social life – The Hermits' Rest

Doing hard things can lead to rewards

I rewarded myself for all that closet cleaning I’ve been doing by saying yes to an invitation to meet our friends Mike and Martha at the bakery in town. Lee even agreed to come along, though he was displeased that screeching children were hurting his ears. Nonetheless we all had nice conversations.

The bakery is so cute and GOOD. Visit Shirley Mae’s Bakery if you’re ever in Cameron, Texas.

Since I am the lesser hermit, I enjoyed talking to Martha, my friend Mary who was there with her family, and my son and his partner, who also came in. Then I had to have a good chat with the bakery owner’s dad and their nice employee, who collects Native American jewelry and is a Master Gardener, so she knows some of my friends.

This, dear readers, is why small-town living can be pleasant. I enjoy it much more now that I’m not paranoid about gossip and mean-spirited people. I’m glad I’m better at not caring about people who aren’t nice.

After all that socialization I was fine with watching some TV (finished Hawk and got through much of Ride or Die today) in the quiet house.

Of course, I spent two more hours putting clothing into boxes and moving things around. I almost finished sorting everything hanging up, and I disposed of two garbage bags of plastic hangers from my old house.

This was a mess. It’s my work outfits, dresses, and what passes for dress-up attire.

I still have a big pile of stuff to hang, now that there’s room for it, and plenty of hangers! That shows you how big the purge was. Tomorrow the hanging stuff will be hung, and if I have time, shoes will be culled* and arranged.

The horror! Goal is to have the surface of this island visible tomorrow.

My teeth still hurt but it’s better every day. I think the dry socket is healing. I think I’ll join my sleeping beauties and indulge in my favorite activity, sleep.

Carlton and Benito are doing much better these days. B is healing.

(*Sue, that’s the word my typo was trying to be yesterday)

I Did Something Social

I’m proud of myself that I left the house to be social, not for a horse or Master Naturalist event. I used to do that more often, but I got convinced that the whole town didn’t like me, so I stayed home except for lunch each week and when Anita and I used to have coffee. I’ve been down to just lunch, Master Naturalist, and riding lessons this year, even though I’m no longer concerned about anyone’s opinions. I’m just not feeling social.

But I did join the group of more social folks tonight to listen to a friend’s band play. It was nice of Pamela to invite me along! I enjoyed the music and the folks we sat with, too.

It’s fun being in the social hub of Cameron and watching everyone greet each other and mingle. It all seems so darned friendly, especially when you’re blissfully ignorant of any local drama. Heck, I even got greeted and hugged—made me feel like part of the community! All in all, a good evening.

Ooh! I almost forgot to share that right after I turned onto our county road, our local Big Cat sauntered across the road, disappearing into the woods. That was exciting to me, and gave me a good story to tell Pamela. And now Alfred has something more interesting to bark at tonight.

They have such long tails! Photo from Pexels.

Feeling Pretty…Social

It’s been an interesting few days of social activities since I came to the Austin house Tuesday evening. I got my hair turned back into my preferred whiteness yesterday, and that always makes me feel better…prettier…fancier. It makes that last month or so with the extensive roots worth it. I think adding the silver worked well to make the roots less obvious, so I may do that again, especially seeing that the bleach made it go away.

Working on hair seems like such a privileged thing to do, but I save up for it. Yesterday I even got a nap while sitting under the hair dryer. And it’s always fun to listen to the stories my hair stylist tells about his life and adventures. Well worth the time and sort of worth the money.

Getting pretty isn’t very pretty, however. My hair looked like worms when I came out of this dryer. I felt like a butterfly undergoing metamorphosis.

As soon as I was released from my cocoon in the salon, this social butterfly ran next door to participate in our first vaccinated people’s book club meeting indoors. All of us were so happy to be able to both see and hear each other! We did have to keep steering the conversation away from topics that might lead to strong words (Did you know none of the homeless people in Austin are willing to work? Neither did I.). One of the women there lives in the alternate world, and said she’d not worn a mask except the few times she went to Austin last year. Wow. I kept waiting for Anita to jump on her, but we were all good and decided not to cause a book club scene.

I took myself, my PRIDE! shirt, and my giant rainbow earrings (I wonder why that one lady wouldn’t talk to me?) home just before yet another bad storm rolled through. Those are so hard on poor little Pickle the dog. Anita and I tried to distract her by watching weird shows about people with weight and skin issues, and she did eventually calm down.

Today I am back to feeling pretty and social. I was feeling so femme that I suddenly painted my fingernails and toenails this morning, and put on ALL the makeup I haven’t worn in a year. It worked out, because the office had more people than I’ve seen since February 2020 today. It has been so much fun seeing old coworkers, meeting some in person for the first time, and eliminating misconceptions (one coworker is much smaller than her large Zoom personality would indicate).

I may not be gender fluid, but I sure go from tomboy to lady-like in a flash. Hey, you just take fun wherever you can get it, right? I like wearing my “costumes” and looking different every day as much as my hair stylist likes to wear a white t-shirt and khaki shorts every day!

By the way, today I tried out the new “columns” functionality in WordPress. It looks pretty good on the computer, but let me know if it looks weird however you view the blog.

And yes, I will podcast again. I’m just really low on time these days (or bone tired) and can’t get to a lot of my volunteer and optional activities.