on a Sunday winter's eve

nearly 7 p.m. and the sun has pretty much set. the shadows have taken over the landscape. with no direct sunlight, everything is the grey-blue of shadowland. still very bright, with the pristine purity of the snow bouncing back the half-light of the darkening sky. street lights have all come on, and there's an orange cirle of light around each of them.

just spent a frustrating hour or so surfing my blog neighbors' posts. blogger is not cooperative tonight; sometimes let me in without so much as a pause, other times, couldn't even read comments, let alone make comments of my own. it's the e-equivalent of wanting someone to talk to, and finding no one i call or visit is at home. i may have to make a hot cuppa to drown my sorrows.

i'm starting a grow op. if you don't hear from me, you'll know the police have raided the place and taken me in. well, i've been told tomato seedlings look just a bit like cannabis, if you squint and turn the lights down. on the list to start are tomatoes, leeks, brussell's sprouts, spaghetti squash, and more annual flowers than you want to hear about. i have all my seed, and organic fertilizer, and plant trays, etc. i'm just waiting for the arrival of some little heat mats to keep my little green babies' bottoms warm. it's the damping off that usually does them in, when the inevitable long stretch of cold, overcast spring days hits. So i'm combating that by not being dependent on the fickle northen sun to keep my babies warm. they'll have full-spectrum fluorescent lights above, and heating pads below. i'm counting on having more babies than i need, and selling the excess to friends and neighbors to help cover the cost of building sun-surrogate nursery shelves. does selling babies make me a bad mother? i will, of course, only sell them to good homes.

having recently finished (mostly) the main level of my renovation-in-progress residence, i now have, for the first time in recent (within the last 12 years) history, some semblence of organization in my home. i even have my books sorted, and arranged in shelves in their appropriate areas of the house. today i went through all my music books, and reams of loose sheet music, sorting and exclaiming, "oooh! i'd forgotten all about this!" sadly, there are also a few dear old friends conspicuously absent... i'm very bad for lending things, then forgetting who i sent them with. some of them never return home.

the sun is now completely set, and the sky is indigo, with charcoal etchings of trees upon it. the orange lights of the skating rink down the street light up the neighborhood, and the air is very still and heavy - like the bottom of a deep lake, where sunlight doesn't penetrate, and every movement requires huge effort.

must g0 make a hot cuppa, then wrap myself and my fiddle around some of the lovely music i've rediscovered.