So I’m sitting outside on my back deck. It’s cloudy, a bit chilly even. I’m sitting in my favorite slightly damp camp chair listening to old Jupiter Coyote from my college days and drinking a beer.
Not precisely how I’d hoped to spend the day; some sun would be nice and it’s not hot enough to even bother with the river, but I’m in a making lemonade out of lemons mood today. Even the iPad key board isn’t bugging me too much, or the occasional clucking of chickens.
The clouds I don’t mind too much. I assuming the rain will hold off until I decide to fire up my grill in an hour or so. That’s how I roll: if there’s rain within 50 miles or so of me, it will break out right around the time I decide to light the grill. On the bright side I finally got another tank of propane for my gas grill. Cooking in the rain on a gas grill is doable but charcoal and rain combined equal a nightmare.
Went to the store and got some nice steaks and pork chops. I haven’t decided if I’m going to cook a steak or my in my mind famous Woodchuck apple cider and Dale’s marinated pork yet.
My mom left this morning and while we actually had a decent weekend despite my often bitching about it on here, I’m enjoying my solitude again. Just me and the pup again. Sitting out here on my back deck not 30 yards from a river I realize how often I take it for granted how nice a place I live in.
I think that’s human nature, you could live on the top of a mountain overlooking yellowstone and you’d probably get used to it and let the petty concerns of daily life make you not always appreciate it, but sometimes you really do need to stop and smell the proverbial roses and appreciate the small or large good things in life. I’m more guilty of not doing this than most probably.
As lonely as I get sometimes and as much as I dwell on the negative things in my life, there’s plenty of ways in which I’m pretty damn lucky. Unless you’re living in a cardboard box, or with an abusive person, or any number of bad circumstances people sadly find themselves in, there’s always good things to appreciate about your life, even if they are small and seem illusory.
As you can tell I’m in a particularly contemplative mood today, which I think everyone needs now and then to be healthy. It’s so damn easy to get caught up in the daily and lifelong routines, good and bad, that life can just pass by so damn fast, unnoticed and unappreciated.
Anyway, it’s starting to sprinkle a bit so I’m going to cut the self reflection short for the moment and head inside and start working on dinner, but it’s been a pretty damn good day so far.
I hope everyone is having a great holiday and as always, to anyone that reads this, my true thanks and appreciation. You don’t know how much it helps me to just be able to write and hope that I might strike the smallest chord with someone else.
The Scott Vanity Project 