We had a couple of good visits with friends; took my brother out for a belated birthday dinner at the funky cook-your-own-steak restaurant in Carpinteria (The Palms); and saw the "Harry Potter VI" film at the beautiful Arlington Theatre. We got to Mass at Trinity, our dear old parish.
On the way down, we stopped overnight in Carmel Valley, and did some research on venues for the 2010 family reunion (the RU-10 Blog is almost up and ready, and everyone will be alerted when it is published).
Now we're happily back home in our dear cottage; and we are trying to finish up all the little odds and ends of chores that need to be done for this season – so that we can take the entire month of August "off" and just enjoy the beautiful summer weather on our deck overlooking the forest.
I have lots of good reading saved up for that time, including an anthology of James Baldwin's nonfiction and the newest McCall-Smith novel about Botswana's "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency." We will do some local excursions to places we haven't checked out yet, and begin a regime of daily morning walks. I plan to get back to regular daily piano sessions – and writing exercises to prepare for the first book of my memoirs (which will grow, I hope, out of my September visit to my childhood's home in Ann Arbor).
As part of my writing work, I will try to keep this blog going with a sort of Summertime Pastorale, to record what we hope will be a much more peaceful August than our last year's moving-in process could allow. (If I get too flowery or effusive, please send me a nasty comment-note and I'll tone it down!)
3 comments:
Why on earth would we want you to turn it down? We're living vicariously through your descriptions of life on the mountain.
See, Souffle, you need to come to live in California! Life is beautiful, here.
Oooh the James Baldwin sounds wonderful. the one non-fiction piece i read of his was about the Atlanta child killer. It's called the Evidence of Things Not Seen. Need to read it again.
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