Gadding about town

So today I drove myself out to Orleans, the hub of the Outer Cape, and tooled around fetching various items that were both various and fetching. Birthday card and present for my best friend, thank you cards for the cast of the show about to end, computer paper for home (it's been a month at least since I've been able to print anything out -- I keep forgetting to buy paper), candles, a replacement votive holder for the one that cracked the other night with a lit candle in it (kids, this is why you must never leave lit candles unattended, and that includes sleeping. just becaue I have fire and renter's insurance doesn't mean I really want to use them), and other delightful nonsense items that I've been too furrowed of eyebrow and hunched of shoulders to find the time to buy lately.

It was great, and really just an excuse to go joy-riding and ogle all the forsythia currently abounding in everybody's yard. My neighbor was kind enough last year to install a hedge of forsythia along our mutual property boundary, which in effect means that i now have a forsythia hedge. And no responsibility for pruning it. Thanks, neighbor! You're the greatest!

Daffodils and tulips are bustin' out all over these days too, although what I really like is what I think is woodland phlox growing wild on the roadside. Kind of spiky and purple with tons of green foliage underneath. Love it. Want it.

My main gardening mission this year is to plant a bunch more beach roses (rosa rugosa) along our roadside in front of the house. First because I love them and they require no care and can withstand anything (even, apparently, a freak electrical fire caused by a snapped electric wire during a blizzard that burned out of control for more than two hours, scorching the earth and our quaint old fence, but apparently not bothering our beach roses in the slightest). Also because I need a visual barrier between our house and the massively grotesque Ode To Capitalism Mansion going up across the street. Honestly, you could fit TWENTY of my houses into this thing. And it will probably be occupied only about two weeks each summer. So. More beach roses, please, on the double.

But back to my day off. I tooled around all afternoon, and my mood rose with each errand because I appear to have finally been here long enough to Run Into People I Know. Every place I stopped, I ran into someone I knew, and even better, liked. This feat has taken some time.

As I was riding around, happily pondering how many people I had run into, I suddenly realized that today is my three-year anniversary of Moving Back to the Cape. I remember, when we moved back here, thinking that it would take about six months to find my groove and establish a network of friends, mainly because that's about how long it took in Syracuse.

HAH!

Three years to the day. And my biggest accomplishment is running into a few well-liked acquaintances. Whatever. I'll take it.

And I do seem to be establishing my first honestly close friendship since moving back here, and honestly good friendships are rare, so I'm pretty thrilled about that one. It's tough when you realize you want to go see a movie but you aren't even close enough to anyone to invite them.

That's how isolating it can be to live here.

But. I am beginning to see the fruits of my labor.