We're almost there

THE BEACH

Three weeks before vacation work starts to drive you nuts no matter how much you love your job. Two weeks before you leave it’s just a minor form of torture. But I am finding the week before FLIES BY and there’s so much to do! Laundry, cleaning, packing, making lists (and all of those are in the wrong order, so you see what the week before is doing to me!) and following them. The day we fly out will be here in less than four days and a little panic is setting in.

But then I remember where I’m going and why I’m going there and my crazed thoughts begin to settle down and I begin to relax. I am flying into the arms of my beloved family, who will forgive me any packing forgetfulness and be happy to see my daughter, who hasn’t been around much for any of them to see lately.

I remember we will be at the beach, where I can walk with my sisters to my heart’s content. We will eat at our favorite seafood restaurant and we will cook great meals together. Although I might have to schedule our visit to Bushwackers for crab legs the night my sister Chris plans to fix sushi. Not my favorite meal by any means.

So it is with great patience that I face this week and watch the days fly by because they are hastening me to the retreat I need the most.

Picture above is my niece Maddie, me, my mother and my sister Chris. I hope we do a lot of that next week...just sitting on the beach listening to the waves crash in.

Jefferson sleeps here

Jefferson

Christine has a new puppy in our house. A chocolate lab my daughter has named Jefferson. He has quite the personality, this little seven-week old baby. He seems to want to please when it comes to training him to go outside but the inevitable accidents happen, always when one of us isn’t paying attention.

He wants to chew on every toy I have bought but his favorite chew toy seems to be me and I have the scratches and bites to prove it.

Does this make me magically delicious?

Last night I brought him to my room and hung out on the bed with him until he finally got that wonderful puppy exhaustion and flopped down and slept for three hours. That’s when I fell in love. It’s a lot more endearing to be his comfort zone than his chew toy.

Cupid...?

We had a lovely dinner,
He bought me a rose, my favorite; yellow.
He didn’t make me dance when the music started
And he was easy to talk to.

So why did I wish I could run to you?
You are an enigma to me and not exactly accessible.
So why do I think about you?
I don’t want a relationship,
I don’t want a boyfriend,
I’m content in the world I have created,
so I find it vexing that you stay on my mind.
I don’t even know you, can’t pretend to understand
what’s happening in my own head.

But honestly?
I feel like maybe the arrow must have grazed me
when I wasn’t looking.

Wishin'

When the day is quiet

I find myself wishingfor something that's absent within me.

Is it wishin' for more time to do what I do

or am I wishin' for someone in my life like you?

Dreams

I love to sleep,

I love to dream...

to see a world that might have been,

to dwell a spell in some enchanted place in my mind,

or feel a man's arms wrap around me from behind.

The sweet simple moments are fleeting in my dreams

and I yearn for them to come to me again.

The Truth

I am without hope and yet I dream.
I have lost duality but found myself.
I am publicly confident and privately lost.
I wear my life on my sleeve with my heart in a vise.
What to do?
What to do?
I really hate I'm still lost without you.

Quiet Time

There's music in my head tonight though the room is silent. After talking and playing music all day it's nice to sit quietly and muse about what song happens to pop into my mind uninvited. Tonight it's nothing I recognize. It's just a pretty background for my thoughts,which is really where I was headed all along.

Kiss

I used to think we should get that first kiss overwith as soon as possible, maybe even before you know if you are compatible or not.

You know what I mean if you've ever leaned in for that first kiss and had your mouth swallowed whole. Or he kisses like he's performing tongue to tongue CPR...and it's not working.

So it seemed logical to me that getting that first kiss out of the way could save a lot of wasted time with the wrong one. Then I learned the excruciating beauty of anticipation.

Staring at his mouth until we cannot help but bring our mouths closer together...and then back off, putting off the crucial first kiss for a little while longer. Talking late into the night on a first date and our body language brings us closer together, close enough to wonder if this is the moment and then pulling away.

The anticipation and hormones flowing make almost touching the most exquisite longing I have ever experienced.Now I know you can never get back your first kiss and that's what I think makes a first kiss worth waiting for.

Haunting

Now you have crept back into my dreams
like I haven't lived this nightmare long enough.
The time of you and I is long, long dead,
what is it going to take to get you out of my head?

Carolina on my mind

Seventeen days and Christine and I will be jetting to North Carolina for a week at the beach with my extraordinary family. I can't wait.

So when I sift through the messages and calls from flood victims and the people who are trying to help them and I can't stop crying, I think about the beach.

I think about walking the sand with my mom and talking about anything and everything.

I think about holding my 22-year old daughter's hand on the plane because she's afraid of flying.

I think about my funny father and the great food he'll be grilling while we're there.

I think about my beautiful sisters who will be at my side for six days running and I can't wait to be with them.

I think about floating in the ocean up to my neck in soft, salty waves, floating all day if the riptides don't stop me.

It's the nature of my job to deal with events like this catastrophic flooding, but the hardships my friends are enduring make me cry. The pictures keep coming, of flooded streets and homes and broken levees and roads and they make me cry. The calls keep coming and everyone wants or needs something. Like I said, it's in the nature of my job.

But today when I can I am thinking of the beach and our escape, so close I can taste the salt water.

Just a bite

I write when I’m hungry or when I’m sad.
Right now I’m seriously thinking about hunger;
the passionate, torch like fire of your touch,
the soul drenching kiss that seems endless
but begins again and again,
each kiss taking us to a hotter place
until finally the heat between us
fuses us together
for that moment in time.

I made it to youtube!

When Jeff Bates was in town for our big show, he stopped by the studio for an impromptu interview. His people were there videotaping, along with our own videographer Scott. Jeff's video guy included a little of our interview in his clip, so I made youtube for the first time ever!
I feel like a Vetters kid now. ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/jeffbatesmusic

If by chance you're a Jeff Bates fan (and you should be, he's awesome) you can hear a better audio quality video of our entire interview here:

http://www.hi99.com/wimpy/videoindex.aspx For this one you'll have to scroll down the archive to find JEFF BATES INTERVIEW 1. He sang "Long Slow Kisses" to me and it's worth the viewing. His voice is simply amazing.