Notes on the approaching darkness

I intended to bring my big iPad to Slims and do some writing. I loaded the car with my other chores, but I failed in that one requirement for the morning. Instead I am thumb typing on my phone.

I’m hoping to run by Ace Hardware to buy some large containers for poodle food and pick up some Gorilla Glue to repair a garden gnome that the self-same poodle knocked over while running to the gate to yell at the neighbors.

I need a container for poodle food, because the expensive, prescription food we must buy ships in a big zipper-top bag which comes apart after a few days of use. The zipper unglues from the bag so it can no longer reseal. Everything is garbage.

The threat of returning to an office is looming large in my future so I am going to start having my collared shorts laundered and pressed again. For $3 per shirt I can dress like the man the to whom the waiter instinctively brings the check. I want to return to overdressing for every occasion. This is a good excuse. I have a bag of shirts waiting in back of my car for when I finish breakfast.

I have odds and ends to do today. I want to hang two pendant lights. They will be plugged into smart plugs and hold grow lights. They will turn on at 5am and off again at 5pm. This is part of my vain struggle against the dark.

October in Portland is beautiful. The trees change color and the summer heat is gone. The rains haven’t started in earnest yet. But the dark is coming. Soon the sun will set at 4pm and I will languish until the spring.

Each year I think I can’t stand it anymore and then the light returns and I am restored. Perhaps I am a descendant of Persephone.

I daydream about moving south. Or to the desert. Perhaps Las Vegas. I could thrive in a land of dry heat, sunshine, and neon irony.

To fight back the dark I have ordered new ceilings lamps for our living room. Big drum shades to hang from the ceiling and spread a warm soft glow around the room.

Our 1910-era house was renovated just before we bought it. The contractor found the worst, cheapest LED bubble lights to attach to the ceiling. I’m sure they were purchased by the pound in a large bin. They have a harsh cold light and blast a bright spotlight straight down onto the floor. They are at once too bright and too dark. I have steadily replaced these garbage lights with something nicer and dimmable. I’m anticipating my new handsome ceiling lights and the warm glow they will bestow on my living room. I will burn a dozen LED lamps all winter if it means respite from the dark.