Shaking Off the Cobwebs

Last night the dog and I took a stroll, and with every few yards of progress, I batted and spit my way through yet another crop of tightly spun cobwebs. (The pooch seemed unaffected.) A heatwave had emptied our neighborhood parks and sidewalks for a good week or more, leaving the spiders with free rein. (Note that over the weekend, I also discovered webs — and the teeny little spiders that crafted them (!) — in the drying rack next to the kitchen sink. My explanation, and I'm sticking to it: Very few windows in my built-for-the-Northwest house have screens.)

It's still quite warm for our climate, but the heat is much less oppressive now, and the promise of markedly cooler temps starting tomorrow has been dangled. I'm so giddy about the downward trend that I decided to work away from my home office today. Last week, the heat and constant sleepiness were distractions, problems to overcome, heavy burdens to bear/loudly whine about. Today, though, with things looking up I worried that a livable temperature might make me too tempted to either (a) catch up on neglected-due-to-heatstroke household things that I can easily do tonight or (b) answer the siren call of a pretty summer's day, resulting in the need to work on WORK tonight, when I have firm plans to not do any of the aforementioned "household things."

So, I went for a bracing wake-up walk and then whisked myself off for a Workday Wi-Fi Crawl. Free wi-fi implied. It was a terrific change of pace and perfect for the editing work featured as today's main to-do.

At 7:30, I headed to a nearby coffee shop for emails and such over a latte. Most other patrons were headed someplace else, so I scored a comfy chair next to a handy table. Cool! Midmorning I switched to my nearest library branch to do some work-related library-ing before settling down for several hours of quiet, focused editing.

Hungry by midafternoon, I tried a never-busy dive lunch joint I knew to offer wi-fi (to which I've always said, "Who would use that here?"). Worked out fine! Then, to finish out the crawl, I grabbed a cold tea and headed to a shady, wi-fi-equipped park close to home. I sat at a picnic table facing a lake and was surprisingly productive there, too. Nobody was swimming or even stirring until around 4:30 — and by then it was time for me to get home.

Tomorrow will be business as usual, as usual. I truly do prefer to work in my office at the big-girl's computer. (That doesn't sound quite right, but neither does "adult computer." I'm comparing my large, tricked-out desktop machine to my small, just-functional-enough laptop, okay?) But today sure was lovely. The change of scenery/pace cleared my web-filled brain and renewed my weary spirit — and I look forward to tomorrow's nothing-special workday with — yes, I think it's true — happy anticipation.