have been—broke that mold with the manner of their passing. Dad had always been fairly meticulous about his health, consulted physicians on a regular basis, followed doctor’s orders and lived a pretty damn clean life—didn’t smoke, rarely drank, stayed mentally engaged, preferred spending time in his workshop, garden or fishing boat to sitting in front of the boob tube. Mom, on the other hand, smoked, drank, never went anywhere near doctors and watched television religiously. In 1991, Mom fell and broke her leg, refused the surgery that might have properly mended it, and ended up dependent upon a walker for the rest of her life. At that point, Dad became her primary caregiver as well as her mate. Not a one of us children had ever thought in a million years that Dad would die before Mom. It was simply an inconceivable scenario, not just because of the differences in their lifestyles, but because Mom would not survive without my dad.

But Dad did go first. When he died in 1999, he left behind his handicapped, utterly dependent and, at the time, extremely ill wife of 54 years; a small nest egg, a couple of negligible life insurance policies, and a house with no mortgage. Evidently, even he had never considered being the first to go; because, lifelong bean-counter that he was, he had never formulated a plan for how Mom should go on, financially, without him. We four bereft, shell-shocked daughters were left to figure out how to make what Dad left behind provide for my mother for however long she needed it. I remember saying at the time, “Who knows, she’s a tough old bird. She just might live another ten years.” Which, given the delicate state of her health when Dad died, none of us really believed. But, by damn, she was tough. She didn’t live another ten years; she came up just a little over a year short. And we were grateful that The Universe, or my Dad’s spirit—or kismet or karma or her guardian angel—stretched her resources enough to keep her comfortable for that last almost decade of her life.

In true “loaves and fishes” fashion, there was even a modest amount of cash left over to be distributed among the family when Mom left us. And so we found ourselves, in the manner of countless generations of finally orphaned fifty-somethings, sadly looking down at our little fistfuls of money and wondering what to do with it. Sure, it’s nice to have that extra ten grand…but when you think of where it came from, there’s no joy in it. And no real desire to run right out blow it on something outlandish.

Also, in our case, the money came with an unspoken commission. My parents had always been thrifty, saved more than they spent, did without things they couldn’t afford for years while they raised their brood, used credit wisely… The money that we held in our hands after their passing had been acquired and nurtured through a practice of fiscal conservativeness for which we have neither the understanding nor the patience, in today’s world. I felt a responsibility to spend—or not spend—their money in a way that would honor the two who had worked so hard for it and stretched it so far.

So it sat in the bank, that money, for almost two years. Because I couldn’t think of anything important enough—anything worthy enough—to use it for.

Eventually, I realized I wanted a car. A used car, slightly better than a beater, that was not a giant, noisy, smelly white pickup truck that consumed mass quantities of the most expensive fuel available. And I knew Dad would approve of paying cash for my little silver van that I picked up for $2000 below Blue Book.

And then, as I anticipated the arrival of the very weather that whisked my mother’s soul to eternity, I decided on a second purchase. Something that I have wanted for a long time, but never quite had the extra resources to justify the splurge. I realized that now I did have the money; and though the thing I wanted did not fall into the category of “necessity,” I could justify the purchase by the fact that it would still leave me with nearly half my parents’ money safely squirreled away.

So now, in my bedroom—the place I tend to crash and burn after long hours toiling away at the restaurant—where once was an empty firebox and a forest of candles assembled to approximate a cheery blaze, there now resides a genuine gas-log fireplace. Outside, the wind howls, the branches whip, the rain swirls, and I am warm and safe and mellow in front of my instant fire.

I am enchanted. And grateful.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.

I miss you.

Eleven: Help...!

I don’t know why, but the past month I’ve felt completely overwhelmed. Things have been a little crazy at the restaurant. I have been used to—and perhaps even anticipated—business settling into a somewhat subdued late year pattern after the end of September. It gave me time to think about the holidays with my family, to play around with decorating the restaurant…to just slow down and remember I had a life outside the business.

Fortunately or un-, that is not happening this year. We are on track to do a record November, lord willing and the creek don’t rise. On the heels of a record October. I should be stoked, relieved, grateful…and I am. Still, I don’t much care for the corollary feeling that the rest of my life is getting the short end of the stick.

Due to the sooner-than-anticipated return of one of my flu-stricken employees, I was able to steal a few hours away from the restaurant this afternoon. I went home with the idea of accomplishing something in the way of catching up with the mountain of housework that has been left undone for months. And it was utterly intimidating. Everywhere I turned, there was something that was a complete disaster, had been a disaster for, I realized, months, and was likely to continue to be a disaster because I was not able to put more than about two hours of conscious, productive time together to direct at any task.

My bedroom is an earthquake, my bathroom is toxic and my closet is an explosion waiting to happen. Upon my kitchen counters are stacks of things that have literally been there since last Christmas. I don’t have to look too hard for the Christmas CD’s and movies I want to play…they never got put away from last year. And we won’t talk about the giant animal-hair-bunnies that are starting to look like the Bumble Snowman, or the dust so thick it resembles fire extinguisher residue.

I tried to distract myself from the completely out-of-hand household situation by looking outside at the yard, but that was no good. The patio furniture is scattered all over the lawn, there is a half-built greenhouse taunting me from behind the shed, all my potted plants are looking puny and pleading for me to put them away somewhere and not let them die in the cold, and the stuff that DID die in the cold last winter is still waiting to be cut back. There are tools and trash and empty wine bottles still lying around from pleasant summer evenings on the deck. (August was, what… yesterday?)

Everywhere I turned, I thought: “Oh, god, I can’t look at that…it will drive me crazy. I can’t think that (whatever it is) has been lying there for (however many) months.” MONTHS. And in some cases—like that of the half-built greenhouse—YEARS. Augh!

But, today…today, I DID round up my winter/holiday bed linens and get them installed in the bedroom. And I DID apply myself to the mountains of junk mail—both this year’s and last year’s (which had been relegated to a plastic basket stuffed under the china cabinet); got it sorted, trashed what needed to be trashed, and filed what needed to be saved.

So, for that, I am thankful.

AND for the local franchise of “Butler and Maid Service.” Who will be sending out a rescue party next Tuesday at precisely 1:00 pm. To dig me out from under this pile of...over-commitment.

A (wo)man’s got to know (her) limitations…