That rare morning with nothing to do

There are, if you're lucky, occasionally those mornings when you wake up and there's nothing on your mind. Nothing you need to do. Nothing troubling you. Nothing forcing you to get out of bed until you're good and ready to. And on such a morning, how soon does Sherlock Holmes come into your day, as he did with John Watson, and say:

"Get your hat."
"You with me to come?"
"Yes, if you have nothing better to do."

And, curiously, what was the major thing I came back to Peoria with, after my journey to Portland for the purposes of Sherlock Holmes? A hat.

Their were a lot of lovely places to visit in downtown Portland, but their hat store was quite the place. I splurged a bit and got a fine, crushable black Broner that I delightedly crushed all the way home.

But the point of this post isn't that I got a hat, as Holmes instructed Watson to do, that morning in A Study in Scarlet. It's about how quickly Sherlock Holmes can call upon you to come along with him if you've got nothing better to do.

A great writing project lept back to the forefront of my brain, a memory that "Oh, yes, I do a podcast now," and the verbal calisthentics of a blog post were all waiting, with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, just outside my bedroom door.

The game, as they say, is afoot.