sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
So, the weekend--as promised.
Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day. I could probably count the number of days this summer with sun--not mentioning how few of those were sunny all the way through--on two hands, so I can't even express how gorgeous a day it was. Eighty-five degrees at the lake but with a nice breeze and low humidity, big puffy clouds in the sky.
Mom, Lin, and I had stayed the night at the camp and were all awake by 9:00. There was a loon calling in the middle of Taylor Pond, and a guy trying to catch fish from shore next door. He wasn't having much luck, and we wondered if he knew how shallow it was there. But after he left, sure enough a few perch started jumping right in the shallows. I don't think I've ever seen the fish come that close.
We sat out and talked--Lin playing Pokemon Crystal on her GameBoy Color, and Mom and I reading our respective books. We watched the little woodpeckers come out of nowhere to stab at the trees and take a few seeds out of the feeders we put out, then proceed to peck at the feeder wood for non-existant bugs and make angry noises at the red squirrel who kept eating their food.
My uncle, aunt, cousins and a few of their friends showed up with the boat, followed by Memere and Mononcle Guy, just as Mom finished grilling up some red hot dogs and a couple little steaks. (Man, red hot dogs. You people outside New England have no idea what you're missing.) Lin and I went swimming in the afternoon, coming back to talk with those who weren't in the boat every so often, and chasing Memere around threatening her with wet hugs.
Might have been the first time I haven't felt really self-conscious in a bathing suit in a while.
All the kids went tubing except Lin and I--we're both afraid of falling off even though we know it's not that bad--so we rode in the front of the boat, spotting for when someone lost their tube and enjoying the sun on our backs and wind in our hair. We laughed as Dustin was able to hop his tube up to ride on his friend Tyler's back for a full minute while Tyler laughed and flailed underneath.
The sun started going down, and most everyone said goodnight. Because of all the rain, Dustin ended up digging two big trenches in the marshy yard with his truck after getting stuck in the mud. Dad came up after work, and we had supper on the picnic table then cleaned up and went home.
Since Lin was working, Mom and I went up to Memere's for lunch after church like we often do on Sundays. Memere colored Mom's hair, telling her that pretty soon she could just let it go white, you know, and earned herself a glare from Mom. While they were doing that, I was helping Uncle Guy set up Uncle Vince's Skype from Memere's computer. That's Uncle Guy's new thing he's excited about at the moment--getting everyone he knows hooked on Skype and making sure they have a webcam to go with it. Memere loves it--she calls me on it almost every night and gets cranky if you don't turn on your webcam right away, have it at the angle she likes, or have enough light. And then she'll do something wrong with the program herself because she can barely use it, and then spend half the call laughing her head off at herself. But hey, how many grandmothers do you know who use internet phone?
Anyway, it was hilarious.