Morning kitchen with napkins and lip balm.
Well, the weather app can't make up its mind. Yesterday, today's high was supposed to be 98F. Today it's saying 95F, but with 95% humidity, so either way it's going to feel like 110. Yay. Totally can't wait.
Going to coffee with my friend Lisa in Newton this morning, so this will be short --- I'll drink some coffee here so that I can function to get myself to Newton, then get dressed and take the dog out briefly.
Fun night out at the pub, just us. Often friends do meet us there, but not last night, which was nice. We saw a lot of people, but mostly talked to each other.
I didn't take a picture of my whole night-out ensemble, but all I did was put on my linen shirt. I'd been pretty happy with how my hair turned out after yesterday's wash, though I'm not sure it really looks as great in photos as it felt.
I do break the cardinal rule and comb it once it's dry. Otherwise it just looks too clumpy and unnatural, even when I've scrunched all the gel crunch out. So I'll never have influencer hair, but oh well. That would feel like having someone else's hair anyway.
LATER:
Ran out of time and had to dash for the coffee shop, where I spent an enjoyable morning. Last time I met Lisa for coffee, I managed to talk her into the Wool& cult --- today she was wearing her Laurel tunic and had just bought something from the mystery sale! I feel I should get some kind of kickback, but anyway, glad to have introduced a friend to clothing that makes her happy.
Now I'm back and have work to do, as well as some working out in the air conditioning, once the husband leaves for his afternoon rounds.
Wearing today:
Camellia, cool and simple and easy on a hot day. I like her with my purple Birk Rosemeads, but then I like everything with these shoes. Royal blue with the plummy purple is especially satisfying.
Reality-check rear view. I always feel thin and cute until I take this shot, and then . . . I say, okay, this is how I look, and it's fine, but I should probably keep working on muscle in that particular area.
But hey, these legs were made for walking. And this dress was made for walking in, but not today so much.
I wore my big linen shirt as a top layer for the coffee shop. I can't tell you how handy this shirt has been, all summer long: it's cool and virtually weightless, but adds just that little bit of coverage for air-conditioned spaces. I continue to be glad that I dyed it, deepening the very pale blue to this soft duck-egg "evening blue" shade. Everything about it just does breathe softness and calm, and I love it. Among other things, it's a less beachy, summery shade that will wear well through the fall and winter without looking seasonally out of place. And it layers so nicely with all my other blues, greens, purples . . .
Meanwhile, Camellia is the perfect little dress. She just is. Even after an intense hundred-day relationship two years ago, I do not tire of her at all.
And so to work.
BEDTIME UPDATE:
Wrote another essay today and had a good little workout. Husband came home from his Friday rounds (he doesn't have classes on Friday, so it's his day to do stuff like get his hair cut) and proposed that we go eat fish tacos at the brewpub in Belmont, so we did. I'd had on Camellia with the linen shirt all afternoon, and she carried me through the evening out as well. Came home, walked Dora for 20 minutes in the dark, prayed the rosary, drank some Norwegian acquavit, and am about to call it a night.
Tomorrow we go to a Mass and reception in celebration of our friend Sister Jane Russell's SIXTIETH anniversary of her solemn vows. She gave herself to religious life the year before I was born, which is something to think about, let me tell you. (I think I'll wear Fiona with my red shoes again, because I wore that out Tuesday night and liked it, even in the photos our friends took. I guess it says something about me that I'm thinking about what to wear to the celebration of a nun's anniversary of her final profession of vows --- it says that I'm not a nun, but I'm here to cheer on anybody who is)