Feast Day of St. Agabus

“[Feb. 13] Feast Day of St. Agabus, a fortune teller and contemporary of Jesus; St. Agabus later became the Patron Saint of soothsayers.” This story made me laugh. Something quirky and weirdly California about it all. Then I checked my ‘in box.’ Yesterday morning was a feeding frenzy [listening to too much Buffet?]. 100+ messages before noon. A red headed friend of mine, old friend of the family from way back when, picked me up and we were off to have some lunch at Curra’s. On the way there, seeing the Construction Cranes looming over downtown, I was bemoaning the changes in the local landscape. “The only thing that doesn’t change is plastic flowers,” she said. Ran into some friends having lunch, and that made for a much lighter afternoon. [Puerco Adobo, muy goodo.] Still, the retrograde Mercury and Sun conjunction really had folks going, or they got me going. The lingering question of when to stop caring took a little extra time to answer, but in one situation, and given the long history, it’s a person who just [my judgment call] wants someone to feel sorry for her. I’m happy to do that — standard rates apply, available by the hour, normal business hours. And yes, on occasion, I’ve answered a client’s e-mail after midnight, but that’s different because that’s something that I choose to do, it’s not like it is forced on me. There were two, strictly speaking, only two correct answers out of the 100+ messages. But after lunch, and with my resolve much worn down, it’s sometimes just easier to give something away rather than argue semantics. And the problem with that many messages? There’s always one, or two, that carry that extra jolt of pain. Like blood dripping from a bad B-movie set, there’s always one message that has the extra hurt, packed in between the lines. What would you do? I’m going back to pencil and paper. Mercury is still backwards.