The Glad Game

I almost cannot believe I didn't mention the weather in yesterday's post. Don't worry...back to regular programming. It's cat on a hot tin roof scorching. It's supposed to be. It's almost July. I'm not a heat seeker, but I'm going to Windmill Beach this weekend and Lake Michigan is still in the refreshing 50's so a little hot air is all good to tease the cold plunge swimming will be. I'm feeling extra patriotic this 250th birthday. And while we are still a baby nation, we should be mostly proud of what we have achieved in our infancy. We're on a precarious precipice without doubt, but this is not the time to cut down and divide...it's a time to celebrate, lift up and look ahead with a shared resolve to mend and grow. And to notice that we are better than this dumpster fire we can't seem to extinguish.

This morning when I opened the blind, I was greeted by the best sign of hope. Our resident bluebird was perched on the telephone wire seemingly looking right at me. I decided then and there that I was going to channel my inner Polyanna all day and maybe all week. I'm playing the Glad Game.

By the time I made it downstairs to make my mug of hot lemon water, which I have neglected lately for my new iced coffee obsession, the cranes were in the yard at their watering hole. They are the coolest creatures. The other day I went to put some seed down for them and they started to approach me from the middle of the yard. I was a couple feet from them, which was surreal. Mike and I laugh that we are are now those people who fuss over the birds in the yard.

It was a short day in the office for me. I'm not feeling work much this week. It's a good thing the rest of the world seems to share that sentiment. If it were up to me, there would be shut-downs the weeks of the 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas through New Years. Luckily I have the flexibility now to make that happen, but for the better part of my working years, if the stock market was trading, I was working. Life is so much better now.

I came home early to snuggle Hazel and start Anne Patchet's new novel, Whistler. My parents brought it as a hostess gift on Father's Day and I have to say that is my new favorite treat for having a party. I was in after just a couple pages. I'm going to have to show restraint so that I can bring it to the beach this weekend along with our new beach towels, my sour cherry tart, and the ingredients for refreshing transfusions, my summer drink.