midsummer

The 4th of July was quiet up in our parts. Evidently this was because everyone on the island was down in Waikiki, getting drunk, falling off of boats, and drifting out to sea on inflatable sharks. That is nature for you.

With the neighborhood to ourselves, we sat around in the yard, playing cards and peeling lychees all day. Our two trees are covered in fat red fruit, and after a bit of prospecting, I decided that the best bunches were hanging over the back of the house. I grabbed the picker, pulled out the ladder, climbed up onto the roof, and then danced around with my feet burning on the flaming hot shingles before jumping onto a scrap of roofing paper from the as-yet-unfinished renovation. It turns out that some sorts of roofing paper are actually covered in tar, and where the plastic had peeled back, both my feet stuck to it like glue. This was kind of like wearing shoes, so I thought I would just hop to the edge of the roof with my 9-foot picker and cut some branches anyway - but then Mike popped his head up over the ladder, saw what was happening, took my picker, pulled the tar paper off my feet, chased me off the roof, and cut the lychees himself. I was very probably not going to fall off the roof and into a tree with both my feet stuck together, but whatever. I have a bucket of lychees to eat now.

A bit later, while preparing hot dogs for the kids, I decided to be calorie-minded and fancy, so I defrosted a lobster tail that had come free with a grocery store coupon. As it happens, grocery stores don't give away free lobster tails without a reason. Cooked up, the frostbitten little flipper turned into a thick rubbery hunk of smelly steamed sea cockroach. The cockroach aroma might have had something to do with the actual cockroach that somehow crawled into the foil packet and boiled itself in butter while the thing was in the toaster oven, though. Either way, the bugs went in the garbage, and I patted myself on the back for having prepared an elaborate 0 calorie meal.

 if you don't count the treeful of lychees that I ate beforehand

Now the man is back to pet-sitting at my mother's place with the kids, and I have the house to my very own self every night. It is amazing. Have been living off cereal, loose chocolate chips, tea, oil paint, and BBC dramas. I paint all evening, knit for bit, and then go to bed with a book and a bunch of cats. I was born for this life.

 a life which does not include clearing the table

(There is a very satisfying video of the tape getting pulled of this painting on my instagram account.)

 On the needles: MORE DOILIES.

Little Flowers doily

Which I haven't seen since, because they're under cat butts.

One of my friends said they were maybe thinking about possibly having a baby in the next few years, so I immediately started knitting a baby blanket.

It that doesn't summon a baby to roll up in it, it should at least get the cats off my goddamn doilies.

backup plan

This weekend I pack up my portable easel and take my turn housesitting with the kids, raiding my mother's Guinness drawer and secret stash of Canadian chocolates.

Summer is my favorite and best.