Muddled Days...

Do you ever have weeks where everything feels like a muddle? For me, these are weeks where my house needs cleaning but I don't have time. The table is cluttered with mail that should be sorted, the floor is messy with dried leaves that the puppies have accidentally brought in from outside by getting them stuck to their fur and even when I do the dishes, the kitchen cries out for organization?

This is one of those weeks. I haven't had time to get much done in the evenings and I'm feeling like my house is just one big jumble at the moment. My desk at work is also cluttered and just my general feeling towards life is that it's a bit complex at this present time.

I don't know why. I'm using my ever ready excuse of the change of the seasons. It's not quite autumn yet. Even though tomorrow marks the official first day of fall, it's going to be 90 degrees. It still seems like summer has her hold on us. Until she lets go, we're stuck in a pattern where we feel like it's wrong to use the air conditioning because it shouldn't be necessary and yet without it, we swelter. It feels odd to wear summer colours when summer is over but our autumn clothes are too heavy for the current weather.

It's just hard to dive head first into autumn when it's clearly not ready to be autumn quite yet. Fortunately, we are supposed to get some crisper weather next week but, for now, it feels a bit muddled.

Which, I'm thinking, is why I feel a little muddled. I've realized that, as a person, I tend to like things to be organized. I'm not fanatical about it but I like things to be simple and tidy. For example, let's take ice-cream. I find that two components are about as much as I like in my ice-cream. Mint Chocolate chip, rum raisin, vanilla, raspberry ripple…that's as complicated as I get with my ice-cream. No Rocky Road or Chunky Monkey for me. I don't really like to combine things; I think that's it. I like my salty on one side of the plate, sweet on the other. I'm one of the few folks who doesn't like salty-sweet combinations very much. I don't like to dip Oreos in milk. I'd rather eat the cookie then drink the milk.

So, you can see why I don't like this combo summer/autumn thing that's going on. It's got me in a muddle. It's either summer or autumn. Right now, the weather feels like summer but the world around me, both nature-made and human-made is ready for autumn. The clothes are in the stores, the scents and foods have crossed over seasons. It's just hard to embrace it when it's not in the least bit autumnal in temperature outside.

I suppose it's why I was always grateful to escape to the Midwest for Christmas when I lived in L.A. While it was a nice novelty to sit outside after Christmas shopping in 75 degree weather on the ocean, it never felt right. Christmas should be snow covered and cold. It should not be balmy and warm with palm trees and flowers blooming. I'm sure it's dependent on what you're used to. Me, I'm used to it being snowy and cold on Christmas.

What I'm trying to get at is that I think my current state of muddle is rather due to the fact that I can't define it as autumn or summer. It's a weird hybrid. I'm not big on hybrids. I like things to be what they are. Hybrid cars are ok but that's only because they're cute, quiet and nifty. Also, since I don't understand automotive engineering, I find hybrids to be rather magical and anything magical is ok by me.

But you get my point, right? We're still in transition of the seasons and so I'm feeling trapped in the middle. It's hard to move forward but we can't move back. This explains my state of muddle. My subconscious doesn't know what to do and thus, it's not doing anything. We're caught in a state of stasis. It's peculiar.

Perhaps if I clean my house and tidy my desk, I'll feel better. I've still been feeling like I'm missing something in my life though that feeling has been a little better lately, especially when friends have told me they understand exactly how I feel.

Still, for now, I'm sitting in a state of muddle. I need to move forward and embrace the autumn. Yet it's still 90 degrees out there.

Maybe I'll wait until it cools down. Autumn…where are you?

Happy Thursday!

The Memory of Oranges

Today is one of those days I often talk about in which staying in bed seems like a perfect way to spend the day. It's raining outside and when the rain lands, it freezes. I knew it was going to be a horrid drive just by listening to the traffic report on the radio. Traffic in and out of Cincinnati is a nightmare, roads are closed and there are so many accidents, they're having to make extra time to report them all. Fortunately, I have a short drive to work which, I will say even though I've been in the Midwest for over three months, still seems like a luxury when I think back to my hour long commutes in L.A.

No matter how short the drive to work, however, I still have to see out of my car windows to get there which means de-icing the car. I cheat by letting my car run for ten minutes. By the time I'm ready to leave, my car is toasty warm and the ice is a little easier to remove. I got this nifty gift for Christmas from my good friends in L.A.- an ice-scraper attached to a furry mitt. I used it this morning. It's awesome. My hand stayed warm, the ice came off in a thin wet sheet by the mere tap of the scraper and voila! I could see out of my windows.

The drive to work took longer, the parking lot at work was an ice-rink and by the time I sat in my chair, all I wanted to do was to be back in my nice, warm bed. I have a ton of good books to read at the moment which may be why these past two postings mention snow days and staying home from work. The temptation of a good book is a powerful force.

Yet I'm here now. One of the few lone rangers. It's dark and gloomy outside. I'm drinking tea. I love tea. I also, unfortunately, now have orange stuck between my teeth because I had one for breakfast. I seem to be on an orange kick. I've discovered that if I cut them into four wedges with the peel still on it and take it to work in Tupperware, I'm far more likely to eat it than if I simply bring an orange to work. I'm also trying not to think about the fact that less than a year ago, I could go to the L.A. Arboretum- one of my favourite spots on earth- and sit in a rose garden, surrounded by an orchard of orange trees. The scent of orange blossoms is one of my favourite scents and it would waft gently on the breeze, perfuming the spring air. There were also hidden orange trees at the L.A. Arboretum that only someone who wandered off the beaten track would find. These are the trees whose fruit I would pick. There were no signs saying not to pick the fruit and, if you didn't, it would fall down, wasting away on the ground. So I'd often pick an orange, settle under a tree and read.

Eating an orange in my office just isn't the same especially on a gloomy day like this. I love a good spot of rain, as I've mentioned. I also love snow as I'm sure, by now, my readers have figured out. I'm just not quite so keen on the combination. What can I say? I like absolutes. I like Oreo cookies and I like a glass of milk. I do NOT, however, like the two things together. The thought of the inevitable sludge in the bottom of the glass turns my stomach. Someone told me this weekend that they'd bought cheese that had a coffee flavour. It was some kind of tiramisu cheese. That's revolting. I like cheese. I like coffee. I think coffee flavoured cheese sounds like one of the most vile things ever.

Anyway, I digress. Again. It's as gloomy out as when I started my blog which means it'll probably remain that way for much of the day. I don't mind when I'm at work. I don't really have a window anyway. And, when I go home, it'll make it easier to curl up with a mug of something hot and enjoy the gloom for a while before I begin the sad task of de-Christmasing my apartment. It's time to take down those decorations, remove the Christmas music from my iPod and start living the New Year properly. Maybe the rain will make that easier.

Happy Tuesday.