The warmth is back but no sun. The day is cloudy, a leftover from last night’s rain. The breeze is slight and the tops of the pine trees sway just a bit. Yesterday I didn’t leave the house. I cleaned this room. It took a long while as the room is filled with hats, snow globes, books and old toys. Gumby and Pokey were especially dusty as were the B-movie people  and the wind-up toys. I felt accomplished when I was finished.

These spurts of energy are sporadic. For that I am thankful. I hate wasting my time cleaning the house though I love a clean house. Every other week Rosana and Lee come to clean, but they don’t do the shelves in this room and my room or the top of the desk filled as it is with the wind-ups. I am stuck with those. When I can write a novel in the dust, I know it’s time to clean. Rosana always notices.

I never thought about a clean house when I was a kid. My mother did the cleaning when we were in school so it was like magic. Leave in the morning to a dusty house and come home to a clean one. Sometimes I wish I were Samantha, and I could just wiggle my nose and everything would get done. Not only that but I’d wiggle my nose and travel: dinner in Marrakech or breakfast on a rooftop overlooking the pyramids. I wouldn’t even need a dog and cat sitter.

Last night I watched Alcatraz. Inmates and guards disappeared in 1963. Their disappearance was covered up in a variety of ways, but now the inmates are reappearing and are deadly. Last night had a high body count. Those who have reappeared haven’t aged and are still wearing their prison uniforms. I wondered if the families of the guards disappeared too as they lived on the island. Nobody mentioned that. The reappeared have what they need in their pockets. One had a ticket off the island on the tourist boat, money and a key to a locker. He knew exactly where to go to find and open the locker. I like strange programs.

Poor Gracie hasn’t been herself the last couple of days. She was sick three times, didn’t eat and had nausea most of the early part of last night. Today she seems her chipper self. We’ve already played throw the toy down the hall, and she ate a couple of lamb bits. She’s sleeping now and has been for a while. Yesterday she never slept too long: she’d start swallowing then get up and go outside. I always worry when one of my animals gets sick.

Well, that’s it for today. I think all that cleaning drained my creativity.