The garage door repairman was due at nine; I set the alarm for eight. My phone rang at 7:13—he was picking up our door and was on his way. Well, so much for sleep. Up, dressed, dog-walked, and finally ate breakfast, and he arrived as I was halfway through my yogurt. It was a little after eight.

The repairman, Danny, finished before ten; in the meantime I finished decorating the dining room and the kitchen, read e-mail, put some things away. When he was finished, I inspected the job—perfect! He only had to replace one of the two rails, and, of course, all of the door. The garage door opener was not damaged. I worked it a few times and it appeared fine. So I paid the bill and he went off to his next job.

And now I'm free. I've been stuck home for four solid days, and I was lucky Puli agreed to let me telework, and that she looked into a couple of things for me so I could carry on with my work.

I cleared up a couple of other things and then left for the Apple Annie Craft Show via Publix for money. Twilight was evidently unhappy to give up his four-day doze in the garage and started up sluggishly. The weather wrapped around the world with grey clamminess; even though it was almost 60°F, it was chilly. Before getting to the church, I stopped at the little used bookstore that's on Roswell Road near the Hancock Fabrics. They are closing and all the books are 40 percent off. I didn't see anything worth having.

After that I spent a pleasant hour or so wandering about the craft booths in the classrooms. Well, if I want to do crafts after I retire, maybe beadwork is out—nearly half the vendors there were selling home-made jewelry. Some was unique, made with polished rock, but most was just ordinary bead-and-chain work. All very pretty. Also saw cute kids' clothes, soaps, ribbon bows, Christmas decorations, stained glass, some lovely woodwork like cutting boards and lazy susans in all sorts of woods and patterns, artwork (one wonderful painting of a husky staring into the "camera"), and more. I miss the "prim lady," and they put the "papyrus lady" in the gym this year. The Asian woman who makes the cunning miniature flower arrangements from clay wasn't there.

I had no money for any of it, but just window-shopped. I bought a couple of things from the bake shop and church office (all the proceeds are for charity): ginger molasses cookies and buckeyes that we can have for dessert, and Kahlua fudge for me, and then did my very favorite thing: went into the Garden of Reconcilation. This is a central courtyard with a path around the perimeter, a statue of St. Francis and another of St. Anne, a big cross, and a stone waterfall in the center with a figure weeping in front of it. The entire place was scattered with American oak leaves from end to end and I crunched through them as I walked around the waterfall, visited St. Francis, then went to sit in one of the cafe chairs near the St. Anne statue. I love it in there. The only sounds (well, beside the intrusive airplane overhead) were the waterfall spattering down over the stones and the wind rustling the papery leaves left on the tree. Once a small whirlwind sent a shower of leaves down. For those moments, the aggravation of work yesterday faded away, and I was calm and so happy.

I went into the sanctuary and said a prayer before I left.

Now I was hungry, so I cut through the "back"—Bishop Lake Road (I always laugh when I see Bishop Lake; hon, where I come from, we call that a pond) to a short bit of Johnson Ferry Road to Sewell Mill, which skips all of that Roswell Road nonsense. Then up East Piedmont, which becomes Piedmont, which at Bells Ferry Road is then Barrett Parkway, and here I am at Barnes & Noble ready to have a bagel and some cocoa.

They were out of bagels. ::grump:: Everything they had left was sweet. I passed. I had a 20 percent off coupon and a $10 gift card from B&N that came in the mail yesterday, so I picked up the new volume of Valdemar short stories, the Christmas issue of "Landscape," and the British magazine "Style at Home." The lady at the checkout counter told me she had survived the evacuation of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina!

Came home through Kennesaw Avenue to observe the progress of Christmas decorations on the big houses, and through downtown Marietta.

It was almost four o'clock, so by the time I took Tucker for his afternoon walk, there wasn't much time to do anything else. James was home on time and we went to eat off something cheap: the IHOP senior menu. Next to KMart. The Christmas tree I liked best last year still looks a bit skimpy, so we went past Lowes to see the tree I liked (except for the white lights).

It's gone. Oh, dear.

So I'm nursing my feelings and wondering what to do next, and watching A Peter, Paul & Mary Holiday Concert..

Labels: books, chores, Christmas, food, magazines, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:37:00 PM

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