Morning all. I hope you had a fabulous Fourth of July Weekend. I started off having a blast and then Sunday when I went to pick blackberries in the back yard, I lifted the bird netting and got several wasp stings on my hand. It hurt like , well stinging wasps. And my hand ballooned up. The swelling went down but one got me right between the knucklebones and my hand is still a little stiff and sore. But the swelling is gone. And we are almost to the end of blackberry season. I am using the writing prompt this morning to see if I can work out some of the stiffness. Timers set and off we go.
A little slower but not bad. Wish I had a little more time to figure out where this is going, but the timer went off. Maybe I will circle back later.
Monday, July 7th: His hair stuck up at odd angles.
His hair stuck up at odd angles. Calvin looked in the mirror blinking blearily at himself. He studied his image through weighted eyes.
‘I look like my hair tried to wrestle a wombat,’ He decided after a moment of contemplation. To his knowledge there were no wombats in the vicinity. He turned on the tap and ran the cold water. He cupped his hands beneath the flow of the water, shivering as the cold drops touched his still bed warmed skin. He filled his hands with water and bent low over the basin, lifting as mush water as he could and splashing it quickly on his face. The shock of the could helped drive the sleep from h sies. He scooped more water and lifted as much of it to his head as possible, wetting the tousled mess and bringing it flat to his head.
Or flatter at least,’ he amended. He took out his comb and combed it flat, using the teeth of it to take out the excess water droplets.
He had no illusion about it staying flat. He knew that it would stick close to his head until the water dried and then as it dried it would start puffing back up, lifting from his scalp as though intent on performing some levitation trick in a magic show. By then he knew he would be embroiled in something or other, his thoughts far from his hair. Then as he thought of other things he would run his hands through the strands trying to yank thoughts from his brain. By the time his work day was done his hair would no doubt be back to standing up in untidy spikes again.
‘No wombats needed,’ he thought. He put the comb back in the glass he kept beside the sink and turned the water off. “That’s as good as we get,” he told his reflection.
He had to admit that with the water shocking the sleep off his face, he did look better than he had upon walking. With his hair at least temporarily managed and his eyes actually open, He toweled off the excess water from his skin, hung the towel up so it could dry and went to start his day.
His morning began as it always did post bathroom visit. He shuffled into the kitchen and took one of the supplement packs from the fridge. He didn’t bother squeezing it into a glass, what was the point when he would only have to rinse out the glass later? He picked up the scissors instead and snipped out of the top corners. He inserted a metal straw into the hole. He learned the hard way that he couldn’t just drink straight from the pouch. The morning supplement was too thick to go down that way. He knew others diluted theirs for a more pleasant experience. He also knew others used at least a few of the flavor packets he saw advertised nearly constantly.
‘Kel uses about three with each pack,’ he remembered. His co-worker had a system. He once caught Calvin watching him when he was adding the combination of powders to the pouch and explained his blending techniques.
Ten til Midnight 