 |
| Downtown Wilmington. |
As you can probably tell by my sporadic posting and general
silence when it comes to writing and responding to comments, we still don’t
have Internet at our new place. I have been calling an automated number
regularly and the recording at the other end keeps telling me the issue keeping
us from being connected will be solved in two days. Of course, that two-day
deadline shifts on a daily basis, but I am both stubborn and hopeful - a bad
combination when it comes to these things. The newest date is August 16, so please
keep those fingers crossed!
I’m used to blogging fairly regularly and to be honest, I
feel anxious when so much time passes between posts. How can I catch you up and
document my life without overwhelming our screens? I can’t, so I won’t. Instead,
I’ll just jump right in with the usual Weekend Adventures and pretend that it
hasn’t been a week since my last decent post. Deal? Deal.
So: this weekend was pretty great! It was our second weekend
in Wilmington, which is really hard to believe. It feels like we’ve already
been here forever. Saturday started early with an easy three mile run, a quick
shower and then a drive over to Tidal Creek Co-op, which has delicious, albeit
expensive, organic and veggie-friendly foods, for the community yard sale they
were hosting. I hoped to find some cheap and not-too-ugly outdoor furniture for
our screened in porch, but all I came away with was a $2 boogie board for the
beach. An excellent consolation prize.
After the yard sale we drove downtown to check out the
Riverfront Farmers’ Market. It was a cute little market and I scored a dozen
eggs, a bunch of kale, some cucumbers, a vegan breakfast bar (so good!) and a
gorgeous bouquet of flowers for just five bucks. All in all, a great haul.
We got home from our morning adventures at about 10:30am and
were greeted by two very excited dogs. Seamus and Calvin have become spoiled by
the dog park that is located a mile from our house and demand to be taken there
every single morning. Once we have jobs and school starts, this will most
likely cease being an every day occurrence so we’re enjoying the routine while
we can. We bring our coffee to the park and stay for about an hour most
mornings. This weekend we finally broke into the “inner circle” of dog owners –
that is, the regulars who gather in a group while the dogs chase each other
around their feet. They’re not an unwelcoming group, but it seems new people
require a week of being sniffed out before they’re absorbed into the circle. Dog
park politics are very strange and interesting. I should write a story about it
one day.
Saturday evening included not one but two big events. The
first was the last home bout of the season for the Cape Fear Rollergirls. My
new MFA friend E. joined Nathan and I and we watched, cheered and jeered as the
Cape Fear All Stars slaughtered the visiting team. I think the final score was
something like 250 to 60. I was impressed with a lot of the players on the Cape
Fear team and picked up a recruitment flyer – tryouts are at the end of the
month. I’m tempted to join but I’m still on the fence. It depends mostly on how
much dues are and how much time it will take up. I love roller derby but I know
all too well how it can take over your life, and I’m not sure I’m in a place to
make that kind of commitment. We’ll see. At the very least, it’s awesome to
have a local league to support.
After the bout, E., Nathan and myself headed to the home of
a second year MFA student for a party held to welcome the new kids to the
program. I met a ton of fellow students, put a few faces to names, and did the
whole, “Where are you from, what is your genre, where are you living, how long
have you been in Wilmington?” thing for about four hours. From what I have
gathered, the MFA program at UNCW is pretty social and the people in it are a
lot more laid back and fun then I anticipated. I was afraid that everyone would
be serious and intimidating and much cooler/smarter/talented/worldly than
myself, and while the people that I’ve met are all of those things, none of
them made me feel inferior or self-conscious. It was a good party and an
excellent way to kick off the social side of my new writing life. Now I just
need to kick off the writing side!
And I think that about covers Saturday. Clearly I will not
be recapping every day to such a degree, but I wanted to give y’all a taste of
life in Wilmington. I have a few more posts clanking around in my head that
will be more focused, but you’ll have to wait for those. Until then!
 |
| Calvin enjoys life in Wilmington! |
