If I have to resign myself to working 7 days a week again, at least I can enjoy patio season with the best of them. Sure, I'm not one of the halter-clad-big-glass-wearing-cocktail-drinking-minxes, with my legs stretched out in the patches of sun poking through the yellow and white awnings, but I'm still there, breathing in the herbs crowding our little window-box garden, and soaking in the tulip colors of a Salt Lake City Spring.
Honestly, there is nothing prettier than an unexpected bloom, when your tables are sucking down iced tea like schools of fat, slippery fish.
Commonality, we call it. It's a place where needy, pompous restaurant guests and over-worked, bitchy servers can all find some middle ground. We all adore the flowers. And we all smile at the breeze, even when it blows coarsely ground pepper flakes into our eyes over a spinach salad.
When I'm not working, I'm obviously outside playing some sport or being active in some capacity. This year hasn't been quite as adventurous (yet). I had a profound realization just the other day as I ditched a soccer game and sat contentedly in my car in a grocery store parking lot, eating a Mediterranean olive mix, while blaring music with my moonroof open. It occurred to me that I'm lazy and whimsical, opting for leisure at any chance I get this year. It's depressing. I'd much rather be the hiking, biking, blading, wading girl that I was last year.
It'll come. Right? As long as these blasted clouds stop rolling in and looming on the horizon. I mean, impending thunderstorms make for spectacular camera ops, but there comes a day in every persons life when they'd like to feel a bit less like Eyore and more like Tigger. And I hate Winnie the Pooh, but sometimes if a reference works, a reference works. Who DOESN'T want to have boundless energy, bouncing of the walls and feigning ignorance to life's woes?! And it's a tiger, even if it's a trivial one, for godssakes. Yep, I want to be Tigger. Just for today.
But if there's one thing we know about Christie, it's that gardening makes me happy. So, there I was, at Wasatch Gardens, loading up my new (used) red Mazda hatchback with supplies. Upon sending the picture above to Julie, via iPhone, she replies, "Ok, hipster, I only want to vomit a little." My conventional Utahn sister will never understand...
Quirky or not, I am who I am. I once had a boyfriend who referred to me as a sun-goddess. Much more flattering than a hipster dufus, it kindof stuck. Not that I think I'm necessarily goddess material, but I do worship the sun, like any strawberry, freckled, desert girl probably shouldn't.
But when the sun loves you, it loves you and there's a lot to be said for mutual affection.
So whether or not I'm a lazy SOB, I at least drag my arse away from potato chips and over-stuffed couches long enough to spend the extended hours of daytime frolicking at the park.
Topaz, for one, couldn't be happier. That little girl is a climbing machine. I think it's because Spiderman is her alter-ego.
Post-park, we make faces as a mockery of the fun we just had. This is the point where Topaz is so tired and delirious that she's a snap second from hysterical laughter and an onslaught of tears at any given moment.
I, on the other hand, have just realized that nobody thinks I'm a sun-goddess anymore and that if I'm to be worshiped ever again as such, I must work on my powers of seduction.
Then suddenly, I no longer care and just lay back in the sun like it's the only place in the world I want to be anyway.
That is, until Friday nights when the sun goes down and it's time to dance amid strobe-lights and misters.
But the party-girl in me will always kick off those heels and wipe away that body shimmer early Saturday morning for a walk among the blossoms with my dog. It's the story of my life: no my feet don't hurt, no my head isn't still pounding and yes I can function like a normal person.
Sometimes, domesticity is all we have. Me, Topaz and the animals that cohabit this space, it's not a bad gig. And Max is pretty much the most adorable feline who ever adopted a laundry basket as his own.
But we all know that alllllll work and no play would make for a very, very sad Christie. Luckily, there are flowers and sunshine and animals and...
Topaz. I heart Earth.
