The Couch and Moi

Oh, Couch, my lovely couch, a pillow and thee plus a cuppa tey. Or maybe not, the laundry pile should be attacked and beaten into submission. Wham! Wham! Whack!! It's archaeology, with the circulating pieces like jeans on top and in rotation, with sedimentary layers of the rest of it in seasonal order descending. At the bottom are summer jammies or maybe a tank top. I'm not looking.

I dislike the laundry room. It's open, well lit, clean sort of, and the washers take big loads. Drawbacks are non-privacy, timing so you don't lose your good towels, and, it's not my couch under a comforter. Further, I am not in my glory. I should wear glasses only for the next two weeks, and the vertigo of switching from the usual contact lens has me teetering. Also, I think my hair is sticking up funny.

Today was like working at the pediatric developmental institution, would someone please send a large, coherent team of counselors, school psychologists, and social workers to this inner city school? We have none, we are lucky to have a librarian three days out of a six day rotation. Full moon at perigee. Believe everything that is said about the effects; my god, if the gravitational pull influences the oceans, it certainly affects organisms, including children baying at lunar changes.

Today my friend Sandra brought me a fish fry. A fishie fry!! Her church had one for a fundraiser, and delivered to the school at lunchtime. Nothing like a Baptist church fish fry. Nice piece of breaded haddock, homemade mac and cheese with sharp cheddar, green beans cooked with a ham hock, a cup of slaw, cup of potato salad, tartar sauce (which I skip), wheat bread, hot sauce, and a slice of pound cake. Your fork and knife are tucked under the paper that the fish is on inside the clamshell styrofoam tray. Oh heaven.

The wonderful thing is that it was a surprise; Sandra is a shyish, quiet woman who teaches resource to students that need an extra boost. Her area is right next to mine, and for one terrific year we worked together, she "pushed in" my classroom to work with the students assigned her. Things never stay the same. She trotted over today with the goods, and simply said, "This is for you." Frabjous. So you know that couch is looking good. I am full of the Lord's fish. Healed!!

Schedule tomorrow: laundry, dishes, and cookies for Christmas. There are new babies in the fish tank, Martian seems betterish, Oh I would like to put up the tree, but what a unholy job. I have a white plastic tree with purple lights and the best ornaments. Nah, it's just too much and I am going off for the holidays.

Well, as predicted, overcast sky this evening, but I can feel you Moon, I know you're there. Pull me up through neap and ebb, lullaby waves crash intertidal. Ocean, ocean, ocean. Oh waves, oh lune, oh fish. Sleep in comfort.