I See You, Summer

A thunderstorm rolled in this afternoon. Complete with high winds, lightning, sideways torrents of rain, and those peals of thunder you feel in your belly, it was a 20 minute wonder, good for the garden and landscaping (which looks fabulous around here). I was cleaning house at the time, dusting and wiping and mopping and vacuuming, but I paused to admire the torrents of rain sluicing down the driveway when a warm blast of positively tropical air blew in through the kitchen window I insist on keeping six inches open. And then? It was over. A late afternoon sun shone golden through the misty air, the pool reopened, and I sliced some tomatoes for dinner.

Decoration Negotiation

Years ago, I asked a friend for some fashion advice while shopping. "Do these match?" I held up a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.

"They don't match, but they go," she answered, and my perspective was considerable widened. But the idea that things could be put together in a complimentary way without matching exactly did not fit my casual approach to dressing and decorating as easily as one might think. 

"Matching" is a yes or no question, but considering shades and colors and patterns in a more nuanced way requires some consideration. The absence of, pardon the pun, black and white rules can also make it difficult to agree with someone else about what goes together and what does not. 

And...

I think I'll leave it at that.

Family Matters? No Comment

"Who even reads your blog?" my neighbor asked today.

"Well," I shrugged, "my mom used to..." I trailed off, unwilling to explain why she doesn't anymore. "But," I continued brightly, "my brother and sister read it every day. And my friend Mary is also a loyal reader. And there are a few others who read from time to time."

"I can't believe your brother and sister read it every day! My brother would never read anything I wrote," she scoffed.

I thought it best to remain silent.

That's Why We Call It Practice

We were chatting with neighbors at the pool today when the topic of food and activity tracking came up. "We use MFP," Heidi said.

"It's great because it has so many foods in the data base," I added.

"I just think it might be hard to do it regularly," our friend sighed.

Heidi nodded sympathetically. "Tracey is really good at it, though," she reported.

"True," I confirmed. "I actually haven't missed a single day since May 2, 2015."

Our neighbors were stunned. 

"That's nothing!" Heidi said. "Tell them about your blog."

"I have posted my blog every day since March 1, 2009," I told them. "And I do this other thing where I post a selfie every day. That's been happening since December 2014."

I couldn't tell if they were impressed or convinced that there was something wrong with me. "It's just what I do to keep going," I said. "One day off and I'd probably quit."

"How do you find the time?" somebody asked. "What if you get busy or something?"

I thought about it a minute. "It probably doesn't take more than 30 minutes to do those things," I answered. "And to be honest, coming up with an idea to write about is the hardest part, so, thanks for that!" I laughed. "I don't always love what I wrote, but I am always happy when it's done."

You Know You're On Summer Time

...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.

Sorry Ladies!

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.

Greatly Exaggerated

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.