this month is zooming by. Right now it is a FULL JULY MOON (thunder moon! or buck moon! or some other nature name that also sounds like a special edition Axe body spray for camping.) It's right out my window so I went outside to look at it with the binoculars and it's so bright and beautiful - less like singing cheese and more like science when it's right in my eyeballs. RECOMMENDED if you have a view of the moon (full or not) and binoculars. and eyeballs.
Now that you know what's up with the moon out my window, here's the latest on work and mermaids
WORK: good! I've had 2 full weeks of my schedule now plus a partial week and I finally feel like I'm getting the hang of it. I'm faster than I was, which feels better because I was sloooooow before. Being familiar with the branch and the staff has been a huge boon, but it also led me to think I should know what I was doing immediately. This is ridiculous and I would never hold another human to it, but I did it to myself anyway. So frustrating until I caught on. (no surprise to anyone but me: I did not, and in many cases still do not know what I am doing! But I'm finding out, which has been rewarding.)
MERMAIDS: I sent 3 mermaids sailing across the sea (in an airplane) to Australia today. I am a very neglectful etsy shopkeeper, so it's always a surprise to me when I get an order from Idaho, let alone an order from Australia. My shop has been like a long, slow internet course in keeping an etsy shop. (Lesson 1: have mermaids available at all times because they are popular.) Every order brings new knowledge and I can tweak things in a better direction - this time I realized that my international shipping prices were not updated on every item, so my Australian friend got a good deal on shipping which I certainly do not begrudge her.
Now it's late and I have to go to bed before my eyeballs turn into miniature cheese thunder moons.
Sunday the 1st: All day shopping frenzy with my sister and visiting Fresno Aunt. F.A. had very specific things she was looking for and we had to go to TWO MALLS, which is too many malls. Maybe the other mall was later. I almost passed out in the Lego store, so it's all a blur to me now. At the beginning, before things went mall-shaped, we bought some delicious goat cheese at the Irvington Farmer's Market.
Monday the 2nd: More shopping, but this time it was yarn shops - hooray! Then one more mall (the second mall! I remember now we only went to one on Sunday, it just seemed like 500 malls and when I left the Lego store to get some air I had to stand right in front of the "we buy your gold" guy for what seemed like an eternity. It was interesting watching the gold guy size up potential customers. I was rightly dismissed immediately!)
Tuesday the 3rd: Fresno Aunt and her nice but cat-intimidating German Shepherd, Daisy, leave at the CRACK OF DAWN. (on the road by 7 AM) Rest of day spent in a "don't have to do anything" daze. Wasn't sure how long she'd be staying - thought she'd be here at least another couple of days, so this was a bonus. Don't get me wrong - I love my Aunt, but there were a lot of cat/dog shenanigans that required constant vigilance! Plus she gets up REALLY EARLY. Anyway. She left and now we can miss her and count our blessings about not having to go to the mall.
THE MOON SENT ME A TEXT: Tuesday was the full moon - I know this not only from looking in the night sky with my eyeballs, but because I must have hit some setting on one of my moon apps (I have two), and it sent me a little calendar reminder at 1PM saying "hello, I am full right now even though it's the middle of the day and you're not even thinking about the moon, which is why I had to send you this message. I, The Moon, have achieved fullness in the sky right over your head even though you're too self-absorbed to even LOOK UP because it's daytime or something. It's moontime where I'm sitting, baby. Get with the program."
PM ADVENTURES: I often go to a pub trivia game on Wednesdays with my trivia pals, but since this Wed. was a holiday, we went to a different one across town, hosted by the same guy. It was so bizarre! But fun because we like trivia and hanging out, plus we were having a little adventure. (we placed 2nd, which I deem respectable.)
Wednesday the 4th: Goofing off! My sister made jam and then we made cake to take to a BBQ @ Martina's house. Everything was delicious. Got home in time to make sure the cats were safely locked in due to mad bomber-style holiday explosives. Turned out to be a good call because someone a couple of streets over had a full on BOOM BOOM fireworks show. This was supposed to be the year that pdx cracked down on those kind of (legal in Washington, illegal in Oregon) fireworks, but I guess not!
Thursday the 5th: such a gorgeous day. The sun shone and I worked in the garden while listening to book podcasts. Lovely. I forgot to put on sunscreen for the first hour outside, so I'm a little pink. Due to schedule changes and (complicated, budgety) things, I know this month is going to be slooow for work, so I'm trying to make some visible garden progress. We'll see how it goes... OOh, I also made some serious progress in the nonfiction book I have to finish by Sunday (The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit). I'm enjoying it - loving the descriptions of cosmopolitan old Cairo. It gives me a better sense of the region in that era - I found myself thinking of Justine, which was fiction but set in roughly the same period from the POV of a British ex-pat. Anyway, I'm enjoying it but wish I was done so I could dig into one of the 40 billion things waiting on my TBR stack.
ENJOY this Feist video with fireworks in it. I was going to post this on the 4th, but I'm posting it now instead.
Law of Sympathy, i.e. the assumption that things act on one another at a distance through a secret link, due either to the fact that there is some similarity between them or to the fact that they have at one time been in contact, or that one has formed part of the other.
