Me, Jack and The Cape

God, how I do love living somewhere with a porch.

I love how lazy afternoons are in the Summertime. This is a Lazy Sunday Summer Afternoon, so it's even better. Beloved is in the living room, working his way through the most recent Harry Potter (I finished it Friday...totally called the Half Blood Prince from the start).

So now It's me in a cotton summer skirt. Felling the warm breeze. Watching the sun and leaves make strange, pretty patterns on my arms. Jack Johnson is playing...my first full listen through of his new album "In Between Dreams". I dig it. It's good for a summer afternoon.

I was at the shop for a few hours this morning, but really, who wanted to be there? Who wants to go shopping when this day calls for blankets in backyards, or road trips to the Cape?

Speaking of, I was there yesterday. One of my girlfriends from college is due with her first baby in September, and her family threw her a shower. I love her parents' house. It's one of those old gray shingled things so very common on Cape Cod. One of those houses where it's perpetually calm and cool, and you really don't want to leave ever. Even after the party ended (three hours of Heather unwrapping things to a chorus of "Awwwwww") I hung out with one of our closest friends, her husband,parents, brothers, sisters in law, and Abby.

Abby is her two month old niece. It is seriously ridiculous how gorgeous this baby girl is. She's quite content, too. Not much for smiles and laughing, but quite laid back. She got passed around a lot, and tended to look up at everyone with the same "Oh, you're holding me now? S'cool." expression.

It was a good chance to catch up with people I haven't seen in a while. We've gotten in the habit of joking that someone has to get married every six months so we can see each other more than once a year. My old roommate was there, and I hadn't seen her in almost two years.

It was just such a splendid day! Perfect weather, July warm with a breeze. You could sit out in the sun for a while and not get too hot. You felt so lazy, like you had all the time in the world. I had to peel myself off the porch, remembering that I did have to work this morning, and would have to make the two hour trek home.

Definitely a day to savor. A perfect slice of summer.

Today's a decent follow up, though. Me and Jack and a porch.

Yesterday, Part II

It may not be lavender...

but they're my bare feet
and they are
outdoors!

When I was out yesterday...

I'm not a terribly patriotic person,
but I liked the Norman Rockwell
feeling this house gave off.

























These
are
from
my
neighbor's
garden

Don't waste your Summer. It will be over soon.

Sitting on my porch right now, I am thinking about how fast time goes. It’s halfway through July already. I remember when I was longing for summer to start, and it’s already gone! I haven’t been to the beach once, haven’t eaten a lobster roll, haven’t gone swimming or camping.

Being a kid was rough, but at least we had summer vacation. Oh, if grown-ups got that! Two and a half whole months for fun! What do we get now? Two weeks, if we’re lucky. On my days off, I typically do laundry, dishes, mop, etc. I don’t want to be seventy and have my last idyllic summer memories be from high school.

Now I feel guilty. I didn’t do any of those things from eleven to noon today. I watched The Price Is Right. That was an hour I could have been outside, even enjoying my neighbor’s flower garden, if not running around in my bathing suit like the three year old next door.

And now I’m typing on my laptop. I rationalize and say that at least I am doing this from my porch, feeling the breeze and listening to the beautiful alto sounds of the wind chime my husband and I got on our honeymoon. I can feel the sun, though I'm safely on a chair, looking at a computer screen.

I’m going to spell check this, put it up, and then slap on a baseball cap and go outside. Maybe I’ll just stroll up and down the street, but I will not waste any more time.

I would like to be in France.

I want to be in a little cotton dress and bare feet, sitting in a big field of lavender (even though this is the time of year when it's being harvested, so the big fields are nearly empty).






I have no idea why I want this right now, but I do. Provence. Lavender. Bare Feet. Maintenant. This shall have to suffice for maintenant.

The Life After

Things are returning to a sane pace around here. By "here" I mean my sphere of existence, not just my apartment. Husband is feeling healthy. That's wonderful. He's not having problems, everything is functioning the way it should be...and he and I are both thinking "Now what?".

