and the sun sets on another day

a spectacular sunset on a so-so day.

i woke up (grudgingly), to the smell of cat pee. like the kind a male cat does to mark its territory. that didn't bode well for the day. as i stumbled out to the kitchen, eyes still bleary and trying to adjust to being open and having glasses on, i saw a streak of black run from the kitchen into the box-filled dining/storage room. and i screamed. it was the stray cat we'd seen around this spring. IN our house. what the hell was it doing in the house? and i think it had been in here more than 24 hours, as several times yesterday, i found that lila's bowl was empty. lila is our real cat, who belongs in the house. and she seldom neatly empties her bowl. in fact, she pretty much never does. husband and i spent the next half an hour trying to chase him out. not exactly what i had in mind before i'd even had my morning tea.

do you ever have those days? where nothing's really wrong, but you just feel irritated by everything? the wind is too windy. the washing machine takes an eternity. the child is utterly unable to throw her dirty clothes into the basket that stands in the hallway for that express purpose. you drop a wet towel right into the dirt as you're hanging it up. they suddenly moved the start of boston legal up by 20 minutes without notifying you. the rhubarb cordial goes a strangely dark color from the organic sugar, instead of remaining pretty bright pink. the child treats you like her personal chauffeur, calling to say, "come get me now," then calling back to say "don't come for another 20 minutes." the car is on empty and you don't delight in seeing how far you can go after the light comes on, the way husband does. on top of it all, the horse got a massage and a chiropractic adjustment in the past few days and has a manicure/pedicure scheduled for friday - and your own nail polish is chipped and there's a crick in your neck. in short, it was a day full of petty irritations. a day that makes you want to curl up in clean sheets with the right cat, your laptop, a glass of wine and a new book you picked up at the library today.

but it was also the day where we picked the first substantial amount of strawberries in the garden and we each got a good bowlful of them, with sugar and cream, for dessert. and that made it all a tiny bit better.