Today is beautiful,  a bazillion watt beauty of a day.

Everything is perfect, the bad along with the good, everything is wonderful.

Jean is on a plane, and the passengers will be told soon, very soon, to get ready for landing.  The plane will land at JFK in New York and she will be on the same continent as I'm on for the first time in over five weeks.  If it's driveable,  it's not so far away.

But I won't be driving until later tonight.  She'll catch a shuttle or a cab from JFK to LaGuardia and cool her heels at the airport, laughing with new friends from states she's never been to, she'll eat bad airport food and knowing my girl, she will shop the shops of LaGuardia and laugh some more, tired I'm sure, but always always in line for adventure, for a stretch of her capacity to handle life.

And then after bad airport food and shopping and laughing and maybe a snooze (be careful out there in the world, Jean, mind your purse), she'll be on a plane to Milwaukee.  We'll be there foolishly early, eager to hug her home.  And by 10:30  tonight she will be hugged and held and home.

I'm jumpy with joy, explosive with excitement, agitated with anticipation.  I'm on everyone's last nerve here.

It feels great!

I am once again being spoiled by having beautiful music played in the next room, played on a beautiful violin by the most beautiful part of the treat, my daughter Jean.

I have heard tales of far away lands and days filled with adventure and nights filled with magic.  I have heard of beautiful princesses and heroes, and even dark cowering scoundrels. There are stories of unexpected treasure and of cold loneliness.  With wonder in her voice and eyes that seem to be focused on another place, she has been sharing stories of her month away in Italy, and finding in the very high ups and not so low downs that it was everything she hoped for.  And even more importantly, she has found that she was everything she had hoped for, that she experienced every minute as if it was the rare opportunity it really was and that she did hide from experiences that caused her uneasiness, but knew that she would only benefit if she tried her best to meet their challenges.

And then it seemed that she was ready to express herself in another way and she broke her violin out from it's month long hibernation in its case and in doing it broke the longest stretch she's gone without making music in the last eight years, almost half her life.

It's Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, it's a little rusty, and it's beautiful to my ears.

I remember those sweet summer days...

Days of just feeling the sunshine on my skin, days that had hours that only the unlooked at clock ever kept count of, days of long afternoons uninterrupted by phone or doorbells.  Those long days with nothing to concern myself with but a faint feeling of gult for having such a lazy langorous life,  Those sweet days of summer so long ago...

It's been only five days since Jean's return and summer has done an abrupt about face and marched back into real life.  I have gotten into the cadence of the march, and now remember why I collapsed into such a stuporous muddle when she left.   We have sallied forth to the university to register her for the Italian class her entire high school schedule was carefully constructed around, much wanted but poorly timed classes cast aside in place of more conveniently scheduled but inferior classes.  Once there, once made part of the big heady intellectual center of the city, she was told the section of the class that the high school counselor and she had sweat blood over had been cancelled.  Back to the high school, where the counselors don't come in until late next week.  The university needs to register her now, the high school can't reschedule her now.  And they're all pretty sure I messed up somewhere.

The important audition on the 27th looms ahead.  The music came while she was gone but she has time to whip it into shape, with the help of reliable wonderful Mrs. A.  Mrs. A just left for a week.  When she returns, we will have left for a week of mother daughter road trip bonding.  Could they seat a violin player in the horn section?  It might happen.  And it looks like maybe I've messed up somewhere.

And the mother daughter road trip, (think Thelma and Louise, but in an airconditioned vehicle, better for conversation and hair presentability) will take me out of town on my husband's birthday and our wedding anniversary which, if he notices, will mean he'll think I've messed up somewhere.  I had nothing to do with the timing of his birth, perhaps his mother could share some of the blame. 

Packets for school registration and my return to work are parked on the desk where I have ignored them for more than a week.  I have resisted being sucked back into the whirling vortex of Real Life, but there is not doubt the invisible grasp of responsibility has me clasped in it's inescapable clutches.  I am going to do my best to ignore it as long as I can and probably really mess up somewhere.  I just hate to get out of this lovely lagoon of lethargy and the trips to the real world this week have returned me here, floating on my back, my eyes closed and my mind floating on peaceful waves of pleasure.  Let the world wade in after me for a change.

It’s Satuday,fficeffice" />

You know the drill:

ffice:smarttags" />Eight fifteen.

Coffee bean.

Caffiene.

Parent go-between.

Rose’s Time machine.

Garden glean.

Washing machine.

Loads umpteen.

Haul Jean.

Mall scene.

Spend green.

Parker obscene.

Mom mean.

Prepare cuisine.

Rewash new unclean.

Kitchen pristeen.

Kidsquall intervene.

All now serene.

Household Queen.

Monitor screen.

It's a quiet morning out here in the 'burbs.  Kids are still sleeping, I'm getting a bit of household drudgery done and the doorbell rings.  Must be Brian, for Parker.  It's always Brian for Parker.

Not this time, nope.  A shiny bright Bfield police officer is at the door, very apologetic, very polite.  There have been complaints of kids setting off firecrackers and geegaws on the tennis courts at the school behind my house.  The tennis courts that are the source of our unlimited supply of tennis balls, the courts are that close to our lot.  Yes, kids setting off those blue whirly things, the earnest young man explains, and asks had I heard anything?  They are trying to determine exactly when it happened.

My first thought:  The Fourth of July run to the fireworks emporium, the cache of sparkly  zizzzing fun that was broght home.

Second:  No, hadn't heard anything.  Thank God I was gone then, I didn't have to lie.

Third:  Parker's cache is long gone, but Brian is a careful boy, he still had plenty left the last time I asked and Parker spent the day and evening at his place just a few doors down from us last night.

Fourth:  Say something!!!  "No, I didn't hear anything.  Fireworks, you say?"

Fifth:  Pray.  "Dear God.  Please don't let this trained law enforcement officer look down at my porch."

Four inches, five? from his smartly polished black policeman's shoe there is a blue blazed  scorch mark, brightly colored from the paint, darkly burned into the cement by fuse and gunpowder, the smelly smoke mercifully carried away by breezes long gone.  The porch is marked and will stay marked until time and our hurried footsteps wear the brand of shame away.

There is the freshly burned crater of a firecracker or geegaw or smokebomb and the officer who shrugs and apologizes for disturbing my peaceful morning steps squarely on it as he walks back to his car.

It's been months since I've had a weather post.  Let's see if I can still do one.

Today a new record was set for the coldest August 11th in the history of the place where I live.   The old record was set in 1888.  Since that date 116 August 11th's have been more pleasant than that 63 degree day endured by people who lived two centuries before the current one.

Today gray clouds filled the sky and occasional  drizzle fell through the 62 degree air and left us damp and chilly. 

No parties are being thrown to celebrate today's  historic accomplishment.

It’s nearly 11 and I’m driving the heavily made up young woman to the rendezvous point agreed upon earlier in the day.  She sits quietly, lined and mascara’d eyes nervously scanning the parking lot for the car she was told to look for.fficeffice" />

She shivers a bit.  The flowered camisole, hooked closed up the front and the side slitted short black skirt leave a lot of flesh bared to the night breeze.  Black pointed-heeled slip ons and big hoop earrings complete the outfit, each piece carefully chosen to communicate.  A sigh of relief is breathed through her red tinted lips as she recognizes the car waiting in the shadows.   I stop the car and small nervous “Be careful” trails after her as she opens the car door and steps out into the dark night.

And Jean joins the carload of costumed seniors going to ffice:smarttags" />midnight’s Rocky Horror Picture Show on the other side of town.