Packing Away the Hocus... Keeping out the Pocus

Unlikely  topic here. I have just been lying here in bed trying to sleep and... it just is not happening! That isn't unusual, and since I don't have a classroom of teenagers to "enchant" with the intricacies of our English language, I don't really suffer if I pull an all-nighter.

In three short days the fluff and major stuff of Autumn has disappeared. I usually leave out a few things and my turkeys... It really matters only to me, as I have mentioned before. All I know is I am ready for the metamorphosis into Christmas and winter touches. Every year I write a plan to thin out my holiday decor, and I did eliminate a few things last summer. But do we do this before the season or after? My gramma used to say, "It won't eat anything." So into the bins they go... every last pumpkin and Easter egg, patriotic star, witch, and sprig of holly. 

I watch videos of people who live in those tiny houses. I couldn't store my holiday stuff in one of those, but... I enjoy the unique idea of eliminating by choice...  However, this is not another litany about clutter or down-sizing.

It strikes me that my cat and I are literally "wound too tight," and we are gonna snap a widget if we don't cool it down. She is a curious thing, but her nerves are just shot. If the slightest noise comes her way while she's in snoop mode, it's all four paws-jump straight up in the air- and "mean mug" my son... who may or may not have made the noise to scare her! Then she powers through the house and climbs the door frames or leaps from the top to top of cabinets, sometimes scratching at the cornice molding... It is hilarious, and she always comes back for more...

My son is a tease. He likes to cast empty pop cans into an empty corner or hallway while I am deep in some project or dreamy idyll... And though I cannot get all four of my paws in the air or leap and scratch about, I startle, and even scream pretty easily. His day is complete, and though he swears he is "sorry," we all know he. is. not... lol  He gets that mischief honestly. My grandfather was a tease... One day when I was a junior in high school, Paw-paw was recovering in bed (now my bed thanks to a last minute rescue from the auction pile) from a slight stroke. He asked me in a weak, scratchy voice, "Who is that woman?" and he pointed to my gramma, his wife of 50 years or more. She tried to get him to recognize who she was... and she left the room crying. I sat there pretty appalled! Then he looked over at me and winked! "That was sure funny, wasn't it?" He was laughing and speaking just fine... Well, I hiked out of there and informed Minnie Samantha what her husband had pulled... It was not pretty... 

If you knew my mother, you knew she was not exactly filled with any type of nonsense... She was strong, spoke her thoughts, and a worker... Dropping everything to look at the moon or chase a rainbow would not seem natural for her. I used to think it must have been some fey trickster to drop off a baby steeped in whimsy and nonsense and fairy dust like me. But I now see Mom was a magnet for the magic. She fed it, and planted it, and she enjoyed it... while keeping her feet securely in the "mundane." So I think my son picked that up... 

But I seriously need to calm the heck down. As I have mentioned, I do not walk due to arthritis, so I put the miles on one office chair after another... This morning I absent-mindlessly carried my phone in to wake my son up... to go to bed (Beeswax)... but he falls asleep at his computer which complicates his health issues. He is never all that appreciative at the time, but... it happens. Moms are like that...  While I was rolling through the kitchen, I somehow brushed open my phone to a YouTube newscast I had been watching. Suddenly a man was talking loudly in a 2 A.M. kitchen in the dark. ?He was so very near!.. I screamed like an Irish banshee, which scared my cat into action, which scared me again, so I screamed again --- louder than before... which petrified my cat... and we really woke up my son, who raced out to save our lives... Nobody was laughing... (except probably... my grandfather.)

Anyway. I am pretty awake...

Whimsy and Hugs!