Dog Barking Heart Attack

this morning just before 5am, Primo jumped up out of a deep sleep and barked his brains out. this in turn made me sit straight up and come close to falling out of bed. i was right in the midst of a stress dream (i have them quite often when i’m starting to feel the crunch). i think i might have been about to go into battle (a la Return Of The King) and while waiting was being interviewed by mortgage brokers … or some such similar nonsense. but, it’s difficult to remember.

so now, here i am at this ungodly hour sipping tea and actually enjoying the silence (Depeche Mode really knew what they were talking about). i am facing in a direction that will allow me to watch the sunrise over the watershed which will be very nice. the birds aren’t even awake yet.

i’m dreading work this morning, but then again who isn’t? thankfully, i work in a small office where “office chat” is not required. i used to work in a very large building that required a daily elevator ride. i was never quite ambitious enough to walk up the 22 flights of stairs. unless you count the time we had the big earthquake and that was going in the opposite direction. anyway, every morning people would say things like “here we go again”, “thank god it’s friday”, “it’s raining again in Seattle”, etc. and other equally insipid preprogrammed comments. the only real saving grace was the bike messengers. despite the stink lines emanating from them, at least they never uttered a single “got a case of the Mondays?”

i can see the treeline now and some of the birds are starting to chirp. the only thing i will actually miss about this house/duplex is the large window that runs the length of my office. i’m having deja vu and am certain i’ve said that before. i’ll be making a list of things to do this week, some of which include:

- give the kitchen a thorough scrubbing

- go through the house and earmark excess for donation

- find a house

- make peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

- finish Middlesex - this book is driving me CRAZY. i have a rule, i may have mentioned before. i don’t give up on a book until i’ve read at least 150 pages of it. and in this case, it’s also won a Pulitzer Prize so it has a strong case. and it’s about Detroit, a place that i have a love/hate relationship with. it’s told in an extremely imaginitive way in great detail about a city’s history (which fascinates me). but at the same time, there’s something about the writing style that i really don’t care for. it’s difficult for me to pinpoint and for that reason i am about 300 pages in. typically, i am a very fast reader. not because i try to zip through things, but simply because that’s how it turned out. for a book i really loved, i would have been finished in a couple days. but i have had this book for approximately six months. it’s an exercise in discipline to make myself read it now (i dodged it for months) and it’s taking forever. i am hoping that at the end, i will realize either that i loved it or at least have a clue as to why i didn’t.

with that last ramble, i bid you all a lovely week!