childbearing hipster

Local

I'm pretty glad to be done with travel for the summer. I really would rather not leave the city limits most of the time. It's honestly not because I don't like to go places, it's that I just really like our town, and there's usually no good reason to leave it. Well, except that one of my two favorite thrift stores is a few blocks over into the next town, and my farm box pickup is a few blocks over into the next town going the other way, and our local Costco is closed for remodeling. Otherwise, there's nothing any of the surrounding towns have got that I really need.

There's just too much I haven't even gotten around to doing, right here. I have come nowhere near exploring all the local parks (and don't intend to, because I hate the park, but that's beside the point). I haven't even been to the community pool, because I didn't realize it was there until late last summer and haven't had a chance to go to it yet this year. We've been to the local historical museum twice and I still want to go back again and again, so we're just going to become members. There are so many restaurants here that I still haven't tried, and I really look forward to spending the rest of my life narrowing down the best tacos (?) and sushi (?). I have been sulky for days because someone bought national-brand beans for brunch last weekend, and I have to use them up before I can go to my lovely neighborhood drip-coffee joint for locally-roasted beans of perfection and deliciousness (and yes, I'll have my usual extra-icy-extra-creamy-extra-sweet too, of course). My local hair salon has convinced me that regular trims are worth doing, and I may never again indulge in my favorite hobby of growing my hair out long.

Our city has a big development plan that's been in effect since just before we moved here and will continue for years. Slowly, façades of old buildings downtown are being scraped off and re-stuccoed, slowly (in this economy, ever so slowly) "for lease" signs are being replaced by "coming soon". Coming soon, a yoga studio! Finally! Coming soon, a small offshoot of one of my favorite local Chinese restaurants, with a similarly trendy/catchy name, serving noodle bowls and bubble tea in one of the town square kiosks! Coming soon, a designer-y home furnishing store!

We recently threw a family party (the best one ever, maybe) at a local bar--an interesting space in which nothing ever seems to be happening. It has a strange effect on me, and on one of my friends: when we are there, it takes about one beer for us to suddenly be convinced that our destiny lies in making this bar the coolest place on earth. There are giant gaping holes in the nightlife here, like there are in suburban nightlife pretty much anywhere, as far as I recall. Get a Pabst into me and I become singleminded about changing this. But even without the beer, even when there's nothing exciting going on to fill a rare date-night, I just really love my city. Love it, don't ever want to leave it.

I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself

Yesterday Dug and I flew home, sans children, from the cabin. It was weird. We got to watch the inflight movie (He's Just Not That Into You, which we weren't that into, but it gave us a few chuckles), and nap on the plane, and read entire magazines, totally uninterrupted. We didn't have to lug any sleeping kids up the stairs when we got home.

We slept late, and then we lazed around drinking coffee, and then Dug headed into work at his leisure. It's 10:30 and I'm still in my jammies and nobody has asked me for a snack. It's weird. We may go to a movie tonight, one that isn't animated, and eat popcorn for dinner.

Then tomorrow we're going to go to wine country for a few days and eat vegetables and not have to force anyone to eat tiny servings of said vegetables. Weird. We will sit in hot tubs for as long as we like and ride our bikes around and not have to ride really, really slowly so Daisy can keep up.

The kids stayed behind with their grandparents. They're going to get haircuts and be allowed to use knives but required to eat outside. They're going to ride in boats and go see Ice Age and maybe go berry picking or to visit the maple sugar farm. They're going to have trouble getting to sleep because the sun doesn't go down there until after 9, and then it comes up before 5 and they'll wake up along with it. Then their grandma will fly here with them next week, and I won't even recognize them because they will have grown up without me (also, the new haircuts).

I don't know what to do when they're not here. I'm so used to having them shadow me that everything I think about doing seems like...well hell, I can do that when they're here, that's not a big deal. It feels like my style is more cramped without them than with them. Like I need a whole new hobby to fill the little-girl-shaped holes in my life today.