9.03.2003

Last night was dance class but I failed to go. Instead I drank a gin and tonic and chatted with this most charming man who had emerged from the bathroom after he shaved off his big wooley bugger beard and lowered his ears about an inch. He looked suspiciously familiar, especially those eyes...

We listened to old country, Sons of the Pioneers etc. last night, and S sang along, waggling his eyebrows during "Cig'rettes and whoosky and wild-eyed wimmin" and laughing about how scandalous such a song was when he was a boy. They were all the records his Mom would play when they lived in Montana and his Dad was the ranch foreman. They make S wistful and boisterous at the same time, which is an interesting combination.

We snacked on cheese and crackers, a light little meal. Dogs like gorgonzola cheese. We also picked sweet green grapes from our grape arbor. The grape vines sprawl twenty feet in all directions, like some monstrous creature with edible fruit hanging from its shady belly. It has climbed the neighbors' tree and is threatening to swallow our woodshed. The grapes are delicious. I am going to turn into a grape. That wouldn't be totally unpleasant to be a nice shiny green and smooth fruit, very sweet, eventually darken and get all wrinkled and turn into a raisin... actually that's not so far off from the whole human aging process. I think next year we'll try to make wine with the red grapes. They're a little tart for snacking but I think they are some variety of wine or sherry grape. Gotta do my research. Winter project.

We went jogging on the path near our house in the evening. The sky and the sun were red from all the fires out east, looked creepy and it was eerily hot and still. I like late summer but it's the time of year for foxfire and bats, spiders and unsettled spirits and crickets. Lots of electricity in the air from the late summer baking the earth. Jogging along the slough only the cattails are still green, everything else is brown.

It felt good to run. It's not dance class but it is cardiovascular, and it helped with all the tense tight muscles I've been nursing since the stress of our business closing and the subsequent move. I was surprised how far we ran, and I'm not even sore today.

Think I'll run again tonight.
After I eat more grapes.