with inspiration like this

here’s yesterday’s photo:

and here’s today’s photo:

notice anything different?

the flowers – the ones i specially selected for their bright color and various stages of bloom (thanks, angela. nothing gets past you, does it?) – well it seems the cats used them as hors d’oeuvres for last night’s frivolity. yep, they turned over the vase, nibbled on the flowers (something new? let’s eat it!), and consequently threw up. as luck will have it, either the floor or my desk isn’t level (i don’t think i’ve ever lived in a house that’s level or has square corners – is it even possible to create such a space? and really, who would want to, anyway?), so the water from the vase ran down and to the righthand side of my desk. you know: the place where my computer, my ipad, my camera, and my trusty little recorder reside.

because we all know that cats don’t like water, the cat who tasted (not gilded, of course, where’s the fun in that?) the lilies, went to the lefthand side of my desk to throw up. that’s where my journal lives.

now in my approaching-pollyanna mode, i can tell you that the vase didn’t break. neither did the glass nib and its holder. (i’m hearing the collective sigh of relief. thank you.) my camera happened to be laying on top of my little decorative notepad – the one i use to jot down special requests before dropping them into my special pewter bird vessel, so while my prayers might be soggy, there will still be photos. the computer always sits raised on a little thingie that allows air to circulate and keep it from overheating, and the ipad and recorder are in sturdy plastic cases – let’s call them electronic life preservers, shall we.

my journal? well, almost-pollyanna had to struggle a little bit with that one, but here’s what i’ve come up with: i throw up my thoughts, feelings, and words in there every single day, so, shoot, it can take a little cat vomit. or, put more succinctly: copy cat.

okay, here’s the truth: i didn’t really light the candle yesterday. i meant to, but i spent so much time deciding what and who i wanted as companions on this writing trek, that by the time i was settled, it was almost time to cook supper, and well, i just completely forgot to actually light the candle. so this morning after i tossed what was left of the flowers, dried everything off, and cleaned up my desk, i lit the candle and prepared to write.

but the candle wouldn’t stay lit.

i tried about forty-eleven times, and every single time, it looked like a little glowing ember then poof – it was gone, leaving nothing but an equally short-lived trail of smoke.

determined i would not lose every single writing companion, i used one of the creativity stones to scoop out a little well around the wick. (say it with me: resourcefulness is a type of creativity.) downright smug with my resourcefulness, i flicked the long-neck bic and lit the new-improvedly-exposed wick. this time it held a flame, oh, say 42 seconds. now i can write 750 words in 10 minutes, but that’s more of a brain dump. in other words, they aren’t quality words. i need time for that. time and a flame that sticks.

on the front, the label on the candle says it’ll burn for 50 hours (would that be 42 seconds divided into 50 hours? no wait, there has to be some multiplication first, right?). on the back, it says “because sometimes journeys to faraway places bring you that much closer to yourself”. under the circumstances, i find that downright disturbing.

~~~

ps: but hey, here’s a question for you: if the water from the vase prematurely seals the envelope, does that mean you still have to write the check and pay the bill?

ps2: now that i think about it, the right side of my desk could be called e for the electronics area, right? and let’s call the left side w for writing. i sit on the lower side, so we’ll call that s. (are you with me yet?) in the great geography of things, that leaves the upper edge of my desk, and to make this whole map metaphor complete, what say we call it n for nibble?