Lazy Days

 I’ll admit it.

We are pooped.  Burned out.  Kaput. 

We had a rip roarin’ summer and are paying the price.   

All we want to do after work and on the weekends now is pull the shades down and catch up on whatever show we are obsessing over that week.  Downton Abbey, you are in my sights.  But I wonder  if this isn’t just a post summer breather and if this kind of thing happens when you find out your next assignment in the Foreign Service.  We hit Morocco pretty hard our first year and a half and now it feels like our exit is just around the corner.  I’m hesitant to grow more roots as they are soon to be torn out.  But to be completely honest, we’ve also blown most of our travel budget for the year.  We’ve taken to calling our self imposed hermitage “_______ Family Austerity” (names changed to protect the innocent) and we mean it.  Birthday trips to Thailand don’t grow on trees. 

BUT this down time has reminded me of all the lovely, simple things that add up to daily living.  I’ve been making ice cream and prepping the last of the summer vegetables for winter soups.  I’ve remembered that I like to read and even started writing again.  We’ve revived the family band and started working on new songs.  Max and I finally tackled the sorting and organizing of our massive book collection – this being the first time they’ve all lived together – and it was as satisfying as we’d hoped.    

And we’ve been rediscovering Casa .  Over the labor day weekend Max and I took the Pupperoni out to the beach by Dar Boaza.  A dread locked French hippie runs a little store that sells stinky cheeses, gluten free products, cured meats and imported goodness like curry paste and fish sauce.  It also offers a menu-less café.  After ordering crepes, salmon and ham n’egg respectively, we were led to the cafe's back yard where a rustic picnic table with hemp place settings greeted us.  So did two older French men smoking and drinking coffee, as the French are want to do.  The French man closest to us was so delighted to see Buckley that when he jumped up on the picnic table bench the French man grabbed him by the cheeks and kissed him square on the mouth.  Ahhh, kisses from strangers.  Wait, that's not a thing...                  

I went to the Marif market on labor day to search out some herbs that have been evading me for weeks.  (And when I found that mountain of basil, I bought it.  All of it.  I’ll not dwindle away in a basil-less winter).  As I picked out shrimp for our green curry (thank you dread locked French man) I started asking about the other fish on display.  The fish monger was very helpful, even explaining how to prep and cook different fish.  I was just starting to feel warm and fuzzy about my trip to the market and my ability to engage with locals when he asked “Are you married?”  We went from “This is Red Snapper, cook it with lemon” to “Are you married?” in seconds.    

Bien Sur!  I said.  Even though of course! is a bit of a strange answer to that question.  Plenty of people aren’t married.  My husband is at home with the dog.  I said in French.  He laughed and put my shrimp into a purple plastic sack. 

And that’s a nice thing.  A husband at home with the dog.  Dinner to cook, books to read and nowhere to go.