It’s like a book elegantly bound

My vacation is rapidly coming to an end.  In fact, I have no idea where today went at all.

I had plans for today, plans that didn’t materialize.  I have a hard enough time not hibernating when Kurt’s gone normally, but he and I had a bit of a spat today, so that caused all plans to go flying out the window.  It was easier when I lived in Washington.  There was always the children’s Cabin Fever program on Thursdays, play time at The Zone on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and art class on Fridays.  Any other day of the week, I could head into downtown Poulsbo to see my friends at the bakery for lunch.   I could browse in the Book Stop for yet another biography or historical fiction novel.  Even wandering up and down Front Street and along Liberty Bay was usually enough to cure my blahs, provided it wasn’t raining.

I still haven’t found my groove here, but that’s mainly my own fault.  I haven’t been forced to carve out a niche yet because Kurt’s always home.  I had plans on calling Grace’s new friend up to see if we could arrange a play date.  That went out the window when Grace got sick; Grace’s friend has an infant brother, and I didn’t want to get him sick too.  And with the way Grace was hacking and her nose was running, it was a guarantee that Baby Brother would definitely catch her cold.

Eventually I’ll settle in.  I am making friends, slowly but surely.  I went up to North Providence with my friend at the end of the street on Tuesday, just to keep her company while she picked up a jogging stroller.  I was pleased she called me just because she says I’m good company.  I also have another friend on the street, the family we ended up having an impromptu barbeque (or braai, if you’re in South Africa) with over the weekend.  Then of course you have Ms Cheez-It, whom I met  the day we moved here, but since it’s now spring, her sons’ sports schedules are keeping her hopping.

At this point it’s just a matter of my calling.  And I am awful at calling someone up.  I have phone fear.  I am always afraid I am bothering someone, or taking up their time, or that I’m babbling on and on while they’d rather I just shut up already.  I overanalyze everything.

I have issues.

Tomorrow I’ll take Grace back to school, and then sometime tomorrow evening Kurt will be home again — just in time for the weekend.  Hopefully it’ll be sunny again so we can do some outdoor things.  I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Yesterday got us out of the house, so I haven’t become a complete hermit.  I offered to my good friend Angela to drive up to Boston to meet her for dinner since it’d been a while since I saw her, and she gladly accepted.   It’s an hour and a half drive from here to there, so I was gone most of the evening.  But I got a lovely dinner out of it, and a trip to Trader Joe’s, which always makes me happy.  There aren’t many here in New England, at least none in Rhode Island.

And of course, I got to see Angela, the best part of all.  What a good friend Angela is!  We met our freshman year in college, though our friendship didn’t really take off till later on.  She moved back to Boston after college, but every time she came south to visit friends, she made sure she saw me as well.  Once I moved to Washington, we sort of lost contact because it’s so hard to stay great friends when you’re so far away.  She found out I was moving to Rhode Island last summer, and her excitement nearly exploded through my computer screen.  She followed our drive across country through my photos, and it wasn’t long after we were settled that she asked to meet me.  As soon as our eyes locked on each other in the parking lot, it was like the previous five years, when we’d lost touch because I was on the opposite coast, had never happened.  We picked up exactly where we left off, and neither of us could stop talking or stop touching each other.  Ever since then, we’ve tried to get together every month to two months, and we’ve been pretty successful.  She came down for my birthday in February, when I took her to the Newport Winter Festival, and we also went shopping together a few weeks after that.  So it was time to see Angela, and I’m so glad I went.

Now if gas prices would come down a bit, I could go see her more often!

Speaking of technology (which we weren’t, but I did mention it off-handedly in my last post), I am not completely oblivious about things that came before my time.  If you check out this video, my dad had that exact same audio reel-to-reel machine.  He probably still has it in his finished basement, along with his slides and his slide projector, his Beta VCR and his records.  He also has video made back in the 1960s on 8mm film, and of course the projector on which to show them.  He showed me his videos when I was home one time, and it was amazing to me to see snippets of his life as a teen and young adult.  He’s always been my dad, you know.  It’s so hard to imagine him as a young man, someone as young as I am or even younger.  But there he was on the screen, and my uncle too, as young men still learning what life could hold for them.  Amazing, really.