Lovelihood

There's irony here. I've spent my entire career working in print media. And while the modern (you might call it dying) era of print is far removed from the days of metal type and hand-cranked presses — I mean, my relationship with it is through a computer screen, fercryinoutloud — it's still, you know, the same basic concept. Ink and paper and reproduction and all that. Mr. New Media, on the other hand, has spent his entire career parsing out lines of code designed to erradicate my entire line of work. And somehow it was at his work that he came across a back-breaking boxful of headline-sized Helvetica bits and an ancient beast of a proof press sitting in a forgotton corner next to the garage. And he knew enough to call me down to haul it away, with the proper permissions, of course. Because what were their plans for it? Sell it off as scrap metal, to be smelted down for, I don't know, computer parts or something. I guess that's not ironic at all.

It turned summer on us just in time for our late-ish lunch today, so we took our proceedings to the back deck, hauling out our once-a-week guilty pleasure lunch of chicken tenders and frozen waffles, our own prefabbed soul food. A bowlful of blueberries and pitted cherries rounded out today's lunch.

For reasons I won't go into, The Mr. sat himself in front of the computer this evening and fired off a series of self portraits. Self portraits with banana. I deemed this activity, itself, to be photo-worthy. Also, highly mockable.

The ivy, yes, tends to get a little out of control. But its trumpet flowers are pretty.

Finding an intact sand dollar was a childhood preoccupation of mine, as fruitless as coming up with a four-leaf clover, which I also hunted for. The Mr., having been reared in land-locked suburbia, didn't even know what a sand dollar was, but somehow came up with this perfect specimen yesterday.

It's a three hour drive out to the coast to visit the beach, starting off on the interstate, then through craggy hillsides with evergreens flanking the two lane highways, broken up with depressed sea-side towns whose mottos unironically quote their most famous grunge-star son. The water, as it is all along the Pacific where I grew up taking the occasional day-trip to the beach, is cold enough to dole out sharp, biting pain, before your legs get numb enough to allow you the pleasure of spending a day at the beach, which even on the coldest day is a treat by virtue of it being such a trek to get to. Naps come easily on the drive back to town, dinner is hungrily consumed, coffee purchased for the remainder of the drive home. It was a lot like one of those Volkswagen commercials, complete with VW vehicle. Until the part where we sat in traffic waiting to clear past a rendering truck spill. Still, there was the beach.

The Boy required a wallet. A growing boy accumulates money and so he needs something to put it in. I'm happy enough to oblige with a simple felt and laminated linen affair, with enough space to carry all that a just-this-side-of-kindergarten boy might need to paint the town pink.