Difficult to be articulate in 100-plus heat. Well, they say it's only 100 today, with loftier temp heights expected tomorrow, but you know how reliable "they" are.
Yes, it's another balmy freakin' summer day here in Stockton, California. Weird: there was a storm last night feat. thunder, lightning, etc. Sadly not weird: doesn't appear to have impacted today's hotness at all, though it was uncharacteristically humid earlier. Bleahhhhh. Rather than walk in the heat, I drove the BLT to Starbucks. Which is not quite three blocks away from my parents' house. Just doing my little part to contribute to global warming, that's right. (N.B.: I would've suffered through the walk anyway if I wouldn't have had to carry a very large, very black computer bag on my back. Do you still love me, Al Gore?)
This is the strange thing about Stockton: I am always expecting to run into people from high school at any moment here. And I never do. I always feel like my hair needs to be minimally well-groomed, my clothing clean and at least vaguely flattering, etc... yet on the one occasion I did run into someone I knew well back in the day, I was grossly overdressed for the occasion (and she spent the next two hours telling me how terrible everyone from high school looks now; I can only assume the next time she ran into a high school buddy, she includes me in her litany of Wow, She's Gone Downhill). Where are you, friends and nemeses of yesteryear?
The Portland trip was a series of stories, starting with "my parents need a GPS system" and ending with me calling the desk clerk at the Jupiter Hotel and shrieking "THIS IS BULLSHIT!" into his unsuspecting ear. But I will tell them another time, since right now there are two people playing with a quarter at the table next to me (for "playing," read "throwing it on the floor apparently for the sheer joy of the noise") and I am having trouble hearing myself think, let alone composing complete sentences.
And now there is a corporate-approved, foamy-yet-brainfreezy coffee Frappuccino with an extra shot of espresso calling my name...
Back to Junction on Friday. Sixteen hours in the car with the comedy team of Newman and Newman performing their patented variety of carseat-bound pratfalls in the back seat.
I have that same feeling in my alma mater as well. I hear it is really hot, my kids are in the neck of the woods, and my youngest added to it by running a nasty temp. Ugh.
Posted by: Mimi | July 20, 2006 at 12:22 PM
You know, whenever I go "home," I feel the same way. I find myself watching out for old friends AND enemies, but if I pay attention I realize I'm also looking for my old self, too. As if she's drifting around Springville like some ghost...
Anyway. Hope the trip back to Colorado is bearable. Wave when you drive past Orem! (if you pass that way, of course!)
Posted by: Amy Sorensen | July 21, 2006 at 01:07 PM