What Are the Options?

"You're so weird," Heidi sighed as I raised my arms and did a little victory jig. I was celebrating the fact that my badge still worked to open the doors at school. "Why do you even care?"

"I just don't like the feeling of being excluded," I said as we walked into the office and waved at the principal. "You can't get rid of me!" I laughed when she waved back.

"We don't want to!" she said. "You're always welcome! 

That made me feel even better.

"But I'm sure you're going to have better things to do than hang around here," she continued.

I know she's right, but I'm just not quite certain about those better things yet.

Point Taken

"How about a movie?" I asked Heidi.

It was noon, and it felt like we were well into the day. Both of us had risen at 5:30, Heidi to go with Lucy and their walking buddies, and I to do my yoga and meditation live at 6 am. Then Heidi met her personal trainer at 7:15, and I pumped up the flat tire and took the Subaru to the body shop to have the dented door repaired. After those appointments, we met our friend Mary for breakfast.

Back at home, we agreed to see Inside Out 2 and walked down to our local theater for a 12:45 show. If you've read anything about the film, then you know there is literally a lot of Anxiety in it, perhaps more Anxiety than Joy, and I found it a stressful story to watch. 

Which was totally the point, I know.

Radiant Energy

The water at the pool was not quite as refreshing today as it has been the last few days. "I felt like I needed a bar of soap in there," one neighbor told us as he toweled off. We nodded and sighed in solidarity.

It looks like the heatwave has finally caught up with our 15,000 gallons, and it's going to be a long summer.

Hot and Sticky

Then there was that time your a/c stopped working in the middle of a terrible heatwave. You did your best not to panic, even though it was Saturday of a holiday weekend, and your HVAC guy, a nice fellow with a small business, was closed until Monday and wasn't answering his emergency line either. 

So you left a message and went to the pool, hoping that shutting the cooling system off for a while and then flipping the circuit breaker (like your HVAC guy always suggests) would do the trick when you got back. But upon your return, the indoor temperature was climbing, and no amount of flipping or button-pushing seemed to work. 

So, you went out to examine the recalcitrant unit yourself. It was silent, but then you heard that click and whine that usually means the fan is going to start spinning-- only it didn't. And you looked around frantically for a stick, miraculously finding one (the only stick out there) of the perfect length and diameter. Then you stuck it through the grate and gave those blades a little push, like an old aviator cranking the propeller on her plane. 

And lo! It worked. And the unit began to run.

For now.

A Classic Summer Day

Yesterday, we changed from our pajamas into our bathing suits and wore them for the rest of the day. We went swimming, dried off, swam some more, pulled on ball caps, tank tops, and shorts to go run errands, and then came back and jumped back in the water. We were a little sunburnt when rumbles of an early evening thunderstorm finally kept us out of the creek for good, and we ate dinner fresh out of the shower, some of us with wet hair.

As the darkness gathered, it was still drizzling; otherwise, I might just have run out into the yard to catch fireflies. As it was, we ate pie and ice cream and then went upstairs to our too-hot bedrooms and fell asleep anyway, under just the sheet.

Paddlin'

To beat the heat this afternoon, we decided to try out those stand-up paddle boards that came with our vacation rental. They were pulled up into the woods above the little sandy beach about a quarter mile from the house, so we hiked over there, launched them, and sit-paddled around the point to our calm little cove where we could perfect our stand-up technique. 

The dogs were, of course, thrilled, especially Rosie, who never left the water once the SUPs arrived. Lucy must have remembered her brief kayaking excursions on Lake Champlain three summers ago because she waded into the water and stepped aboard as soon as I drew near enough. For the most part, she was a good passenger, sitting tall and still and leaning on my legs when I stood. We did have a few capsizes, but they were mainly because the other dogs distracted one or the other of us. 

We were able to paddle over to get a close look at a heron and a rail as they waded on the shore, and Lucy appreciated that, especially when the heron squawked raucously and flew away. After a couple of hours, we paddled back around to the beach, with Lucy as a lookout the whole way. "We like your dog!" shouted the kids on the dock across the cove as we paddled by.

"Thanks!" I shouted back. "I like her, too!"

Swimmin'

Lucy took off barking after something on the creek as we sat on the shady back patio this morning. Closer examination revealed a blue heron wading about 20 feet away, utterly unthreatened by the three dogs paddling its way. Once they got closer, the prehistoric bird spread its wings once, and the dogs did a U-turn, returning to us.

Despite predictions otherwise, the weather has stayed cool, breezy, and fair for July in this part of the world, and that encounter was enough to convince me to put on my suit and jump off the end of the dock. Lucy was at first very perturbed, whining her away around the perimeter of the deck. Once Bill jumped in, too, she could no longer stay up there, and she flung herself into the creek and swam around, making sure we weren't drowning, before she returned to the shore.

Soon, Heidi and Emily were in the water, too, and at one point, all seven of us were splashing and floating in the salty water. A couple of herons swooped by every now and then, maybe annoyed that we were disturbing their fishing or maybe congratulating us for such a good idea.