A Saturday in Wilmington

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!