I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

from Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day"

Friday, June 10, 2011

Bits and pieces

Somehow I appear to have misplaced the entire month of May and beginning of June. How can it already be (almost) mid-June? I feel like Will should maybe just be finishing up with school and here we are smack dab in the middle of summer. Weather-wise and otherwise.

We've been pretty busy around here, which is kind of strange to me since it seems like we should be lounging around at home painting each others' toenails or some other such summery activity. But, no. We've been out and about and working outside and trying to finish up with lots of little (and bigger) home projects and trying to get ready for vacation. But, really, is this anything different than what everyone else is most likely doing? Probably not.

I spent all of Memorial Day weekend working in the flower bed out by the street. (Really, who needs to have that area landscaped? I struggle to see the necessity of making this area pretty when most people use this space to pile up their leaves in the fall to wait on the leaf-sucker to make its rounds or to put their sticks to be collected by the mulching truck or to place yard waste bags to be picked up. But, alas, our small space is full of plants and flowers and in need of constant weeding and mulching and rearranging and pruning.) At the end of the weekend, I was sore and exhausted but it looked the best it's looked in a long while. Jamison mentioned, jokingly, that the utility company would probably be coming to work on our street and sidewalk the very next day, as they'd placed their white flag of destruction in our landscaping about a month and a half ago or so. I laughed wearily and didn't think much more about it.

But I did illustrate this handy little picture for you:

















And you know what's coming next, don't you? This happened the very next day:

















They ripped out the entire middle of the landscaping with a giant digger, which Will loved, of course. Me, not so much. Honestly, they did a pretty good job of not making a giant mess of everything, but still. All my hard work was kind of ruined. And our sidewalk was busted up in the area between the cones. It's still not fixed. Boo.

















Will was so excited, though. He sat and watched every move the men made. (And kept referring to them, king of embarrassingly, as "workers," which comes from his fascination with Richard Scarry books, in which he refers to the various characters as such. But still, it felt a little too lord/peasant-y for my taste.)

After this, we went to the playground some.






















Laura's a fan of the swings.


And Will's a fan of the slides. (He's saying "weeee!") This picture just makes me laugh.

Finally, we went to the zoo Wednesday to meet my bff and her babies who are no longer babies.


Amanda (black tank and sunglasses), Hanna (blue tank and plaid shorts), and Chloe (posing sultrily next to Laura in the stroller), along with us. I especially like Will's pose and the fact that Laura's hair kind of looks like a toupee. I know I poked fun at all the tank tops we saw at the zoo the last time we were there, but I want to make clear that I find regular tank tops (ones that offer full coverage and no views of tattoos) on women perfectly acceptable. I also would like to make clear that I'm not a drug addict, as I appear to be in this picture. (In the picture, I'm looking at Will which results in a strange angle and look, and we'd been there for over an hour in 90-something degree heat, so it could've been even worse, I suppose.)

In all seriousness, even though we only saw them for about five minutes (in which Will roped everyone into a gratuitous train ride), it was so nice to see them. One of my greatest hopes for both of my kids is that they find a friend like Amanda has been to me since I can remember. I'm not certain that everyone has that and the thought of them not having it is sad to me. We don't get to see each other much these days, and our communication is mainly via email now, but we're pretty low maintenance that way. We can pick up right where we left off. Someday we'll be in the nursing home together and then we'll really get to make up for lost time. We'll be the two old women cackling at a wildly inappropriate joke that Amanda made. You won't be able to miss us.



Will on the train, another of his happy places.

And just because it's Friday and it's too cute not to share, this is what Laura's wearing today. Hot pants and a halter. It's so cute I'm pretty sure it's illegal in some states.

Happy weekend!

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