I started the day late, that wasn't the plan. After trying to fall asleep and then wondering why there was an orange glow outside the window, I looked out to see huge flames flickering up and out of the trees a few kilometres away. I couldn't find any info about it but tomorrow it would have made the news (as it did, a motorbike shop went up in flames). I finally fell asleep, only to awake at 3.30 a.m. and to remain in that state for the next two hours. My mind wandered and wondered about this, about that, about my plans for waking early. Well, that didn't happen. I ended up taking a herbal sleeping pill at five and slept in.
And woke up grumpy. I don't often wake in this state but everything annoyed me. Anything out of place made me agitated. I decided I needed to get out. But first I would need to be caffeinated and a hit of sugar wouldn't go amiss. It's Saturday, I feel I should treat myself. I head up to the cafe and stand at the appropriate distance and then someone comes in behind me with a quarantine moustache, a sneeze, a sniffle and a cough and he's not distanced. Do I tell him to move ? Of course not. I think about being the sort of person who could do that but I would never be that person, so I breathe in a shallow manner, buy a decadent nutella pocket and escape back to the safety of the Middle St cafe. I brew a pot of Italian coffee, and cutting the pastry in half,( thinking I would have the rest tomorrow), I proceed to eat it all. I'm in very odd mood. A coffee cup has been left on the table, there's toothpaste where toothpaste shouldn't be, the vacuum cleaner is not in it's appointed spot, there is fluff on the staircase and a breeze has blown the under bed fluff in my bedroom out into the open. I deal with all these issues but the feeling of annoyance still clings.
I decide I need to get out, maybe even do some retail shopping. I dress up for the occasion and head for Westfield, the Westfield where people are still lining up outside Louis Vuitton, do they ever leave? I realise there are two opposite each other, both have lines! I bypass these and head to the homeware shops; all are finally open, all have hand sanitisers at my disposal. I go on a buying spree (in between hand sanitising stations). I buy a rug, a dark grey linen throw to make into curtains for my room so I can sleep in darkness, I buy bowls from Target having heard that it on it's last legs, I even buy myself a jumper and as I try it on, I hear the lady in the shop telling a customer that she is barely surviving, that her best customer ,who used to go to the Opera often, now just hangs out at home and therefore, is not buying clothes. The trickle down affect, from the arts to the the small retailer. I ,at least, have contributed to the economic recovery. Everything I bought was on sale so I feel justified at having behaved like this and I now totally understand the value of retail therapy. I am slightly healed.
Facebook reminded me that last year at this time I was in Zaragoza, Spain.
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