Day in the Life | A Saturday in May
The brief diary of a girl pretending it’s warm when it’s very much not.
Hey you guys! You don’t know me but want to hang out anyway? I read something this weekend that was to the effect of “some people say they’re not here to make friends, and that’s the most unrelatable thing ever. I’m here to make friends with everyone” and guys, that’s me. Plop me at table with a bunch of strangers and I’ll make a pal or two. A few years ago, we had a company retreat that involved canoeing (HR departments dream up the weirdest things, don’t they?) and we were assigned our seat mates of course. Bonding with people outside our department and whatnot. They put me in a boat with a new guy who hadn’t even actually started yet. My suspicion is that they know I’ll talk to anyone and you know what, we did just fine on that little trip.
So how about we spend a day together! This one is a Saturday of a long holiday weekend, so things were sort of normal, sort of not. So buckle up!
5:17am
My eyeballs pop open. I’m an early riser, so this is business as usual. What’s’ not is the light shining in my bedroom window. I hop out of bed, look out the window and see that someone left their car lights on all night. Someone’s in for a dead battery surprise! We have a bunch of family visiting for the holiday weekend, so I go downstairs to see whose car it is.
It’s my husband’s - what a dork! I grab his keys off the kitchen island and pop outside to turn off the lights. My Rottweiler, George, accompanies me and I leave him outside for a few more minutes while I go in to get a cup of coffee. I have a cheap $14 Mr Coffee pot, but that baby has an automatic timer on it and one of the great simple luxuries of my life is coming downstairs to a fresh pot every morning. I do not ever forget to set it up the night before and I regularly think of this routine as self care for future me.
I head into my office and spend the next couple of hours writing, catching up on Substacks, and doing the NYT crossword.
7:49am
I hear my son wake up. I hear him because he’s 8 and still calls out “Mama!” when he wakes up. I go in and we chat about his night. Did you sleep well? Any dreams? I scratch his little back for a few minutes while he continues to doze.
Then I brush my teeth, put on some clothes and head out for a run. I resolutely go for a swift 20 minute run 4x/week and on the weekends, it’s back to back. My Favorite Murder is my podcast of choice this week since I’m a few episodes behind and I learn a little about a stolen piece of artwork from Austria. After my run, I let the dog out again and I sit on the front porch with a glass of water while he moseys around the yard.
10am
Here’s where things deviate. My (adult) niece is in town with her 3 y/o little girl. My 8 y/o son is obsessed with “the baby” and since the kids are playing so well together, she asks if she can take my son with her as they visit the farmers market and whatnot. Fine by me. I’m rarely home alone, and my husband is heading out the door to a car show with his brother. Everyone leaves and I listen to a weird sound: silence.
We’re having a cookout tonight, so I need to do a quick run to the grocery store. I put on my weekend face: SunBum Glow30, a quick swipe of Tower28 mascara and the most elite, can’t-believe-it’s-drugstore eyeliner, and offffff we go.
I needed burger and some buns, but I also end up with a fifth of vodka, a bunch of bags of candy for a candy salad, and some blueberries. Living large.
1:30pm
The house is empty, it’s so weird. I check in with my niece and everything is still cool with the kids, so I make a snack and grab my current read - World Travel by Anthony Bourdain - and head outside. I end up falling asleep for 30 minutes and wake up when a FedEx truck pulls in my driveway sending my dog full nuclear. I’m glad though. I want to make a pasta salad and take out the trash and like 100 other menial little tasks before people start showing up.
4:00
We’re having everyone over for dinner around 5:30, but my mother-in-law is bored, so she asks if she can come over early. It’s sunny, but a little chilly outside, so I build a quick fire in our solo stove so we can perch up outside and yap at each other for a little bit before everyone else arrives. She arrives with a bottle of champagne and we do exactly as I planned. Yap yap yap!
5:30
Right on schedule, my house is full of people. Everyone is pouring out onto the deck and standing around the fire, drinks in hand. My niece (as featured earlier in the day) is pregnant with twins and just shared that they’re both girls, so there is much chatter about that. When the new babies arrive, she’ll have three girls under three, and look, nobody needs to tell her she’s in for it! She. Is. Aware.
Someone fires up the grill and I go inside to get out the pasta and potato salads out of the fridge. There is a flock of kids in my backyard and I can hear all kinds of happy screaming coming from the trampoline. Meanwhile, my husband and his brother head to the backyard and get a real bonfire going. We have a stack of pallets that need to go and it’s the perfect night for it.
The rest of the night -
We eat burgers and dogs and someone brought a strawberry rhubarb pie, so that baby gets smashed too. I pull out a big ol’ bag of glow sticks and start passing them out to the kiddos. As it’s getting dark, they become bobbing little glow stick figures, running around the yard. I sneak into the kitchen for a quick 10 minute clean up (future me will be so grateful!) and shove a couple of Modelos and sparklers in a backpack to take down to the fire. The grown-ups are standing around the big bonfire and we hang out there until 11:30 or so. People trickle out along the way and at the end, it’s just a handful of us (including the pregnant niece, bless her. A trooper). We let the fire die down, spread out the ashes and head up to bed.
