It's a precarious day off. Someone left, someone's due to start, my day off falls in the middle and so I can't take it for granted, get an early start on the morning's errands...
First stop the Women in Need thrift shop by Marda Loop. A full shop, treasures of the day include a vintage cigarette case that ejects the cigarettes as required (I'll have to switch from King Size, it'll be perfect for the offered cigarettes, as the sole remaining designated smoker at work I'm the touchstone for staff in need of a single fag, amazing how many non-smokers smoke, but you'd have to be a smoker to know...), and an XBox game - Chessmaster - I try to think of how excited the kids will be... well, perhaps the daughter, the boy, it would be hard for him to imagine a more BORING computer game...
From there to the Bibles for Missions, nothing today, then down to Zowie's on 14 St, nothing again, over to Starbucks across the street for a quick coffee & chocolate muffin and a handful of Starbucks cards; run into an old Coworker from Chianti's I haven't seen for years, now a Realtor, he looks good, distinguished, grey hair, rugged features, me, I'm incognito with my handful of treasures, unwashed & unshaven & painfully aware I shouldn't be out and about in this state, we catch up, he's doing well and so am I but it's obvious that I'm not really, then to the Kalamata Grocery on 11th, some Parmesan cheese and olives, walk briskly from there to Kensington, despite appearances I'm feeling pretty good, the sun is shining, my coat's too hot, stop in the art store and get some Titanium and Zinc white as I'd run out, well, not out, but having opened a dozen tubs to find they've all congealed into cracked acrylic lumps I presumed I was out and put them back to mislead me again in the future ("Mixed Media", I tell myself..).
Then home, check the mail, nothing as of yet (damn!), but there's an email on the computer, my package has been shipped, there's a note explaining that I shouldn't be impatient, it's coming all the way from Tibet, and I imagine, briefly, my sacred relic being carted by yaks and Sherpa's over Himalayan passes, the same route taken by the book I just read, and there's anticipation...
There are other emails as well, work emails, but I'll do them after I paint, and I'll paint after I nap, and I should call in to work to ensure they're all right but that will have to wait until after my nap as well otherwise there will be no nap at all, only a gnawing at my intestines...