Ellemental

Sunday night I was writing a post in my head. It was all about croquet. And horseshoes. And genteel lawn games on steamy weekend evenings.

Then the mental post morphed into a story about my first attempts at hitting a golf ball (other than mini golf) later that evening. As it turns out, I’m as bad at hitting a golf ball as I am at doing all those OTHER things that require aiming – archery, pool, bowling. I did, however, hit a one in a million shot. The VIM and I sat our beer bottles at the edge of his large yard while we shot toward the hole from different places in the yard. I hit a ball from about 50 yards. It overshot the hole by about 10 yards (and waaaaaay to the left) and hit my beer bottle on the fly. Yes, of COURSE I acted like I did that on purpose.

I decided that THAT post wasn’t as good as the mental one I started writing even later Sunday night. That one was all about stars. You see, I realized Sunday night that I am 37 years old, and I have never seen the stars come out. I mean, I’ve been outside when it gets dark, but I’ve never paid attention to the sky when the stars actually become visible. Never ever. And I decided it was high time to rectify that situation. Can you believe that I had no idea how it would even happen? Would they just sort of appear? All at once? Would the whole transition from clear sky to starry sky take 5 minutes? Half an hour? In the course of having those questions answered, I saw a shooting star, watched a bat loop and soar, saw numerous june bugs, studied cloud formations, and generally paid more attention to my surroundings than I have in a long time. I highly recommend grabbing yourself a drink, getting comfy in a chair, and looking skyward for a few minutes (or hour) at dusk.

Even though the mental star post was a good one, it was taken over by a morning after post. After a lovely evening outdoors, I woke up the next morning to reality: mosquito bites. The good news is that the bites aren’t all over my body. Just all over my feet. The 3 or4 bites on the bony part of the top of my feet, makes wearing shoes a bit of a problem (and don’t even ASK what I was thinking when I put the nylons on yesterday), but the one that’s driving my crazy is THE ONE BETWEEN MY TOES. Just thinking about it makes me weep.

I didn’t have time to write that post down before work, and by the time I got home last night, all thoughts of the weekend had been slapped around and beaten down by a really big Monday. Summer Mondays are so much harder to accept than Winter, Spring, or Fall Mondays. This particular Monday ended with my first board meeting for the local group I joined. This is the first board meeting I’ve ever attended, and it was a doozy. They assured me that the meetings don’t usually last THREE HOURS, and that at most meetings there isn’t OVER THE TOP HIGH DRAMA. I felt like I’d walked onto the set of a soap opera. A very very long soap opera with no commercials. “The board and organization is in transition, everyone is a little tense.” they told me. “No Shit.” I said. Ok, I didn’t say that. My brain was fried to the point that I could only smile blankly and nod my head and will myself to blink my eyelids over my glassy eyes every once in a while.