It's So Nice to Be With You

Began my day with the first of two very early work shifts this week. Despite the heat and humidity, I spent a lot of time outside with the carts and outside trash and recycling. We were busy, and they just kept vanishing. I did end up inside to take a cashier's break for 15 minutes, and I spent the last hour doing returns when another bagger came in and took over the carts.

Went straight home and into the air conditioning for lunch. Made some tasty Blackberry Pancakes while listening to Johnny Mathis. His The Wonderful World of Make Believe is a collection of songs with a fantasy theme - rainbows, fairy-tale worlds, places beyond the distant shore, like "Beyond the Sea," "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows," "The Sands of Time" from Kismet, and the title songs of Camelot and the Disney animated Alice In Wonderland.

Worked on writing for a while after lunch. Harris walks Leia back to her hotel room. He's trying to explain why he can't stay with the Rebel League when she says she hears something on the road. He doesn't...until the sound of a certain armored van whining down the street alerts them to take cover...

Wriggled into my bathing suit and headed out around quarter of 5. Everyone - including Rose and her kids - were already inside when I arrived, but I was still hot and really needed the swim. I'm glad I did it. It was so relaxing and refreshing on a very hot day!

Jodie had chili, bread and butter, cucumbers in sour cream, and tomatoes with basil and olive oil out for me when I came in. Ooh, it was all so yummy! I especially loved the tomatoes. I may have to grab some basil somewhere along the line and try it myself.

Finley, Rose's two-year-old daughter, is just getting cuter everyday. We all watched Zootopia together with her. (Evidently, she's a fan of Judy Hops - she loves bunnies.) Jodie and Rose showed me how Finley sits on Dad and Jodie's bed and sniffs all of Jodie's perfume bottles. Finley and I sat downstairs and played with her Little Tyke green mountain set and her Little People, making them roll down the mountain slide. I showed her some yoga moves. (She wasn't bad at them, either.) We lay together on the thick green carpet and just chatted woman to woman. (Or as much as I could understand Finley's babbling. She is two, after all.) Khai spent the entire time I was there playing games on Jodie's tablet.

Finley, Jodie, and I joined Jesse to walk his new brown lab Nala around the block. Finley was a very good little dog-walker. She hung on tight to the leash and made sure she stayed with the dog. She was fascinated by a bigger dog that another woman was walking. Maybe reminded her of Toby, their dog who just passed away.

(Oh, and Rose told me they added some new members to the family. They adopted two kittens, the all-black cutie Toothless and long and lean Lynx. Toothless was named for the dragon character in How to Train Your Dragon. They called him Lynx because his gray-and-black stripes make him resemble one.)

Finished the night at home with Lego Star Wars. I thought I'd make my first try on the Return of the Jedi Super Story. Got hung up in "Jabba's Palace" and "The Great Pit of Carkoon" and didn't even make it to the Endor round. I'll try again another time, after I've completed more of the blue minikit challenges.