wednesday mishmash

I know this is bizarre, but I'm thinking how nice it would be to lower myself into a cup of hot cocoa, loop my arms around the edges of the cup, and push my face into a melting marshmallow.

Kind of disgusting but o so warm and sweet.

I interviewed two very intelligent zealots today who are leaders in the push for water quality, regulation and rights of land owners. I can't get them, or the issues, or the huge job of distilling almost two hours of interview into a few short columns out of my mind. Even when I was whacking back the hedges today--it was sunny and warm and perfect for outdoor work--my head spun with all I had heard. The chemistry is completely over my head but the urgency of the situation hits close to the heart, or should I say, to my mouth that I open to admit water, which, though it's filtered, is not as pure as I'd like and is certainly not good enough to give to my three daughters.

Sigh. Sometimes I think I was made to be just a poet and fiction writer. This journalism stuff is stretching me like taffy--see? What a terrible simile. It must be the stress.

One last thing. Last night I was taking a shower with the pocket door slid tightly to keep the bathroom as hot and steamy as possible. Suddenly, Elspeth, who was supposed to be sound asleep, burst through making a racket deserving of a large land mammal. "Mommy!" she said, as my precious steam leaked into the cold hallway.

"Mommy, Merry won't read me her WORDS and I want to hear them!"

Elspeth teeters at the brink of elementary fluency and not being able to read like her fourth-grade sister frustrates her sometimes. But I knew what she was talking about--Merry's teeny tiny journal--so diminutive, in fact, that Merry can fit only a few words on each page.

"She doesn't have to read you her words," I called from the shower. "She's writing in a diary, and diaries are private. You can have a diary too if you want, and then nobody can read what you write."

"Merry has a DIARY?" Elspeth was incredulous. "Like from her BOTTOM?"

"Go back to bed, and close the door after you." I had to grin, though--the lowest types of humor never fail to tickle a funny bone, even if its a hidden one you pretend you don't have.