"Was this any different than going into a foreign country where one just did not have some of these modern conveniences?"

Sat. 11/30/13 3:55 pm

The Wrimoer had gotten a large stint of writing done on the previous day. She had only a bit more to complete the 50 K word goal. She had set the timer to ring in one half hour. She had no concern over whether she would find anything to say for these last few words. The amount required for the last portion seemed so miniscule compared to what she'd done the previous day. Writing for this last segment seemed just a formality. She assumed she would be relieved to be finished with the challenge.

She had still not agreed that it had been a worthwhile effort. She was quite sure this was a foolish venture. But she had come this far, so she wanted to at least finish it. There seemed to be so few other things that she finished she thought.

On this day she was also feeling queazy quite a bit. She tried drinking a dose of cider vinegar with honey and cinnamon and a bit of water to dilute it a bit. That seemed to help momentarily, but the feeling had returned. If she could get concentrated on the writing she would perhaps forget about feeling queazy.

One of the little tasks she wanted to take care of that day was to get the car turned around so the windshield would be facing the South, the sun. When it had rained so and then frozen up afterwards, the windshield had frosted up all over the inside. Some of that frost was melted when she went to see about the car. It seemed a good sign.

The car started up. There was no warning brake light on as there had been before. The mechanic had come with his helper over a month ago and had looked at the car but never reported back to her. Her student had found out from the garage what the verdict was about the car. It was supposedly not worth repairing and would not take a sticker. It had not been leaking brake fluid though as had been suspected as a possible cause of the brake light being on. This verdict was not direct from the mechanic, and the Wrimoer had wondered whether she could keep creaking around town, while risking being stopped for the long overdue sticker, until the very last day of that sticker. She did not take the car out.

On this day after starting up the car and seeing no brake light on, she tried to put the car in gear. It had had another problem in warmer weather where it would not go into gear, but one could also not push in the button on the shift lever. It could take from one to 10 minutes before suddenly everything was normally. Now the button on the shifter lever moved freely, but the shift lever itself would not move out of 'park'. She tried repeatedly. She waited five minutes and kept trying. Nothing allowed that shift lever to move out of park. There was no way to move that car, to turn it around. How could it even be put in neutral when it came time to haul the car off? She wondered if it was the parking brake that was on. That condition had never prevented its moving before. Should she have tried to move the steering wheel?

She had tried what she could. Now would begin the chase to try to contact the mechanic again. She had so wanted to get that car turned around before it got buried in snow, It was much harder to clean off with the windshield facing the North.

The cat had come in to her calling in the morning. He had been sleeping in a chair all day. Usually if she readied to go downstairs he wanted to come down and leave as well. He had not noticed that she was leaving. He did not seem to notice her return, and lay still asleep in the chair. She was glad to have him staying in. There was to be some kind of weathers for the next day. It always threw her in turmoil to have to let him out before such weather, as he was very sporadic in his reappearances. Perhaps this time she would be able to keep him in through the next day's weathers. It always felt so much more comforting to know that the cat was safe and warm in the house.

The cat itself had no concerns about weather. She suspected he could not feel much wet through his thick long fur coat. If it was rainy weather, then that meant it was also warm out. If it was windy and cold, he had only to hole up in the lee of the wind. His coat would insulate him there too. She knew all this rationally, but it was hard to let go of the idea that the cat was out in 'weather'. She had almost only fearful associations of being out in cold blowing weather. There were plenty of people who loved being out in the drama of weather and feeling the power of it. They found it exciting and invigorating. She found it mostly frightening.

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She had also been afraid of fireworks, balloons that could pop, and capguns as a young child. The fireworks came on the 4th of July in the display put on by Macy's along the Hudson River. She grew up in a 7th floor apartment on Riverside Drive, facing the Hudson River. They had a first rate view of the display. They never went down to join the crowds in the park. She was always too frightened of it though. She could not remember when she finally was able to get over her fear and enjoy them.

Had she been afraid of thunderstorms too? She remembered that her parents had told her a thunderstorm was God and the Angels moving the furniture around in heaven. From that she had figured out that the rain must be the angels crying, though over what she could not remembered. This was a story that gave her comfort and lessoned her fear. She was not clear about when they had told her this story. Had she not been afraid before that? Or had she not been aware of thunderstorms yet?

Thje Wrimoer was hitting a wall of wanting to give up. She was again not feeling good. She wanted to go lie down. She was feeling a bit chilled. She hoped the feelings would pass.

She still had to take care of that turkey. It was put away in the fridge but it needed to be portioned out into smaller servings. This needed to be taken care of soon. Her mouth had been watering to nibble at this turkey ever since she had made it. She found it very delicious and kept complimenting herself on what a fantastic cook she was. Odd that she could feel that queaziness on the one hand and feel her mouth watering over the turkey on the other hand.

This  last bit of writing was going to be a hard stretch to finish she thought.

