7:24 PM, Redwood City

Self fell into bed, finally, at 2 PM. Now, it’s more than five hours later, she doesn’t know what happened in between, only that she was dreaming, and when she woke up and went outside to the living room, hubby was sitting in front of the television set, smoking.

The garden had changed. Now all the trees that were bare before self left are in full leaf. Self sees that one of the maples in the front yard is being bothered by something, because the leaves have come in on only one side.

Self had to throw away a small 4-inch pot of lamium maculatum, and some woodruff that had expired in its ceramic planter.

The dogs were fat.

The weather was cold and overcast.

Self had to spray her roses: the Sunflare was absolutely over-run with small green aphids.

This morning hubby accompanied self to the Mountain View Farmers Market. There self purchased: bok choy, green snap peas, new potatoes, green onions, apple cider, onions, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, and a 10-lb. bag of navel oranges. Afterwards, hubby took self to a new Vietnamese noodle place, which was more bustling than old haunt Pho To Chau, and he appeared distracted and in a hurry to leave and self couldn’t finish her pho. Then, on the way home, he was very upset because they seemed to be hitting each and every red light, and then he slowed down considerably, perhaps he was testing the glide mechanism of the car who knows, but self was already halfway out: that is, her head kept falling over and her eyes kept closing.

At home, self declared she was in need of a nap. A five-hour nap, it turned out.

Only two rejections in the mail. In the wee hours of this morning, because self could not sleep, she finished Penelope Lively’s The Photograph and began E. L. Doctorow’s Billy Bathgate and is now almost halfway through it.

It was self’s first time to read Penelope Lively, and maybe her third time to read a Doctorow (the first and second times were way back in the early 80s), and though self remembers being astonished by everything Doctorow did, once-upon-a-time, she now finds his writing fussy and predictable.

But she’ll probably finish the novel, what the heck. Self thinks it is absolutely amazing that tomorrow is already the first day of spring quarter at xxxx community college. Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.