We put the OY in Oyster Festival.

 It started out innocently enough. Me and KB, a nice New Jersey Jewish Girl, with me, the NY/CA/NH/PA/GA girl. There were lots of signs telling us where to go. Uphill. OY!

 There was the handbag check. False bottoms would have worked, as she barely checked and the guy in front of me snuck in his water bottle by jamming it under his flabby gut.

 This dude thought he was pretty cool. And the angry chick? She was just singing. She only dropped one beer and fell down once while we were near her.

Look, deer and beer. Get it? I got a free Jagerbomb from the biker dude at the Bloody Mary tent. You do not want to know more.

 This guitarist was sort of like Ozzy. Well, in that he had bad hair and was British. The band was called The Whizzers and Something?? OY!

 These guys grilled a whole truckload of oysters. they were hot. The oysters. not the guys. The guys were sweaty.

 These girls are saying, "But that's not what an oyster looks like. It's supposed to be on a plate with lemon and a fork, and a side of rice." OY!

 There were fancy table coverings everywhere. I felt like a Princess!

 KB found the ugliest oyster ever. We mocked it, then we sliced it open and ate it. Sorta like a girl fight.

 The celebrity anti-tongue salute. OY!

This is my finger 8 hours later, waiting for the MARTA train. The knuckle swelled up and bruised in another 3 hours. We are blaming the Oyster shucking knife. OY!

 This is our bucket of remains. Some others added to it and one guy came around and tried to steal our previously stolen lemons. Hey. What happens at the Oyster festival, stays at the Oyster Festival... unless you're reading this.

 We walked away from this place when it had a thirty person line. and then came back to try again, because hello? your tents are only serving BUDWEISER. OY!

This girl was telling her date how she wants him to um, dance with her later.

Maybe she will dress like this. Wait. Is that a snow shovel? OY!

  We went to a corner bar first. Across the street was this beautiful sight. I took bets on how many Midtown Hipsters would try to drag that back to their loft.

 We went to sit in the sun, up there, with some new friends. We ate meals that we forgot we ate. Thanks to the receipt crumpled in the bottom of my purse, we remembered later, and also noticed we paid for a shitload of drinks and someone's lobster roll. OY!

I won this shirt. Some old man tried to knock me down and take it. I gave him the stink eye and he backed off. Later, I gifted it to a guy at the bar as a prize for having the bushiest beard not on Duck Dynasty. I don't think he wanted it either.

 Here we are trying to look at two different cameras for a photo op. We had just tried promo Fireball shots. Yep. OY!

 This. Is. A. Midtown. Bartender.  You may look away now.

 It gets prettier at night, you notice?

Artful attempt number 503, according to my I-phone camera roll. OY!

 So that was an early start to my birthday month. Next up, Comedy night and strange dancing people: When Highland legs meet Latino feet on a skinny white girl. Stay tuned.

Better than the pictures, was the look on her face.

I went to the woods to see a friend

I ran down roads lined with scenes like this, as geese flew overhead

She asked me if I missed living in New Hampshire. I said. No. It's too hard to be isolated, to pine for the arrival of a UPS truck, a tree man, a visit from a neighbor. 

( I am a social animal.) 

 After a while, I missed dressing up, wearing high heels, being surrounded by pretty people wearing fashions I coveted. Though, sure, I missed the barn of cows and the raw milk waiting on the other side, the coffee can of cash, fresh cheese. So, I jogged down the road and bought morning eggs from a cooler in a yard, as a rooster greeted me.

 Of course we needed toast with our eggs, so a quick trip in the other direction, yielded fresh country bread, baked three days a week in this oven.

  Sold on the honor system in this unmanned storefront.

 I know that in a few weeks, this beauty will turn ugly. In a few months it will bottle up the people, chain them to woodpiles and fireplaces. The woods will be silent. The geese, long gone.

 And then, I remember, the way a community rallies. 

The way the kindness of your neighbors is what helps you make it through. When the oil runs out. When the ice storm takes your power. When your family is hungry and the driveway needs plowing. A land this pretty needs its ugly parts too. 

And maybe I do miss it. Just a little. 

 Or maybe now, having lived in the ugly for a while, I have forgotten 

how pretty simple can be.

Sure, you can go home again. But will you want to leave?

There is a sweet part of our youth that we hold onto.

The first kiss.

A secret spot in the woods that no one knows about.

A success that is a stepping stone for your future.

 There are things in our past we wish we could forget forever.

 That hurtful exchange.

 Driving after too many beers.

 Oversleeping the day of the big test.

 The feeling of heartbreak or disappointment.

And then, there are the regrets for things you wish you'd done.

Studied harder.

Chased that boy.

Told that girl exactly how cool you thought she was, or how cruel.

