It’s been busy out. I’ve basically been a vegetable in the (oh-so-short) evenings after work. Then falling, crashing into bed…and not sleeping well. Ugh. Hate that. Big proposal on my plate plus an office Open House we’re planning for, all coming to a head on the exact same day.
And effing construction as far as the eye can see, surrounding our office and causing havoc and noise and shaking and more noise. It’s beyond frustrating, especially knowing that nasty weather will return soon (after a really nice August, which has basically comprised our entire summer). The hike from the parking lot will present me as a drowned and grumpy rat to my cubicle each morning, and one uber-grumpy beeyotch when I tiredly traipse to my car in the evenings. Yeah…I need a new umbrella. They tend to TURN INSIDE OUT when we have nasty weather. I dumped two of them in the trash last weekend when I cleaned out my car.
This is right outside one of our office windows on the 5th floor:
You can see our parking lot right there beyond the chaos. Totally inaccessible to our office. We have to hike 6 blocks up and over and around and through and down again to get to the office. Stumbling over broken sidewalks, crossing dangerous streets, and tripping over buckled pavement. And soon it will be DARK when we have to traverse this mess. (And with all the broken infrastructure, they are building a pedestrian bridge. I still can’t wrap my head around that).
The engineers in our office keep making nose-prints on the windows watching all this shit go down. “Big toys.”
Sigh.
So…it is with such incredible joy (and peace) to finally have this week over and have our butts on Harstine Island. Yes, the squirrels have been bitchy and the young osprey hatched earlier from their nearby nest are an intriguing cacophony of exuberant hunting prowess. But I dig them noises! (OK, the bitchy squirrels can sort of grate on my nerves…) Last night after we arrived and settled on the deck with a fire (it’s dark so much earlier now), I was amazed at the QUIET. Just the fire crackling. That was all. The contrast between that and my work days is profound.
We took a beach walk earlier and behold! Another wiener dog! He approached Peanut and Bailey with excitement and, I swear, familiarity! I’ve seen this before, with strange wiener dogs encountering each other like they know they are “of the same cloth.” (One instance comes to mind with my old weenie, Mandy, meeting up with another weenie on the beach at Camano Island many years ago). Usually our dogs will bark at other dogs, but this was a tail-wagging social gathering of low riders, with nary a woof! His name was Oscar.
It’s a beautiful day!
On the grill tonight: rib eye steaks!