Sunday

30 April 2017

— the quiet, reassuring ticking of Britta’s honorable aunt’s wind-up clock.

Good Morning All,

Anytime after 6:00 and usually before 7:00, once I’ve set the coffee machine perking, been out to check the bird feeders, and—this time of year—to inhale the mixed redolence of the dew and the hyacinths on the morning air, I usually crank up this computer and check my electronic Boston Globe to see how bad things are going back in the old country, around the world, and at assorted sports venues.

With the first cup of coffee, I typically play four games on the AARP website: Pyramid Solitaire (the version with traditional cards), Freecell (traditional cards), Mahjong (Toy Chest), and Spider (Two suits). That’s good for twenty minutes or so, just long enough for my brain to wander into whatever it plans for us to be doing for the day. I keep score and if I accumulate 2,000 or more points, it will be a good day and my chances of getting into heaven have marginally improved.

Next, I send out last year’s quiz-for-the-day to seven of you who are gluttons for punishment. After that, I do the next Day Book page for however far I’ve gotten in the calendar (I finished 2 August about an hour ago.)

A second cup off coffee and two slices of raspberry jam toast, and now it is down to business. I boot up this day's Day Book entry, usually completed a month or more ago, and get to enjoy again the snaps. I nearly always like the poem and prose passage, and I agree with at least some of the quotes. 

There is, though, inevitably some tidying up to do, dates not boldfaced, candles forgotten, a little more squeezing here and there, after which I re-save the entry and then re-save the pdf version.

Now I open an e-mail and get to the prefatory stuff, including the listing of historical events, during which I remind myself not to goof around too much because I have history-major friends who—probably rightly—get annoyed. As you have likely noticed, I do not always succeed in not goofing around.

There follows then my usual natter on some topic or other. Roughly half the time, I have no idea what is going to sally forth, such as this morning. Whatever materialises, I usually go on too long. 

After adding the two attachments, I boot up the Day Book e-mail from the previous day, highlight in blue the address list and drag it into the BCC address slot and push the send button.

That brings up the spell check, where I average three or four legitimate misspellings, a whole bunch of illegitimate ones (my spell checker is British), and a half dozen or so not on the list (Britta and Johs, e.g.), for which I hit the ignore option.

Once I get to Bhekaron and hit ignore, off—with Apple’s whoosh sound--it goes! That is always a good feeling.

Now on a roll, I’ll do one more Day Book entry (today it will be 3 August), and after that give over what remains of the morning (between on 1 and 2 hours) to fiddling around with my own poetic attempts or some work of fiction in progress.

I mention all this simply by way of saying thank you for the considerable enjoyment I get from these morning activities, these morning devotions, orisons, and my best hopes for you all to 

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron