My Mother Got Mad At Me . . .

     . . . because she gave me a beautiful painting of hers, and I hung it in my bathroom. Mom is a brilliant watercolorist. I am not, though we took classes together for years. A wonderfully talented man named Jerry McClish taught us; his motto, he would chuckle, was "slop and hope."

     I slopped with much less hope than my mother.

     Today was punctuated by disappointments, some small and others medium. The website that's supposed to feature me as "Author of the Week" is having technical difficulties, and I suspect my week will be over before they're resolved. My beloved hairstylist called to announce she's moving to another town, and I'm not sure I want to drive nearly an hour to get my tresses tamed. My tiny landlord business is frustrating me in too many ways to describe.

     I wrote several paragraphs for my new book, and I find them eminently boring. The theoretical paper in my theoretical typewriter in the laptop will have to be theoretically crumpled and discarded.

     I didn't make it to the gym. Again.

     My guest cat's litterbox needs cleaning, the laundry's piling up, and I probably should have mopped or vacuumed something. Dust bunnies are breeding like the name implies.

     So, I decided a nice bath would be soothing. I laid in the tub, contemplating the ten pounds I didn't address through exercise or any responsible dietary means. I looked up and saw Mom's lighthouse, sitting serene on a peaceful beach, and couldn't help smiling. There's a reason it hangs in the bathroom, Mother . . . at the end of a trying day, it reminds me we each possess talents of our own and that—Scarlett, you're right—tomorrow is another day.



Love from Delta.