Getting Out

How easy it is to sit around in your jammies til noon! It’s hard to see the point of getting dressed, especially since my pajama bottoms and my sweats are both grey. But civilization depends on changing clothes a couple times a day, though I’m not sure why. In my case, I wanted to work in the garden for a bit and I didn’t want to get my pjs dirty. Mr S, who doesnt seem to have this problem with clothes, got dressed early, went for a walk and then dug and amended one of the vegetable beds while I was busy contemplating hauling myself upstairs just to change my pants! I did do some important stuff while I was having coffee and the last hunk of homemade bread: I ordered a new ceramic bowl to replace the one that broke, I think it was last year, or maybe two years ago. A friend made it and it was a wedding gift, so it took me all this time to acknowledge that it was properly broken and would never be safe to use for anything. The new bowl is red.


We went for a ride in the afternoon to return something we’d borrowed from a friend. Years ago, when I was a kid, or even a young adult, the words going for a ride held such magic. Sometimes they involved ice cream, but mostly it was just going for a ride: exploring a new road out in the country, aimlessly driving around for a couple hours. How incredibly odd this seems now, for so many reasons. Mostly I try to avoid cars. But today, going for a ride, crosstown, couldn’t have been more than five miles one way, was an immense treat. The ocean! Eucalyptus trees! Bright flowers in someone else’s garden! The ocean!! We were lucky to get a parking spot close to the cliffs, so I could walk a few steps for this view. The official parking lots are all closed to keep people from congregating, but you can leave your car in the adjacent neighborhood. There’s something there that doesnt make sense, but I was so grateful for the chance to get out of the car and walk a few steps that I won’t belabor it. I’ve posted many a shot from this vantage point. The Boardwalk is out of the frame to the right, and you can’t see the river either as it empties into the ocean on the other side of the cliff. I didnt want to negotiate the dirt path to the overlook, so we get a swath of wildflowers instead. It smelled so good! The waves crashed obligingly. I feel I had a whole day at the beach.

By the way, just to bring this full circle, I did finally get out to the garden and put in the seedlings we bought the other day: zucchini, yellow squash, striped Italian zucchini, Persian cucumbers and regular green cukes. Tomorrow I will put in the bean seeds. After I change my clothes.