It seems like a good time to make a to-do list. Here’s what I hope to accomplish this weekend:
Make ice cream. Rudi wants peach. I want cherry vanilla (perhaps with chocolate chips).
Make popsicles. Really it’s unnecessary to do both in the same weekend, but I have yogurt and mashed raspberries and that seems to be an ideal combination.
Plant. We have some past-their-prime potatoes that need to go into the ground. My initial bean crop has been harvested (just one bean, but it is purple), so I’d like to try a second crop. The dead pea vines need to come out. The strawberry plants over-running the path between my plot and my neighbor’s need to be pulled. We should have some more tomatoes ripening. And the garden’s blackberry bush had plenty of red berries yesterday, so hopefully they’ll blacken over the next couple days.
Swim. If the pool is whole again (it was closed today because it sprang a leak), it should be played in.
Freeze some fruit. The fridge is full of fruit I’m supposed to do something with. Now is the time.
Knit. There are two projects I’m working on right now that I’d like to finish in the next week in order to allow me to cast on a new project to knit during the Olympics with a clean conscience. (Yes, I know no one but me cares how many things I have on the needles at once.)
Write. I have postcards to send, cards to mail, book reviews to compose, a document to update, and an email to prepare.
Hang out with friends. No one but me knows this right now, but I’m hoping to catch up with some friends. I suppose if they’re all busy, I could catch up with Rudi — maybe at a movie theater.
Chores. Laundry needs to be done. There’s a corner of the living room that is starting to attack back. Bills should be paid. A new cell phone ought to be considered. Macaron tasting must be scheduled.
July 2 is the birthday of the girl I was best friends with in seventh grade. We grew apart during the first year of high school, and I don’t know that I’ve thought much about her since then. But when I looked at today’s date, she was the first thing that popped into my head.
February 22 is the birthday of the girl I was best friends with in fifth grade. We stayed friends through the first year of college, but drifted apart after she moved south for school and then decided to get married. I have thought about her since then and even went so far as to Google her once, but I don’t have any interest in getting in touch. Mostly I just wanted the internet to tell me that she’d had some semblance of a happy ending. But, still, she’s my first association with that date, even if I haven’t wished her birthday greetings since we were teenagers.
Dates feel a little bit haunted by ghosts for me. Not ethereal beings, but ghosts of my past.
It’s the same way where I glimpse someone on Metro or on the street and think, “That’s so-and-so.” But it’s not. They kind of resemble how so-and-so looked 15 years ago. But in my mind, they’re frozen in time.
In my mind, I didn’t think of a grown up Holly today — one who probably looks now a good deal like her mother did at the time we knew each other and who has a job and responsibilities and possibly a family. Instead I thought of a frizzily permed, braces-wearing, soap-opera-watching middle schooler.
Maybe no one else finds this weird. Facebook, after all, offers you the opportunity to wish birthday greetings to everyone you’ve ever met, which suggests that it’s something a lot of people are interested in. Maybe that normalizes it, makes it just another to-do item on your daily list, helps to remind you that every day is a special anniversary to someone, to lots of someones, in fact.
Maybe it’s the nature of growing older. As you age, you have more of a past to visit with. In the same way it’s easy to get lost going through a box of old mementos or snapshots, it’s easy to open a door in your mind and opt to revisit a day or a person from time gone by.
July 2 and February 22 not one of those important dates circled in red on my mental calendar the way July 7 or September 14 or October 21 or March 23 are. But there is still a faint pencil trace around it to remind me that there’s a ghost in need of a glimmer of my thought. And maybe it’s okay with me if on my special anniversaries other people have a glimmer for the ghosts who used to be me.
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I have finished my book. Rudi has washed the dishes. The cats are restlessly prowling, hoping I will fill food dishes and play with laser pointers. I will and I will brush my teeth, too.
