I needed a zen activity for a half hour or so on this beautiful but chilly morning, so I kicked myself outside to do some hand raking. It’s a bit of a challenge for me to turn a chore like raking leaves from watching paint dry to zen. But I can do it. I have a strategy. 15 minutes at a time. I set my iPhone clock timer for 15 minutes and focus on nothing but pulling leaves out of “gardens” for that duration. When crickets announce time’s up, I can quit or go for another 15.

I spent about a half hour out there this morning and I got a little zen time in but… Text messages started coming in. I needed that. I needed company this weekend. I cannot explain why exactly. I was fine and I made my own fun but I was really happy about those text messages. “Are you going to the Nieman thing this afternoon?” “Do you want to have a birthday dinner with dad afterwards?” Yes and yes. And so, after a little discussion about what to *cook* for dinner, I stopped my zen raking chore and mobilized myself to hoof it over to the Plum to buy ingredients.

And so, today shaped up into a fun day. I prepped all of the stuff for dinner, the GG came home from his chilly Lake Erie island camping spot (Kelley’s Island) and we walked downtown to attend a going away party for some longtime friends who are moving to Cally-Forny next month. Lizard Breath (main text messenger) met us there. So much fun with old friends.

The party was held in a little-known venue here on the Planet Ann Arbor. All I can say is that it is next door to the Lucky Monkey Tattoo parlor (which is next to Blimpy Burger’s new yet-to-be-opened location). Back in the day (long before I lived on The Planet and maybe long before I was born), it was once a polling place but we think it was also a bar. Nowadays it is open only for private parties to rent.

I love the aerial photo of The Planet on the wall there. The photo I took shows only my neighborhood. My house is in it and so is the Beach Urchins’ elementary school. The Queen Bee (my work supervisor) also attended Haisley Elementary School for a few years. Down in the southeast quadrant of the photo, you can see where streets had been roughed in but no houses were built yet.

We are all back at the Landfill now (except for Mouse, who is working). I can hear the old Electrolux vacuum cleaner going outside — Liz cleaning out Ruby. I washed the exterior of the Ninja this morning. Not sure why I bothered since my Redwing Blackbird buddy is back to hang out on my mirrors and poop on my vee-hicle at work.

Good night,
Kayak Woman

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 27th, 2014 at 5:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.