Perspective
Going to pick up Sweet Pea this afternoon. A small plastic bag. We intend to place it her beneath Rufus inside the basket on the hearth, where he’s been at rest ever since he passed in 2012.
Lately, I’ve been googling phrases like, “average length of a novel” and “average length of a chapter.”
Not because I want to impose any stricture on my writing, but merely because I’m curious to know what the numbers are. From what I gathered, the length of your average novel is in the range of sixty to ninety thousand words. Chapters, about five to six thousand words long. If true, and I’m average, I’m nearly finished with my first chapter.
Crisp, bluesky days up here lately. A little more snow on the mountains, but nothing in town so far. Happy Wife put a small pumpkin on the windowsill, and some Indian corn on the front of the house. That time of year. Come morning there’s frost on the grass, which is still green. Leaves are still on the trees too. Mostly. Kaya — remember Kaya? — continues to prefer our front lawn to crap on. I don’t say anything about it to the neighbor. Neither does Happy Wife. Moose crap on it too. Who you going to complain to about that? Besides, picking up dog crap is a snap compared to moose skat. You might argue that’s no reason we should tolerate Kaya crapping on our lawn. I suppose that’s true, but you see Jim, Kaya’s upright, our neighbor, is still stinging from having his wife of 30+ years leave him. Well over a year ago now. To complain to him that his dog craps on our lawn would feel petty somehow. There are people half way around the world, innocent people, getting beheaded. I think I can pick up some dog pooh now and then.