Photos, A Donut, And Maybe A Tee Shirt

This morning when I opened the blinds at the front of the house, the view was wonderfully ethereal. It looked like nothing but forest and trees and wilderness.  I don't take many photographs in this direction--the town in down in that valley somewhere--but the early morning light as the sun was rising, and the soft blanket of mist wafting in lazy drifts, was irresistible.

Out untangling my prayer flags yesterday afternoon after a serious wind and rain squall, I had a perfect O. Henry moment.  One my favorites stories, The Last Leaf is about an old man who paints an ivy leaf on the side of a building outside a very sick woman's window; she is sure when the last leaf falls, she will die.  There's a great twist at the end, which all his stories have.

I have a lovely Oriental Cherry tree in the back garden.  After the storm, this one beautiful red leaf was the last one still clinging to a branch...

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Did my Thanksgiving grocery shopping this morning after dog walking.  Already a madhouse at the store, but yippee, I'm done and don't have to go back until the dust settles, which will be sometime next week.

So, I'm wandering in the bakery department.  I've talked myself out of baking a pie, so I'm looking for one to buy, but change my mind because they just don't taste the same as homemade. I pass the donut display.  I hesitate.  Surely, just one jelly donut is okay, right?  I never eat donuts anymore. Too sugary, too bad for anyone over 40.  But crap, that jelly donut, yeah, that one at the back?  With the oozing jelly?  It can't hurt to just have one little donut, can it?  I bag it up and plan on having it for my late morning snack when I get home.

The checkout girl is new, very young and I think probably Christmas help.  She's sweet, flustered and doesn't have a clue how to bag things up.  Whatever, everyone's gotta start somewhere.

I get home and start putting the groceries away.  At the bottom of one of my burlap grocery bags is a smaller plastic one, a strange, flat, pancake shape inside. **Sigh**  She set a quart of milk, two containers of butter, a clump of six bananas and a large head of broccoli on top of my jelly donut. Seriously. Don't new grocery people learn tips, are taught how to bag, know that soft stuff never, ever goes on the bottom?

So much for having an illicit snack.  That'll teach me...

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If I really knuckle down and don't get too sidetracked--like writing the blog instead of writing my NaNo story--I just might, maybe, could possibly, finish by this weekend.  It will be close, but there's some good action stuff right now in the plot, which is almost writing itself and yesterday I was so on a roll, I could have kept writing into the night.  Except, I was getting too tired of typing, and sitting at the laptop, so when my fingers began typig hte wodrs lik ths, I knew it was time to stop.

Because of my sudden forward momentum, I'm back to feeling optimistic, and hey, it's just a few more days and the madness is over. I can do it. Besides, I really want that blasted tee shirt...