Bring on Summer

Summer has a different rhythm. School will soon be out for many, if it isn't already. There are graduations every weekend for a while. People seem a little more relaxed in the summer. While there's plenty to do, the long days give you hope that everything can get done and you can still enjoy the day, rather than feeling like there's nothing on either end of work but darkness and wanting to sleep. Restaurants and pubs have patios open and eating outside becomes a familiar part of the routine. Grilling is foregone conclusion, with recipes moving away from crockpots and hot stews to sweet corn and burgers.

Today my calendar didn't have anything on it. Oh sure, there are a thousand things to do, not the least of which is tackle this disaster of an apartment that waits hopefully for me to come home and spend a couple of hours eradicating the cat fur. I have a piece to copy edit that I would like to get back to the writer before tomorrow morning and there's some wardrobe flipping that finally needs to be done. I am hoping that after May 20 I can safely put the heavy wool sweaters into storage until the fall.

But that all feels very far away at the moment. I slept in late and then wandered down to my favorite manicure shop to have the hands and feet pampered. The massage chairs there are phenomenal and exactly what I needed, having woken up feeling like my lower back was completely compressed. I'm trying to grow my nails back out, having chewed them off during some of the stress of early spring, and that means manicures. I discovered in New York that if I spent money on my hands, I wouldn't chew my nails. If I can get my nails to a reasonable length, I can stop, at least for a while, but there's something psychological about not chewing the paid-for-manicure. I added a pedicure so that I could start wearing more open shoes--though probably not in the 50 degree temperatures at work.

And I sat for an extra drying cycle, reading my book, a old murder mystery. The murder is interestingly done, with killer early determined (by the reader) but motive slowly revealed. It was written in the mid-70s and you can imagine the political incorrectness of it, mostly gender assumptions. I'd been seeking out something of the mindless television type though and this filled the need well. Now, I think I need to tackle the bookcase full of texts that I need to read once and pass on to others and old issues of National Geographic that I need to read through and then leave on the "take one/leave one" bookshelf at work.


For now though, I think I'll wander over to the pie shop to see what today's selections are. Then it's back to the things that are mocking me about needing to be done...