Normally, my vacation would just be getting started this week. Various family schedule conflicts made it necessary to go a week earlier than I normally do. This means that we have just about a month of summer remaining. It still feels like the back stretch, though. It's 7:40 PM as I write this and although it's still light out, it's not middle-of-the-day, sun-is-shining light out. It's get out while you can before twilight falls and the bats start swirling light out. Two entirely different things.
Do bats really swirl? I don't know. Whatever they do, I'd prefer not to see it or hear it.
My son just called to let me know that the pool just reopened after thunder had forced it to close for 30 minutes, so I'm going to take advantage of the waning daylight and the warm water and end my day with a swim. I should get home just as the bats begin to swirl, if that's the right word for what bats do.
*****
It's Tuesday now, 6:17 PM. My plan was to swim as soon as I got home from work, and then cook dinner. But thunder forced me to alter my plans once again. I did some housework and prepped some vegetables and then I'll cook the food and hope that the thunder will stop so I can swim at 7 or so.
I'm watching local news right now, hoping to see the weather forecast. I know that I can just look at the radar online, but I never know what I'm looking at. I can see the big green spots (why green?) but I can never tell where and how fast they're moving. I'm not a meteorologist.
The anchorwoman's hair is bothering me, because it's doing something that my hair does. It's lopsided. One side looks just fine and the other side is crazy. I don't think that this is intentional. The weather woman, on the other hand, has perfect hair, but it's so straight and shiny that she must have spent 45 minutes beating it down with a flatiron. Ain't nobody got that kind of time, least of all me. I need to cook some food. The thunderstorm warning ends in fifteen minutes.
*****
OK, so I'm not the only person who can't read radar because that thunderstorm went on for the whole evening and the pool remained closed. I found other things to do.
No swimming today, either. I had some errands to run after work. For some reason, the normal after-work errand-running traffic was far worse than it usually is. I'm lucky that I have a very easy commute to work. I'd be a hideous, quaking mass of road rage if I had to spend more than 20 minutes each way on the road.
I usually write in Google Docs, but I just started using Writer, the Internet Typewriter, just to see what it's like. It's fun but I don't think I'll use it regularly. It's a little too bare bones. I'm not a Luddite. But I do like the typewriter sounds and the custom pink background. Maybe I'll use both. Google probably owns too much of my life anyway.
Sorry Google! Forget I said that! I didn't mean it! Don't erase me!
*****
Me after five minutes in the car: GOOOOO! Oh my GOD! GO! AAAAAUGH!
Yeah, I know. It's bad.
*****
It's Thursday now, and a work meeting that I had particularly dreaded went very well, and I accomplished a lot today, and I also got to go swimming after work. The water sparkled, clear and softly cool without even a slight edge of too-coldness.
Later, I vacuumed, because it was vacuuming day; and around here, we vacuum on vacuuming day, no matter what. By "we," I of course mean "I." About midway through the house, I heard a sound that could only mean that something was stuck in the intake, but I kept vacuuming, because maybe if I ignore that noise, it'll go away. That approach always works, right?
After a few more seconds, I couldn't ignore the noise anymore, so I pulled the plug and pulled a piece of string out of the vacuum cleaner and then finished up. And everything was fine. The End.
*****
No, not really the end, because now my eyesight is getting a tiny bit blurrier every day and I'm pretty sure that I have cataracts. And I'm thinking that if I just keep doing what I'm doing and ignore the cataracts, they'll probably go away.
I dread medical appointments. I marvel at people who just go to the doctor every time something is wrong, just like filling up the gas tank or picking up a gallon of milk. My mother-in-law, who is quite healthy, is like that. If she's even a little bit sick, she calls the doctor. My mother, on the other hand, won't go to a doctor unless she's bleeding from her eye sockets. That used to be my joke, anyway, until I just now pointed out to myself that I am walking around with what are very likely cataracts, and I'm doing absolutely zero about it. I hope I don't start bleeding from my eyes sockets. Then I'll probably have to go to the doctor.
*****
It's Tuesday now, 6:17 PM. My plan was to swim as soon as I got home from work, and then cook dinner. But thunder forced me to alter my plans once again. I did some housework and prepped some vegetables and then I'll cook the food and hope that the thunder will stop so I can swim at 7 or so.
I'm watching local news right now, hoping to see the weather forecast. I know that I can just look at the radar online, but I never know what I'm looking at. I can see the big green spots (why green?) but I can never tell where and how fast they're moving. I'm not a meteorologist.
