Well, another Fourth of July has been laid to rest. My poor beleaguered kitty, would like to send a shout out to the people who were setting off the incredibly loud illegal fireworks outside our window until the wee hours of the morning. The cat said to tell you, she hopes someone sits on your bed and pops every bubble in a sheet of bubble wrap the next time you are trying to get some shuteye. You're welcome. Poor kitty spent the entire evening hovering in the corner under the bed. The miserable, oppressive heat, barreled in with the holiday, and has stubbornly refused to move much since the big day passed. Now, to add to the mix, wasps and hornets have begun showing up at an alarming rate. Like we humans, they too need water when the temperatures begin to rise. Makes you wonder, yes? Let's see, floods, fires, pestilence, the evil king, oh my. Finding the wasps annoyingly flying around my head or crawling copiously through the blades of grass in the yard waiting to sneak up a pant leg, I sent up a white flag to Richard. My hero as always, Richard said he will go outside early on tomorrow morning before the sun comes up, and armed with his can of wasp spray douse the two nests already visible under the eaves. You never want to do this when the sun is up, because the wasps are up as well, and the insects do not take kindly to this behavior. There are a lot of bees around as well. Bees, I can cohabit with. Bees mean well, producing all that sweet and delicious honey, but will definitely sting in self defense. Then, as a reward once they deposit their stinger, they die. Not so with wasps. Wasps, are a whole different ball of wax. They are mean little critters who will inflict numerous stings on any available skin should the opportunity arise.
Like Richard tomorrow, I too had to get up with the roosters this morning and get moving. I am commuting the 45 minutes from his house to work this week because it is just too hot to drag poor Boo back and forth to stay at my house. I do, however, need to run by my house on the way to work and gather my mail, water my undoubtedly parched plants, and generally check to make sure my house is still standing and good order. My crazy life.
I looked around my beautiful little house a while back, and it got me to thinking how much stuff I have accumulated. All of it, will have to be packed or sold, and the remainder transported to Richard's house, or carted off to my storage unit. Pondering all this, I felt a headache immediately began to form just above my right temple. This will be my fortieth move over a lifetime. It's not I have any anxiety about moving, per se, for I do not. By this time, I certainly am very well versed in how to properly execute a move. It is rather, that I simply don't want to have to do it. I wish I could just twitch my nose like Samantha (for those of you old enough to remember Betwitched) and magically all of it would instantly be transported to the new location through the atmospheric continuium. While taking an inventory of sorts, I realized we will undoubtedly have a lot of duplicate items. Looking through my cupboards, I realized I already had unnecessary duplicates myself. For example, I found myself musing, "why do I need three crockpots"? Who exactly is coming to dinner? Perhaps the bigger question might be, "why does Richard need six"? He already has two more than he needs gathering dust on the shelves in his pantry. I imagine I will have any number of things that are destined to remain packed for however long our time together turns out to be. This, because he possesses the items already, making them redundant, or there just is no place to store them. Some would say, "just get rid of it all". Nope. Been there, done that. Life is capricious on the best of days. I never know when I might be called upon to move again, or find our circumstances have suddenly changed. For me, I'm not betting on the longshot this time. I have built upwards from nothing too often in my life, to wish to chance having to do it again. I am not a kid anymore by any stretch of the imagination, and recovering from such setbacks takes more of a toll of my well being as time passes.
We had people in for the Fourth. Not a big group, about eight in total. It was fun, but busy. I cooked too much food as usual, but people ate well and seemed to have a good time. I have hand surgery coming up in September, so I'm getting all my entertaining cravings out of the way beforehand. I used to pull together dinner for sixty five with my eyes shut. These days, it requires a bit more effort. First, I am less motivated to cook for a huge crowd then years back, and second, well you can just repeat the first reason. It doesn't seem to matter what size group we have in, no matter how hard I try, the conversation leans toward politics sometime during the evening. The Fourth, was no exception. At some point someone always opens up the lid to the can, and lets all the gremlins out. It is amazing how firmly we have all set our jawlines and are ardently rooting for one side or the other. There is black, and there is white, but gray seems to have entirely been erased from the picture. I endeavored to keep the train on the tracks, really I did, but before the conversation died down, it definitely added a few degrees to an already hot room. Will it come to either inviting one side or the other for a meal? I don't know. I do know, 2024 has set it's sail to be a most interesting year politically, and everyone seems to have their iron in the fire.
