1,000

Jessica, from her visit last week

This afternoon, my CEO stood in the hallway outside his office and shouted "It's 2:09! What are you all still doing here!?" We're on Summer Hours these days, closing the office at 2:00 on Fridays, for sunshine and shenanigans. If I had known beforehand that employees would use the time to hang out together, biking to a tap room in Kenmore or the brewery in Woodinville, I would have used that as part of my argument for Summer Hours, camaraderie and team building and all that. I lingered until 3, myself, then got in the car to go pick up the film I dropped off earlier in the week and hadn't had time to pick up. The last summer book of the year is in my car's CD player, which kept the traffic from seeming like anything at all. On the way to the camera shop, I drove by a Baskin Robbins, and a nail place and thought Yes. Instead, I took my computer and the CD with the negative scans and drove down to Third Place Books and read every single title in the psychology section. Then I read every single title in the used audiobook section, where I was rewarding with a $12 copy of Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. One of my all time favorite books, which I have never listened to on audio. There's something specifically delicious about having an entire book read to you. 

Afterwards, I sat in the Honey Bear Bakery with an iced mocha and uploaded all the photos, trying to think about how describe how happy I was that a few turned out well, about the little frenzy of trying to decide which to post. There was a kid about 11 with glasses at a big table near mine, backpack and notebooks everywhere. I only noticed him after his little sister, probably 7 or 8, poured her soda out on his head. No parents in sight. It was painful to watch, you could see that there was part of him that wanted to laugh, but a bigger part that was embarrassed to the point of humiliation, and hurt. He wandered away from her, looking for someone, and she hopped from one skinny leg to the other, cackling nervously, half pleased with herself, half ready for the trouble she knew was coming. An old man pushed a cart by, suddenly shouting the lyrics to a nursery song from right behind me, making me jump, making the girls behind the counter jump and eye him warily, clearly wondering if someone was going to have to ask him to leave. He was fine, passed by and said something to the woman at the information booth laugh, not at him, but with him. I was happy. A bakery in a book store, the whole afternoon my own. 

We're at a thousand now. Took us some time to get here, more than 6 years. Six pretty good ones. xo