Yellow Mourning

Fiorella is devastated. She's lost her yellow tablet, the one she lists her plans for the day on. Actually, there are three tablets missing, all bound together with a rubber band. One of them has lists of Spanish words on it, and she scribbled down lists of ideas for her books and blogs on the other one. And yes, Fio has retraced her steps in the house and yard and called the restaurant where she and Husband had dinner. Tomorrow, she'll call Chase bank and the post office, both of which she blessed with her presence. yesterday. Meanwhile, she'll have to start another yellow list.

Fio is sad.

Fiorella Ponders

If all goes well, Fiorella is getting a workable GPS today. Minnesota Son gave her one for Christmas last year, but there was no  way to install it in her Miata, so when Son visited recently, he arranged for a friend of his to look the situation over. Scott Williams is making a whole new fitting to be able to to affix the mechanism to Fio's dashboard, which would mean means she could zoom down to the southern boondocks to visit her grandbaby any time she wants.
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The Georgetown post office didn't have any postcards in stock when the barrage of Paul Ryan's home address was scheduled so Fio had to drive down to Austin to pick some up--two weeks late. Hmmm... Why is that Georgetown is always out of postcards? Maybe because they've become the Resistance's weapons of choice, and Gtown bleeds red?
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To my children; Ever since the three of you were born, you have been the most important people in my life, but as you grew up, I became less and less important to you, which is how it should be. And when the time comes that I no longer recognize you, please love yourselves enough to  abandon me. I do not want to be a burden.
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The final thing Fio ponders is why she tries to write late at night. She's embarrassed at how much morning-after editing she's had to do on this post to make it readable. Apologies.

Precious LittleTime

Shock--Fio forget to post today, which is understandable with the schedule she's trying to keep. She raced out of the house this morning to meet with a friend at Starbucks--the same friend she stood up the day before because Fio was waiting at the wrong Starbucks--only to wait again because this time she was 24 hours too early. What else to do but drive off to the post office to buy Christmas stamps. The machine didn't carry them so she had to join the tail end of a l-o-n-g line. Bored to tears after finishing off all her physical therapy exercises as she waited (neck, shoulders, plies), she started talking to the people standing behind her.

The line refused to move, but Fiorella overheard a post office lady (who was moving up and down the line with a whip to keep the lions in check) tell someone that H-E-B sold Christmas stamps so Fio said good-bye to her new friends and sped on up to H-E-B, only to stand in a new line, this time at a register. Fio asked for nativity stamps, but the clerk said she only had Santa stamps, but that every register had a different stamp. Now your Fio was not about to spend her precious time standing in line at twenty registers to find out which one of them carried a stamp appropriate to her Christmas card so she walked over to the service desk and--voila!--the clerk had an acceptable batch of stamps on hand. Fio bought 100, which should put the national treasury back in good shape, then zoomed down to Hobby Lobby to buy more red ribbon for decking the halls, then drove home via Walgreens, where she picked up pildoras (pills) and a few Christmas treats.

The whole journey, Fio smiled a lot, talked to everyone, and even exchanged cards with a few other artist types. Yes, Fiorella on the roll is a sight to behold--and perhaps beware of. She is not the person her mother wanted her to be, but  Mother is long dead, and although  Fio feels her maternal love more and more every day, her strictures have faded away. Fio is Fio, and she will continue to devote every minute of her time to saving the world.

Count-down

Congratulate Fio.  She's finished her decorating--almost.  The tree is glowing.  All the swags, drapes, and wreaths are up--even the wreath that had to be wired in place because several passes with a Command hook didn't hold. The birds, fruit, vegetables, and butterflies will go up tomorrow, and then the dining room table will be cleaned off.  After a final trip to the post office and HEB, Fiorella will be prepared for Christmas.

What about Christmas dinner, you ask?  Well, Husband and Daughter will take care of the turkey andixin's.  All Fio will have to do is set the table. And be decorative . . . as is her nature.

The Life of Leisure

Fio's at it again.  She's hopping in the car at 10:30 today to drop by Beleza at 11:00 and drop off some of her promotional bookmarks, then meet with Friend Paula at Dan's at 11:30, then with Friend Cheryl at Starbucks at 12:45.  After that, she'll run by the post office.  Once home, she'll write, write, write till about midnight, then sleep till eight tomorrow morning and start all over again.

She forgot to say that she'll also work in lifting five-pound weights ten times in German, will do ten plies in Russian, slip in a bit of piano practice, and oil her fingernails.

Eating and breathing are optional.

Shallow Fio

Buoyed up by her romance-writing class going so well the night before that the students stayed thirty minutes afterwards, Fiorella set off for a full day of errands and appointments in Austin yesterday.  She arranged for a rental car, drove into town, dropped some donation books off at church, mailed letters and bought stamps, spent two hours with her favorite hairdresser, scarfed down Starbuck's marble pound cake for lunch, and had a great visit with her neurologist and his intern. Because the intern was half Chinese, Fiorella tried out her meager Mandarin.

HE UNDERSTOOD HER AND REPLIED IN KIND!

Her tires never touched ground all the way home.   It takes so little to make Fiorella happy.