As usual, I have been awake for 4 hours already, gang.  I've done the laundry, made the bed, cleaned the house (a little); I wrote in my journals, my dream notebook, and answered emails; I had a major spiritual epiphany; and I took out the garbage, and even waxed my super-duper lovely face!

Then I thought: Wait; something's missing.

OMG!! I haven't posted to my blog!

So here I am, gang, at the tail end of the coffee.

Yesterday was a fantastic day, gang. First let me tell you that Tuesday night, I saw Woody Allen's new movie, Midnight in Paris, and if you are familiar with me and my world at all, you will already know how much I adored that movie. And when I came home, I was in this blissful sort of post-movie-going lah-lah land. I go to my front door and put the key in the lock and then I glance rather absently to my right and wonder to myself: Hmm. What happened to all those enormously tall-growing weeds?

And then I snapped to reality and looked around me and OMG!! In the 3 hours that I was away at the movie theater, the lawn guy had weeded my entire front yard! It looked incredible. Finally!! I was so excited. He did just the most amazing job!

So that was the night before yesterday and yesterday continued in that awesome vein. My lawn guy had managed to do a good deal of the weeding in the backyard, too. Under the arbor was totally weed-free, and the brick path along the side of the house that leads to the garden gate. The patio where I do all my charcoal-grilling all summer long was also weed-free. It was just such a great feeling. So it made me want to get busy on that wacky deck I have and try to get it looking good again.

I spent several hours sweeping up dead leaves, etc., and re-stringing the patio lights so that they look nice and neat again. And now all the lights work! And I switched to energy-efficient lights instead. And I hung up a couple baskets of flowers. It finally just looked really good and then I knew for sure that after the lawn guy comes next time to do the final major weeding, he will have it under control for the rest of the summer.

My life is so fucking insane, gang, that I really rely on the sanctity of my backyard to get some peace, you know? Plus I have wind chimes out there and if I have company over and it gets dark enough, I have tiki torches. Plus I also have this really pretty mosaic bistro table with chairs that I put out if it's not raining. I have what is referred to as "the whole 9 yards" -- but, I'm also thinking I would really love to have one of those old-fashioned wooden picnic tables so that my whole family can come over for cookouts. Anyway. It feels really good to know that paradise is pulling itself together. (In fact, last summer, when the electric company sent someone out to try to figure out why my little house was basically hemorrhaging electricity, the guy doing the investigating -- this Black guy with long dreadlocks, wire-rimmed glasses, a front shirt pocket filled with pens; sort of a cross between a Rasta and a techie-geek -- had to go out back to check on something and when he came back inside he said, "You've really got quite a little paradise going on out back, don't you?")

Okay.

So while I was doing all the sweeping up and re-stringing of lights, and a little bit of weeding, & hanging up baskets of flowers, etc., I was singing. I was singing the song "Love's Been Good to Me" because I had heard it on the Pandora radio thingie for the first time in decades yesterday morning and I couldn't believe that this song I had completely forgotten about -- well, I still knew every single word to it. It was so weird. But then I couldn't get that song out of my head for the rest of the day and so I was singing it out back while I was working.

And when I looked up at one point, over by the bird feeder, the little bunny was back, along with about 3 squirrels, the male cardinal, a bunch of goldfinches and sparrows, and a robin was in the bird bath! All this while I was singing and sweeping, etc. Normally, they all disappear the minute I step outside.

I mean it was just TOO fucking Snow White!! It was unreal, gang!! All that was missing were a couple of bluebirds tying some sort of ribbon in my hair, you know???

Well. How cool is that, regardless? Corny, yes, but still so cool. Yesterday, it was simply a wonderful, wonderful world.

[Bobby Sherman singing "Love's Been Good to Me." Me & Bobby, whom I adored when I was a little girl growing up in Cleveland, have the same birthday! July 22nd. Okay, well, separated by 15 years, but you get the picture, I'm sure.]