On the previous day she had received a call from her mother's now elderly cousin in Germany. This cousin called the Wrimoer a few times a year. They spoke German together. Their conversations were never long. The cousin was in poor respiratory health. The cousin loved that they could speak German together. It also meant a lot to her to have family contact. The Wrimoer had told her initially when they were first getting to know each other by telephone, that she did not have that same concern about blood relations. The cousin explained that to her family, after the war families had been so torn apart, that to them it was now very important to know where family members were.

This had not however meant that all the relationships between the family members were open and good. The Wrimoer's aunt, who lived in Germany, had no contact with this cousin. It saddened the cousin that this was so. She and the Wrimoer's mother had been delighted when they had found each other again and reestablished their connection. They had enjoyed their shared European political discussions across the ocean. The cousin was unfortunately not able to read the Wrimoer's mother's blog. This was in English, and  the digital translation versions just turned it into gobbledygook. The Wrimoer was sure the cousin would  very much enjoy that blog. For now it was not to be. At least there were other people who got to enjoy the blog. Her mother's sister for instance.

Every year since they had connected, the cousin sent a package of marzipan kartoffel to the Wrimoer. They were supposed to be for Christmas, but they came so much sooner than that. This year the package came with two smaller packages of the marzipan potatoes. The Wrimoer had steadily dipped into the first package every day just a few. When it was finally done, she was able to hold off starting the second package. She wanted to save it for closer to Christmas. If one did not start a treat like this, one could delay...

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dipping in much more easily. She wondered why that was. Once one started a treat, it was just too tempting to be able to hold off overindulging in it.

It seemed she had one half hour left to complete the writing in, assuming that the rate of writing was what she usually accomplished.

Had she reached any conclusions? Did she have something she could conclude her writing with? She could think of nothing except to get it over with.

What were some of the things she had thought she might write about? When she woke this morning, after having done that long concentration of writing the night before, she had felt as if the having worked so long was giving her energy, an added zest for her day ahead. She had fizzled out over breakfast though. There she had taken the avoidance and delay route. She had resisted what she was now interpreting as responsibility and obligation instead of something to be done for the desire, fun, and challenge of it, She spent too long browsing idley looking for things to read. That endless restless searching that one did so much of online. As much as she wanted to do it on the one hand, she knew just how disquieting that way of being was. It was restless, this constant scanning and searching of something that would please one instead of simply facing what was in front of one's self and allowing oneself to get involved with that.

Many many years ago, she had been so thrilled when she signed up for cable tv. She had such fun using the remote control browsing through all the choices there seemed to be of things to watch. It started to dawn on her that there were so many channels, but there was still not really that much good to watch on the tv. The method of channel surfing put one in such a restless mode of trying to catch every bit that was good of several programs. One switched one's attention back and forth in an ever increasing hunger for what seemed better than something else. Finally she hit one of her financial difficulties, and had to give up the cable tv. She found herself so relieved not to have to deal with that constant pressure to make those little decisions about her attention. She had never again signed up for cable tv. There were only a few things she really missed about it, but she adapted to that quickly.

Was this any different than going into a foreign country where one just did not have some of these modern conveniences?

The Wrimoer was sitting there almost dozing off as she wondered what else she could write about. This was an odd place to be, so close and to feel one had gotten so little out of it.

Her ear felt like it was getting congested again. The heater had just come on. She wanted to look up to what degree barometric air pressure affected one's ears. She wondered if her ears were acting just like little barometers. They had been so good the last two days.

She wondered how the crafters and vendors had done at their craft fair that day. The Wrimoer had not seen any press about it. She had seen press about the new location for the big craft fair that had been put on by the Chamber every Thanksgiving weekend. It was to be held at the same hall that had held a craft fair only two weeks before and had done so on an annual basis. The Wrimoer wondered, that since these were put on by two different organizations, the brand identity of the two fairs would become very confused in shoppers minds. They would not even know which one was which or when which one was being held. She had seen how easily the public perceived and confused such things. This could be too bad for both events. That there had been no press for the fair at the gym seemed a red flag to her.

Two other red flags were that the table rent was very low. That was nice for some fairs, but this one had the potential to do such good business on this date, that it seemed like leaving money on the table to charge that little for table fee.The other red flag was that they had been very inept in
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... how they had spelled or capitalized things in their descriptions. The Wrimoer had tried to contact them about this initially, but the message had not gotten through. In almost every instance of using the name of the state, 'Maine', they had not capitalized it. Many other words were capitalized though. It was a mish mash description and showed such ignorance, that the Wrimoer found herself hesitant to participate. At that point the other venue had not yet made itself known that it was back in business. It was not yet a competing factor.

Once their press release came out, it was a competing event. That was not necessarily a bad thing, unless no one knew the event in the gym was going on. The Wrimoer had been hopeful though that there was enough of a corps just from the student body this fair represented, that it should not be a problem. She would perhaps find out later just how well it went. She had seen already that some visitors were finding it a nice fair. The question was would there be business.

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