Thursday, August 21
Another gray start to the day, rain channeling in and out of the sky. I wasn’t really hungry, so I had a lovely frozen fruit pop in coconut milk and pineapple. It’s packed with vitamins and tasted like a pina colada.
I chugged through a busy to-do list. It’s amazing how quickly the days fly by. I’m still stunned that we’re in the near last leg of August. How did that happen?
I wasn’t feeling great early in the day. Not sick. No, more mood-wise. I had PMS, I guess, unless that’s just an excuse I’m using for feeling a little bluesy. I played some music at my desk today and kept it on artist Meiko for awhile. Her song Hawaii is ethereal, delicate and haunting. I imagined myself floating on a longboard under a pink sunset, towering palm trees behind me, cautionary fronds swaying in the wind telling me to paddle in. It’s easy to get carried away by gentle waves of distraction. I am rocking over the rise and fall, sweating under the languid breeze, hot and warm, while the persistent pull, the letting go rolls me along. And sometimes I really just want to let go.
I met a photographer for lunch today at the Dundee Bistro to go over some shots we need for our stock photo library. It’s all part of a larger piece of work I’m doing to use better images for storytelling. I had Italian sausage with polenta and broccolini and a side salad. It was pretty good. My favorite sausage and polenta remains to be cooked up at Bar Mingo, mamma mia! But this hit the spot.
After lunch, I finally went to the post office to send my cousin’s new baby the adorable Portland designed onesie and baby cap I purchased at the Saturday Farmer’s Market a few weeks ago. I picked up a book of stamps with sunny sunflowers on them. Very vibrant. I needed vibrant.
I didn’t leave work until 7:15 p.m.! What the heck?? I had a lot of work to do. And I also emailed Kerry, who was back on the east coast for work, to give her my typed verbal diahharea on the usual woe-is-me crap that came with the said “PMS” blended with boredom and loneliness. There. I said it. The dreaded “L” word. I’m normally not so down, not so, well, lonely. Mostly, I missed my family. At least I’ll see them in a few weeks. I’m looking forward to that. And I missed my friends – we haven’t been able to hang out much these days. I’m flailing all by myself, so I suppose it’s good that I have a lot of work to do. It’s a distraction.
I have also been concerned with my aunt in Seattle. I received an email this week from my cousin that she had to have surgery on her gut. Well, apparently, there was some kind of infection. I’m really not sure. But, she’s back in the hospital. So, I called my dad’s brother the other day to check in. It sounded like she’s stable and doing okay for now. Hopefully she’ll get to go home this weekend. I have been thinking about them all week. I plan to go up for a visit when I return from the east coast, which means, most likely, in early October. Plus, that will give her ample time to recover.
I went to Fred Meyer to stock up on some fruit, salad mixings and, oh yeah, Dagoba chocolate. I found a new organic, gluten-free EnviroKidz cereal in peanut butter and chocolate, called Leapin Lemurs. I also picked up a box of Frosted Perky-O’s. I don’t usually eat sugar cereals, but, well, clearly I’m jonesing for some sweets. I got organic strawberries and white nectarines, as well!
The sunflowers on my postal stamps must have been in my head, because I bought myself a bouquet of flowers with three lovely sunflowers. I needed some cheering up. Sometimes a single girl’s gotta buy herself flowers. I mean, I do everything else for myself. Why deny myself from receiving flowers? There I go again with my moodiness. Well, the flowers were a treat. And, yes, I even smiled.
My sunflowers shown with the green-leaf square ceramic plate I had painted a couple weeks ago. Painting pottery has been another soul soother for me these days.
When I got home, I re-heated the beautiful gluten-free pizza I made last night. I actually took a photo of it:
Yup. Brown rice crust that I brushed with olive oil, a little bit of organic tomato sauce, fresh mozz, a little salt and pepper, super-thin local heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil from our garden at work. It’s the best thin-crust, traditional Napolitano Margherita pizza I’ve had since I was diagnosed with celiac (hey…Dad…are you looking at that photo?? Now that’s gluten-free pizza!!).
As I ate, I turned on the genius box and watched Jaws 3. Hell, three’s a charm! I figured, I watched the first two the past two nights, might as well fry my brain with the 3-D version without 3-D glasses. I was stunned. Was that really Dennis Quaid, Louis Gossett, Jr. and Lea Thompson?? Ha, ha, ha. This was 1983. I was nine years old when this flick came out. And still swimming competitively. Though, I figured out at this point that sharks didn’t swim in pools.
That’s awesome… Anyway. The 3-D made for silly television viewing. Especially when the “35 foot” Jaws swam straight for the glassed-in control room at Sea World in the end. It was so fake, so goofy I couldn’t stop laughing. Oh, and then when it blew up in the end – it was hilarious how ridiculous it looked with bits bursting out in blood red ocean water, namely a large half of the jaw with several jagged teeth still intact floating to the forefront. I laughed out loud again. Too bad I didn’t have any 3-D glasses around. Anyway. Why was it that all the Jaws sharks were blown up at the end of these movies? I guess that was done for the teenaged boys. After Jaws 3, after the great white explosion, Dennis Quaid and his lady friend surfaced in their scuba gear and called out to their dolphin friends, who flipped and jumped in the finale. Uh, that was the teenaged girl’s ending. All they needed were rainbows and pegasus. And then, Jaws 4 could emerge from the bay and take down the wing of pegasus..a segue to a final chapter. I digress…
Anyway. I turned on the Beijing Olympics to watch the American men win the beach volleyball gold medal. It was killer! Again, I am pumped to play volleyball. That’s another thing I missed about living in Seattle. I was part of a group that played volleyball every Tuesday all summer long at Greenlake. I missed summer volleyball.
In any case, I had a round of crunches to get to. And another piece of Dagoba dark chocolate. My favorite.
