Writing, Painting, and Creativity

It's a little early, but if anyone is making a Christmas gift list, Fiorella would like a technology fairy who'd always be on call to hover over her shoulder. On the other hand, after poking every button she could find and pleading with God, your girl did get the first scene of Lolly's story printed out.
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Son is bringing his realtor friend over to meet Fio and look at the house this morning, and the Realtor who advised Fiorella a couple of months ago will be coming over to meet Son this afternoon. Fiorella has brought down boxes and cleaned the place up as much as she can, but the house is a mess. Moving is hard enough, but moving during a pandemic, when people are understandably wary of giving you a hand, is the pits.
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Your girl is still boxing pictures and paintings. Hope there's room for them in the new house. Also hope they will be appreciated.
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One of the paintings is a nude of Fio when she and Husband were young and feisty. He was giving her a hard time about painting with good clothes on, which made her so angry that she stripped off all her clothes--and continued painting. Husband retaliated by snapping a picture of her her, and she liked the pose so much that she turned it into a painting.
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Fio has had to be very creative in boxing up larger paintings--did you know that you can lay cardboard moving boxes down flat and tape the bottoms and tops shut? Also, that you can cut the sides of a box apart and tape them onto another box that has been cut as needed? It's sorta fun😁

Spiders, Packing, Lolly, Nipples, Meds

It's daddy-long-legs time, and the ceiling of Fio's front porch is the local arachnids' favorite gathering place. Nothing like walking outside to pick up the newspaper and looking up to see a swarming of black fuzz over your head.
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Fiorella is back to clearing out her office again, and this time she's focusing on retrieving and packing up stories she wrote for magazines, newspapers and newsletters through the years. Wow--your girl was a very active gal. No wonder so many people disliked her.
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Good news. Fiorella devoted three long hours yesterday afternoon to checking Lolly out for flow, and it's all there. Now to go through the saga line by line, word by word.
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Judging by the covers of romances advertised on Facebook, pinched male nipples are all the rage.
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Is this August sixth? Crap! How the heck did Fio miss an entire day's regimen of pills?!

This and That Again

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The great thing about living in the country is that when the whole world conspires against you, you can go outside in the backyard and scream, scream, scream without anyone hearing you.  Translation: the septic tank has reared its ugly head again. Fio sent the check to the city instead of the country and will probably have to pay a late fee, just like when she messed up paying her property tax. GRRRRR....
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Your girl has finalized arrangements for her Realtor and Son's Realtor to come look over to the house on Friday--at different times, of course. The place is a total mess, but we'll see what they say.
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Fiorella is trying to catch up on Lolly again, but her Mac Air is so irritatingly sensitive that it's tough going.
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Nothing like a slice of fresh lettuce to go with lunch. Fio had forgotten how much she liked it.
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You won't believe this, but your faithful correspondent has lost three pounds, probably because of the hell she's been going through emptying the house.

Life and Death

Fio's been putting a fair amount of time into packing lately, and if you're thinking of moving, she has a few tips for you.
     If your house is two-story house, you can toss light-weight things like clothes or bedding over the railing and let them slide down on their own. Heavier items can go into a box, then be bounced down the stairs or, if if the box is open-topped, nudged down with your foot.
     Also, the whole time, keep an eye open for forgotten treasures. It's amazing how many things Fiorella has found that she thought she'd lost twenty years ago.
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Sonia likes to lick Mommy's wounds. Fio's not sure whether Doggie is trying to heal her or likes the taste of blood.
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Fiorella's electricity went out for half an hour yesterday afternoon, the second time this summer. Wonder what's going on. Has Trump traced your girl down?
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Fiorella is not one who deals well with change, but she finally caved to her Mac's continuing pressure to install updates. After all, what could go wrong? EVERYTHING--she was immediately shut down because her computer didn't have the power needed for the updates.
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Looking around her yard, Fio realized that, considering the age of the world, there is no place on earth that is not a cemetery. We are our own fertilizer. Tread carefully, my dears.

Considerations

How wonderful! Friends Kathy and Michael came over and not only came up to a solution for Fio's backyard walkway problem, but also adjusted her sprinkler system. 🧡🧡🧡
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Other people talk about something they call "getting back to normal," but Fiorella's "normal" ended on January 2, 2019, when her husband died, again when her trees were cut down, and again when she was overrun with legal work, and again when she realized she should to sell the house, and a again when she realized that, because of the virus, she was all on her own in clearing everything out. There is no "normal" in her world. 😔
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The women marching for the right to vote were beaten and and tortured, sometimes even killed, but they persisted. Same for the MLK marchers. How many bodies will it take this time?😈
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Fio's been making a list of the active hate groups. So far, she has KKK, Boogaloo, Crazy White Boys, Proud Boys, and Aryan Boys Brotherhood. 😕
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The most frightening words you can hear from Fiorella's' lips are "I wonder if....," which means she's about to try something, usually a short cut. Sometimes her brainstorms work, sometimes they don't.  Whatever, she'll have learned something.

Walkway and Political Poetry

Nothing is ever simple, is it?  Fiorella's plans for the backyard walkway are coming to a screeching halt because Fernando doesn't think he can make the final lap. At the same time, Blogger is threatening her with a new set-up that your non-electronic girl is afraid she won't be able to handle.
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Fio, who spouts out rhymes like a water fountain, came across one of her earlier poems and thought you might like to see it again:

    America, hang your head in shame
    Ethic cleansing is the name of the game--
        Clear out the black, the yellow, the brown
        Run gays and their kindred out of town
        Ridicule the halt, the blind, the lame
        And do unto those who sorrow the same
        Jail the actors, the artists, the press
        Silence the women and make them a jest
        Reject the migrants or throw them in jail
        Allow graft and cronyism to prevail
   In short, go after anyone who
   Doesn't talk or think or look like you--
   An automaton of self-fed hate
   Which no force on earth can alleviate

Life Moves On

Fiorella just realized she designed the floor plan of her current home to echo the floor plan of of her family's house in Ohio when she was a child. Sweet memories 🧡
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Sonia Dog licks up every spill she makes--Fio wishes her kids had been that well-trained😒
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Until Husband died, Fiorella never realized how easy she had it with someone at her beck and call who understood the wiles of technology.  On the other hand, your girl knew how to write checks and pay bills, a talent which Husband, coming from a wealthy family that had all their bills directed to the bank for payment, never quite grasped. 😔
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Looking back, Fio can't believe that, come rain, snow, or fog, she used to spend an hour on the interstate driving to her teaching job each morning and another hour driving home in the evening. During winter months, the mist was so thick that the only way she could stay on the road was to ride behind a big truck.😒
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Thank you, thank you, thank you to neighbor Michael who gave Fiorella half of his afternoon to check out her backyard walkway and print out Lolly's story 🧡