Beloved

Weddings and funerals. That's when you get to see beloved old friends, and beloved old cousins. Not old-old. Lifelong.

Funerals are sad -- of course they are -- but a funeral for an older person is so much less sad and grievous than a funeral for a young person.

And, you get to reunite with beloved old friends.

Beloved.

Deeply.

And also . . .

. . . you get to reunite with beloved old friend's daughters . . .

. . . and beloved old friend's sons . . .

. . . and beloved old friend's moms . . .

. . . and beloved old friend's sisters . . .

 . . . and best of all?

. . . you get to reunite with beloved old friends.

Beloved.

accountable

Remember way, way back in early 2015 when Beth vowed that this would be the year of The Man (or something like that.... remind me to look that up)(update: I was right)?  I also made a resolution! I decided that this would be the year of The Arms. My arms, yeesh. My whole body, really. I've been distracted, I guess. I was in great shape for a while, and although technically I am still wearing the same size clothes and occupying the same general quantity of space in the universe, I've got all soft and squishy. I blame age, and beer and Goldfish crackers, though not necessarily in that order. Enough is enough, though.

I have a lifetime membership at an omnipresent gym, but have been plagued by some lower hemisphere issues that have changed the way I exercise. I needed to supplement, and  started the year off strong with a trial membership at a pilates studio, but I had a problem with the management who were soosososossososososo dumb and wanted me to commit to a pricey annual membership and then have the chance to visit the studios close to my house. I loved the reformer classes though, I thought they would be the answer to my quest for The Arms.

I've got a few other tricks up my sleeve that will come through soon enough to get myself back on a reformer and/or strapped to the TRX, but in the meantime I've got no choice but to tackle the equally pressing issues of the beer and the goldfish.

My workplace kicked off a health initiative in 2015, and I signed up to receive accountability in the form of a little bitty plastic thingamadoodle and a stack of instruction sheets from which one might presumably learn to synch all manner of apps and gadgets so that my every step and my every bite are recorded and analyzed. It's weird.

It is accountability, though. Logging my bites and steps will inspire me to take less and more, respectively, and I am banking on the change to reveal itself in plenty of time for beach days. I'd better hurry though, it's pretty nice out.

AND I got a free towel.

A quick glance back

My yoga teacher said an interesting thing the other day, which I agree with, which is, you can take a look back at your past -- you can take periodic glances -- but you shouldn't sit there and stare at it. There is no benefit to this. The past is done, it's gone, and be it sweet or shitty, the past is behind you and can't be changed. Of course you can, and probably will, go on to change the way you view certain events over time, but you can't change the actual event itself.

Granted there are times and places where a good, long stare back IS warranted -- wakes and weddings come to mind. As do the the birth of babies, and school reunions, and the announcement that the Dead are going to play one final set of shows.  But as a normal practice, no, it's really not healthy. If you're always in the past, you're always suck in nostalgia or regret. Nostalgia or regret. You're not here in the present moment (which begs the question, how will you accurately remember today in the future, if you're stuck on the past now - mind bender!)

But lately, well, lately my kids keep bringing up, with nostalgia, the short time we lived on Del Monte Ave in OB. It was a transitory time, and somewhat like an extended vacation, which of course may be what they long for, but there was also the ocean. And I mean, right there. So close that I used to bitch about the salt spray on my car in the mornings. (Yes, I actually did that. Shameful.) And, of course, there was all of OB in its lurky, grimy, free-spirited wonderfulness right there, right our our door. (I mean we've not had a cop knock on our door to see if we could give an account of a crime since we moved!)

We're still there almost every day. It's not like we are far away, but it's not the same. We don't live right there. When my kindergartner took a big whiff of life from the backseat of the car the other day, when I was stopped at the corner of Bacon and Newport and said, "Ah, the smell of OB," I knew I had to memorialize it with something, albeit as lame as a blog post. I mean, not every 5 year old gets to have that sensory experience, and to sort-of understand it. I could not believe my ears, but knew exactly what she meant. (And, no, we won't be letting her dad know that it escaped her youthful lips.)

So, to take just a quick glance back to that time and space.

5 star accommodations for sure!

Toilet paper Samurai warrior, one our first nights in, 
thanks to Jacquie.

Close quarters. But she was a really quiet roommate after 8 pm!

Ach!!

Close-up Ach! Was this seriously only 1.5 years ago??

Almost as cool as her teenage self.

Daily vista

Urban jungle

When in Rome

Good times! Only in OB.
This would make a Wells girl proud, right mom?

Aw -- weekly llama rides, 2 blocks from the beach, 2 blocks from our house,
 Now that doesn't happen just anywhere.

Yes, total thumbs up for our brief stay.

Chowder and Wine

"How about a cup of chowder and a glass of wine?" Mistah asked me on Sunday -- the first and only day above freezing in these parts in the last 12,000 years.

"Yes, please!"

Ah yes.

Wait, Mistah, that photo's all spoon . . .

That's better.

When Mistah suggested that fateful cup of chowder and glass of wine, standing together on our street, trying to decide where to go, he said, "How about Red 36?" And I said, "I'll be right back."

I had a gift card, you see, from my friend Lisa S.

Everyone should have a friend like my friend Lisa S.

She's smart, she's funny, she's beautiful, she loves New London, she loves me, she and Mistah love eachother, and perhaps most importantly of all, she's got the most precisely-calibrated bullshit meter known to humankind.

Plus, she's generous.

Over the summer I mentioned to our darling girl that I loved a certain specific local restaurant, and what did Lisa S. do?  What did she do? She went there and got me a gift card for my birthday.

An over-the-top, overly-generous giftcard.

Which we availed ourselves of on Sunday.

It doesn't look quite the same in the winter as it does in the magical days of summer . . .

. . .  but on a bright sunny winter day, the views are beautiful . . .

. . . as was Mistah's coconut shrimp . . .

. . . as were our fish tacos . . .

. . . as was the wine.

It's a good, good place, and great for taking photos in the strong winter light . . .

. . . taking photos of eachother in the strong winter light . . .

It was a great day . . .

. . . we had a wonderful time . . .

. . . and we thank you, Lisa S., from the grateful and satisfied bottoms of our chowder- and wine-filled hearts.

xoxox

moody monday

It's a rainy Monday

The Oscars were boring

Everyone at work is sick

I did not accomplish enough of my weekend task list

National Margarita day has come and gone

We celebrated it in high style, though...

boy side (before my boys arrived)

girl side

...and at least *I'm* not flying back to the tundra today

Bye cousin friends! Happy travels

Friday funny

That's nice and all, but....

Boozy Luncheon VI

The eternal question.

Does one go back to a favorite place for luncheon on Presidents' Day?

Or does one branch out?

Does one return to the known, fabulous, go-to spot, which is open on Mondays, and be all in?

My vote, if you're asking?

All in.

If you cannot beat them . . . .

. . . and, obviously, my friends, you can never beat them . . . and why would you want to?

Let's just join them.