A Room of her Own (title of Va Woolf essay) - Couching - Bad hubby behavior

So I drive home from Quest Diagnostics and there's a car in the drive. Have they come to repossess my house?

I pull in the drive and it's Rich, who's come to paint Sarah's bedroom.

"Rich," I say, "it's not Friday!"

"Oh, what day is today?"

Anyway he and his buddy Mike come in and get ready to paint. I'm eating my breakfast cuz I had a fasting blood test at Quest to see how my kidney and diabetes are doing. Then I'm tapping away on the computer and inhale the fumes of the latex paint, cream color. I keep the front door open the entire day and keep the heat off cuz the guys are going in and out.

At noon I leave for lunch with Grace and Grandmom Barb.

Tired, Little Miss Grace?

Now here's a really obnoxious story. There's a woman I know who I'll call Regina. I chose this name cuz she's a Catholic convert. She also has bipolar d/o. She has a new grandson who she is of course thrilled about but her son and dtr/law will not let Regina hold the boy b/c she has.....bipolar disorder!

I called her yesterday about a different matter and her husband Bob answered the phone. After Regina and I had discussed something, I asked her to put Bob on, as a three-way conversation. I told her I would bring up the bipolar issue.

Bob will not support his wife in this ridiculous unfounded accusation that a bipolar woman should not hold a child. Regina herself is the mother of three children.

I confronted Bob and told him he should defend his wife. He absolutely refused. Regina would leave the man but she has no marketable skills and nowhere to go.

We had a record turn-out at our Book Discussion Group at the Library. All of us were perplexed about Jacob's Room, one of the first stream-of-consciousness novels - or attenuated poems, as the case may be - in the tradition of James Joyce and Proust.

Nonetheless we were all glad we had read it. I said, This book makes me wanna read a really great book! Hopefully next month's selection Martin Eden by Jack London will fill the bill. (I've never heard of it either.)

One of our regular book-lovers is the artist Elaine Klawans, whose husband Alan did this digital print. I just found it accidentally and couldn't resist putting it up here. It's also on my refrigerator Art Museum.

Looked at more sofa-beds today for my new creme-colored bedroom, a place where I intend to sit and read, have a cup of tea and pet the cat. Oh, I forgot I don't have a cat.

Gamburg's had the nicest sofa-beds and the best prices. I also checked Lazy Boy next to Bonnet Lane Restaurant - there's never any cars in the huge parking lot - and Kevin showed me a sofa bed for $1700. When I winced, complained, groaned and moaned, he said,

"I think we can do a little better than that," he said, showing me another one for $1200."

"I think we can do a little better than that," he offered.

"You know what Kevin?" I said. "You don't have anything for me. Thanks for showing me around."

I'm gonna order this one from Gamby's in a red and white check.

When I returned home from my sofa-bed/book discussion Odyssey, Rich and Mike were nearly finished.

They are true storytellers! Rich told some amazing stories of his life as a house painter. Bats are a constant hazard. He has uncovered numerous bats - some of them rabid - behind shutters on houses. You open up the shutter to paint the inside and you wake up half a dozen sleeping bats who are on a tear to get outa there.

Once he had bats in his attic. One of them scratched him on his arm so he got rabies shots, which are no longer given in the belly, but in alternating arms. Talk about lead-weight arms!

This evening I had the good fortune to read my latest short story - She Swims Within Me - to my friend Judy Lipschutz.

You can't trust just anyone with your precious poems. I started out writing a short story but then I said - forget it! - let me take a risk like Va. Woolf did and write something really different, so that's what I did.