New Moon on Pluto

Well if this one doesn't get me to write something I may as well give up and start breeding Norwegian Forest Cats, take cooking classes and begin quilting - not that there's anything wrong with that -

- which is exactly as far as I got before the second real monsoon rain of the summer began and the power went out. Did I rush to the computer as soon as the lights came on again and finish the post I'd just started? Of course not, as by then I was stretched out on the bed happily READING A BOOK by flashlight, something that hasn't happened for weeks (reading a book, that is, not reading a book by flashlight). (To give myself some credit, I did go to the computer and submit That Is What I Did to a ten-minute play contest somewhere in the U.S., which for Pamela is tantamount to Fergie dragging her sled across the Arctic wastes for 26 miles with only her personal trainer and a camera crew for company.)

Reading a book - what a concept! I remember that, but it seems to take no computer, no TV and no power to work the sewing machine (as though there was the slightest chance that that was going to happen, except that earlier in the day B and I had pledged to have a sewing day together, which takes me right back to the new moon on Pluto that happened on Saturday that I am doing my best to persuade myself is going to shake me out of my torpor and begin to DO SOMETHING, pardon my shouting) for me to do it now, a transformation I would actually like to reverse.

Anyway, my reclaiming my power (as I'm choosing to interpret this new moon) got off to a good start as on Saturday evening the great Lava Rock/Manure exchange with a neighbor/friend happened, something we've been talking about ever since me and my aching tooth arrived in Silver at the end of May.

(Department of TMI: In the past minute I have changed me and my aching tooth to my aching tooth and I backwards and forwards three times before deciding on the grammatically incorrect version on the grounds I like the way it sounds better. Thinks - could this compulsive self-editing be why I find it so difficult to complete a piece of  prose?  Hmmmm - and a *piece* of prose? Hmmmm again.)

But, ruminations on my writing style (!) aside, the lava rock/manure exchange took place and on Sunday - yesterday - I played tennis, played UpWords, played Perquackey, pulled out all the fabric I've been accumulating over the years that I vowed to throw out this year if I didn't do anything with it, gave a lot of it away to upcoming sewing session partner and also, new moon on Pluto in the fourth, emptied and gave to sewing partner a travel chest I inherited from John that was full of stuff I *should* have taken to a thrift shop and was taking up far too much place on the closet floor.

I then proceeded to link my new credit card to both bank accounts and perhaps finally sort out the wreckage from my card hacking back in June which had culminated (I hope) in it taking me 75 minutes to pay my bill on Friday, balanced both check books, paid bills, wrote down all my new passwords and in general made yet another attempt to organize myself, and then began to make a post to this which takes me handily right back to the beginning of this, er, piece of prose.

So there you have it. With any luck I'll be able to call American Airlines this morning and sort out my upcoming trip to England, where I have to go if I want to use the 20,000 miles it will otherwise cost me $150 to put back in my mileage account, and if the gods are really smiling the electrician I managed to track down last week will call me and come and ground the water heater so I can then call the plumber and find out what the damage to the copper pipes is because of it not being grounded.

And now, with Mars square Chiron perfecting in an hour's time, I intend to go outside, not answer the phone, plant the rest of the plumbago I've been given and transform my denuded flower beds. So there.