My beautiful, free-spirited friend married this weekend. The smile in this photo captures everything I love about Jill – the things that I’m sure make her infinitely lovable to Joel. She is full of the fine and tender things; she lends a certain radiance to the room. In this shot, as her wedding march proclaimed, here comes the sun. May theirs be the kind that lasts and lasts.
Love,
Jess
The old pink cell isn’t cutting it anymore. Yeah, it seemed cute after season five of Sex and the City, but that was a really, really long time ago. Also, it gives me a world of trouble, like dying often and unapologetically – in some compromising situation. (i.e.a friend is so drunk he barfed on himself and my pretty new shoes – time to call a cab; the eharmony date won’t stop talking about the “Street-fighter” theme song he learned to play on his guitar – again, Help. Cab. ) So, the pink phone and I are going our separate ways and, as it turns out, breaking up is hard to do.
After a week of Internet shopping and comparing, my mind is blown and my consumption of Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager is at a record high. Phones come with a lot of stuff. Stuff I don’t care about. Stuff no one uses. NO ONE. I sat down with a student this afternoon to discuss her palm. She whipped it out and started rolling through all the fabulous features. ”Do you use all of that?” I asked. She looked at me like I’m stupid. Of course she doesn’t, but if she ever needed to reschedule a dentists appointment, seven board meetings, and a trip to Japan, translate it all into German, and email it to her great aunt Patti, she could.
My student mostly uses her NASA space computer of a phone for texting. I want to be able to text too. I use my phone a little for talking – 68 minutes last month to be exact, but I spent a lot more time hunting and pecking on that crappy traditional dial-pad. With a best friend in another state living on vampire hours, and a 13 year old friend going through the trials of 7th grade, we are blazing through the messages. So I looked for a phone with two features: 1) receive and send call 2) full texting keyboard. AT&T offers one phone that does exactly that, nothing more.
Here’s the phone that’s shipping to me tomorrow, the Pantec Slate (Gasp! I don’t want the iphone):
Thanks to all who offered reading suggestions. Until I sort through your recommendations, I picked up a couple of beach reads.
BTW – My lapse did benefit the Lafayette Public Library. I managed to rack up $5 in overdue book fines!
You may not have noticed that one of my widgets has been disturbingly static lately, but I have. Usually I consume a book a week. These days I’m starting to feel like I might grow old and die clutching the same book I picked up in February, 2009. Jon says to just put the damn things down. I have. They keep coming back – or I keep circling back around.
I’ve perused goodreads, I’ve lost hours on Amazon, I’ve sat for MINUTES in front of other people’s book shelves. Nothing. If you’ve read something that could snap be back to life, comment away.
Today was all about turning over. While I turned over dirt in my soon to be organic garden, Francis worked on turning over his coat nearby. I’m pretty sure my work was tougher. The action of breaking up the dirt was hard work. For much of the time, my mind was blank. Somewhere along the way, I started thinking about Papa. This was his sort of spring-time project. If he were still here and healthy, he would have supervised my efforts. I missed him. Deeply missed all the things that spring meant for us.
Since moving back home, I’ve started operation good-house-guest. The plan involves 3 prongs: insane tidiness, insane pleasantness, and yummy treats. I’m certain that I’m already failing in two areas, but hopefully the food is so delicious that everything else is overlooked. After all, isn’t that the sort of conventional housewifery that’s held dysfunctional marriages together for decades?
Insofar as my failures go, I’d like to place the bulk of the blame on the cats. You know, if there is anything less adaptable than me, it’s a cat. Specifically, June. Life in 500 sq. ft. apparently breeds neurosis. As does life without tables, and chairs, and a bed frame, and all destructible or sentimentally valued items. So, I have frequently been confronted at 7 a.m. by one or both of my parents with the look,” YOUR CAT HAS NO BOUNDARIES!” She’s probably eating those peppers off the kitchen counter as I type.
When the weekend’s been long and tiring, comfort food is a godsend. To distract myself from moping about some questionable choices, I cooked up a batch of rice pudding. One day I will learn how to cook things besides dessert, but not today.