For a long time I refused to define myself by his illness, as did he, but it ended up being how we did define ourselves. That sentence does not have an elegant structure. It's nearly one am, though, so I give not a shit.

I'm back at work, at a semi-regular schedule. We are 99.9% settled at this new house. My body is growing, yes, but it is no longer making me ill to an extraordinary degree. I actually went to a party in Quincy this past weekend. One of my best girlfriends was having this housewarming sort of thing with her roommates, and I haven't seen her since Christmas. I went even though it was pissing down rain and I was tired. I went and drank soda and ate almost the whole veggie platter and talked about theater and cats and men and the Massachusetts Social Services System and books and movies like a normal 26 year old woman. It felt really good.

I'd been taking it "one day at a time" as everyone told me to do, back when he was so sick. Now we have arrived at a Tomorrow of sorts. I can start planning fun things and working like a normal human and go back to my once weekly attempts at cooking.

This is very refreshing, and a little scary. This weekend we kind of slumped around our apartment. Went out for lunch and a movie ("Mr. and Mrs. Smith" is quite fun, by the way) like ordinary married folks. There were no frantic doctor's calls, no sudden crippling attacks of pain.

My word, we may start to become dull!

This also means my brain can start going back to the "What is it that I am looking for?" reason I started this blog in the first place. Though this little guy in my belly that is the size of my fist has changed so much...everything, really.

I guess the plus is that I don't have to go back to school anytime soon (semi sarcastic ha ha ha).

Chic

There was a woman in the store Thursday evening who was chic.

She was, 5'5", ash blonde hair that was expertly cut at her shoulders. Subtle, stylish makeup. A very classic looking black dress that could have been bought at Macy's six years ago, or could have been bought last week at BCBG. Same with the shoes. A Louis Vuitton signature bag...a real one.

Nothing outstanding about her, yet everyone (there were several customers and it is not a large shop) noticed her.

Trés Chic.

Is it just me

or are there other people who get rather depressed by consecutive days of rainy weather?

Once in a while I like rainy days. When they are commas in a sunny sentence, they are refreshing. When you have a whole paragraph of rain though, It's like Joseph Conrad (for me anyway).

I don't know where any of you (all two of you who read this) are geographically, but in Central Massachusetts it has been wet and rainy for the last two days and is expected to stay this way for about another week.

This is summer, when I want to spend my free mornings or evenings out on my new screened in porch with a glass of juice, enjoying the warm breezes. I do not wish to be in my living room, in my bathrobe, glaring outside at the gray sky.

Days like this make me want to sleep and sleep.

Though it does make it a little easier be at my light filled, bright colored store (though it is harder to get the energy to go).

I guess that's something to look forward to?

No, I just want to crawl back to bed. But I can't. I have to do grown up things.

BAH!

Nnng...

Back to retail.

I haven't worked in a shop in...a month? Longer than that, I think. Since mid-May. Wow, nearly two months. The office job I had was only temporary. Though I missed some parts of customer service, I realize that people who work in offices have it incredibly easy. My knees were killing me by the end of the day, and I fondly remembered being able to go home at 6pm.

It was a good day. I was kind of nervous earlier, before I left for the store. Just silly stuff, afraid I had forgotten everything, afraid that absolutely no one would give me any managerial respect. Afraid that the physical problems I was having in my first trimester would resurface and I would either throw up or pass out in front of a customer buying ylang ylang essential oils. Nothing happened except a slight dizzy spell when I was doing some paperwork, but I was able to go into the back room and sit down.

It's not going to be my permanent store, it's just where I'm being placed for training*. The girls all seem quite nice, and though they are very young, are actually willing to do work, instead of just standing around giggling.

The shop closed at 8, we were out by 8:30, and I was home at a quarter past nine (they're moving me closer to home next week).

Part of me feels really good to be back earning money, and good about a lot of the things that I did remember*.

The other part of me is exhausted and hungry and has a headache.




*I was a manager for a few months, but when my husband starting getting really sick, and the store started tacking on more hours than I had bargained for, I asked to be demoted. I was under too much stress, and wanted to back out before the Christmas season. I've been out of Management since shortly after Halloween, so they're giving me a week of training review.