Woke up this morning, staggered out to the computer and the waiting coffee, and watched the weather go from the steady rain of last night to a brief, pounding storm, high wind, hail, lightning, thunder, the works. The trees behind the house thrash madly when it’s windy, pine cones fall on the roof like cataclysmic bird droppings, and I find myself saying things like “In case a tree falls on the house while you’re gone, I love you.” Not that I expect it to happen, but hey, better safe than sorry.

I was caught in a hailstorm once, back in the days when I had no car. I was on my way to a job interview, ironically. This is when I learned that hail isn’t a blunt force trauma, that shit is pointy. I didn’t realize that I was bleeding, however, because of course it was pouring rain, until I walked into the office, and suddenly thin little skeins of blood were coming from much of my exposed flesh. They’re very teeny cuts, I doubt I lost even a thimbleful of blood, but I sure as hell made an impression during the interview, let me tell you.

James had gone out the door and I was performing the questionable alchemy of morning on my second cup of coffee–more milk? More sugar? More sugar can negate the need for more milk, but is the milk already in there from the first cup enough to counteract the half-cup of fresh coffee poured in? God, the decisions. And people think art is hard.

There came a pounding on the kitchen window.

I looked up groggily and saw James. Had he broken a limb? He was awfully vertical for that. No, he was pointing madly at something. I shuffled to the right and peered out the window in the direction of the pointing. Ah. The car. Is something wrong with the car? Are the tires flat?

A head popped out of the wheelwell. There was a squirrel clinging to the tire to shelter from the hail. The head regarded us with deep suspicion. Awwww.

James waited a minute until a break, went up to the car, flushing the squirrel, and ran the engine for a minute or two to be sure. (James being James, I’m fairly sure that had the squirrel not broke and run, he would still be sitting in the driveway.)

I sat at the computer, slightly too black and slightly too sweet coffee in hand, and contemplated what to art next. The cat settled herself into James’s chair–near the working human in case of a sudden need for petting, but far enough away that she can nap without being disturbed.

There’s no real point to this entry, I realize, I just felt like avoiding work by cataloguing my morning.