Yesterday gave us a morning like many another Essay Effay mornings: cold, grey and foggy. I wore my fake fur vest, windbreaker, socks and a ski cap to the park. I'm not sure my dogs would recognize me outside the house without a ski cap on.
Puppy-O dashed and frolicked. Old Girl Queenie rolled from leg to leg, burling her way up hill and down dale, staying the course. Unbeknownst to them, we were treacherously planning to leave them alone for an entire day while we went in search of sunshine.
Somehow, we missed the flood of pilgrims to the Gay Pride Parade. We sailed across the Bay Bridge and serenely voyaged past herons in rice paddies and controlled burns beside irrigation ditches, until we came to Party City, 3 hours into the journey. Barely a car in sight, the last 40 miles, except for a bunch of big sedans and pick-ups parked outside the Mennonite church.
Oh, it was Hot. I fell asleep in cool sun and woke up in an oven. The wind blowing snarls into my bangs felt like a hair dryer. I slugged warm water into my mouth from a bottle that had still been half-frozen a half-hour earlier.
Party City has a big park and big trees, lots of trailer communities and a state U. The Man spent (or wasted, depending on whom you ask) a good (?) ten years of his life there and has many fond memories. Now that we are Old, he thinks maybe we should live there, at least part time. So we are there to look at a house. Not just look, you know: walk through, open closet doors of, exclaim over. Eat a few blackberries off the bushes on the fence. Sit on the front porch and wonder how sun gets past the trees in the winter, if they don't drop their leaves. Serious contemplation of a house.
House has a lot of charm and seven foot ceilings. The master bath is big enough to turn around in, just. The kitchen cabinets are made of quarter inch plywood and painted LightBrightWhite. But, there are two fireplaces and big old comfy soft sofas that the owners might even leave behind. And herbs and fruit trees in abundance. I could see me in a calico bandana (am I mixing too many images?) and granny shades, hawking tiny, ribbon tied bundles of purple sage and lavender at some farmers market.
After that, we went swimming. It was necessary to walk over pizza stones, masquerading as a poolside terrace, to get to the water, but then someone brought out Real lemonade, made from just-picked lemons and we sat in water and sipped cold bevvies and it was lovely.
If you're wondering, the car didn't cool off until we got to Berkeley. The dogs expressed their anxieties with a number of wiggling body motions and snorts.
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