Still covered in paint and thoughts on Tagore

Well, not paint tonight--patching compound. I've taped some holes in the ceiling of my kitchen. I'm waiting for it to dry so I can spackle over it.

Long day--I worked on the kitchen until three am and got up at seven to go to the office. By the time I met my husband at the hardware store to buy more supplies, I was punchy-tired and succeeded in spilling a small can of paint all over the floor. I was terribly embarrassed and my husband's initial impatient response didn't help. He let fly with one of those sighs he usually reserves for the boys when they make messes and followed it with an irritated statement about just exactly what he was supposed to do about it (Go get help? I said, standing there with paint on my shoes and jeans). Two women swept in and began cleaning it up, waving off my copious apologies. It happens. Don't sweat it. I took off my shoes and helped clean up. The guy from the paint department (a long-time neighbor/acquaintance) mixed me another can of paint, and then teased me as he carried the paint to the counter for me. I walked out to the parking lot in my fuzzy yellow socks.

One of my collegues lost his mother a couple of days ago and I went in search of a poem that conveyed . . . something--sympathy? gentle encouragement? I read through what I had on hand, then searched the net. I finally found this and discovered a poet I've never heard of before in the process The name is Rabindranath Tagore and here's the piece I found:
Say not in grief that she is no more
but say in thankfulness that she was
A death is not the extinguishing of a light,
but the putting out of the lamp
because the dawn has come.

I thought it conveyed intense emotion extremely well. Naturally, this sent me off in search of who exactly this poet was and I learned that he was a Nobel Prize Winner as well as an accomplished poet.
Here's some of it Most of what I found at that site didn't do much for me, but I did like "The Gardener" (Both sections) quite a lot.

Other notes: I took some time out to read Nathan Bransford's blog today (Link listed on this page) and his advice concerning query letters struck a chord. I think I'm nearly there with my synopsis, but I need to write a shorter one. I'm not done editing yet, but I believe I can finish it by the end of next week.

Okay--back to work.