weekend lessons v 12

01. If you have sand, they will come. We inherited a sandbox with our new house, and after nearly an entire year went by and we didn't play in it like we thought we would, we realized maybe we didn't need it. (okay fine, we always knew we didn't need the sand box, we just procrastinated).

So Y put up an ad for free sand on Craiglist and, suddenly he is, like, eighteen people's Sand Guy. As in, "Oh, you need sand? We know A Guy." When I get frustrated that he's looking at his phone while we're supposed to be hanging out, he gets all defensive and says, "I'm talking to someone who wants some sand." 

We've met all kind of interesting people who need sand. A girl who owns a crossfit gym fills duffel bags with sand that her clients have to run around with. A different woman reassured us that she was bringing a "friend" to help her carry the 300 pounds of sand she was taking, and showed up with her 7 year old son. What I've learned from this experience is a) never, ever, EVER do crossfit and b) kids are maybe more useful than you think they are. 

02. This can happen in just a few days:

03. There are benefits to winter. So as you can see above, it recently broke 60 degrees -- for the first time since October. The city is rejoicing. You can practically feel the happiness oozing out of people. But I was a little disappointed when I realized that I couldn't go grocery shopping before work and just leave my groceries in the refrigerator-temperatured car. See? There are a few good things about winter.

04. On a related note, if you decide to go to a seasonal patio restaurant on the first warm day of the year, you'll wait in a long, long line. But it will be so, so worth it when you end up eating seafood and drinking cider next to a rushing waterfall.

04. David Sedaris is a treasure. Okay, maybe I already knew that -- I've been a fan of his for years. But I got his latest book Friday night and settled in for a weekend of reading outside. Other than the fact that Y said "you're whiter than the pages of that book", it's been great.

05. I know how to cure road rage: a soothing southern accent reading to you. I'm listening to the audiobook Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. The narrator has the most soothing southern accent (if any of you listened to The Help, it's the same actor that read Skeeter's voice) and it's made traffic kind of the best part of my day.