Balancing on the deck

Just coming off a really nice three-day weekend here. Sitting on the deck in the moist-but-not-too-warm-yet morning, with my laptop, really good yogurt, and a pot of tea. There are three big red poppies open this morning, and the peonies have all passed out on the grass like a crowd of pink-headed drunks. May always brings a nearly impenetrable wall of trees and indiscriminate green growth between us and the neighbors behind, which is probably a good thing (except for the damned giant mulberry tree). From six to seven it goes from nearly silent, except for birds and squirrels, to busy traffic: cars, grindy trucks of lawn services, school buses approaching their last runs of the year, and the fainter ding-ding-ding of the train crossings. A big crow, a small barky dog, airplanes, motorcycles but no mosquitoes.

I get to just listen to them instead of being out among them because it's Tuesday, and I get to work at home on Tuesdays. I've done this for almost ten years now, and that one day a week gives me such respite; I'm really grateful. If I get up early, I can log more work time, or use the time for myself instead of getting ready to go and commuting. I could technically sit out here on the deck and work, though I rarely do; it seems a touch too hedonistic. No one cares how I'm dressed, and I can have whatever music or radio or sweet silence I want. The tea is also better.

And for the record, I really do work on these Tuesdays. It's a good time to write, think through a project, or churn out a lot of tweaks to a website.

Tomorrow I'll get up refreshed (I hope, unless I've had too much tea!) and bound off to work knowing that I only have to pull my way through three days before I get a free one. I even manage to enjoy the commute (it is nice to see other people after a few days at home).