Elgan speaks
...and her words thunder across the land

Snow, snow, go away.

Monday, Feb. 23, 2009
7:26 p.m.
My poem which got shortlisted in that contest did not win. It didn’t even receive honourable mention. So today I sent it off to another poetry contest. We shall see.

The skies opened up and dumped inordinate amounts of white shit on us overnight, and I spent about an hour today shoveling out the Volvo so I could meet a friend for lunch at the Java. I’d kind of forgotten about the tendonosis in my right shoulder and the pain in my left elbow. Now I am remembering them quite vividly. No matter how young I might feel inside or even how young I appear to others, I still have the body of a sedentary 52-year-old woman.

Anyway, I did get the car out and drove it into town very carefully as it was extremely slippery, and my friend and I had a lovely meeting. She’s a biology professor who has taken the last seven years off, more or less, in order to bear and raise children. Now that she has emerged from her “mommy bubble” she’s finding that she has to reconnect with things outside of the sheltered domesticity to which she has become accustomed. That means going off without her husband, and having lunch at the local café with a girlfriend is a novel experience now.

We chatted about many things: children, how sex gets better as one gets older, knitting, internet friendships, writing books, and have decided that we will start a knitting circle to meet at the Java on Monday afternoons. This will spur me to start a project I’ve been thinking about for a while, but somehow haven’t had the energy to begin.

While I was out, I went to the bank, bought milk and sundry other groceries, and stopped at the feed store to get a new bird feeder. Yesterday as I was lifting the old one down to refill it, I accidentally broke off the dowel on which the birds perch as they peck. The wood was so tired that it cracked right at the screw that held it in place, and I noticed that the ends where the talons clutch were worn down to nubbins. So I suppose it was time. The new feeder holds more than twice as many seeds as the old one, which means I should be filling it less often.

Hubby phoned from Florida and passed me to his mother, whose 80th birthday it is today. She is very happy to have three of her sons with her to celebrate it. As I was in the attic playing on the computer, I heard the snow plow come by and ran to look out the window. The end of the driveway that I so painstakingly cleared this morning is now impassable. You know what I’ll be doing tomorrow early, don’t you?



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