Surfaces.

I have been ruminating about surfaces lately.  I have no idea why.  I tend to glom onto a thought like a terrier sometimes and off I go.  Then, again, most times I couldn't hang onto a thought even if it came with handles.

Winter surfaces can be very tricky.  Thanks to three inches of rain this past Sunday, the carport is a skating rink.  As is the driveway, the pathways, the front yard.  But the carport is smooth as glass.  The rest of the homestead is like walking on frozen choppy waves.  We had about six inches or more of snow, which turned into four inches of thick slush.  Then I have to walk through it, then it freezes.  I can carefully pick my way around it during daylight hours, but it is an Olympic sport at night.  Especially with the little "bombs" that Pepper leaves down the pathway to the chicken coop.

*I was thinking about Fiona's comment yesterday - a children's book about Pepper.  What would it be titled?  How about:  "Pepper.  Pepper!  PEPPER!!!!!  Tales of a Dog with Selective Deafness."*

Then there are my inside surfaces.  There is not, I am sorry to say, a clean surface in the house.  I had just cleared off the dining room table and thoroughly scrubbed it, when I turned my back, turned around again and found Slim/Slom/Salami lying on it.  It was still damp, for Ned's sake.  I thought cats hated dampness... 

I decided to hang a small, oval mirror that I had picked up some years ago at an estate sale (which lamp had languished in the craft closet until discovery this past weekend), so I cleaned it up, put it down, got hammer and picture hook, then hung it up and looked at it.  There was a perfect cat paw print smack dab in the center.  Sigh.

*The position of the mirror came about when I realized I had left the house, driven an hour, entered my office, worked an hour, before realizing I had not combed my hair.  Alas, the feral state is encroaching....

And let's not forget those vertical surfaces - glass.  An ever re-appearing layer of dog-nose-gunk.

Dusty surfaces abound in the house.  I blame the abundance of dust on the fact that there is almost no ambient light that points it out, thanks to our gloomy winter.  And then there's that pesky lack of focus.  I have started down the hallway to retrieve my handy duster so many times, only to swerve into another room, onto another chore.  Then there is this:

Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better
To paint a picture, or write a letter,
Bake a cake, or plant a seed;
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there's not much time,
With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb;
Music to hear, and books to read;
Friends to cherish, and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world's out there
With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair;
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it's not kind.
And when you go (and go you must)
You, yourself, will make more dust.

A wonderful poem by Rose Milligan.  And who wouldn't take the word of someone named "Rose" to heart?  It is my Domestic Creed.

P.S.  I just found my next most favorite spam email:  You can bury male sluggishness.  Hot darn!!!