Fat Tuesday

"When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around."

-Willie Nelson

Having a little trouble getting it in gear this Fat Tuesday morning on the farm.

Maybe it's the cadence of life here. P and I wake up to watch the sun come up around 7:30, sometimes with Dean and Slane hanging in the window screens demanding reentry when it's a little nippy, like this morning. We talk a little about the day ahead, take our time, and shuffle out to the kitchen around 8 to fire up the Breville and make a couple lattes.

Then it's off to Peg's new hot tub on the back deck, crawling into the 104 degree water with our coffee. Peg stretches, and reminds me again how very happy she is with this new toy.

This morning we didn't get out of the tub before George arrived, so we had to stay down while he drove past, lest he see Lady Aphrodite in her birthday suit. We crawled out of the tub and into the shower to wash off the chlorine, then Peg started on this morning's keto breakfast offering while I skimmed the headlines on my tablet. After grace and a gourmet breakfast, I bumbled across the dog run into this office, and now cherish the coolness and the silence (except for George hammering something right now out by the barn).

Today I'll float through five calls, mostly short and limited in scope, dictate a few things, and between all that clean the Traeger and the chairs out at the fish house. Peg and I plan after lunch to drive into town to register the Chris Craft, finally, and buy some screws so we can clip down the spa cover. It blew across the grass in yesterday's big storm, and the two of us had to scamper to retrieve it in the midst of gusty winds, thunder, and lots of cockleburs I managed to find with one foot.

As for tonight, well, let's just say we aren't what we once were. There'll be no revelry, no Mardi Gras debauchery. Nor will there be the toned down excess of Shrove Tuesday, with Holy Nativity nearly three hours from here. Maybe I'll hit a few golf balls before supper--I played so disastrously last Sunday that I stopped after seven holes, and this after shooting a 46 on nine holes the day before, maybe my best half-round ever. The game is almost entirely between my ears, and I was so stressed about the impromptu Super Bowl Party at the Golf & Country Club that we helped initiate, and that turned out to be a total flop, that it crept into my swing and my concentration. I'm better today, so perhaps it'll be a better round. I know P hates it when I start to lose my mind out there. I owe her better than that.

All of it so ordinary, and at the same time magical. The tempo here drags our metabolism down to a blissful crawl, with Peg having the time to curl up on the couch with a book, and me finally able to do a little thinking work without being interrupted every few minutes by a call or a visitor.

A lot to be grateful for, on this day before Lent.