Tuesday, March 07, 2017

a fresh poison each week

It's definitely time for bed - my eyes are bleary from looking at screens too much today, and my feet are a little achy from walking a lot. And, I talked to my mother today (unusually, since it's the middle of the week) - there was a tornado in Seymour last night, which I found out about from [censored]. Seymour is a nearby town where we usually go for steak when I'm home, since it has one of the only restaurants in the county. [censored] sent me some drone footage, and the tornado took the roof off their school gym and damaged a bunch of houses. It sounds like no one was killed, but the town is still without power, and that's a lot of damage for a tiny community to recover from.

The cemetery, though, took a direct hit. My sister went over to the cemetery today to scope things out - her first husband is buried there, as are my mom's parents and several other relatives on my mom's side. And it sounds like my grandparents' stone was knocked off its base. So, that's rather unwelcome news - hopefully they'll be able to do some cemetery repairs, since I would guess that my grandparents' stone wasn't the only one damaged.

Anyway. I'm of course living the dream in London and feeling mildly to moderately guilty about being here and not in the US to help with everything currently going on. But today should incite no jealousy - I spent the morning working, and then I walked to Whole Foods, which was good for exercise (I walked in Hyde Park, which is a big feature in a lot of romance novels), but super frustrating because I was looking for corn tortillas and they, like everyone else in Britain, don't carry them. Then I came home (after a delightful twenty minutes looking at new journals in a department store in Sloane Square - and realizing that this is the first real, bona fide department store I've been in in a long time, since they have all the Bloomingdale's-type stuff (clothes, fancy cosmetics, some housewares), but also departments like stationery/journals/cards, toys and games, and even a crafting section with yarn and cloth and knitting needles).

And then I spent the whole evening finishing my last RITA book - scores were due today, so I had to finish judging even though I wanted to be writing. Now, I need to sleep and hope my eyes recover for tomorrow's slog - goodnight!

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