Writing in the Morning

Lately, I've managed to kick myself out of bed and write in the mornings before heading off to The Day Jobbe.  It helps that the cat wakes up at 4:30 and starts to do the feline version of "Early Morning Singing Song."  (No, I usually get up a little bit later.)

On the up side, I'm writing.  The mornings have been pleasant enough that I've been able to creep outside with a cup of tea and a comforter and write in the backyard.  Writing outside reduces the chance of me waking anyone, and if the family wakes up early, I'm not in their way on the kitchen table.  Getting in and out of the patio chair and wrapping or unwrapping myself out of the comforter tends to keep me sitting and typing.

On the not-quite-so up side (aside from my tea getting colder more quickly), I may need to switch to composing in long hand to improve my writing's connectivity and to catch stupid errors engendered by a an iPad's screen and auto-correct.  Now that I've noticed the disjointed element creeping into what I write, I'll be on the lookout for it; getting up a little earlier so I have a longer period to write would help, too.  



Now, if I could do something about those mornings when I really feel the cold in my hands and feet (pause to imagine writing in a hot tub).  

Tea Tech Fail

One morning last week was a comedy of errors.  I got a little behind in the routine -- this is what I get for emptying out the dishwasher, I think.  I realized that I should have made my mid-morning thermos of tea, and started the water boiling just in time to have the tea ready.  I love my thermos; it can keep a whole lot of tea warm for up to about eight hours.  And its stopcock is super -- click it open and tea pours out; click it closed and the heat stays in.  

I was about to pour the tea into my thermos, when I managed to drop the stopcock for it.  It hit the floor at the right velocity and angle to burst into pieces.  I suspect that it's designed to be modular for ease of cleaning.  I gathered the scattered plastic:  The black outer ring that screws into the thermos's neck, a black axel with a jaggy coat-tree top, and a white crown gear which is part of the click.  I should be walking out the door, but instead I'm looking around for a spring which I think should be allowing the jaggy axel to push up against the crown gear -- ballpoint pens have springs, and without them the pens wont click, so my thermos uses the same mechanism.

I get down on my hands and knees looking for the spring, but I cant find it.  It's not with the crumbs under the kitchen table, or any of the chairs.  It's not under the cabinets.  It's not under the fridge.  I look some more.  For ten minutes, all the time aware that I'm getting later and later and I've got a bunch of brewed tea and no way to take it to work.  Flustered, the fall-back action is to take fresh dry loose leaf tea to work and brew it there. 

After work, I come home and go out on the deck.  It's possible the spring jumped out onto the deck and rolled between a crack.  So I look under the deck.  Which involves a lot of limbo-wiggling through dry, pokey dirt.  It isn't there. 

Dejectedly, I put the stopcock together without the spring to see just how broken it was.  

Click-click.  And. It. Works.  Click-click.  I test it a few times and it continues to work.

I'm sure there's a metaphor in there, somewhere.

Must Wake Up...

I'm blaming the pollen for making me feel tired. OK, and I'm failing to transition to a Morning Lark (Be strong, there's a heart of a night owl calling...)