the thin line between optimism and delusion…

This weekend marks the beginning of summer as far as most people are concerned.  It is the first year of my life that I haven’t finished up a semester of school to start summer.  It is strange. 

I’ve had some amazing summers.  Summers that might never be matched, although I like to believe that things are always only getting better. 

Right now I’m sitting in my parents backyard, under the pergola.  The ceiling fans (even though I guess they aren’t technically on a ceiling) are blowing away the mosquitoes and the dogs are frolicking with their stuffed toys.  And I am thinking.  Libby and Elizabeth are coming over shortly to get into the hot tub, we’ve ordered a pizza and I’m drinking my first beer of the day out of a frozen mug.  Briscoe is trying to lick the condensation off my mug.  Bella is chewing on a bone.  Bo is rolling on the asphalt.  And I am thinking. 

Blue hydrangeas, especially ones that have been growing in sufficient shade to reach the perfect shade of blue, look beautiful when you use a miller lite bottle as a vase.   I know you don’t believe me, but I’m serious. 

As I was leaving eckerds today (on a side note, eckerds has been bought by another company, rite aid maybe? and at the end of June there will be no more eckerds) I got into my car and I was looking at my cell phone while I cranked up the engine. 

As I turned my head to grab my seat belt, I was startled by a man who had approached my window.  Anyone would have startled me, but this man had one eye (the other eye was mangled) and a scruffy beard and was quite frightening.  I jumped, and waved him away, backed up without putting my seat belt on, and tried to get away as quickly as possible.  I was shaking.  I was frightened.  And I was sad.

  Because I was across the street from the VA hospital, all I could think of was that this man didn’t always look so frightening (he was old), and was probably a vet, and it is memorial day weekend, and he probably gets similar reactions from everyone he comes in contact with.  I thought of how I would feel if everyone was frightened by my appearance.  And how much stock I put into my appearance.  It made me realize how vain I really am and how much I allow the world to decide my self worth by my appearance.  I shook all the way home. 

This is the first weekend since sometime in February that I haven’t had any plans.  I have had a couple of weekends where I did what I wanted to and didn’t have any obligations, and made my own plans, but there was always somewhere I SHOULD have been instead of where I was.  A party I was missing, a friend’s birthday, etc.  The next weekend where I don’t have any plans is in the middle of July. 

I might have a few plans this weekend.  Maybe tomorrow night or Sunday.  But nothing that has been in the works for more than a day or so. 

It hasn’t rained in a long time.  It worries me.  And there is a chill in the air at night right now.  Last night we sat outside at dinner and I was cold.  Which seemed weird.  Normally once it really gets hot, it stays hot and there is enough humidity to keep all the hot air in at night.  But without the humidity, it is cool at night. 

Cool enough to get in the hot tub?  Or the SPA as Trav is trying to make us call it? 

MAYBE!  Yay!  Elizabeth is here!  Happy Memorial Day Weekend and Happy Summer!