A Dark Day

You may have noticed that the days are getting very short, and very dark.  In fact, today is the darkest – or at any rate, the shortest.  It is nice and bright right now.  This is the time of the year when a fear of the dark arises, but I mean only a certain sort of dark.  Not the  comfy kind God sends us every December, but - Blackouts!  We seem to always be having them.  And of course, they never come at a convenient time.  (Those times would be when one is asleep or not at home.  There is no other convenient time.  If one wants no lights, one can manage that without the help of the electrical power company.)  Ever since the last one, I have been planning to become better prepared.  That time, I had to paw through drawers, searching for my Advent Wreath supplies to find a candle.  As each procrastinating day passed, I worried a bit more.  Both about being caught in the dark again, and about being such an incorrigible dilly-dallier.  I put everything off, especially if it involves getting in the car and going somewhere.  Finally, I decided to commit.  I asked Becca if she would go to the hardware store with me.  Happily, she agreed, and off we went to Madison Park Hardware, my favorite hardware store, especially now that all my other favorite hardware stores have been swallowed up by the mega monster ones.  This one is walk-to-able, but only if you have all day, and want to come up a very long, tall hill on the way home. It is lots of fun to go to, and every time I do, I find some little thing that I previously hadn’t realized that I  absolutely needed.  Margaret, who came along, loves to go because there are dog treats.  The friendly folk there helped us find the perfect blackout ware, and assured me that since I now was prepared, it was very unlikely that such a thing would happen soon.  I hope he is right, but if he isn’t, I am ready. 

"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task." ~William James