The devil raises his head.

When you hear "Supermarket Shoot", your heart sinks. Because you know you will work through the night. We started at six one evening and finished the next morning at 10. It was all about unpacking shelves so that we could fill them with our own very special cheese... but then of course, re-packing the shelves so that the supermarket could function again in the morning. Lots of continuity pictures. This is a mere drop in a bucket:

Then the little vignettes on the side: a woman upsets a huge pyramid of oranges. We reset. Monofilament? Check. She sends them flying again. They roll under the shelves. A particular sense of unreality sets in at about four in the morning. Especially as dinner is served (or is it lunch?) and it consists of chicken and rice and vegetables and salad and pavlova for dessert.

Would you like fanta or sprite with that?

My friend Marie has written a heart-shaking post over at 66 Square Feet. Words that hammer through you.

So succinctly she writes:

"But humans have what nothing else does. Choice. That should be a longer word. Long enough to encompass the chaos, suffering, pain that result from poor choices, easy choices, thoughtless choices, deliberate choices."

Sometimes everything around me feels so tenuous. I know what it's like when things fall apart. And this old world reminds me over and over that there is no forever.

Yes. The small moments of beauty are exquisite.

A tomato is green in the morning and by midday it is blushing.

The young boy carefully removes a thorn from the soft part of my foot. He looks at me and says: Ow!

An old friend from far away writes: you are beautiful.

And, for a moment, I am.

The choices people make, seemingly without batting an eyelid. Believe me, I've made some doozies. It's not like you can repack the same oranges and do another take. All you can do is try to pack them better next time.