Thanked that teacher.

Helped more- in so many ways.

Sang in the chorus.

Gone to band camp.

Ran for President... well. maybe not that, but you know what I mean.

No one should ever have regrets, and maybe at such a young age they are more thoughts of "What if?" or "Why not?" than anything else, and as we age, we can look back on those moments, those choices and see them more clearly.

Thanks to class reunions and family members that stayed put, we are offered an opportunity to visit our past and hang out with people who knew us BACK THEN. We may be forced to face all the good, bad and ugly pieces of ourselves. And certainly, we tend to be our worst critics when on most days, we should be our best champions.

Sometimes, we might need some liquid courage, or at the very least, a short trek back through our yearbooks, looking at scrapbook pages and journals, to see how far we've come... or more appropriately, to simply do the "pre-meeting oh, so that's who that is re-con."

 I tried to stick to the whole plan but don't plan thing, for fear solid planning would ruin whatever Mr. Spontaneity might want to add to the occasion.  ( yes, he's a dude.)

Plan one was to attend the first evening's meet and greet. And that was where the planning ended.   (ASIDE: I did notice, that a bunch of people wore black at my thirty year reunion. Either it's the notion of slimming fabric color choice, or they liken this gathering to attending a funeral.)

That's me on the right, in the front row in white with the beer, trying to figure out what I snagged my heel on before I fall off the lap of a girl who's on another lap. Sigh... so, highschoolish, aren't we?

 I lived in my hometown for at least fifteen years, but I still was glad for the GPS built into my phone, as the memory isn't what it used to be— as proved by the "remember when/this/that/those/them.." posts about our small village that appeared on a group posting this past week—a village my husband calls "Leave it to Beaverville, " which makes me wonder if there really is a place called Beaverville somewhere, and if there is, is there a Hooters in the center of that town, and if so, on Wednesdays, do people...

All right. I digress.

And I bend backward... sort of like some other people at 2am, after too many vodka tonics, who try to defy gravity while forming a right angle with their body, leading with the hips, then say, "Lin, my back really hurts!" These same people will hear the words, "Oh, there she goes. I knew that was coming," and then wake up with strange bruises.

I had my own share of skinned elbows and scrapes, apparently acquired a strange scratch on the rental car and returned home with a scuffed and damaged shoe that I had to drop at the cobbler's.

But that's not important. What is important is that we ate hummus. We told stories. We visited the old diner. We said hello to people we had not seen in a long, long time and we remembered the best and the funniest parts of high school. We paid for events we didn't attend and we might have missed some old friends that were in the shadows .. or the other end of the bar. We wore mustaches, but we don't need no steenkin' badges.

We drank weird shots and lots of wine.  We played cards and old record albums and watched it rain. We wore moustaches.

We swam in a lake.

We spilled - wine and secrets and we shared a moment that was better than all of high school combined.

And to the stranger at the first bar who thanked me for talking to him? No. Thank you, for that story.

 Something I thought about on the airplane ride home, where I slept the whole way- and probably drooled on myself, much to the chagrin of my seat mate.

But, unlike the high school me, I've finally figured out that I will never see you again, and your opinion won't change who I am or tarnish the smile I choose to wear today.
Thanks for reminding me I grew up just fine.

Do I Have It All Backward? Or Am I Just a Planner?

Growing up, my parents didn't use the word, "planner." They used the word "dreamer."

After quite a few years of seeing my plans come halfway true (there is this thing about you wanting something to happen.. more than you actually trying to make that thing happen.)
 And there's the whole, not now, later part of the equation.
But, it's true. I am a dreamer.

It's not a bad thing. It's another good thing.

 I have a room in my house that is all blues and whites, along with three crates of accessories in the attic on the same theme, because one month a long time ago, I had the idea that I would decorate an entire house in just hues of blues and whites one day.
( I still believe I will.)

I have a file drawer dedicated to torn-out design mag pages, brochures from flooring, tile and paint stores, my own sketches and even three designer house plans. Whenever we'd buy a new house, I'd start a notebook on all changes needed to make each room perfect. I kept the pages as I accomplished each update.
( In the current house, a place I have the lived the longest EVER as an adult, each room has been done over twice- some three times.)
That means... I need a project.

Beach property. Preferably low maintenance: condo or townhome.

Fits the blue and white theme, right?
I already found some cool ideas- like this:

and this- which is the same porch couch my Grandma had

 Of course, I like some crazy stuff too, like garage door walls:

and a hanging bed..

 but with a smaller space, and all that time outside doing all the things I love... am thinking the most important things I will be concentrating on are:

 and buying a toy like this to drive around and enjoy it all:

go ahead, call me a dreamer. I dare you.