A Perfect Morning

I like to get up first, make coffee, set the table and grab the newspaper. I have been having a problem focusing lately. I think it is too much pain medicine and my ophthalmologist doesn't think it constitutes an emergency. But that's another story. I can still read the paper, drink coffee and I try to disappear before I have to make breakfast for the other occupant of the house.

Then it is my choice. I go to the garden, I go shopping, I attack laundry, but whatever I do, the morning is my prime time for action. Of course, most of the time I go to the computer.

How I love the descriptions of the lady of the house slipping into the morning room and writing gracious "thank you" notes to family and friends. Thick vellum paper and a quill pen. Our heroine, and Jane Austen comes to mind, sends out invitations for tea and occasionally a ball. Perhaps this woman is pondering who to invite to her daughter's "Coming Out" party. Those invitations are always carefully arranged by a scout on the mantle shelf of a room at Oxford or Cambridge (think Brideshead Revisited.) Of course, for a suitor, a degree from those august institutions would be no good without a title and an impressive estate.

Sad to say, in my case, I whip out my lap top, erase some redundant e-mails, check on library books to be returned, send e-mails to kith and kin and see what Facebook has to offer.

And before I know it, it is lunchtime.