Spring beauty on a rainy walk yesterday. Meanwhile, to kick off the morning, I nearly typed the name of this day as "Satirday," which --- well, anyway, it's still raining, which seems like a cosmic joke. I guess our anniversary weekend will include a lot of cozy indoor time in Blowing Rock, which is not bad, really, but we'd kind of hoped maybe to go for a walk.
Current view:
You can't tell from the photo how hard it's raining, but trust me: It is raining hard.
Last night before we went to bed, we heard two owls whooping it up in the big magnolia trees in Beth and Eddie's front yard next door: hooting, but also . . . laughing? It was a regular owl party up there, hidden among the dark shiny leaves. The other night, out walking the dog late in the fog, I passed an owl in a tree in front of a house on Poplar Street --- I couldn't see it, even in the bare tree, but it was broadcasting its campaign speech to the entire neighborhood. After I'd gone around the corner and headed back up the parallel street, I could still hear it over the roofs of the intervening houses, airing its platform and detailing its opponent's philosophical and moral shortcomings (They don't call it a parliament of owls for nothing). It's good to know, at any rate, that somebody is busy running the world, and that it ain't actually us.
I need to pack this morning: clothing suitable for a very wet jaunt to a mountain town, with dinner out; clothing suitable for whatever kind of jaunt tomorrow is going to entail, depending on the weather, and including Mass somewhere at some point. It's wet today; tomorrow looks like being sunny in the high country, but a lot colder, with a high of only 39F. So . . . no springtime linen dresses, just warm wool layers, which is okay. Oh, AND. The clocks go forward. Gotta remember that fun fact.
Wearing today:
*Wool& Fiona dress (M) in Teal, bought November 2022
*V. old thrifted cotton Eddie Bauer cardigan
*Secondhand Allbirds tencel-merino leggings, bought January 2024
*Farm to Feet merino socks, a Christmas 2023 gift from my husband
*Xero Tari boots, bought summer 2022
This is Saturday simplicity, basically. This dress is comfortable, and I also think it's fun (again, of all my dresses, this is the dress total strangers have stopped me to compliment). These boots stand up pretty well to rain. It's not cold down here, though it will be a good bit chillier at higher elevations, so I plan to pack layers, and to evaluate what I'm wearing out to dinner tonight (might be this dress with some tweaks; might be another dress altogether, haven't decided). At any rate, I feel not too wintry in this combination of colors, though I'm warm enough for the danker varieties of spring weather.
Before leaving home, I like to make sure things are reasonably clean --- there's nothing like coming back from somewhere to remind me how my house really smells. It's a truth too little acknowledged that if you have an animal living in your house, your house is going to smell like that animal. If you have indoor cats, I'm sorry, your house smells like a litter box. You may think it does not, but trust me, it does. If you have a dog, likewise, your house holds that doggy smell. The way to combat this reality is . . . well, you can't entirely, and that's just life with an animal. But if you have a dog, periodically bathing the dog and washing whatever surface your dog spends time on helps a lot.
I'm not actually going to bathe Dora or wash her bed today, although I probably should at least do the latter. The crate smells doggier than anything else in the house. But last night I noticed that the pet cover on the daybed in my office was smelling distinctly not-good. True confession, and no shame, this dog is very well housebroken, but she's also a submissive/excited pee-er. Apparently she has made recent use of the daybed (fortunately protected with absorbent waterproof cover) for that purpose without my realizing it --- which is gross, but there you are. Having once smelled the smell, I knew that when I walked back into my house tomorrow, not having done anything about it, I'd smell that smell afresh. And it would not say welcome home.
So first thing this morning, I took some time to pull it off and run it through a hot wash, and also generally to straighten out the daybed, which starts looking tumbled pretty fast. Fortunately, the bedding underneath the pet cover stays clean, because the dog doesn't touch it. I should really wash the pillows at some point as well, like before I have any company sleeping in that daybed. Eventually I'd love to find a whole blanket-sized waterproof pet cover to put over the top and tuck firmly underneath, but until I do, this sofa cover does a good-enough job of protecting the under-layers. Also, I genuinely like the color.
Tucking up the quilt makes the whole thing look a lot neater, and I can use the space underneath for storage in baskets, which also look tidy even though they don't match. And I feel better when I've restored my own space to freshness and order. I'll feel better coming back to it. If my own house feels basically like a funky, comfortable mountain bed-and-breakfast, then when I've been at a funky, comfortable mountain bed and breakfast, coming back home again is not such a drag.
It also helps --- in terms of pet smell and general wear and tear --- that there are whole areas of this house where Dora doesn't go. She doesn't spend time in the living room, or on any of that furniture. She's not allowed on our bed. Just the daybed in my office --- and that's plenty, honestly. Yeah, yeah, it's her house, too, but she is the DOG. She is not a person. All that alpha-beta pack order nonsense has been debunked by biologists, but still. There is a hierarchy here, and the dog's place in the hierarchy is pretty far down. She has her boundaries, and she's not allowed to transgress them, and we're all happier that way.
Anyway, that's my home tip for the day: we tend not to smell our own pet smells most of the time, but that doesn't mean they're not there. It is good to be aware, because how a house smells contributes to its overall atmosphere. And while you might not notice things like that day to day, because our olfactory sense does tend to acclimatize itself to its surroundings, you do notice when you leave for a day or so and then come back. Meanwhile, housekeeping so often boils down to precisely this: you deal with the one thing that presents itself as a problem, and that's enough for one go-round. The next day you get up, identify the next thing that's bugging you, and you deal with that. And so on. Again, I tend to think of these things when I'm about to go out of town, because I know that when I come home again, whatever is bugging me about my house will assault me all over again the minute I walk through the door. I can't deal with everything in one go, but I can pinpoint and deal with that one thing, whatever it is. Then, upon my return, I won't be so depressed that my little vacation is over.
OK, speaking of the dog, time to take her out in the rain. Then I shall pack for my tiny anniversary vacation, and off we shall go to the rainy, cold mountains.
LATER:
My packing for this little mountain overnight:
*What I'm wearing right now (pictured above)
*Beetroot Brooklyn dress (for dinner out tonight and daytime/Mass tomorrow)
*teal cashmere cardigan (to wear with dress for dinner, mainly)
*green merino-angora-blend pullover
*Aran wool zip cardigan (they do say it's going to be cold tomorrow, so I might put that over my green sweater for extra warmth under my coat)
*green marbled bamboo-cotton leggings
*charcoal gray Snag merino tights
*Birkenstock Melrose boots
*Birk hiking boots
*Darn Tough Socks (2 pr)
*Silk rose scarf
This is probably more than enough for a 28-hour vacation, but again . . . they say it's going to be cold. Anyway, I'm not taking a ton of dresses. I've been looking forward to wearing a magenta dress for Laetare Sunday, and that's what I'm doing, all day long tomorrow. Those Brooklyn dresses are fantastic, versatile travel dresses for long or short hauls --- they pack small, and they look good, dressed up or down.
Anywaaaaaay . . . all packed, waiting to leave. And wishing you a good weekend, wherever you are.