Crafting: a Labor of Love

Two excellent questions await my response, but I proved too lazy to answer them this weekend. So, for now, I'll instead regale you with Tales of a Very Short Road Trip.

My friend Tina and I decided to take a mini (or maybe micro) road trip on Labor Day to a nearby town known for its stately Victorian homes and quaint downtown. One of the downtown attractions is a refurbished warehouse, partitioned into booths that display the wares of local craftspeople. In fact, not just craftspeople...this place bills itself as "yesterday's architecture, today's artisans."

Well, I'll leave it to you to determine whether the offerings qualify as artisanal.

Yes, indeed, that's a hand-made Elvis knick-knack box.

Tina, looking very stylish in this lovely hair bow.

You know, Tina, Dawn, and I are planning a trip to Rome. Maybe the chic rolling bag, above, will come in handy. Or this special purse, as Tina demonstrates with her cab-hailing pose:

But, then, these are nice, right? Dignified pictures of someone's great grandparents, perhaps?

Nope. Wrong. When you shift your head from side to side, Maw-maw and Paw-paw morph into this freak show:


After hamming it up throughout the store, snapping pictures and giggling like little girls, we were somewhat chagrined to find this sign tucked away amidst the Barbie doll fairies:


Yikes. At first I brushed it off, figuring that this sign was just a ruse to put off would-be shoplifters, but then I noticed a huge monitor that was, in fact, being monitored by a salesperson in the front of the store. Fortunately, because the views from about 12 cameras appeared on one television screen, no one picture was big enough to do justice to our antics.

And, finally, on the way back to Durham, we stopped at a grocery store, where I was sorely tempted to purchase this magazine:

I mean, I've been fed up with squirrels digging up my impatiens, so maybe this would be the perfect subscription! My birthday's coming up in November, hint hint.

Summer's almost over, and I'm totally bummed! What should I do?

Dear HTT,

I want to write to you for advice but not sure about how to disguise myself. You would know from my email address who I might be.

I thought it would be a good place to put a comment on your vacation pictures and pose my dilemma.

I am in a panic about summer ending. I have to say that it’s been a blast and I am afraid that the good times will end. And I don't want to wait another 10 months for summer to start again.

What advice can you give me to keep the good times rolling???

PS: Football season does start in a few weeks so there is some light on my horizon.

Party Girl


Dear Party Girl,

First, thanks for your ingenuity…posting your question in the comments section is a great way to disguise yourself! The rest of you anonymity-challenged readers/would-be letter writers should take note.

Now, on to your dilemma. I’m not sure how old you are or where you live. If summer’s end means back to school (or work, if you’re a teacher), I can imagine falling into a funk this time of year. Or, if your main form of fun involves a beach and a bottle of pina-colada-scented tanning oil, maybe the passing of 90-degree days is cause for mourning. Or, if you reside in a state that might see snow in a few weeks, I guess I can imagine bumming out as August slips by.

But for me, the end of August is cause for celebration. Soon the high temperature will dip below 99! Being outdoors will become a pleasure and not just a test of endurance. I might be able to take my hair out of a ponytail, once even the thought of a few strands on my neck doesn’t make me sweat. Before too long, we’ll be enjoying a little nip in the air, some mulled cider, bulky sweaters, and an energetic spring in the steps of our stylishly boot-clad feet.

Honestly, if you work year-round, I don’t see why summer holds any more party promise than the rest of the year. All right, maybe pool parties will drop off the calendar for a while, but what else can’t you do in the fall that you can do in the summer? Where I live, fall’s a nicer time of year for a cookout, a picnic, drinks on a bar patio, a bike ride, a hike, a road trip, a street fair, a wedding, most vacations, a walk on the beach, a party on the porch, a stroll around Duke Gardens, a trip to the farmer’s market, hand-holding (fewer sweaty palms), dressing up, gardening, dancing, exploring new places, oh, I could go on and on.

But, o.k., I’ll assume that the passing of summer is, for you, reason to despair, whether it marks the end of aimless days of pleasure or the beginning of an early and long, dreary winter. I guess the closest parallel from my own life that I can draw on to feel what you might be feeling is the end of a fantastic vacation. (And you posted near my vacation pictures, so you know how depressed I can get when I return from a great trip.) This is what I do when vacation ends: I start planning another one. Not just dreaming. Planning. I need some concrete fun to look forward to. If you know me at all, you’ve probably heard me say, at least once, “In order to be happy in life, one must always be on vacation or planning one.”

So, Party Girl, start cooking up some fun for the fall and winter. Sure, if you’ve had the luxury of partying every night over the summer, you’re going to have to make do with less. And certainly, unlike a vacation, you can’t just plan to have summer again in a few months. (Although if it’s beach weather you’ll crave, remember it’s always hot somewhere in the world.) Think about the kinds of events that will add joy to your life this fall and winter and make real plans to do them. Get other people on board. I know for some people lack of spontaneity is a buzz kill, but even a few exciting, sure-to-happen events on your calendar can make the end of summer (for you) or vacation (for me) easier to bear.

Party on, my anonymous friend!

HTT

It's been too nice to blog.

This weekend's weather was a mid-summer gift. High of 84, low in the upper 50s. In July. In North Carolina. It's this type of climate that used to make me pine for Seattle or Portland every summer before I decided my mental health would probably suffer during their rainy seasons (all three of them).

At any rate, I've been away and I haven't quite gotten back in the swing of things. Heather Havrilesky, who writes a hilarious column about t.v. for Salon, said something that rings so true for me: "My personal rule is, if I don't sink into a major existential crisis when I get back from vacation then I wasn't gone for long enough." This happened both times when I returned from Ireland. I moped and shuffled around my house, listening to nothing but traditional Celtic music, drinking hot milky tea, scanning on-line dating sites for men named Seamus, and setting the AC low enough to pretend I needed to bundle up in my new Blarney woolen throw.

A week in St. Lucia wasn't long enough to set off a crisis. (For better or worse. On the one hand, I'm glad not to be full of existential angst; on the other, I wouldn't have minded being gone longer). But I did get out of the habit of writing.

I'm getting back to it, though, and I've got a question to answer. So stay tuned. In the meantime, here's a shot of the Caribbean from the plane.


And one of the Pitons, St. Lucia's signature site:


One of The Black Pearl, allegedly featured in "Pirates of the Caribbean":



And, finally, one of a little fishing village on the island's east coast: