Sitting here at the kitchen table on a Sunday morning. Sadie at my side with her tennis ball, hoping I will throw it across the room even though she knows Calene isn't a fan of fetch in the house. NFL Countdown on TV. Set my fantasy lineup. Feeling great about how the girls team ran at prelims yesterday and scheming a way for them to win the championship next week. All of which is my way of saying it's time for a newsletter instead of a blog. Have a great Sunday!
Our town backs up to the local mountains. Some cities have houses facing the sea. We have Mother Saddleback staring at our backyards. Fire ravaged the steep areas on the very edges of Rancho Santa Margarita a few months ago, burning all the way to the summit and up the slopes of the valley on the other side for miles. Last Wednesday Santa Ana winds roared through the pass connecting our town with cities on the other side of Saddleback.
I don't really put a lot of preparation into this space. I like to riff. But yesterday morning I had one of those breakthrough awarenesses that seems tailor-made for blogging. It is this: one of life's great pleasures is being the first to break the toilet paper seal in a newly cleaned porta-pottie on race day. So righteous. So pure. Then to step out into the first moments of a pale morning sunrise and see runners arriving to compete. Washing my hands at one of those portable outdoor soap dispensaries, then wandering off in search of a food truck for a breakfast burrito.
I mean, does it get any better than that?
Django blew out his ACL and the vet says the surgery for an old dog is beyond expensive. So he prescribes pain pills and time, saying the joint will calcify. The doggie day care acknowledges his wound by putting a yellow band around his neck to indicate his limp is an injury. Combined with his normal blue collar it looks like he's wearing the flag of Ukraine around his neck. The place is now synonymous for anxiety, unpredictability, and complete What the Fuck.
Four days on the North Shore is not enough.
I was just getting into vacation mode when it became time to fly home. Took the team to Hawaii for a meet. Callie came along. Race was Saturday afternoon (we did well). This means flying home Sunday, because there's practice Monday afternoon. But four days on the chill and rustic North Shore is better than none. My wife and I didn't do a whole lot other than hike jungle trails and lounge on the sand. But that's the point of a vacation, isn't it?
I'm a procrastinator who writes books with such total focus that the rest of my life goes on hold. It's like being a double procrastinator. So now that Taking Midway's first draft is with the publisher and I am paddling back to shore, there are a few odds and ends that need attending....
"Charge system fault." That's what I googled in the waiting room. The warning light had just come on in the Rover. Red and important.... Google told me precisely what would happen next. One by one, my car's electrical functions would shut down. Then it would stop completely. Just a matter of time. Get to a mechanic immediately.
We got a little sideways news from the cancer docs that day. The kind that reminds you that the things you thought were under control have other plans
