A Good Weekend

We had such a good weekend. The weather was amazing and sunny and warm, and even though we really didn't plan to do anything over the weekend, lots of fun stuff happened anyway.

The local high school was putting on a production of Alice in Wonderland on Saturday, so we decided to ask our friend Chani if she wanted to go see it with us. Her husband has been out of town for the week and I think she was feeling a bit lonely. We made plans to have her over for dinner and then go to the show.

Around mid-day on Saturday our friends Nay and Jay who run the local dog boarding/grooming facility called and asked us if we wanted to go to the beach for a walk with all the dogs. You have to go over "the mountain" to get there - the beach is gorgeous, uncrowded, and only about 20 minutes away from here. We took off with all the dogs in the truck, windows rolled down to enjoy the glorious weather. We reached the first switch-back of "the mountain" and Mark took the curve at a sort of high rate of speed in order to keep up with Jay, Nay, and Chani, who were all driving ahead of us. He slowed ever so slightly as the truck veered around the curve, and we all found ourselves leaning to the right from the centrifugal force. Mark's sunglasses suddenly skittered to the right as well, danced across the dashboard, and then they popped right out the window.

Mark stepped on the brakes for a moment, but then glanced in the rear-view mirror at the curve in the road, looked at the narrow shoulder, and thought better of stopping. He sped up again to catch up with our friends, and I felt bad. He really liked those sunglasses.


We got to the beach and had a really nice walk with everyone. The air was pleasant and warm and smelled like the ocean. The Atlantic Ocean smells different than the Pacific - isn't that weird? The dogs had fun and wore themselves out jumping on each other and smelling all the smells. It was good times.


On the way back home I convinced Mark to stop at the curve where we had lost his sunglasses. He was reluctant, thinking they would be scratched or broken even if we could find them, but stopped the truck just to make me happy. I hopped out and only had to search the side of the road for about five seconds before I spotted the sunglasses. I scooped them up and we examined the damage in the truck: they were pristine. There was not a scratch to be had. They're only cheap-ish sunglasses too, but they fit him well and are polarized, so recovering them was a major victory for the day.

We got home and had Chani over for dinner before the show. You know, it's hard to have a professional chef to dinner when you have no talent in the kitchen. She didn't complain though. The high school play was entertaining, and even the few bad actors were good for a laugh. It had been a good day.

We had beautiful weather again on Sunday, and took the dogs for a long lazy walk around town, then went home to do a little bit of nothing. I was just finishing my morning cup of coffee when there was a knock at the door - it was our friends Nay and Jay again! They had stopped by unannounced, and I was flattered that they were comfortable enough to do so.

They came in, sat down, and fought over who got to hold Oliver. We talked a bit about our foster dog Oland. Nay and Jay are in our animal rescue group and often take foster dogs at their boarding kennel, so we're kind of kindred spirits.

After about ten minutes of small talk, Nay's expression became serious and she announced that they had stopped by for a specific reason. Jay, who is a massage therapist in addition to working at their pet care facility, was planning on returning to his lucrative seasonal job soon. Nay would be left to run the booming family business alone. Would I be interested in coming to work for them at the boarding kennel?

SCORE!

I am so happy! Who would have thought that I would get the opportunity to get paid to work with dogs again, after moving to this tiny little rural community? Of course I said yes, and I think we'll work out the details sometime this week.

Mark has been the sole breadwinner ever since we left British Columbia, and even though I'm writing a book there are no guarantees that it will actually get published and make us any money. Now I feel like I'm going to be contributing something concrete, and since it's just a seasonal job, the book will not fall to the wayside.

The job offer kept a smile on my face all day.

We went out after Nay and Jay left and tried our lawn mower that we'd bought at an auction a couple of months ago, and IT WORKED. That was an event, because there was not any sort of guarantee for it. Mark mowed the lawn and seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself. I picked up the remainder of the garbage hidden in our woods, and I didn't even catch swine flu from all the rotten litter and dirt.


What a great weekend!