...when you wake up at 6:14, stumble over to the spare room, roll out your new yoga mat, and join your live 6:15 Kundalini practice, then back to bed and fast asleep again by 7:10.
Because the garden, the baking, and the pool will all be there when you wake up.
We were halfway through North Carolina when we tuned our podcasts to the saga of Henry the Eighth's unfortunate wives. The iHeart Radio show Noble Blood does a nice 30 or so minute overview of each of the six. The episodes are cleverly and accurately titled "Divorced" "Beheaded" "Died" "Divorced" "Beheaded" "Survived", which sums up the careless brutality of the time and the monarch just right.
But I will say this: there's nothing like a little historical misfortune to pass the time.
My 13-year-old niece wanted to go shopping at the mall this afternoon. School starts in just about a month down here in Atlanta, and after a year and a half of virtual learning, she had some clothes shopping to do before returning to 8th grade in person. So her mom, Heidi, and I all piled into the car and drove her out to the nearest "real" mall-- you know, the one with the food court, department stores, and Forever 21.
As Heidi and Annabelle headed off together to browse the clothing, my sister and I literally poked through Williams Sonoma and then meandered along the upper level, commiserating about our loathing of shopping. "We used to love it though, remember?" I said, and we reminisced about malls of our past-- Lynnhaven and Pentagon City. Eventually we found a table and sat down to play gin rummy with a deck of cards I had found in the sale bin at Anthropologie.
A little while later we joined Heidi and Annabelle, and my sister was drawn into school shopping, but I kept on people watching. As the afternoon grew later, the crowds grew as well, and the place became a vibrant scene of American consumerism. Parents with strollers and little kids, teens and 20-somethings, and folks in their 30s drifted in and out of stores, ambling along with shopping bags from Nike, Urban Outfitters, Gucci, and Crazy Rabbit. Just the variety of shoes and hair styles was vast enough to hold my attention, although I avoided staring too much.
Coming out of one store on her way to another, Heidi laughed and compared me to her dad, who is infamous for joining shopping trips just to find a bench and sit while the rest of the group trolls the stores in search of that must-have item.
Maybe the old guy isn't so nutty after all.
My sister hasn’t had a chance to ride the pandemic sourdough train, so I brought some sourdough starter along on our trip to Georgia. Rest assured Dear Reader, we have put it to good use. So far we have made sandwich bread, bagels, peach tart, and English muffins.
And it's only been five days!
My family is full of folks who love a good board game. As such, we have amassed quite a collection of them, and few holidays or birthdays are complete without unwrapping a sturdy box with a new challenge within.
My nephew, Treat, is our go-to guy when it comes to figuring out the rules and set up of all but the simplest games. He is able to read and explain even the most complicated set of directions with ease and humor.
Oh how my sister and I missed him today as we muddled through a beautiful and well-reviewed game that I received for my birthday. It took us over an hour just to get halfway through the instructions and set up, and we never did actually get to play the game. I have no doubt that once we figure it out, it will be a lot of fun, and the complications will be forgotten when the gameplay is familiar.
My sister has vowed to watch the video tutorial tonight, and I plan to reread the rules in the morning so that we might put my gift to good use. Oh, and I am definitely going to get Treat to play it with me when I get back to Virginia, just in case we miss something important!
I was lucky enough to receive all sorts of birthday wishes today, but of them all, this piece of advice stands out:
Happy Birthday! Hope it is full of beings you love.
Because it has been! And even though I did not consciously realize it, those words have long been my guide for planning and spending all of my birthdays, with many happy returns, indeed.
I spent the Sunday afternoon before the COVID shutdowns began browsing books at my local Barnes and Noble. Who knew that would be the last time I would set foot in a bookstore (or library!) until today? And as good as it was to be back, I was surprised by how unfamiliar so many titles in the kids and YA sections that I usually frequent were. Thank goodness the publishing world did not grind to a halt with the rest of us!
Oh, and the Daphne and Velma series? The one that fills in the backstory of your favorite Scooby Doo gals, detailing how the two were friends from pre-K, until Daphne dropped Velma in middle school and never looked back? Well! That one was too good to leave on the shelf.