And then I think I will attempt to combat my actual, physical tiredness by going to bed and sleeping straight through for six whole hours. It’ll be tough, but sometimes you just have to take the medicine instead of looking elsewhere for a remedy.
I meant to post this last week, on the actual anniversary, but I lost track of the days and only this morning recalled that I had missed the date. Also, apologies for the quality of the pictures. I found them rather late in the game and, rather than dig out the scanner, I opted to photograph them, and the quality suffered.
Twenty years ago this month, Grey Kitten and I attended my senior prom.
I don’t remember asking him, but it was probably a driveway question. The fact that I don’t remember it suggests that he did not make me wait long before he said yes. [Thank you for that, GK, because the boy I asked to my junior prom said no, albeit kindly and quickly. Karen took pity on me (thanks, Kare!) and went on a consolation date with me to the movies, after which she swore she would never see another action film with me again. She has not broken that promise, although, to my recollection, I have never asked her to.]
Finding the right dress took far longer than finding the right date. I know a number of girls who waited to find escorts until after they found their outfit. I was about to type that I didn’t care that much about fashion, but my mother reads this blog and she would tell you that searching for a prom dress with me was a miserable experience for both of us — and I only took her on a third of the excursions! Ultimately, the dress was found, but not in my size. The shop made some adjustments, but not enough, and Mum and Gramma had to pull it apart and put it back together again. Twenty years later, I cannot begin to fathom how much work that must have been. Thank you, Mum.
I remember walking around the grounds when we got there. I remember getting our official portrait taken, with the awkward hand placement that accompanies such shots. There must have been some pre-dinner mingling, because I have pictures of my friends in their dresses. Our table was served dinner on the early side of the room, and neither Grey Kitten nor I were big eaters at that time, so when the music started, I assume to create ambiance during the meal, we looked at each other, got up, and hit the dance floor — the first and, for a long time, the only couple out there. And while I do recall sitting down at least once, I think we spent most of the evening dancing.
It was a perfect night.
And because my classmates were wiser than I, Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” was not our prom theme. Instead, it was Dan Hill’s “Sometimes when We Touch,” a classic of light pop radio:
So whenever I hear it, I get to relive a fairy-tale evening, now long enough ago to qualify as “once upon a time.”
Following close on the heels of the traditional summer kick-off weekend, this week’s Ten on Tuesday topic asks for 10 Goals for This Summer:
Eat breakfast outside more often. I tend to get a slow start on weekends, so it seems like a natural antidote to that would be to pack my thermos of tea and a breakfasty food item up to the park. Once I’ve left the house, it’s much easier to stay out, even if I do have to stop home once in a while.
Prepare more salads. This will require finding a reliable protein source for Rudi — chickpeas might be an option. They appear in my favorite pre-made lunch salad.
Ride 25 miles on the bike with minimal stoppage. I can bike home from the ballpark without having to stop and rest my legs, but that’s just about five miles. As I really only like to bike to destinations (work, a ball game, a snack), I should pick someplace 25 miles away to go see. Of course, then I’d have to get home from someplace 25 miles away… Does that mean I’ll need to be able to bike 50 miles in a day? Getting to this goal may require some more thought.
Engage in icy treats. I have failed in my plans to make popsicles the past two weekends, but that’s clearly because I was waiting to be able to add them to this list. I also was given an ice cream maker this winter, so I’d like to make some homemade ice cream. I have already worked some daiquiri-making magic, but can you ever have too many strawberry daiquiris in a summer?
Get to the beach at least once a month.
Go camping.
Finish my Ravelympics and Tour de France knitting projects on time, whatever they may be.
Hone my bubble-blowing skills. I used to be able to blow bubbles inside bubbles with some ease. I am out of practice, but did pull it off a couple times Saturday night. After all, who doesn’t need to add that kind of skill to her resume?
Bring laughter to strangers (and friends).
Defy gravity.
What’s on your summer goals list? I look forward to reading about them, be they vague or specific, selfish or selfless, personal or public.
