the thin line between optimism and delusion…

The other day I was sitting under the pergola with my parents in the Adirondack chairs.  My dad wanted to know why the bottom of my feet were so dirty.  My mom told him that the bottom of my feet were always dirty because I never wear shoes. 

My inclination towards barefootedness allows me an extra sensory receptor neglected by most people.  Namely, I know what the ground feels like. 

Briscoe likes me to come out into the backyard with her at night. Grayson will go out into the backyard by himself and take care of things, but Briscoe will sit at the back door until I walk out into the yard with her. In the winter when it is cold I wear my uggs to walk Briscoe, because they are easy to take on and off.  Or I walk out in my sock feet.  I also spend a lot of time in my barefoot dreams robe. 

The nights for uggs and socks are long past.  My robe is still useful, but the day will come soon when it will be too hot even in the morning and the late night for the robe.  The wooden planks on the deck, although too hot to stand still on in the middle of the day, cool quickly when the sun sets and are pleasant to walk across at night. 

The stepping stones through the grass and the concrete parking pad retain the sun's heat much better than the wood and radiate warmth late into the night.  I can tell the difference between a cloudy cooler day and a sunny hot day by the temperature of the concrete.  My feet have been telling me recently that it is getting hotter by the day. 

In other summer related news, I've been swimming a lot.  Since I have had my eyes lasered, swimming is so much more fun.  Briscoe likes to swim too.  She just got her hair cut and dries off quickly. 

Emily and Greg got married this weekend, and I was dog sitting for Kate and Trav, so I thought it was a good idea to invite everyone from the wedding over to their house for a pool after wedding party.  We had a big time and stayed up ENTIRELY too late.  When I went out to the backyard on Sunday morning I found a tie, a tshirt, a sock, the back of a cell phone, and some raybans.  Like I said, we had a big time. 

I am going to New York on Thursday!  Get excited!

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The high today is suppose to be 104.  Wait – no, now they are saying 103.  Right now it is 98 and feels like 104. 

I’m well aware of the fact that no one really wants to hear about the weather, but the heat really does make me stupid.  I have a hard time figuring out what I could possible eat that would taste good in the heat.  My little air conditioner is trying very hard, but is struggling.

My parent’s pool is registering a temperature of 93 degrees.  How refreshing.  It was 90 degrees according to JP’s car at 11:15 last night.   

In other news, our common file drive has been located and I am able to access it from my computer.  Hooray!

Football season will be upon us soon, which is very exciting.  This will be Briscoe’s first football season, and she is really pumped.

I wish I was in the mountains sitting on a deck reading a book or hiking in a cool damp forest.  I wish I could go back to camp.  I wish I lived in Cicely, Alaska and was part of the cast of northern exposure.  While I’m dreaming, I’m going to dream big.  (ohh, I had terrible dreams last night, dreams we are going to pretend never happened so I will forget them).     

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The roof in the building where I work leaks.  After a serious struggle, construction has begun to replace the roof and install new , efficient windows.  I work on the 9th floor of said building.  Construction started today.  It is loud.  But not too loud.  Only loud enough for me to know it has begun and that it is going to get worse before it gets better.  I have three big windows in my office that overlook the edge of town.  I can see miles and miles of trees, and the only blight on my view is a far away factory smokestake.  In the last week I have noticed a hawk circling in and out of my view. 

When it is pretty outside, the blue sky and green trees are very soothing.  Today the sky is hazy, not exactly what you could call cloudy, but the sort of haze that on first glance you think might indicate clouds, but the longer you look the more you realize that the glare is too bright for clouds and it must be haze. 

The IT department here at work felt the need to redo our computer accounts, and in the move from the old account to the new account the the common file drive I share with my little group of colleagues has been lost.  IT assures us that it has not been deleted.  But it has been inaccessible to us all morning.  Every single one of my word documents are on that drive.  I need that drive.  I have been unable to be of much use this morning without access to that drive. 

So instead I have been watching the temperature and heat index rise on weather.com.  The forecast says it is going to be 102 today, with a heat index of 110.  Right now it is 94 degrees with a heat index of 100 degrees.  The high for yesterday was suppose to be 101, and my car said it got that hot, as did the bank sign.  Tomorrow the high is 100 degrees.  I spoke with Betsy yesterday and she was driving through Macon, she said her car said it was 104. 

I know it gets a lot hotter than 102 in other parts of the country, but I’ve been told that there is something called a "dry heat."  The heat around here is heavy, and damp and sticky.  Honestly, I don’t mind the heat too terribly most of the time, but when we have summer heat waves, sometimes I really think I might melt. 

Take care of your pets and don’t leave them outside in this heat!   

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I think I jumped the gun on there not being a cold front – this morning was breezy and much cooler than usual, which is awesome. 

I had a terribly difficult time getting out of bed this morning.  I’m not sure when I’ve been in such a deep sleep.  When my alarm went off, my first thought was, AGGGHHH, WHAT IS THAT NOISE?  My second thought was – WHERE AM I?

It is always weird to wake up in your own bed and be really confused about where you are.  It is one thing to wake up at a hotel, or at a beach/mountain house and be temporarily confused, especially if beer was involved the night before.  But I didn’t have a drop of alcohol last night and I was asleep by 11:30, so I’m not real sure why this morning was so traumatic.  I was having very strange dreams when my alarm jarred my from my slumber. 

As I was getting into my car to drive to work, I felt like someone was staring at me.  So I looked up, and there was a sleek black cat with yellow eyes, sitting in the grass in front of my car, swishing his tail.  I told him good morning kitty kat, and continued on my way. 

A few minutes later the radio DJ told me that it was Friday the 13th – and a cold shiver went down my back, since everyone knows that black cats on friday the 13th are obviously witches in disguise. 

Or, maybe I’ve been reading too much Harry Potter in anticipation of the new movie (yay!  I’m waiting on jennifer to get back from the beach on sunday to go see it) and for the new book!  Can’t wait!

Speaking of – I reserved my copy, but now I’m going to be in New York when it comes out.  I need to change that. 

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When I walked out of my house yesterday morning I swear I heard someone whistling at me.  You know the whistle, the whooo-wheet- whoow, the whistle of a compliment or a catcall.  I looked around.  There was no one in my yard to have executed such a whistle.  Five seconds later a mocking bird broke into a repetitive song sounding very much like the whistle I had just heard. 

The mockingbird was hitting on me!

The month of June this year is going to be quite full of itself.  There are five weekends in June, which means that you could technically attend five different weddings this month.  I was only invited to four weddings during June, and I’ve already missed the first one, and I will also miss the last one.  But it is possible. 

In addition to being full of weddings, June has two full moons.  This past Friday night was a full moon, and June 30th is a full moon.  I have crazy dreams during full moons.  I don’t recall the moon on Friday night, but on Thursday night when we were at the baseball game the moon was orange and almost full.  I’m always surprised by how much light a full moon provides, and in turn, how pitch black a night can be without a moon.  You would think at 26 years of age I would have come to terms with this natural phenomenon. 

I heard this weekend that the smoke from the forest fires in South Georgia had blown as far north as Macon and turned the moon all crazy colors of red. Which is really scary.  I believe the fires are under control now, but I’m a little worried about all the displaced wildlife.  With the drought and all the lost habitat in the swamp, I think that Loch Laurel could become a popular vacation destination this summer for alligators.   

My yard smells wonderful.  The gardenias and magnolia are blooming.  Gardenias are so pretty and smell amazing outside.  But if you pick more than one of them and bring them inside, the fragrance is overpowering and sickening after a while.  One blossom can make your entire house smell amazing.  I prefer the smell of gardenias when there is a hot breeze blowing around.  It reminds me of happy summer night times of drinking beer and  laughing. 

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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!

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