My throat is scalded. I took 4 pills this morning and thought they all went down. But then I took a bite of a muffin and it felt like they suddenly burnt my throat. I’ve kept a cough drop in my throat all morning and that helps to soothe the pain.

Rob met a friend for lunch and I just sat around fiddling with the Mac and cleaning a table top. The weather is cool and windy and I read about the Ukrainians facing certain death. We do not think it can happen here, but there are no guarantees about anything.

Yesterday Alma came by so I could show her some things that needed work in the yard. She is a radiant young Mexican woman that works like a man. She said her father is ill and so he and her mother have returned to Mexico. “I miss them so much,” she said. The family runs a landscaping service and she said she will come back with a few men to do the work next week.

I look through a folder with quotes I have saved. Today I am reading what Leonard Cohen said about having to act like you have control over your life, knowing that you really don’t. That is what he meant when he wrote the phrase, “A thousand kisses deep.”

Almost daily I think about why my life has been so sad and I will never have the answer to this question. My life is what it is and one thing I have done is to simplify it to a ridiculous degree.

Yesterday I worked on Book #7 again. It will take a while to finish it and it is of no importance whatsoever to anyone but me. I work crossword puzzles that are of no importance either. Just how life happens to all of us. We have to do some “filling in the blanks” of our lives on a daily basis. Allowing for the mystery is to see how unreal it is “a thousand kisses deep.”

Tonight we will each do our own meal thing and I will watch my wonderful new TV. I am easily satisfied, or so it would seem.

Vicki Woodyard