I would prefer to write something with depth, research & thought behind it here on my little bloggy today. I haven’t done anything like that in quite a while– and I have all sorts of ideas bouncing around inside my brain.
However, I don’t have the time today [or this week] to put my thoughts to [virtual] paper, so this fast post is going to have to do.
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Things you need to know now about life here at Chez Bean.
• Zen-Den’s foot is healed. He is walking without any trouble and has even mowed our lawn– which I’d say is proof that he is back among the mobile.
• We had a beautiful weekend. On Saturday night, for reasons that were never fully explained to me, Zen-Den suggested that we should sleep outside on the floor in our screened-in porch. So we did. Doing this reminded me of two things: 1) I am too old to enjoy sleeping outside– it’s noisy and weird out there in the dark; & 2) I think that whoever invented mattresses with box springs deserves sainthood.
• We planted 58 daffodil bulbs & 10 muscari bulbs around our property. Planting these bulbs was by far the most normal home-owning activity we have done in a couple of years. It has been nothing but upheaval and expense and mess around here for so long that I’d forgotten about the simpler things involved in keeping house. Like just planting something for the fun of it.
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Well, look at that! I’ve written a passable blog post complete with photos taken this morning and pithy insights gleaned from my weekend. I think that this is good for now. More later in the week.
√ Now that the rain has stopped and the sun is out, the work on the backyard continues. Noisy, messy work involving lots of rocks, stones, dirt– and mulch. Heaps and heaps of mulch. This project has dragged on for too long. “Just get it done,” she screams inside her head.
√ I’m spending about 3 hours per day in the car driving Z-D to work and back. It’s all interstate highway or downtown driving at rush hour. I’m a suburban babe, so this sort of driving is a bit stressful for me.
√ We’re social butterflies this week.
Drinks and dinner with friends from long ago who we bumped into while walking into Lowe’s. Go figure. Decided on the spot that we needed to get together for dinner to catch up, so on Sunday night we did. It was great fun.
Dinner with one of Z-D’s former co-workers who is in town. Always good to hear what this guy is doing. He’s smart, interesting– definitely not one of the sheeple. Hallelujah!
Ballgame as business guests. I like suites. I like tasty food. I like free beer. This event aims to be the trifecta of good times for me.
√ Got my curly hair cut shorter yesterday. It’s more like the Keri Russell hairstyle that everyone hated years ago– which I always thought looked good on her. I’ve got lots of layers with more curl and wave going on now. Kind of kicky. Less predictable… if that is even possible!
I met a friend for dinner. She arrived rocking the 1970s style trend that’s so popular now. She looked perfectly at ease in that era’s clothes; but then I realized that she always looks perfectly at ease no matter what she’s wearing. So I asked her: “how do you always know what to wear to look good all the time?”
I figured that her answer would be about fashion magazines, long shopping trips to the mall and personal shoppers.
But instead, she seemed dumbfounded by my question. And her answer made me laugh. As she looked down to see what she had on, she told me that she had no idea what she was wearing. She said that she just bought whatever was in the stores when she walked in– or online when she got around to shopping for clothes and accessories.
No planning. No stress. No external manifestation of deeper inner meaning. Just whatever. “I’m too busy to keep up with fashion,” she told me. “Do I have a style?”
I assured her that she did, and explained it to her. She thought about what I’d said, agreed with me, and then asked me: “How do you know about all this? Where are you getting this from?”
My answer was easy: “I read blogs.” Blogs written by women with professional backgrounds in fashion who work as stylists. Woman who are active amateurs with a passion for fashion. Woman who dress well and like to share what they’ve figured out along the way. All sorts of women. All ages of women. All kinds of styles.
Naturally, she wanted to know specifically what I was reading, so I told her.
When I got home I realized that a list of personal style/fashion bloggers would make a good and useful addition to my “Wonderful Blogs To Read” tab. [Look up– white letters in the black line– kind of middle to right-ish– the one at the end. Yep, that’s it.] So I added a section to my blog roll that lets you, my gentle readers, know my current fav blogs.
Check it out, why don’t you? You know you want to look good. 🙂 [Please note: fashion blogs on my blogroll deleted 10.11. No longer interested in them. Learned enough, I guess.]
Over Father’s Day weekend we went to visit my in-laws, aka the Oldsters. They live a good four-hour drive from us and are 80 years old, more [FIL] or less [MIL]. This weekend reminded me of many things that I’d long forgotten about.
• We drove in Z-D’s SUV which is eleven years old. It has no place for an iPod, with a broken CD player, and a radio that works when we’re near signals, but not in the empty spaces we were driving through this weekend. We turned off our cell phones and sat together in silence only broken by our conversation. It was wonderful to be totally detached from noise.
• I didn’t feel like reading– roads too bumpy, sunshine too intermittent thanks to lots of trees blocking it. So I looked out the window to see what I could see. It’s been a very long time since I just watched the world go by– cows, barns, farms, and exits with fast food establishments and gas stations. It was relaxing to be out of the city and just existing as we drove along.
• The Oldsters were happy to see us. We had lunch at their house [chicken salad sammies, natch] then went shopping for a wedding present that we were buying together. BB&B fascinated them with all its stuff– and the price tag of said stuff. It was fun to watch them be amazed by the beautiful things that the world has to offer now.
• We left the house at 3:30 pm so that we might get to dinner at 4:00 pm! This was to ensure that we’d be back home and safely within the house before 6:00 pm when FIL’s fav tv shows are on. The small restaurant we went to had delicious, old-fashioned style food– ham loaf, smothered chicken, basic cole slaw. It also had the smallest wine & beer list I’ve seen in years, so Z-D and I had a glass of the only Cabernet Sauvignon on the menu– which was delicious. It was fascinating to be somewhere with so few choices and such good quality.
• We got back to the house in time to watch Sanford & Son and All In The Family. I hadn’t seen either of those shows in– well, decades. And while the former is very dated and tedious, most of the humor in the latter has held the test of time. It was entertaining [and a bit sad] to see FIL laugh with Archie about the way things should be.
• We left mid-morning on Sunday. The Oldsters had turned on the Weather Channel at 7:00 am to check what might be in store for us on the drive home. Once they saw that there were thunderstorms on the way, they became agitated about us getting on the road ahead of the rain. In their world, driving in the rain is very bad and risky. Z-D pointed out that we have a SUV with 4 wheel drive, but they were having none of that nonsense! So we packed up and hit the road. It was interesting for us who live entirely apart from any family to experience a bit of “parenting.”
• Driving home in silence, just watching the road go by, I saw a sign for a small town called “Belleville.” I know nothing about this particular town, but in a snap my empty mind filled with the images of and the theme song from a delightful movie called: “The Triplets of Belleville.” It was a pleasant, but unexpected, ending to a visit that went quite well– and brought back to me memories of times gone by.
THE SPECTACLED BEAN 
