The Fifth of July

Countless complaining memes were posted today w/ cranky looking and/or listless cats and dogs, captioned “first day back at work be like”, and here we are: the Tuesday after a long holiday weekend. It wasn’t even just a long weekend; it was THE long weekend. It won’t get any bigger than a three day Fourth, it just won’t. 

Instead of bore you w/ all the red white and booze pictures of me in a star spangled bikini out on the lake, I’ll provide you w/ some real content today, b/c that’s just how I roll. And me? In a bikini? You know that didn’t happen.

The real content isn’t happening either, I’ll just have to pretend b/c I didn’t take any pictures of our weekend. Serious question: if you didn’t Insta your weekend, did it even happen?

Brent and I spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday in Newburyport, not to be confused w/ Newport, which is in Rhode Island. Newburyport is in Massachusetts, and besides the similar sounding names, the two towns seem to have a lot in common. Both are right on the water and provide picturesque views and countless photo opps (insert the breathtaking sunset I forgot to photograph here). Both towns know how to get their summer business on and offer a variety of ice cream, froyo and gelato options. Both towns are much more well-to-do than any place I frequent and I often find myself daydreaming of Brent and I settling down in such an ideal small town until we stumble into an antique shop to find something cute for the home and realize we can’t afford these secondhand prices, let alone the cost of daily living in such a place. 

I did buy something for the kitchen; for $3.95 I nabbed the pot minder, a ceramic tile you put in the bottom of your pot to keep water from boiling over. No more scrubbing up salty pasta and potato water for this girl; the pot minder has it all figured out. I asked the clerk how it worked and she said she didn’t know, she just pointed to the directions on the packaging. That’s right, this little beauty came w/ packaging! And directions! It must be legit! So I bought one and put my salt potatoes on and walked away, letting the pot mind itself, and do you know what I heard from the living room? If you’re guessing sweet, sweet silence…you’re as naïve as I am. It was the all too familiar sound of water boiling over the side of a pot, but much, much worse, b/c it was also all my dreams being dashed and the knowledge that I’d never get that $3.95 back. 

Besides throwing away money on useless kitchen utensils and beer, which is really no different from any other day off, the 4th was pretty good to us. I even got the long run in I needed before my race next week, which is coming up entirely too quickly. I’ll take a three day weekend w/ friends and family, but can the nine miles just run themselves?