It's July 4th. My son's graduation party is today and I am hoping against hope that the threat of thunderstorms ("severe," of course) and flash flooding will not materialize, and that the party will remain outdoors and dry. But we are resourceful and adaptable; and we will party, rain or shine. Rain or shine.
*****
July 5th, and the party was a pretty near unqualified success. Not totally dry, but the rain was so much less, and so much less severe than it could or should have been, given the forecast. The thunder rumbled and threatened all afternoon, but by 5:30 or so, no one was paying any attention anymore. We had tents, and the tents kept everyone pretty dry during the intermittent sprinkles; and we had towels, and the towels dried the furniture when it got wet. It was so humid that chips from a freshly opened bag wilted, their crunch gone. I don’t even want to think about how dirty my floors were just 24 hours ago, and I came a little too close to running out of food. But everyone ate, and the house and yard are back in order now, and the party was a success. It’s sunny and bright today.
*****
It’s Saturday and I’m looking at my backlog of blog posts and half-finished Google Doc drafts, and realizing that I should finish and publish some of this stuff. I’ve read and written about a bunch of books and when you read my posts about them, you’ll know that the posts are not chronological and do not reflect the order in which I read the books. Right now, I’m reading Say Nothing; and when you’re reading that book it’s hard to do anything else. Every time I try to get out, it pulls me back in. I’ve been off from work since Wednesday, first getting ready for the party, and then having the party, and then cleaning up from the party. After a morning at a very hot swim meet, I wrote some swim team stuff, and then swam and read, and now I’m here doing this, “this” being writing about all of the other stuff. Sometimes I wonder why I do it--it’s just another thing to do, you know?
*****
And now it’s Sunday. After an earlier-than-usual Mass and a quick swim, I spent most of the afternoon fighting a PowerPoint presentation. I won, in case there was any question. PowerPoint is my bitch. I’m back to work tomorrow. The downtime is over, and now it’s three weeks of full-on round-the-clock work and summer swim team madness until our week at the beach and the bittersweet summer wind-down that is August. The days will get a tiny bit shorter, and the stores will be full of school supplies and football-watching snacks and clothes suitable for the crispness that fall people love to rhapsodize about on Instagram. But the pool will still be open, and the daylight will still last into the evening, and I’ll still be able to wear flip-flops all weekend long.
It’s 8 PM and I want to finish working but I have a deadline, and the deadline is tomorrow. But you know what? I actually set that deadline, which means that it’s pretty flexible. I'll get to all of the unfinished drafts eventually, and I'll finish the presentation pretty soon. For now, I think I’ll go read my book. Goodnight for now.
July 5th, and the party was a pretty near unqualified success. Not totally dry, but the rain was so much less, and so much less severe than it could or should have been, given the forecast. The thunder rumbled and threatened all afternoon, but by 5:30 or so, no one was paying any attention anymore. We had tents, and the tents kept everyone pretty dry during the intermittent sprinkles; and we had towels, and the towels dried the furniture when it got wet. It was so humid that chips from a freshly opened bag wilted, their crunch gone. I don’t even want to think about how dirty my floors were just 24 hours ago, and I came a little too close to running out of food. But everyone ate, and the house and yard are back in order now, and the party was a success. It’s sunny and bright today.
*****
It’s Saturday and I’m looking at my backlog of blog posts and half-finished Google Doc drafts, and realizing that I should finish and publish some of this stuff. I’ve read and written about a bunch of books and when you read my posts about them, you’ll know that the posts are not chronological and do not reflect the order in which I read the books. Right now, I’m reading Say Nothing; and when you’re reading that book it’s hard to do anything else. Every time I try to get out, it pulls me back in. I’ve been off from work since Wednesday, first getting ready for the party, and then having the party, and then cleaning up from the party. After a morning at a very hot swim meet, I wrote some swim team stuff, and then swam and read, and now I’m here doing this, “this” being writing about all of the other stuff. Sometimes I wonder why I do it--it’s just another thing to do, you know?
*****
And now it’s Sunday. After an earlier-than-usual Mass and a quick swim, I spent most of the afternoon fighting a PowerPoint presentation. I won, in case there was any question. PowerPoint is my bitch. I’m back to work tomorrow. The downtime is over, and now it’s three weeks of full-on round-the-clock work and summer swim team madness until our week at the beach and the bittersweet summer wind-down that is August. The days will get a tiny bit shorter, and the stores will be full of school supplies and football-watching snacks and clothes suitable for the crispness that fall people love to rhapsodize about on Instagram. But the pool will still be open, and the daylight will still last into the evening, and I’ll still be able to wear flip-flops all weekend long.
It’s 8 PM and I want to finish working but I have a deadline, and the deadline is tomorrow. But you know what? I actually set that deadline, which means that it’s pretty flexible. I'll get to all of the unfinished drafts eventually, and I'll finish the presentation pretty soon. For now, I think I’ll go read my book. Goodnight for now.
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