Apples, Peaches, Clementines

It’s summertime and the livin’ is hot and somewhat sweaty, but relatively easy. Last week we caught some kind of un-seasonal weather break and it was in the 70s and low 80s with no humidity. We turned off the a/c and opened the windows and slept so comfortably. The 4^th of July was practically cool (and windy, very windy thanks to Tropical Storm Arthur) and we had rain in the morning but clear skies by early afternoon.

I have had a headache for the last four days. Not a crippling, head-hurts-so-bad-I-am-going-to-vomit kind of headache, which I do get, but just a lowgrade tension headache in the back of my head, neck, and shoulders.

Sunday after church I drove to Gettysburg and spent the day with my friend Katy. We ate at a small sandwich shop, walked around town a little, drove outside of town to the Hauser Estate Winery which also had local hard cider on draft. Delicious, cold, dry apple cider made with Pennsylvania apples. Did you know that Pennsylvania produces a lot of the apples that you eat – that it is fifth in apple production in the US? Also, Pennsylvania is a hub of mushroom production. Fun facts about local agriculture! Another factoid…Georgia may be called the Peach State, but South Carolina produces more peaches. Have you ever seen  this, in Gaffney, SC? The picture is good, but you really have to see it in person from I-85 to appreciate the “butt-like” glory of it.

We spent much of the later afternoon and evening sitting at Katy’s dining room table having a nice talk and catching up. It was such a good day and relaxing. I love the house, and the dogs, and Thomas, and living in Baltimore, but every once in a while I want to get away from it all and hang with a friend.

I am on Goodreads, and have been for several years. I’ve been on and off about adding books to it, but last year I got serious about tracking my reading. Except for romance novels, I don’t particularly care to share that! But I do put in anything else I finish. Last week I realized I had over 200 books on my Want-to-Read list, so I went on the library’s website and requested about 15 books. Then I realized that the majority of books I requested were YA and children’s fantasy. I don’t have a problem with that, because a good book is a good book, and this time of year all I want to do is read fun things that will entertain me. Once the weather gets cooler I will pick up more challenging things. 

I am reading other things besides books aimed at the 10-20 set; I’m in the middle of Losing Clementine, a novel about a woman with chronic, long-term depression who has decided to kill herself. She has fired her shrink, her assistant, and the gallery owner who has offered her a show (she’s an artist), tossed all her medicine, and is taking one month to do everything she needs to do before she dies. So far it is unexpectedly hilarious. She has slept with her ex-husband on a trip to Mexico to buy the drugs she’s going to overdose on, slept with her shrink when he stopped by to see her, broken into that art gallery to trash her artistic rival’s work, ordered everything on the menu at her favorite restaurant, and is trying to find the father than abandoned her when she was a small child. She cut up all her uncomfortable underwear into strips of fabric and made potholders out of them and decided to stop following rules like: hang up your clothes when you take them off and make your bed every day. Her delight in breaking these rules is very funny and the underwear-slicing scene made me laugh out loud. She mused about wearing uncomfortable undies (Thongs! She hates thongs!) to be sexy for men who she didn’t even care about all that much – and sent the potholders to her frenemy, the gallery owner.

I really didn’t think a book about planning your own suicide would be this funny, and am not sure where Clementine is going to end up, but I am going to enjoy the trip. The fact that she’s enjoying her life so much right as she’s decided to end it reminds me how I enjoy a job the most in the weeks after I have given my notice. Once you are mentally and emotionally separated from the job, all the little things that bugged you become temporary inconveniences, and you appreciate your co-workers and the more enjoyable aspects of the work.