I should have known that things would be all strange today. Today was the first day of swimming outside.
Is today also the first day of summer? If so, Reston has not been alerted. The sky was gray, the clouds were threatening, the air was cool and the water...well, let's just say I didn't get the heat in the supposedly heated pool.
But the swim was good anyway. At my side of the pool - the SPED side (notice how close SPED is to SPEED) - there were no lane dividers to ram into. So my hand, which has lately maintained a lovely mass of black, blue and purple raised contusion, now has a chance to heal. Even as I type, it's looking more and more of an evened out green. It matches my outfit more in this newer paler shade.
The swim would have been better had I slept more last night and eaten more carbs. Alas, I've added protein to my diet very recently. Which basically means I've eaten only protein for the last several days. I can't figure out why, but I seem to be capable of eating just one food group at a time. I'm a food group monogamist. Loyal and true. And lazy.
I can do all carbs easily. Switching to all protein wasn't so bad either. This morning's swim suggested I might want to balance the two. Short of spreading cottage cheese on bread three times a day, I'm not quite sure how to achieve that.
It wasn't that strange when I got to the bank later this morning without my deposit. Hey, 80 grams of protein and no carbs will do that to you.
And it wasn't even that strange when I drove all the way back home only to realize that my deposit wasn't there either but that I had left it at work.
No, the strangeness set in when I ended up in Frederick in the worst Starbucks imaginable. This Starbucks has coffee. If that's all you need, I'll give you the address.
Otherwise, STAY AWAY.
First of all, there's no wireless. When I asked the frappuccistas about this, they all assumed a forlorn expression. As if they had to finally tell me what had really happened to Great Aunt Ellie and why she hadn't been showing up at any family holidays for the past few years.
It's not that I need wireless. I can stop anytime I want.
It's just that I like to know it's there.
The frappuccistas told me, in very hushed tones, that there's no wireless in Frederick at all....they said there's a problem in Frederick.
Had I not been waiting for my oldest bestest friend, I would have left Frederick immediately. A town without wireless is kind of like a country without crops, plants and trees. Something's wrong if things can't grow.
But I stayed.
I stayed to practice my tuning out skills.
I practiced those skills on the balloon man.
YES! You heard me correctly. There was a &%$!@ balloon man in Starbucks today. Does Seattle corporate know about this???? As an official Starbucks spy, I'm writing up the report now. Just have to figure out whether the prohibition on balloon men is explicit or implied.
Personally, I'm thinking that no balloon man prohibition would ever have to be explicitly stated or written. Who in the world likes the balloon man? He's aggressively articulate in a shut the hell up way. Joking with kids in a manner directed at adults. Kind of like south Park. But not funny. And with BALLOONS!!
Do you think the guys with balloons get the girls?
How about the girls over the age of two?
Did I mention the BM (nice acronym, don't you think?) had a horn too? Because, you know, the constant squeaking of ballons being tortured into stupid animal shapes just isn't enough NOISE!
But the tuning out went pretty well. Every once in a while BM's smarmy faux paranoic comments about lawyers - couched in singy-songy children's language - would waft over to my little table, but otherwise I was able to space out pretty effectively. As usual.
And then the sun came out.
My oldest bestest friend brought the sun with her to Frederick, our meeting place. But she left the tot at home.
It's been a long time since I've seen her eat without frequent stops for distraction from totular near-miss. The baby crises that almost-but-not-quite result in forever trauma.
No. This lunch was slow and relaxing and cathartic and reinforcing and just really quite wonderful. Then again, anything with your oldest bestest friend is bound to be wonderful.
The rest of the day was just basic Saturday politics. The virtues of being horizontal, minimally attired and attached to the sofa versus the benefits of being vertical, clothed and available for life's opportunities in a public space.
Being an unabashed opportunist, I chose the sofa.
Go figure.
And it was wonderful. Of course.
Like my oldest bestest friend, the sofa is always perfect. Always perfect for whatever I need. Even when I don't know what I need.
And so it was me and the sofa and Boo. And four boiled eggs. With salt. Of course.
Celebrate good times, come on!
It would have been the perfect end to a perfect day had it not been for the fact that the day was strange. And so, in keeping with the odd karma of summer's inauguration, I turned off the computer and turned off my mind and opened myself to the opportunities in good old channel surfing.
And that's when I got busted. Big time.
When Terms of Endearment came out in 1983, I boldly stated my opposition to the movie's straight-out manipulation. "Laugh here" - "Cry here" - "Feel remorse now" - the film's directives were patronizing, at best.
Underlying my hostility was a raw hatred for Debra Winger post-Officer/Gentleman. I just couldn't reconcile Debra Winger's nose with her roles. She looked more like a poorly dressed New Yorker with bad hair than the southern, midwestern grocery clerk type her early roles envisioned.
Then there was my intolerance for Jack Nicholson being Jack Nicholson (and this was before he adopted Lara Flynn Boyle!). And a basic inertia when it came to dealing with Shirley MacLaine's various persons and personas. And a fear of naively hoping that a Hollywood mother-daughter story could ever be handled in a realistic manner.
I avoided experiencing Terms of Endearment for twenty years.
Until the night of the first day of this summer's summer.
And it was so strange. I just couldn't change the channel. Even though I knew what Flap was up to. And even though I knew Emma would stupidly follow Flap. And even though I knew Jack would leave Aurora alone and lonely just when she was beginning to show some real honesty and humanity and vulnerability.
And I just couldn't change the channel even though I knew that Emma would die and that I would be hurting really bad as I watched Emma giving her kids a future and Aurora becoming the mom and person she should have been earlier.
And it did hurt. Really bad. Especially when I saw Debra Winger in that role...I mean really saw. For the first time in twenty years.
I'm really sorry, Debra. And I take back everything I've said and thought about you in that movie for the past twenty years.
And I really want to thank you for spending your Saturday night with me. And for making me feel something besides the give of the sofa and the rhythym of Boo breathing while he sleeps on my chest.
As your friends and family at the factory would say, "Way to go, Paula!"