January 27, 2016

Life is back to normal in the Ashbury household. Or at least, as normal as it ever gets around here. Christmas is over, schedules have been resumed, and the house is once more my own. I know it sounds boring, and really, for the most part, our lives are boring. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

Well, we did have a bit of excitement a week or so ago when a bird flew into the house. That was my fault. I like to have my bedroom window open a bit at night when I sleep, and I forgot to close it when I got up that morning. So I got up, and as usual, left the bedroom and closed the door behind me. And no, there’s no screen on that particular window.

Imagine my surprise when I went into my bedroom some hours later to catch a nap—and was subsequently dive-bombed by a bird.

My catching it was out of the question, of course. There were only three possible outcomes for this situation. Either the cat would catch the bird; the dog would catch the bird; or the bird would fly back out the window.

With my head under the covers I did send a text to Mr. Ashbury, but that was just so he could admire how exciting my day was. I certainly didn’t expect him to do anything about the situation. He was, after all, at work.

I fell asleep, and when I awoke from my head-under-the-covers nap, there was no sign of the bird, and no sign of feathers or other biological debris anywhere, so I took that as a good sign and closed the window so the winged creature could not make another foray indoors.

But other than that very rare deviation, our days are predictable and we have no problem with that. I pass my time writing to the sound of the cat snoring, and the dog occasionally exploding into a yapping fit because another dog has dared to walk down his street. And still, with all this boredom and predictability, our days speed by very quickly. Sometimes there aren’t enough hours in a single day (or stamina in yours truly) to get everything done that I want to do.

We are coming upon the one holiday that my eldest son and my husband both look forward to with great fervor—Ground Hog Day. I kid you not, my beloved checks the weather forecast daily just to see if it’s going to be cloudy on February 2nd or not. Up until yesterday, the forecast called for overcast skies on that day.

Yesterday, I looked, and the prediction read that next Tuesday would be sunny with cloudy periods. I quickly checked what was expected in the small Ontario town of Wiarton (pronounced “wire ton”) where our province’s prognosticating groundhog named Willie resides. Sadly, they have the same forecast as we do.

All over FaceBook I’m seeing little memes declaring people’s desperation for spring. So many are tired of winter and want it to go away quickly. I used to be like that. Certainly I don’t particularly like this season. It’s cold which aggravates my arthritis, and it brings with it icy surfaces, which makes it difficult for me to get out and about. But if I want time to speed up to get me out of winter, I feel like it’s going keep going fast, through every season.

I am already in my September years. These are the years when, supposedly, I’ve earned the right to slow down and smell the roses—providing I haven’t developed an allergy for them, which I have not. I’m allegedly out of the rat race, the comings and the goings. Why, I can see the gate to elderly from my front porch!

That all may be true, but so is one more thing. I don’t need to urge time to hurry up. I think it goes far too fast as it is.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury