week five: small pleasures

Sunday: Driving home, four and a half hours, K periodically telling silly stories and reading. Stopping by the roadside for my weekly sister picture, K involved in solving the mystery of "cuisine." A long walk downtown in the summer heat, taking pictures along the way, Penelope leaping into the Mississippi while boats cruise by. Live music floating from across the river in Wisconsin, boats lined at the bar's dock, Harbor Bar where Jamaican food is served. K unfolding a present from his mother, a strand of pearls to be worn on my wedding day.

Monday: Memorial Day. Sleeping in past ten, K coming in smelling of freshly mowed lawn and sweat. Methodically working my way through long accumulated clutter, surprised at how quickly a paper shredder can fill. Shishkabobs on the grill and dogs curling at our feet.

Tuesday: First poetry writing group meeting. Lamps as the sun fades, the sound of rain, and notebooks balanced on knees. Round cake, glasses of water, poetry being dissected on the table. Feeling safe, quick, feeling as if we knew what we were doing immediately, falling into a pattern that made sense. A surprise gift at the bookstore, though two days too early, not knowing who it was from just yet.

Wednesday: First email from my new principal. She's going to give me the twenty five cent tour. :) Finding out my department chipped in for a gift certificate so I can buy more books (as if I need them, I can hear K thinking, and my protest: of course I do!).

Thursday: The department party in Northfield. A card saying goodbye, presents wrapped in glitter to wish us happy marriages. Addictive slow cooker dip and a beautiful spring afternoon to chat. Speaking with a printmaker on his beginnings. After, going to Uptown (Minneapolis) and listening to a poet's voice over espresso grinders, sitting next to her, listening, carefully, to words living out loud.

Friday: The last staff party of This High School that I will attend. Sad, but even better, it was fun shopping with Emily for R's wedding shower gifts. We made a great big pile o' themed gift, and being mundane with good friends is nice. Reminds you that you are human. Also, the opposte of a small pleasure--Penelope ill--reminding me of how K and I must work as a team in life, and how I accepted his choice, and how tomorrow we will take her in and this hope: she will be better, vibrant again. I am reminded just how much I love this dog. So fiercely.

Saturday: Penelope and Zephyr have a play date in the woods. I am so relieved that she is recovered, can fly about as she did before, and am thrown by her sickness the night before. I won't question it, though I did miss a shower because of it, and hope this is it--whatever was upsetting her was expelled before. In the woods, she attacks the water as if it were a still object and we see mushrooms, flowers, and birds. Plants bloom up in the soggy earth.