After the party, the usual disarray was evident in the kitchen. Thankfully, Richard is very good at helping out both in preparing for such a day, and cleaning up after the damage is done. A blessing, because my feet were loudly complaining by the time we closed the door on the last guest. I appreciate this trait in him, more than I can say. It is a first for me, having a partner who participates in kitchen duties, or household duties in general. Always I'm amazed that still in this day and age, the ladies continue to bear the heavier load when it comes to household chores. My ex-husband said to me once when asked to wash the dinner dishes, "I'd rather take a whipping then do dishes". He was from the south, and whippings, I would guess, would have been the ultimate corporate punishment when he was growing up. I just got quiet. After a moment, he said, " did you hear what I was saying"? I replied, "Yes, I heard you clearly. I was just weighing my options". I reminded him there was nothing fascinating to me about cleaning a toilet or mopping a floor. Because I am of the female persuasion, I am neither better at swishing a toilet brush around the commode than my male counterparts, nor do I relish doing the chore any more fully then a man might. I can never recall a time in my life when I found myself thinking, "oh goodie, I get to mop all the floors today instead of doing something fun". Nope, never said it, never will.
At any rate, the fireworks are quieted for another year, and once again we move on. My grandson turned twenty-one yesterday, which was quite a milestone in our world, and his. I was imagining myself at twenty-one, with two little ones in tow. Seems incredible to me I could manage at that age when I look at him, but I did. Imagine back in the 1800's when women were having children far younger even than that, married off before they'd conquered puberty? I could be wrong, but it seems to me, young people now don't seem to be rushing down the aisle to tie the knot they way they used to. Back when I was getting married, most girls in my age group were also planning weddings, many having already taken their vows. I had four bridesmaids dresses in my closet by the time I was twenty, each more hideous than the one preceding it. In each case, I remember the wedding planner or bridal shop employee assuring me as I paid for every dress, "you can shorten this lovely gown after the ceremony and wear it again". Right. I didn't want to wear it the first time. Why on earth would I pay to have it altered not to want to wear it again??
One of my friends chose an unusual spot for her wedding ceremony. She got married at a local cemetery. Is it just me, or do you also find this a strange choice of venue for beginning your life together? She got a deal on the cost, not so surprisingly. Not that the locale wasn't a bit unsettling already, but they opted for a midnight ceremony to boot, adding several notches to the creepy monitor. I was told the late time of the ceremony had been set both to allow for the charming effect of a candlelit chapel, as well as insuring no one would be getting laid to rest while the newlyweds were exchanging they vows. To add to the self imposed gravity of the evening, all eight attendants were wearing purple dresses with hoods, each of us carrying a flickering candle. In the darkness, with only our faces highlighted, we appeared to be a band of druids in the middle of performing some sort of ancient sacred ritual. At one point, as I recall, the cameraman asked me to move a bit to the right before taking a group shot. Apparently, I was standing directly on top of someone's grave. I always hoped it was the breeze that night tugging on the hem of my dress, and nothing not of this world. Euuuuuuw. When the pictures were being taken following the nuptials, the photographer employed huge spotlights to effectively light up the area. In the final prints, the reflections made our eyes appear overly illuminated, almost luminescent or wolflike, adding yet another other-wordly dimension to their memory book.
When I got married at nineteen, we had a formal ceremony, with just under three hundred people in attendance. What a dog and pony show that was. I had three bridal showers, fittings, catering arrangements, cake choices to deliberate, my dress to select, flowers, venue, ach. The ceremony itself was a Catholic high mass, which lasts quite a long time and involves a lot of intricate pieces including having the bride and groom kneeling and getting up, moving about the altar, and performing certain tasks. As it turned out, we chose the hottest day of the year to get married, in true Susie style. To make this more interesting, the reception was to be held poolside at my parent's home. The day really is a blurred memory for me, but I do remember sitting in a chair opening wedding presents with rivers of sweat cascading down the front and the back of me. There I sat, helplessly trapped inside layer after layer of fabric and linings, looking like a scoop of ice cream dropped on the pavement on a hot day. My hair was drooping, my shoes were slipping and sliding off my nylons. Whew. I probably lost five pounds of water weight while sitting there. When I finally got that gown off my body, it weighed about ten pounds more than when I'd put it on. Another picture I have of that day as the afternoon progressively warmed up, was an image of all the beautiful colored mints mother had purchased for the occasion and placed on a table outside. The neatly lined up candies all melted together to form a lovely swirling rainbow of floating sugar oozing along on their silver serving tray. One of the children in attendance had pulled his chair up and was eating them with his spoon.
Life wouldn't be as interesting I don't suppose, if there weren't hurdles to overcome. Sometimes, as in the case of two dear friends fighting health issues, the hurdles can seem too heavy to move over, and then life can feel precarious at best. In the end it will be as it will be. I don't suppose we have much influence on the outcome, just players in the game.
Anyhow, today it will be 112 once again. For me, I am dreaming of ocean breezes, and cool refreshing water lapping tantalizingly at my toes. Ah well, for now, I will settle for a functioning A/C and an effective ceiling fan to keep me going. When I think of the poor disinfranchsed people stuck out on the street, I definitely am thankful for every minute of cool air I am privileged to enjoy.
Happy Friday!!! Come on fall.
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