Sunday morning

It’s a quiet Sunday morning.

We had Panera bagels for breakfast, played with the dogs, tried to take them for a walk, brought them back because Jack was playing the berserker and yanking my arm out of its socket, then went for a walk by ourselves.

Maria is cutting fabric in her sewing room, Jack is dozing in his kennel next to a full food bowl, Pete is having his breakfast and strolling into the sewing room occasionally to check on Maria, and I’m sitting at my great-grandmother’s kitchen table blogging and having my second cup of coffee of the morning from a Wallace China Westward Ho Boots & Saddle series cup. The washer and dryer are churning away in the background and the sunny freshly filled bird feeder is crowded with yellow finches.

I got my “newspaper fix” this weekend, with one of my photos dominating the front page yesterday and a profile and photo of a local woman who owns an independent pharmacy in a special section of today’s paper. It’s fun to sneak out of retirement now and then and play newspaper on my own terms.

I’m working on a story for a special project to be published next month and am reminded anew how much I detest waiting for people to return my phone calls. Three women I need to interview held me hostage for three days last week and kept me inside during splendid motorcycling weather because they couldn’t be bothered to return my calls, even though I told them my deadline was Friday afternoon. I knew this was going to happen when I got the assignment, which makes it all the more annoying. The only saving grace is the fact that my wife is the editor and I get a deadline extension.