The First False Sunset of the Season

Well, the summer has begun. Naturally that means spending my first night on Orcas during a windstorm and consequently taking an hour and a half the next morning dumping water and pine needles out of bowls on the backyard tables at the pottery shop. No matter. I told myself this would be my summer, and what better way to start than having the only noteworthy comment by a customer be, "Excuse me, would you mind if I take a picture of your cat?" Because, of course, who would want to take a picture of the hundreds of gorgeous ceramic masterpieces, laboriously thrown and glazed and fired to soul-numbing temperatures, when there is a feline in the vicinity? Can you take a picture of my cat? Knock your socks off. He's not my cat.

Over the past two days, I have become paranoid about two things: phone calls and the crunch of car tires on the gravel. Let's dissect this, shall we? 1) Phone calls mean pottery orders. Pottery orders mean questions that I can't answer, being the only one working in or near the shop for the next week. 2) Cars mean customers. Customers mean questions that I can't answer, being the only one working in or near the pottery shop for the next week.

My evenings are spent huddled in a near-fetal position in front of my computer with my hood up and my hands wrapped around a mug of tea, obsessively watching the last five minutes of the season finale of House, in which House and Cuddy finally get together. Is this necessary behavior? Absolutely not. But here I am in my refrigerator of a yurt, inadvertently memorizing an entire scene of my favorite television show just because I'm the world's biggest sucker for romantic entanglements in medical dramas.

Also. Sue Scott from A Prairie Home Companion is my hero.