Dear Candace,
I just love sitting outside and being warm. I’d rather be warm or even hot and sticky over freezing cold any old day. If I moved up north I bet my life expectancy would shorten. I don’t think my ancestors were Vikings. I imagine they were pasty European fellows living out their life inside as weavers and then writers or clerks while their hardy neighbors left to explore new continents. It was hard for them, my ancestors who lived in cold regions. As the cold seeped into their bones, the more melancholy became their poetry. By degrees they moved south to gentler climates, as they had the strength. The wives were happier, the babies less spindly. They survived.
I’m sitting out on the front porch now, and was enjoying a warm evening blessed with the usual night sounds, all quiet and still {thinking fondly of my ancestors}, when my reveries were interrupted by the sound of a monstrous fire truck coming down the road. The sirens weren’t on, but the rumble of the truck and flashing lights surely woke up the whole neighborhood (including my children) as it backed carefully down our dead-end street in order to make an easy exit later. I could see no fire nor smell smoke. The fireflies alone illuminated the dark. {see what I did there} Apparently a neighbor had a small backyard fire which was called in. Tom and I could barely talk above the noise of the truck. I looked at it with envy. It probably has more square space than my house. And so well-organized and shiny clean.
I’m jealous of a fire truck.
The truck is gone now, the street back to it’s peaceful repose. I am soon to bed and early to rise. The children and I are leaving at 3:30 am to head to Indy in time for my brother’s graduation party! My St. Louis sisters are coming with, so we can all be bleary eyed and sharing coffee together.
I was going to write you stuff but then I forgot everything when that blasted red truck came down the road.
Caleb is off to camp this weekend, after the graduation, and packing a child for 9 days away without the ability to do laundry is no small feat. Being the procrastinators we are (argh), I made a mad trip to Kohl’s with Caleb and Tom took him to Wal-Mart. He’ll just have to make do. I’m sure he can fashion shorts out of foliage if necessary. He has a bottle to filter water, and there will be plenty of protein bugs. I’m sure he’ll survive one way or the other.
I just hope he listens to me and remembers to put on sunscreen. {Wonders: did we pack sunscreen?}
And all the hipsters say-#weekendvibes
~Rachel