It was much warmer at the cabin this trip than the other times I've been here. I still put on my jacket when the sun was going down, but even that wasn't strictly necessary. I also built a small fire to cook some soup on, and for once, it started right away, on the first match, and didn't go out until I was already eating. Last time I was here, I went out and gathered two buckets full of kindling, and there was still one bucket left (it's possible nobody else has built a fire in the stove when they've been here), but if building a fire were that easy, I wouldn't have struggled with it the last visits.
I went to sleep quite early for me, and woke up quite early for . . . well, anybody. I got up when it was still dark out, turned on my computer, and blogged a little bit, then laid back down, and fell back asleep. When I woke up again, it was six-something and the sun was just coming up behind the hills, so this time I got up and edited my Patreon address all the way through to the end. Then I laid down again for a few more minutes, kind of like a reward, but mostly because of laziness.
When I got here yesterday, I went into one of the bedrooms (I just sleep on the couch now, since the last ten visits or so have all required me to build a fire) and saw a sleeping bag in the shape of a person on the floor. I'll run over and take a quick picture of it.
Anyway, it gave me pause because of my imagination, but I must be becoming braver, because the first thing I did was reach down and feel to see if there was a dead (or faking dead) body under it.
And no such luck.
I still do get flashes of disturbing possibilities of seeing someone upstairs or staring through the window at me (this morning, the first time I woke up, I had to turn on a light to even make my way around, and as I flipped it on, I imagined seeing a pasty white Count Orlok face drifting back into the blackness . . . but again, no such luck). And I didn't dwell on these thoughts as I have been known to--I just shrugged at the possibility, and tried to get on with my day.*
I got a lot of editing done today. It was a lovely, sunny day, but only about seventy or seventy-five out, which only my cousin could complain about being too hot. I sat down to write a couple of times, but always preferred to do something else (got another Outcast episode edited, as well as my Patreon Address). I had brought some donuts up, as is my wont, and I told myself I could have one if I wrote a hundred words . . . and I chose to do sit-ups instead.
I'm sick, doc, sick in the head.
Sit-ups Today: 333 (that's GOTTA be a record!)
Sit-ups In July: 448
The last three times I've gone up there, I've planned on taking a walk down by where I heard all the frogs singing the first time I came up in May (I edited the podcast I did that day, and the frogs were almost deafening in one part--I cut out about two minutes of it in case it irritated listeners). Since I had extra hours in the day, I drove down to the end of the road, parked the car, and walked down to the little ponds at the bottom of the hill.
But there were no frogs. Not a single one.
There was lovely almost-clear water in several little ponds that seemed almost professionally-dammed up along the edges, but there was nothing living in them (I think I saw a couple of bugs, but that was it). I did take a couple of pictures, and get pretty muddy, trying to navigate the thick grass and treacherous pathways, but unless you really like the pictures I took, it was a bit of a bust.
But it's not really wasted time if it's being out among nature and it counts as exercise.
So, this was an extremely nice trip to the cabin. I didn't get much writing done, but everything else was excellent. Just like the first two times I came here this year, I wanted to stay an extra day, because when it was time to do, I wasn't nearly ready to leave. Maybe that makes the last trip an anomaly. But I do wish I had just stayed, kept writing, reading, working, and sit-upping. Yes, there was plenty of work waiting for me when I got home on Thursday night, but Saturday's a holiday, so I could've gotten away with one more day away.
I'll definitely try to head over again next week, though it was a little bit less peaceful this time than before (the cabin directly above ours on the hill had children running around it, and at one point, when I went out on the back porch to dry out my shoes and socks . . . one of the little bastards exclaimed, "Don't look! That guy doesn't have a shirt on!" and I quickly retreated back inside). Those kids made all sorts of noise, as well as the construction team down below, beeping and chainsawing and rumbling and hammering.
But it could be worse. Could've been a nosferatu making all that noise.
Words Today: 650
Words In July: 1161
*I remember, years ago, seeing an old (Seventies) horror movie called LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH. At the time, I thought, "Wow, what a perfect title: it tells you everything you need to know about the movie!" Obviously, it was about Jessica, a wealthy woman with a heart condition or other such ailment who couldn't get too excited or she'd probably die, and the would-be beneficiaries scheming to give her such a start that she'd die "of natural causes." It sounded delightful. But the movie turned out to not be anything even remotely like that (although, to be fair, one of the characters WAS named Jessica), and I ended up disappointed.
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