Saturday night, my husband has a plan for breakfast. Using up things that should be taken care of before we head out of town for Thanksgiving.
Then morning comes.
And after I get up to walk the dogs (even though Louisa will always let me sleep and only chooses to wake Hampton with a face full of doggie snout), I make a deal: I’ll take the leftovers for lunches this week and this morning, run to our favorite southern fast food chain for biscuits. Win/win.
After another hour of reading while Hampton dozes and the pups snuggle on the fluffy duvet and the soft blanket they love so much (I sometimes try to put the side and back of my head on it to see what it feels like through their fur), he is ready for coffee, and I head out.
Mid-morning. Rounding the side of the top level of the central building in our apartment complex are a group of women – mother, grandmother, chattering toddler in ruffled skirt and thick tights. Another woman, dressed in business clothes, on the phone, coffee in hand, heads to her sensible SUV. She immediately puts it in gear and must wait as I cross behind to my compact, knit cap pulled over what is left of my overly hairsprayed smoothed(ish) curls from last night’s show, sunglasses, the short vintage boy’s coat I live in on the weekends not hiding the fact that I’m still in pjs.
Up the main street from our apartment. A few older couples chatting outside the big church pushing windblown hair from their eyes. Grateful for my hat.
I hadn’t seen the newest construction lane closures downtown. Progress is messy.
Just outside of downtown-proper, a state-owned car with its yellow license plate glides through a yellow light beside me, then speeds up, signals, and pulls in front of me, also turning in at the yellow sign for biscuity goodness.
The parking lot here is not set up for the inevitable drive-through lines on a Sunday morning. I pause to let one car back out, and attempt to wave out another, but either they don’t see me, or aren’t in a hurry, happy bellies full. I pull forward, and they slowly squeeze out behind me. Perhaps the sweet tea sugar buzz kicked in and they decided they were ready to go.
A large muscle car is parked diagonally across the nearest handicapped space and a non-marked space next to it. Windows down. Multiple children focused on small electronics. The driver comes out. She… is definitely in a hurry. Motions for me to back up, but there is a another car behind me. The line begins to move. I follow the state employee in front of me. May the cranky lady soon be full of happy carbs. I will be.
[Lazy Sunday feels vaguely inspired by my current read, THE FINANCIAL LIVES OF THE POETS by Jess Walter. I’m not too far into it yet, but am totally digging his style – part poetry, part deceptively simple, highly physically descriptive sentences. Which are also poetry.]
Ann Davis-Rowe 