Intermission

I got a plea from a relative to post again, but I just don't feel like I have much to say.

My grocery budget has doubled as I gorge myself on cherries and nectarines and blueberries and any other fresh, reasonably local, fruit I can get my hands on. It's one of the greatest joys of summer. Although, sadly, it's not all good. Today I spent $13 on inferior cherries and I'm very bitter about it.

The weather has been fabulous, much cooler than last summer (in a good way), and significantly less smoky (in an even better way). I've gone for three hikes since Saturday, and one yoga class. I've seen twin spotted fauns and an enormous five point buck crashing through the underbrush. I've watched several really big birds (osprey? some kind of hawks?) circling above the pines, riding the drafts. I read half of Friday Night Lights sitting by the river on a particularly hot, Summer-2007-style day. I just kept dipping my feet in the icy water and splashing my arms and applying sunscreen because I didn't feel like being inside.

I think I might be a little depressed. I'm sleeping a lot. I still haven't looked for a job that pays more than $10/hour. I do have a complete cover letter, edited by a real lawyer and everything, but I can't bring myself to send it out. I just can't see an upside. The first option is that someone will want to hire me and I'll have to go back to real work, and work scares me. I don't want to go back to crying all the time. Alternatively, maybe no one will want to hire me and I will be destitute with no prospects. And . . . that doesn't sound so great either. So things are on pause right now. I'm reading books and eating strawberries and sitting on warm rocks. I'm listening to the wind in the trees and smelling the scents of an Idaho summer, old pine needles and newish mountains and the very faint sweetness of huckleberries. And I'm generally OK. Just not quite OK enough to think more than a day or two ahead. I've pushed pause, because this, right here, is good. Thanks for understanding. And not worrying.

I'm Turning Into Zach

I made pastry cream this afternoon to eat with some fresh strawberries that are cluttering up my refrigerator. All well and good right? (I mean, in case I haven't mentioned it, I've turned into a little bit of a home made foodie who bakes her own scones, and makes pudding from scratch, and generally lives the high life.) But while I was waiting for the custard to cool and set . . . I, well, I couldn't wait. So I just mixed a little heavy cream with a splash of vanilla and a pinch of sugar and poured it over strawberries and sliced almonds, and holy hell was it delish. But that is NOT something I do! I don't just EAT heavy cream! I NEVER have heavy cream in the house! This is a step too far! (In case you are wondering, I seriously feel that this deserves those four exclamation points. I am that horrified by my actions.) It's one thing to eat the fruits of my labors that just happen to be rich and decadent and slightly out of control. But you need to deserve those decadences. You need to have mixed and measured and applied heat and risked making something completely inedible. You can't just top something with heavy cream and be OK with it! This is a sign that my friendship with Zach, someone who drinks heavy cream straight from the carton, has gone too far. The next thing you know I'll be taking afternoon tea on every day off, ironing my pillow cases, developing an obsession with the Mitfords and stalking Edwardian strawberry forks on Ebay! Oh. Crap. Two out of four already.

Cat(s) and Mouse

Apparently there's a regular Thursday night mouse convention at my place, because for the second week in a row we had mousetastic adventures on a Thursday night/Friday morning. Luckily, this has not (yet) ended in tragedy. When I came downstairs this morning, both cats were stalking and sniffing and generally behaving oddly in the vicinity of a certain leather club chair in my living room. I peeked beneath, and sure enough there was a scared (but fully alive and uninjured) little mouse taking refuge. The cats and I spent the rest of the morning trying (with completely different intentions) to catch the creature as it darted from chair to sofa to behind the TV. Eventually I had to give up and go into the spa. But I knew for sure Freckles would eventually eviscerate it, so I locked Freckles in the laundry room before I went, and left older, slower, and de-clawed Sugar circling the sofa. I haven't found a mouse carcase since I got home (and believe me, I looked everywhere), so I can only hope that it made its escape out of whatever little hole in the foundation it found its way in through. I'm too soft for my own good. I'd rather the mouse took up permanent residence under my kitchen cabinets than know one of my cats killed it. Of course, I'm not looking forward to any sleep tonight. I'll be bolting awake at each scuffle and thump of Sugar and Freckles on their nightly rounds.

Ooooh. In real wildlife news there are six bucks grazing not 30 feet from my living room windows! How pretty.

Wildflowers

Aren't they pretty? I picked all of them within 50 feet of my front door.

Tidy

I spent yesterday getting over my grumpiness. After sleeping for 11 hours, I spent the day cleaning, tidying, organizing, and generally reclaiming my space and my self. I feel better. Peonies, my favorite flower, help.

Grumpy

I am in a foul mood today. Practically poisonous. The day started really crummy, when at 1 am I was woken by little claws scratching my arm as a tortured mouse ran across my body trying to escape from Freckles. I found the poor creature, critically injured, trapped between my mattress and the wall. There was nothing I could do. I wrapped it in a paper towel, struggling the whole time. When I tried to open the door it escaped, flopped out of my hands, performed these horrifying death spirals on the floor until I was able to get it outside, on the porch, where I left it to its fate. Then I cried. And tried to go back to sleep. Every time one of the cats jumped up to the bed I freaked out, turned on the light, and made sure she was alone this time. It was not a restful night, but the mouse had it much much worse. Oh god, I'm tearing up again just thinking about it. Now I know, worse than finding a dead mouse on your bed, is finding a dying one.

The day has gotten significantly less tragic, but not necessarily better. I'm bitter about being stuck at the spa when other people are relaxing (which, given my schedule as described in my last post, I know is completely ridiculous.) I'm annoyed and angry with one of the therapists, a friend, who was horribly unprofessional today and stuck me in an awkward position as a result. I just wrote a sentence saying that I was probably being unfair, and excusing her, but I deleted it. Because I'm not being unfair, and today, being tired, and grumpy, and sad I'm not in the mood to be accommodating. And did I mention that it's cloudy?

Sunshine = Happiness

Not to rub it in or anything, but I've had the last five days in a row off, and it's been grand. I had all sorts of projects on my plate (lawn maintenance, painting, cover letters etc.) and I've made a little progress on all of them, but completed none. I've also read three books, watched two movies, had lunch with my grandparents, had lunch with friends, and stared off into space the exact amount that is good for me. There's something about summer. I know it says it there off in the sidebar, but can I just repeat myself, I LOVE SUMMER. It makes me unreasonably happy just to be warm. To put on sunscreen and wear hats and read novels in the grass and, despite my precautions, get a pretty tan anyway. Even doing laundry ceases being a chore when I can hang clothes to dry on the line and bring them in smelling of sunshine. I have to stay up late until the heat has dissipated enough from my bedroom to make sleep possible, and even a decrease in my nightly rest isn't enough to defeat my summer energy. I actually WANT to do home repair projects. I want to paint and scrub and weed and tidy. Would summer feel this great if winter hadn't been so hard? Probably not. So I'm just going to say it this once. Thanks for being so difficult Winter. I haven't enjoyed a summer this much since I was a child.