Happy Anniversary Dear Birthday Memorial Squirrel

It's a big weekend here in Brevard. The weekend of the annual White Squirrel Fest, and the one year to-the-day anniversary of when we first visited North Carolina to see if we wanted to live here. On top of that, today was also Noah's birthday and tomorrow is the last day of school. Noah's family gave him a super new smoker for his birthday and we've spent the last two days smoking meat and drinking beer and sitting in the backyard. We managed to walk downtown to the music festival, where we ate shaved ice and the kids jumped in a castle and the musicians did their bluegrass thing on stage while the sun gave up its ghost to the mountains behind them. Noah did spend most of the day Saturday in the emergency room getting 23 stitches plus 3 or 6 inside (he can't remember) for a laceration on the bottom of his chin suffered when his face met the pavement Friday night. The girls are off the walls, the teachers are surrendered, we parents are wary of the wide stretches of time ahead. My job has gone down to part-time and I found myself again, and can consider myself something besides a worker bee once more. Today while the girls were in school, we sat on couches in the cold hush of a movie theater and watched the new Star Trek movie, sipping beers in celebration of my husband's birthday and my sexism meter only went off a little bit. The lady at the ticket and concessions counter handed me back the two twenties that I'd used to pay her plus the ten dollars change and I did the honest thing and sorted it out. What it says about me that I sort of wish I hadn't, I don't know. This week I will work two days, rest two days, and spend one day in the woods with some friends and their children. If I know my friends, someone will backpack a thermos of sweet tea vodka into our beach beneath the trees, the sandy southern shoals, and we will watch our children splash in the amber river, their hands grabbing for fairies and fish. Balance is restored. If I could ever bother to remember anything, I'd know it will always go this way. Forever and ever, amen.
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 (One year ago)

This weekend: