my precious
Oh social networking, where would we be without you?
T swims and snorkels often in our fabulous San Marcos river, and frequently finds Stuff. Especially after a holiday. He must have twelve pairs of sunglasses by now. He finds jewelry, keys, lighters. He brought home a twenty dollar bill the other day, wet but legal tender. This morning it was a class ring. My heart gave a little pang when I saw it said 2009 on it: a high school treasure barely owned before lost.
It fit me perfectly, or almost–just loose enough that it might fall off my finger if I were swimming in cold water. It had a first name on it, and then engraved inside a full name, not a very common one.
I took it to my real-life social network, my cronies–some real pieces of work these ladies, and connected one way or another with everybody in town. But all they could say was that it wasn’t from the local high school.
No ad on Craig’s list in the lost and found. Nor in the local paper. So I took a stab at Facebook. You can’t see much about people on Facebook unless you’re an official friend, but there was the name, and a high school affiliation, class of 2009. Hometown hours away but it was worth a try.
So within 6 hours of being found the ring was in the mail on its way back home. Amazing. In retrospect, perhaps it was unwise to slip the thing on, a ring lying there in the river muck. But nothing noticeably evil happened. Except, y’know, that big blue stone looked pretty good on my hand there. I’m going to have to hint around to T.
sunday sunday…
…so good to me. Today, I slept late, all the way until 6:55 a.m., played with the chickens, ate breakfast and made ugly beads, performed an actual workout and then attended summer church, which consists of floating down the San Marcos river.
River, me:
Then I had lunch, did chores and some internet research. Then practiced the basics of wire wrapping, a jewelry technique that has hovered on the periphery of the thousand things a long time, and recently been bumped up to the top ten or so by my friend H. Ate up all kinds of time this afternoon…
…and this is before some new supplies I ordered even arrive. Thanks a lot, H-bot, m’dear. Where am I going to put this stuff? Do I really need a wire stash on top of the bead, fabric, paper, glass stashen?
Why, yes. Yes I do.
kayak trials
There really couldn’t be a prettier day in the whole country than we have here today. Yesterday was nasty, rainy, windy, and looked grim for the kayakers flooding the town for the Olympic trial qualifiers—but today, perfection. I was able to rise from my deathbed, too, just in time to cheer on the junior Olympic competition.
The Rio Vista park venue in San Marcos, Texas is probably the best thing the town has ever done for itself. There used to be a concrete dam here that made for a good swimming hole, and the spillway offered a mild thrill for toobers…but thank all inspiration, when the dam started to crack, somebody thought of doing something other than just replacing what we’d always had. The new Rio Vista park is lovely. Here it is decked out for the competition today:
It’s got three courses of rapids, and I’m here to attest, you can stay on a tube riding through if you hold your mouth right, but it’s not guaranteed. I haven’t tried it on my kayak…I have it on recent good authority that you’re pretty much doomed riding a sit-on-top like mine. It’s perfect for real kayaks, though, thus today’s attraction.
The thing I like best about this park? It’s not safe. There are no bumpers on the big boulders. There are no lifeguards. You really are going to bruise the hell out of yourself if you shoot through when the water is high and fast. It’s water play the way I remember it as a child, back in the day before every damn thing had to be harmless.
At any rate, we were cheering for #5 here, and he did great:
good things
We went out on the San Marcos river this morning and had most of it to ourselves. It was only 9:30; I guess lots of people get up and actually do chores before they play. That’s what I keep telling T. It’s a hint he fails to take.
Except, I thought, as I floated down the river while he swam and took pictures underwater with his second-newest purchase, it’s so damned hard to get both of us off our butts at the same time and out into the world of physical effort that maybe it is a chore after all to go play. Yeah. That’s it. It’s important to take care of these things early on a Saturday morning.
We shared the river with birds, turtles, spiders, a snake and a lot of fish, and that’s just the part we saw. And then a whole swarm of kayaks. Not one as pretty as mine. T. has been taking it out recently, which is a very good thing.
The kickbike remains hard work, but I’m getting better at it. Mostly I’m waiting for cooler weather. We went to the local bike shop this afternoon to get me a helmet and just look around, and of course ended up bringing home a bike for T. to ride to school–also a virtuous thing, I’m sure. I’m thrilled, actually. Absurdly, we bought matching helmets although I can’t keep up with a bicycle on the kickbike and we are hardly going to be seen together. (Though I saw a sweet Trek Navigator that almost had my name on it, if I squinted.)
I have hope for us yet. There’s virtue in movement. I can see that so clearly now that I’ve started to drag and all I want to do is coast to a stop.
