Bookends*

Some weekends are for doing, while others are for being. Our holiday weekend was spent just being. We were just us on Friday, napping the workweek out of us, then ordering our favorite takeout salads from the French cafe downstairs and eating them in front a movie. We were just us on Saturday, flirting with tennis and shopping, lingering over sushi, and being entertained by Mr. Tarantino. We were ourselves on Sunday, indulgently sleeping in, again, then deciding to jump in the car and head to Austin for two days, a city that breathes much more like I do than the one we currently call home.

In Austin we were so us, lounging poolside and eating glorious food (orange-glazed Berkshire pork carnitas with pickled onions may well be my new "last meal") and then walking hand in hand amidst undergraduate hijinks and hilarity. From a rooftop bar, we grinned until our faces hurt at the dance-off taking place on the street below us, but didn't even finish our beers. It was time to crawl into bed, but we didn't feel lame about that. That's the thing, I think, about being with the right person at the right time. It's okay not to want to stay out until the bars close. It's okay that you'll miss whatever next dance move is about to take place on the street below you, because however hilarious it is, it still won't make you as happy as wrapping yourself around your tequila-scented partner in crime at the end of the night. And so you do.

We were married during the holiday weekend that kicked this summer off, and here we are at the other end of it, more relaxed on this side, not any more concrete regarding a Life Plan, but somehow feeling closer to it with each weekend full of us that we have. It's been a very good summer, and I think it'll be an even better fall.

*"Bookends" is a T family practice whereupon one vodka shot is taken at the beginning of the night and one at the end. So happy to call that crew my own now :-).