The anchorwoman's hair is bothering me, because it's doing something that my hair does. It's lopsided. One side looks just fine and the other side is crazy. I don't think that this is intentional. The weather woman, on the other hand, has perfect hair, but it's so straight and shiny that she must have spent 45 minutes beating it down with a flatiron. Ain't nobody got that kind of time, least of all me. I need to cook some food. The thunderstorm warning ends in fifteen minutes.
*****
OK, so I'm not the only person who can't read radar because that thunderstorm went on for the whole evening and the pool remained closed. I found other things to do.
No swimming today, either. I had some errands to run after work. For some reason, the normal after-work errand-running traffic was far worse than it usually is. I'm lucky that I have a very easy commute to work. I'd be a hideous, quaking mass of road rage if I had to spend more than 20 minutes each way on the road.
I usually write in Google Docs, but I just started using Writer, the Internet Typewriter, just to see what it's like. It's fun but I don't think I'll use it regularly. It's a little too bare bones. I'm not a Luddite. But I do like the typewriter sounds and the custom pink background. Maybe I'll use both. Google probably owns too much of my life anyway.
Sorry Google! Forget I said that! I didn't mean it! Don't erase me!
Me after five minutes in the car: GOOOOO! Oh my GOD! GO! AAAAAUGH!
Yeah, I know. It's bad.
*****
It's Thursday now, and a work meeting that I had particularly dreaded went very well, and I accomplished a lot today, and I also got to go swimming after work. The water sparkled, clear and softly cool without even a slight edge of too-coldness.
Later, I vacuumed, because it was vacuuming day; and around here, we vacuum on vacuuming day, no matter what. By "we," I of course mean "I." About midway through the house, I heard a sound that could only mean that something was stuck in the intake, but I kept vacuuming, because maybe if I ignore that noise, it'll go away. That approach always works, right?
After a few more seconds, I couldn't ignore the noise anymore, so I pulled the plug and pulled a piece of string out of the vacuum cleaner and then finished up. And everything was fine. The End.
*****
No, not really the end, because now my eyesight is getting a tiny bit blurrier every day and I'm pretty sure that I have cataracts. And I'm thinking that if I just keep doing what I'm doing and ignore the cataracts, they'll probably go away.
I dread medical appointments. I marvel at people who just go to the doctor every time something is wrong, just like filling up the gas tank or picking up a gallon of milk. My mother-in-law, who is quite healthy, is like that. If she's even a little bit sick, she calls the doctor. My mother, on the other hand, won't go to a doctor unless she's bleeding from her eye sockets. That used to be my joke, anyway, until I just now pointed out to myself that I am walking around with what are very likely cataracts, and I'm doing absolutely zero about it. I hope I don't start bleeding from my eyes sockets. Then I'll probably have to go to the doctor.
*****
It's Friday night. I still haven't called the doctor, but I also didn't start bleeding from my eye sockets. I can see well enough to write, so as far as I'm concerned, it's not broke, and I ain't gonna fix it.
I worked in the office today rather than from home as I normally do on Friday. Our team spent the day gathered around a single conference table, working and talking but mostly talking. After work, I went to my three-year-old niece's birthday party; and from there, to a going-away party for a neighborhood kid who is leaving for his LDS mission. I had just enough time to drop off my work bag at home and see that the house was not in order, but I had to leave it that way.
So maybe it was the whole day surrounded by people, or maybe it was the stress of leaving the house in disarray, but by 9:30, I was 100 percent done and I had to leave the party that minute and not one minute later. And so I did.
*****
It's Saturday and I just read over what I read last night and if spelling and punctuation are any indication (they are the only indication), then my claim that I could see well enough to write was quite false. In my defense, I was writing late at night, in the dark, on my phone, and with my contact lenses out. But still.
My eyes are just fine today, and I don't have a thing to do other than read and write and swim and clean my house. No parties, no errands, no road rage, and absolutely no doctor's appointments. It's almost like another vacation.
*****
It's Saturday and I just read over what I read last night and if spelling and punctuation are any indication (they are the only indication), then my claim that I could see well enough to write was quite false. In my defense, I was writing late at night, in the dark, on my phone, and with my contact lenses out. But still.
My eyes are just fine today, and I don't have a thing to do other than read and write and swim and clean my house. No parties, no errands, no road rage, and absolutely no doctor's appointments. It's almost like another vacation.
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