Began a cloudy day with a quick breakfast. I've been craving chocolate, but I had all those strawberries I bought yesterday. I put the two together and made Chocolate-Strawberry Pancakes. Not bad. I should have sliced the strawberries smaller. They were too chunky and didn't cook right. I cheered myself up with some Queen, bopping around to "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Killer Queen" as I packed up and headed for work.
Work wasn't busy when I arrived at 11. I actually spent the first half of my shift doing returns. I ran into Jodie in the frozen food department while I was putting away some cold items. First of all, Dad-Bruce is doing much better. Two of his cancerous lumps are down to pin-sizes. The largest is gone all together. He won't need chemotherapy for two months. Second, she warned me about a huge storm that was heading towards our area. We were supposed to get rain, hail, high winds, the works.
Everyone must have heard the news at the same time as Jodie. By 12:30, we had lines out the door. Not only were we supposed to get bad weather, but it's still the beginning of the month. And we're usually busy on Sundays, regardless of what Mother Nature is doing. This is the only day of the week a lot of working people can shop. I got stuck on the register for a while, including taking over for a cashier. Thankfully, it slowed down enough that I was able to spend the last hour and a half or so returning carts. I even showed the ropes of carts and what went where to a new girl.
Hurried out the door as soon as I was done at 3. At this point, it was cloudy, hot, and very humid, but it still hadn't rained. The sun had even tried to come out a few times. It was windy, but nothing horrible. In fact, the wind felt rather nice as I headed home.
Spent the next few hours going over my old writing and finishing a story I started at least five years ago. One story is about a woman at a party who finally meets someone she can relate to. The other is about a family in a hurricane that I wrote for the Helium Network in 2012. Both are based after real-life. I love Dad and Jodie, but as a very shy single introvert, I often feel awkward at their parties. And my family did experience several hurricanes when we lived in Cape May. Dad-Bill still has the photos from Hurricane Gloria, including the ones of him standing in the knee-high flood waters on Beach Avenue and of the mess on the boardwalk, at his and Mom's house in Erma.
Here's some of my original work, both found for now at my writing blog:
Hurricane
The Party
I now have four goals for my writing through early November, when I start doing Christmas stories:
1. Complete at least two of the four Star Wars historical alternative universes I have planned. (If I can get to the novel-length Remember WENN fantasy I was working on last fall, that would be great, too.)
2. Go through unfinished stories and see if there's anything I can finish.
3. Post older stories I've completed at my writing blog, including the ones I wrote for the now-defunct Helium Network in the fall of 2012 when I was stuck at home with that broken ankle.
4. Write more original short stories.
It finally started raining shortly after I got off the computer. I was beginning Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars when I heard the thunder. The rain came down in torrents as I was mixing the batter. I don't think I heard hail, but there was certainly a lot of everything else - rain, wind, pyrotechnics, noise.
Though it began to slow down as I was eating leftover meatloaf muffins with Spring Greens Salad (lettuce, radishes, and blueberries with a homemade red wine vinegar-honey dressing), I honored the weather anyway with One Stormy Night. I found this record at I believe a yard sale years ago, and it's one of the most unique music albums in my collection. A selection of soothing instrumental pieces (most likely written for the album, although the last is "Autumn Leaves") is joined by the sounds of a real stormy weather evening - thunder, rain on the roof, a train tooting in the distance. It's lovely, thoughtful, and soothing, and I really don't listen to this enough.
I put the oatmeal chocolate chip bars in the oven, then finished out the night with more Lego Star Wars. The Darth Maul level that ends Phantom Menace took me a while. I just cannot master those Jedi double jumps! It made chasing Maul across that catwalk a pain. Didn't have much more luck with the car chase through Coruscant that opens Attack of the Clones. I can't control the darn car. (I'm afraid I lack Anakin Skywalker's skills in that department.) Leading Obi-Wan and Arfour through Kamino and to Jango Fett was much easier.
That brings me back up to the Droid Factory level. I bought this new - hopefully, it'll work this time.
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