Today was not the most productive day in the history of my life. I did not paint the trim on the house. I did not clean the bathroom. I did not clean the kitchen. I did not do the laundry. I did not plant flowers. I did not pick up the clutter in the bedroom. I did not clean my car. I did not finish my craft projects. I did not read next week’s Lesson. I did not cook anything for tomorrow’s lunch. I did not slice up peaches to serve tomorrow night when Ron gets home. I did not catch up reading all the papers that have stacked up since Friday. I did not read any of those Sentinels that are piling toward the ceiling. I did not accomplish 90 percent of the things on my to-do list.
I did, however, accomplish two things:
1. I ran three miles. Doesn’t sound like much, but I’d been promising myself I’d run all weekend and hadn’t done it yet, so that’s a pretty big deal — especially since I got a nasty sunburn yesterday while painting and was a little afraid I’d get dehydrated and feverish like I did the last time. Hugs to my wonderful practitioner, who managed to take the fire out of it with a gentle admonition to “expect only good.”
2. I shot the photographs posted above. I’ve loved that “PARTS” sign since the first time I laid eyes on it (about five years ago, during our first Route 66 trip), but for some reason, I never got around to shooting it. I kept thinking it would be cool to get a picture of it at sunset, but I never seemed to remember to go out there at the right time of day to get the shot. I thought of it today and decided to head out that direction this evening, but I got there too early. I figured I was out of luck, since I still needed to run three miles and didn’t think I could get to Reed Park, run seven laps, and get back to Oakhurst by sunset … but just as I finished my run and was heading down Southwest Boulevard, I noticed a streak of color in the sky above Ollie’s and decided to go for broke.
I got out to the sign just as the sky was shifting from golden to pink and snapped a few frames, under the watchful eye of the golden retriever mix who serves as a watchdog for the property. They’re big, but goldens are just too cute to fit the menacing-junkyard-dog stereotype. I was expecting a Doberman, or maybe a Rottie, but this shaggy, floppy-eared golden mutt came galumphing out instead, barking and trying its best to look threatening. I thought about taking its picture, but it’s hard to shoot through a chain-link fence.
I had parked on a side road while I took the photo, and I decided to follow the road to see where it led. It spat me out on the I-44 frontage road in front of a Quonset hut labeled “Holy Ground Evangelical Center” in large block letters. I’d never seen any signs of life out there when I’d passed it on the interstate, but they were having a tent revival out front this evening. I rolled down the windows as I passed so I could hear the preacher, who was shouting a fiery, Southern-fried sermon like I used to hear in Baptist churches when I was a kid.
Being a hopeless Diamond girl, I of course wound up humming “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show” all the way home … which meant that I had to listen to Hot August Night on iTunes to get it out of my head once I got back here.
I think I’ll stay up for a little while longer and listen to the rest of this album and see how much of my to-do list I can knock out before I run out of steam. Somehow I work faster when I’ve got Neil Diamond singing in the background….
Hope you had a good weekend.
Emily
Red Fork Hippie 