War and Pussycats- More Twos on Tuesday

A proper cat scan.

I was so tickled last week to join in on the Women of Mystery’s Two Sentence Tuesdays I thought I’d give it another go this week.
It keeps me writing, for one thing, and for another it forces me to tap out something that I can share with the blogging world without cringing.

This is something we read this week. My husband reads me a bedtime story and has done so virtually every night for the 19 years we’ve been together. We received the Warriors series for a Christmas gift from friends and we’ve just started it. I absolutely love it and can’t help but refer to it as “War and Pussycats.”

Here are two sentences from Warriors: Into the Wild, by Erin Hunter, Avon Books, 2003.

“After a moment’s pause, several of the cats moved forward to lick Redtail’s bedraggled fur. As they groomed they purred hushed phrases to the dead warrior.”

My contribution is from the novel I started late last week about a mirror that randomly plays back images it has reflected.

"Light bounced around the room from the mirror. In its face a man in his mid 30s slapped his forehead and raised his arms to the ceiling."

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be out for most of the day. In keeping with the theme of the today’s post I’m off to the U of A Hospitals for a cardiac CAT scan.

Bedtime Stories

For 17 years now my husband has read me a bedtime story. He thought everyone needed a bedtime story and to this day I can’t find a reason to disagree. We even took a book along on a camping trip to Inuvik, NWT. It was June in the Canadian north and natural light was abundant so a bedtime read was easy.

We’ve gone though many, many books over the years. We’re just in the home stretch of finishing Manda Scott’s quadrology on Boudica, England’s warrior Queen. Next is the final installment of Harry Potter.

He switched jobs recently from running a small health food store to driving a truck. Days are long and he is usually very tired. He’s up early and therefore has to go to bed early.

The fun in the mix is my circadian rhythms have altered a wee bit. I get a minor energy surge right in mid-evening. Right around the time he needs to sleep I feel like writing.

I have a choice: write or spend time with my husband.

If I absolutely must write I can scribble out a few notes and attend to them in the morning. I can get up after the story and write if need be. Certainly there are those moments when I feel I should just get the writing done. I can always have the story tomorrow night.
Well, maybe. But the day will come when I won’t have that option.

What it comes down to is how would I rather spend my time and which would I regret later?

The only thing that matters in life is how we treat people, ourselves included. Work and money and gaining more stuff are secondary. Yes, work is important. If I didn’t think my writing was important I wouldn’t be doing it. Certainly it’s important to me.

But stack it up against time with my husband and a bedtime story? No. That’s just not a real choice.

Story time is sacred. It’s time together and it adds to our quality of life. It’s relaxing and helps us both sleep.

And who would turn down a bedtime story?
Not me. Especially now that the Boudica is about to boot Rome out of Britain and Harry Potter is waiting in the wings.