Forgetting Shoes

There was something in my shoe. I could feel it digging into my right heel like a pea through several princess-stacked mattresses. But I needed coffee before I could sort that out, so I put together the Moka pot and was standing there waiting, thinking about nothing very much in particular–

Huh? Oh, yes, I mean, I’m always thinking about something, the brain never stops while I’m even faintly conscious. (This, I suspect, is part of the foundation of my insomnia.) So I suppose, if I were to be absolutely honest, I was thinking about Richard Armitage as Thornton in a very well-laundered cravat.

Look, one takes one’s pleasures where one finds them, and that man has a lovely nose.

Anyway, I stood there waiting for coffee before it occurred to me, quite naturally, that the thing in my shoe was a problem I could conceivably solve without the assistance of caffeine.

And, as I sometimes do when a thought strikes me, I took immediate action and almost fell over. I banged my hip a good one on the oven door and my temple narrowly missed a counter-corner.

That isn’t even the funny part, although my aggrieved, uncaffeinated swearing was probably hilarious if anyone’d been in range to see the whole thing. The real joke was, there was absolutely nothing in my damn shoe.

A little while later, retreated to my office to drink the finally arrived sweet sweet java, I had the bright idea of tying said shoes in order to avoid further high-speed applications of gravity ending in deceleration trauma to my poor body. Again, I embarked suddenly upon the course that seemed best to me, forgetting one crucial factor.

That factor was Boxnoggin, who no doubt heard my office chair squeak in the particular way that means tying shoes, and of course tying shoes is a chore he feels requires his supervision, close coordination, and most ardent attempts to aid me in. Which meant he scurried into the office at high speed, nose-punched me in the eye, tried to eat my tied shoe, and sat on my untied one–with my foot still in it, naturally–in order to “help” me to the utmost of his ability.

So that is why I’m sitting here with my coffee, my hip aching and my eye watering, one shoe tied properly and the other left to its own devices while I blink at a glowing screen and every once in a while mutter, “Don’t forget your shoes, Lili.”

Of course I will forget. I will, I am certain, be halfway down the hall with both dogs dancing around me and eager for walkies (because after the coffee and the tooth-brushing, it is WALKIES TIME, and may the gods help those who interfere with the habits of dogs) and it will be a miracle if someone does not step upon untied laces and topple me like a certain clay-footed statue.

I’d blame 2020 but I’m certain this is just Tuesday being Tuesday. I never got the hang of Tuesdays, or indeed any day of the week, and there are three scenes to write in The Black God’s Heart before I can count the zero of Book One done.

I might even get there today, if I can just tie my bloody shoes.

Wish me luck.