Weekends Should Be Longer

Five, maybe six days, don't you think? We could all get our work work done in a couple of days if we concentrated, right? Then we'd have a nice long weekend to do what we want like sleep late, take a walk in the sunshine, take a bike ride, knit, nap, write a story or poem--that kind of real productive stuff. Think how much happier and satisfied we'd all be. I'll work on it.

Right now I'm trying to get Durwood to agree to be President. He just finished filling out an online application for the TSA and he said they asked all sorts of personal questions and that it took a long time. I had a brilliant idea that he should be President so then I can be First Lady and do fun stuff like First Ladies do, like jet around the globe with 50 of my closest friends and meet all sorts of cool people. I'd start a knitting initiative, encouraging people to knit to reduce stress and cultivate patience. I'd take lots of vacations to cool places like Yellowstone where I'd get to visit all the bubbling mud pots and geysers (not geezers, I've already got one of those, besides he'd have to stay in Washington and boss people around) and go diving in Hawaii and Monterey Bay and the Keys. I'd use The Clearing as my escape from the pressures of political life instead of Camp David. I'll figure out how to ditch the Secret Service for that. I could hire my DIL to be White House chef because she's a fabulous and creative chef and I'd love to be around her more. Oh, this is an excellent idea! I'll be spending my day organizing Durwood's campaign and setting up a P.O. box for contributions, cash or checks only, or Paypal. Gotta go with the times, ya know. Anyone got a used bridesmaid dress I can use for the inaugural ball? The froofier the better.

August 14--Prickly Pear Island, BVI. It didn't take the crew long to transport the big grill, charcoal and lighter, and a half-dozen coolers from the ship to the beach. Someone cranked up a boombox with reggae and calypso music and it was a party. What had been an uneasy assortment of passengers aged from twenty to eight was transformed into a sort of family once they all hit the beach of the uninhabited island. One of the passengers was a botany professor and a birdwatcher. She offered to lead a hike. Don let it be known that he taught diving and ended up with a string of snorkelers. There were volleyball teams organized and a Frisbee golf course mapped out. Newlyweds strolled off hand in hand to explore for a quieter stretch of sand. For an hour or so it was a sandy Utopia but we knew it was too good to be true. One of the snorkelers stepped on something sharp in the shallows and cut his foot. A volleyballer twisted an ankle and the cook burned himself. It seemed unfair that the fates wouldn't even let us have that one perfect afternoon.

Meh. Maybe I'll do better tonight.
--Barbara