Gratitudes 7: a gift in the mail, wind in the trees, and short lines at Safeway

I might just take this little project to ten and call it done. While remembering to look around and appreciate things every day. For today:

1. An actual piece of personal mail in the mailbox: a small surprise package from Anahola, HI—my Howler friend Kim. I know I've written about my tiny writing group, the Howlers, before:* three of us who meet every day, virtually, for at least 90 minutes, usually for multiple 90-minute sessions. Kim and Sherilyn are good and actually write (I believe!), but I tend to use the time to get work done. Though soon, that will end, when I kick my final job out the door and hang up my spurs. (As I've threatened to do many, many times, so go ahead and laugh, I can take it.) But then? Yes, I intend to be much more conscious about using the time for creative pursuits.
     In any case, the package: it's a little hand-made journal, covered in luscious velvety paper decorated with butterflies. It arrives at a perfect time, really. I can devote it to making notes and catching thoughts about this new phase of my existence, or use it for my morning list, inserting a little much-needed structure into the day. Thank you, Kim!

2. Watching and listening to the wind rustle the oak leaves and the ivy that has crawled up and taken over some dead pines, on our afternoon walk. Grateful for the cool, fresh air here, as so much of the country (and Europe) roasts in extreme heat.

3. David is out for the evening, so I'm on my own for dinner. And I felt like pad thai. So I went to Safeway (because I also felt like some wine) and got some P. F. Chang frozen chicken pad thai. Perhaps not the healthiest approach—ordering takeout from our favorite Thai restaurant would have been better—but quick and easy. The best part, though, was: short lines at the checkstands! The other day, there were so few checkers—and the quickcheck line was closed—that the lines were snaking in two directions down the broad approach aisle. I just dropped what I'd intended to buy on an empty conveyor belt and skedaddled. I do not suffer lines gladly.... So today: I'm grateful even for Lery, a checker who usually annoys me because, if I'm buying wine, he puts on a jocular tone and says, "It says here check ID. Are you over 21, young lady?" Wink wink. I do not find it amusing. But today, okay, I gave him a smile. What the heck.

*Yes, I knew I had: here, for one, and not so long ago.