Holding Hands With Your Heart

Ah, September. I was humming that song this morning, so I looked up the lyrics, which I've never been able to hear properly. Turns out there's a reason--they're totally unintelligible. Make no kind of sense at all. But I still like the song.

The weather is perfect here (sorry to those of you in less-perfect climes) so I decided we'd celebrate our last week of summer with a trip to the beach today. Since we didn't have our usual beach partners-in-crime (Hi Steph!) we didn't go as far, just to Coronado. We stopped for sandwiches (okay, and cookies) on the way and then I had to carry all the gear across an expanse of sand that seemed as wide as the Sahara.

It was worth it, though. Once we were settled on our blanket, the sand was soft and white and seaweed-free, the waves gentle, a purple mist crowned Point Loma and--behind us--the Hotel Del rose like a fairy princess castle on the horizon. The seagulls threatened our sandwiches, but we held them at bay, and shortly after Jarrah made the acquaintance of the Brothers Jonah and Julian (she made a third "J") and spent the next several hours with them. There was a lot to do--jumping over waves, for instance. Building a sandcastle with the Panera cup I found rolling on the floor of my car (aren't I resourceful?) Kicking water at each other and screaming. Throwing a big piece of driftwood as far as they could and seeing who could nab it first as it surfed back. I felt sort of gently buzzed from the sound of the waves, and would have been completely comfortable if only our beach chairs weren't currently residing in the back of David's car. One can't exactly lie down and nap when one is responsible for a child, though that is when one really needs to do it.

I did bust out my Kindle, having seen those lovely ads where the girl reads hers on the beach, and wanting my own test run. Well, beach sakes alive, that's no false advertising--it's a pleasure to read that thing in direct sunlight. Especially compared to my phone, which I had to tent under some towels every time I wanted to see a text. I'm very much enjoying my current book, and funny story about how I found it. Like my last book, The Pull of the Moon, this one is also by Elizabeth Berg, and that's because I remembered that our book club book was by Elizabeth Berg when I was out with my Kindle and I decided to bet on the title being her latest book. Was wrong. But I'd already bought it, so now I'm reading it, too. It's called The Last Time I Saw You (was there ever a more delicious title?) and the premise is pretty yummy, too--about a 40th high school reunion, narrated from the perspective of a half-dozen different reunion-ees.

I think Jarrah could have stayed there until dark, so happy was she with her "new best friends," but I could tell I was getting rather toasty in some weird areas. So we headed back to the car.

And on the way home we heard that classic '80s chestnut "The Pina Colada Song" by Rupert Holmes. And I laughed to myself because I was in high school when that first came out and it's taken me until THIS SUMMER to realize that when he says:

If you're not into health food
If you have half a brain

he actually means in the glass half-full sort of way, ergo, he's not an idiot and wants to meet a woman who's not an idiot, either. But here's how I've heard it for 25 years:

He's an idiot, and wants to meet a woman who's also an idiot so she doesn't tax him too much, or talk a lot, or show him up in Scrabble. And the really scary part is that--in high school--I think I heard "health food" and couldn't get past how horrible that sounded--even though he was saying she should NOT be into health food, the fact that he was mentioning it might mean he was an idiot. Because that's how I thought of health food in high school--it was food for idiots.

So, I guess in addition to being a glass half-empty sort of girl, I'm also a girl who's been courting heart trouble since my teen years.

At least it was a nice day at the beach.