Iron, Not Sulfur (I think)

We woke up this morning to a sunny sky but the wind was having its way with the air and it felt cold. It was perhaps 60 outside, but with the windchill factor making it feel like minus 12. Or close. You’ll just have to believe me.
I’d had some fairly awful dreams involving trying to get off the island and then back and not being able to get online which I have to admit is growing wearisome but it was disturbing to have this small inconvenience insinuate itself into my dreams with such importance.
Harumph!
There was also the dream-matter to be taken care of that involved Hugh Grant and Tim Robbins in my backyard at home, checking out the site for a movie location which was exciting until all my neighbors came out to gawk at them, thus blowing the deal. Of course they didn’t resemble my real neighbors at all, but were more like extras from Night Of The Living Dead, walking all Zombie-like with big blank eyes, the better to take in the celebrities in my backyard.
Damn them.
So I wasn’t in the best of moods and when the phone rang I was quite happy to talk to whoever it was on the other end and it was one of my other daughters.
“Mommy!” she said and I said, “What is going on in the world? Are we at war or anything?”
“Not that I know of,” she said and that taken care of, we proceeded to discuss the books we’ve been reading which is what we almost always talk about and it was grand.
Then my daughter who is here with me woke up in her usual good spirits, boyfriend problems be damned and we lounged around and ate some breakfast and then we did some yoga in the house and then we went on our walk and I bitched the whole time because the sand was too soft and I just wasn’t into it today but we covered a few miles and I felt much, much better when we got back.
Another thing I did today was try to clean that shower and I have realized that it’s not sulfur making our water black and icky but probably iron instead which makes me feel completely retarded because I grew up with sulfur water and if anyone should know the difference, it should be me.
And I learned that Kaboom, although a fantastic cleaning product, has very little effect on iron stains and so the shower looks almost as bad as it did when I started and that’s just the way it’s going to be.
It’s still pretty breezy this afternoon, but warmish, the windchill probably up to about fifty, at least, and the sun is shining on the white-capped bay and the pine trees are just gloriously green against the blue sky and I love the noise of the waves hitting the beach as they froth themselves into a small fury of foam.
The daughter has found a guitar in the closet and is playing it and I’ve got coffee in my mug and peace in my heart and that damn Hugh Grant and Tim Robbins can just find another place to film their next movie.
I’m using the place I live to film my own movie, thank-you very much, and don’t need a bunch of sound trucks and generators and craft-services people running around like crazy while I’m trying to figure out the differences between illusion and reality, dreaming and being awake, iron and sulfur.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Dog Island, Florida