sun yourself today, for tomorrow may be gray

first Blogger eats my blog, then my cingular SmartPhone eats all my vacation pictures. stupid stupid phone! it didn't tell me my storage card was full, AND it let me keep taking pictures willy-nilly, and i was snapping away mightily, let me tell you. so i've been a little peeved at the computer and at my phone lately, and i've been giving them the silent treatment...but it's been awhile now and i should get over myself.

it's sunny today, (hurray! only the 3rd sunny day in the past two weeks) but it's only 66 degrees, and i'm sorry, but that is NOT warm enough to go swimming in, especially in a lake. the rare sun-show induces brain-malfunction that would not occur in the east coast. at my parents house, i headed to the deck for a bout in the sun, but could only last 10 minutes sitting there. you were so hot (steady 90's)you literally felt like you were cooking yourself: you just had to go back inside or in shade or in water or in somewhere else where the sun wasn't beating down so bright and so smotheringly warm. so...upon returning to seattle, after a week of gray and 3 days of rain, the sun came out and it was actually in the 70's; we rode our bikes to greenlake for our first day of summer-time sun and fun, and wouldn't you know, the next day was sunny too! so we rode our bikes there again for another day, and this is the day i thought: "surely, it can't go for three days in a row", so i opted to go sans sunscreen. you heard me. i chose potential cancer, that's how desperate i was. the wind blew, the water was chilly, i never actually got HOT hot, not enough to go in...but that's how sneaky seattle sun is: i got sunburned. not super red, enough for me tho, where it hurts to shower, hurts to sleep, but i kind of like it. i've been branded with proof of sun.

our vacation seems so long ago, that blogging about it seems pointless now. but i will say: we saw family, saw friends, my little sister got married! we got wonderful pennsylvania torrential rainstorms, complete with very exciting thunder and lighting, and warm warm rain. we had 90 degree weather that didn't cool down much at night. we went to an amusement park, with water rides, where you could get drenched, and the wet would cool you down for about 10 minutes, and then you were dry and hot again. we squeezed in our annual venture into NYC for a mets game, and introduced francis to the museum of natural history...(which, by the way, is cruel punishment to a kid to be there for ONLY 4 hours, this museum would take days...) and when we returned to seattle, my brother and his wife visited us for the weekend and it: rained. the. entire. time.(sigh) so we took in a movie (ratatouille, which was wonderful, went to the ballard locks, which is chock-full of salmon right now, um...got to EAT some very yummy salmon at IVARS down on lake washington, drove to west seattle for the city view, and got a round of golf in at the greenlake golf'n putt...between raindrops. oh yeah, and we introduced peter to his very first indian food experience at a favorite restaurant of ours: cedars, where we feasted on naan bread and chai, pakoras, somosas, coconut curry, and butter chicken. mmmmm... this is what we do on rainy days...)

so as i was saying earlier, when i took advantage of the sun the other day, for fear it might not last...the next day it was indeed gray. francis and i tackled the abandoned apartment. i played the beach boys loud. i washed 6 loads of laundry, and francis washed the dishes. (this is one of his new chores. he likes to wash the dishes but i used to not let him because he made a mess and took SO LONG TO WASH THEM. i don't know what i was thinking before. this is perfect because it takes him SO LONG TO WASH THEM. he scrubs each bowl about 20 to 50 times. this keeps him busy and occupied for quite some time, enough for me to get almost everything else done. and now, he's taken to singing along with the beach boys: it is very cute.)

so now, our house is clean (we even wet-mopped the floors cinderella-style: on our hands and knees with a bucket of bleachwater and some old rags, so now we can walk barefoot and feel no grit or dust...for a few days at least.) and the sun is shining, so we will go outside and do...something. anything. just be outside.

summer is for wearing flip-flops, eating as many blueberries as you want, staying up late, plugging in the fans (even if it's not hot enough to need them)- just the noise of them...sounds like summer...