We woke up Saturday morning to the sounds of a race being run in the street past our house.  I later realized when Saturday became the longest day I’ve had in a while, that there was a certain message from the greater universe in that.

The phrase that best describes the end of last week into the weekend is ‘everything at once’.  Seriously.  Starting Thursday afternoon, I found myself having to be in two and three places at once.  I know from having spent the better part of almost the last 20 years with a man who is an environmentalist that this is his busy time of year.  It’s this point every year that we become ships passing in the night, communicating by post-it notes on the counter and emails.  I go to bed before he comes home some nights, he’s gone before I get up and the only way I know for sure that he actually came home is when I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, he was beside me in bed.  Also, he might sometimes leave a fresh pot of coffee on.

Friday night, we made a little time for a date night.  Sharon Van Etten was playing down at the Jefferson and as she was on the everyday rotation there for a bit with my better half, who, by the way, puts almost no one on the everyday rotation, it was definitely a must-do.  It was a lovely show and didn’t run too late, although Pat & I, being the music geeks that we are, even when we know we have to get up and be productive first thing in the am, can’t just come home from a show and go to bed.  Oh no, we have to talk about it and listen to more music and maybe have another beer into the wee hours. 

I had gotten an email from my hairdresser last week, telling me she had a spot for me on Saturday morning.  She stopped being a hairdresser full time a few years ago, but she still is kind enough to do the hair of those of us who couldn’t find someone else we trusted enough with the task.  I will go months on end without a haircut and then frantically decide I need one immediately.  Over the years, she has figured out almost precisely when this is about to happen and will call or email me to say, I’ll see you this day at this time.  I love this about her, almost as much as I love how freaking fabulous she is with my hair.  Even when I haven’t had a trim in months people tell me what a great hair cut I have.   She knows how to cut my hair so that I don’t need a trim every 6 weeks, something else to love about her.

I have taken Edie for exactly one haircut in her entire life.  I trim her hair myself, because really, it’s not that hard, I cannot take her to one of those el cheapo places that I know will ruin her hair as they did mine growing up and I’m not springing for a haircut I can give myself. (I am THAT cheap.) This is what I’ve told myself for years.  Last summer, I trimmed her hair and I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but I butchered it.  Really.  One of my neighbors got an eyeful of it and immediately asked ‘was there wine involved?’  No, there was not.  Our then 13 year old babysitter looked at Edie and said, “I can fix this for you” and that is how a 13 year old became my daughter’s new stylist.    She had not had a cut since and her ends were getting horrific.  She refused to let me trim it and so I would mention maybe I’d take her for a cut.  Maybe we could just go to one of those hair places….and I’d trail off.  That kid held her ground.  She told me for months that I should just take her to my gal.  She’d throw in little comments like ‘Oh, you’d take me to one of those places at the mall?  That means you’d have to go to the mall.  You’d do that?’ because she knows that in addition to being cheap, I just cannot bring myself to go to the mall.  Last time we were there, we were totally accosted by one of those perfume people and neither one of us has yet to recover.

So, when Boop emailed me last week, I asked if she could fit us both in. I waited until Friday night to share this with Edie, mostly so that she wouldn’t gloat too much.  Boop could indeed fit us both in, so we headed downtown early Saturday morning to get our hair done.

We hit the farmer’s market while we were downtown, headed home for quick change to soccer gear, grabbed a sandwich, then we headed out to soccer.  Her soccer game was west of town and Pat just happened to be working a festival just 10 minutes west of where we were, so as we left the game, she asked if we could go visit Daddy.  He was scheduled to not just work this festival, but attend a dinner that evening, then work another festival the next day, Sunday.  And he’s got to work the next few weekends, so any face time we can grab with him this time of year, we take.  I had every intention of making it back for the upcoming elementary school garden festival committee meeting later that afternoon, but I had forgotten the festival he was working was also a wine festival.  Fly fishing AND wine tasting?  That is something for everyone in this family.  There were only a handful of wineries there, but most of them were new to me, so I had to check them out.  Meanwhile, Pat had to boogie off to a talk on the Jackson River Lawsuit, where he presented a check on behalf of his employer to the defendant to help with the now $80,000 legal fees he’s racked up in trying to keep Virginia’s rivers open for public use.  It was interesting to hear about the case from some of the other interested parties, including Beau Beasley, a most entertaining fly fishing writer.  We somehow ended up staying for the festival’s foundation dinner at the nearby country club that evening.  Prime rib dinner I don’t have to cook or clean up and there was chocolate cake for dessert?  Twist my arm. It was a lovely evening, but driving home at 9:30 that night, I realized I had been on GO since I had awoken to the sounds of a race early that morning.  Needless to say, when we woke up to cold, gray and rainy yesterday, along with the news that the Earth Day Festival Pat was supposed to work that day cancelled, we joyfully all stayed in our PJ’s, read and watched movies all day long.  It was glorious.  We introduced Edie to “Gone with the Wind”.  Apparently some of her classmates have seen it and some thought it over hyped and not nearly as good as “Mama Mia”.  She expressed an interest in seeing it and since it is one of my all time faves, I jumped at the chance to watch it with her.  She liked it, although she thought it was too sad in parts (welcome to Southern Gothic my dear, my absolute favorite genre) and she thought the ending left you hanging.  We told her that was the classic problem with GWTW, does she ever get him back?

Today was another cold, rainy day, but I already know this week is going to be a repeat of last week, so there was no more glorious curling up in PJ’s like yesterday.  I have successfully knocked out most of my to-do list in a wild burst of productivity and put off the fun stuff until last.  I have a birthday cake to make for a dear boy who is turning 13 this week.  He requested chocolate, chocolate, chocolate and maybe some fruit, so I need to go figure out exactly what cake I’m making him.  I need to figure out what my Girl Scouts are doing this week, as the meeting I had planned was panned by the girl in my house.  (I may just ignore that and take my chances, which I know, can end in disaster.).  I swapped some bee balm for raspberry bushes so they, as well as the rest of the veggies for the garden need to get in the ground.  (Today’s 40 degree temps definitely made me happy I’ve waited until the right time to plant, despite the unseasonably warm temps.).  There’s end of the school year things piling up, like camp applications (We got confirmation today she’s off for another 3 weeks at Camp Lachlan!!), class picnics to plan and last night the evening news reminded me to purchase pool passes.  Ah, summer, I can hardly wait!  Not that I want to rush the season though – as it is spring is running past me!  How is it the end of April already?