The book and its cover

On our recent little weekend camping trip we passed this appetizing sign.

For low-resolution screens and/or dial-up readers like me, it reads: Ye Old Green Coffee Shoppe Salmon.

Yum. Yum. YU-UM.

I made my husband turn around not only for the photo but for samples.

And that's when I remembered about judging a... what? cafe... by a ... what? thoroughly moldy name.

The girls and I waited in the car while my husband ("as you wish") wound his way between the apparently hundreds of customers. He returned with THE BEST thick-but-not-bitter coffee and AN EVEN BETTER flaky-but-certainly-not-low-fat croissant. So that'll teach me.

ANYWHAT.

Today, and by that I really mean yesterday since it's now about 2:30 in the morning, was kind of a rough day. It was the kind of day that makes me want to go back to the beach.

I used to work in real estate. (Did I mention?) I also used to have a funny (snarky?) little saying that I'd either get out or grow the requisite blackened heart of a Realtor. (Yes. They insist on the capitalization. Stupid but trademarked.) So anyway a couple of months ago we decided, for reasons of expanding family and choked market and hallelujah in general, that it was a good time to let my license go inactive.

Maybe even before the last corner of my heart was all scummy.

I jest. Sort of.

The past two and a half years of my real estate career I have worked in a wonderful office with some folks I just admire with every bit of me. (I would not lump them in with the vast majority of housing sales personnel. You may know a good Realtor. Hang on to her. And if you lose her number, maybe she left the profession for a reason. Call me. We'll have coffee.)

In the years before that personally delightful but financially devastating association (The market. The market.) I may or may not have lease optioned my soul to the (real estate version of the) devil and predictably paid dearly to get out of that there contract. I try (believe it or not) to speak mostly positively so I don't have a lot more to add about that office.

Let's just say I had to see some of those less-than-favorite brokers the other day and I have spent too much energy on them anyway. It pushes my (aforementioned real estate averse) Pollyanna to her sunnyside limits. It makes me less than likable to myownself. It points out that judging the book by its cover goes two ways.

And then? My agony over the sale of my beloved mare Seven? Fell through. The woman who bought (but didn't yet pay for) the horse abandoned her at the boarding barn. Leaving us with a six-month board bill, a horse who hasn't had farrier care in far too long, and a new wrinkle in the supposedly permanent press that I'm making of my life.

It points out that the common denominator in my bad experiences is, um, usually me and my judgment.

ANYWHAT.

Late in the night I left my comfy bedcovers and pillow behind to eat a bowl of cereal. Because I'm pregnant and obsessive, that's why.

As I was sitting at the computer, eating cereal and reading blogs (thanks, y'all) and sorta acting like a teenager with the sleep deprivation and the coffee shop yearnings, I could have sworn the dog started serenading me. Singing!

My dog is sensitive like that. He would've made a great therapy animal.

OR. He actually had Barney in his mouth. One of those infernal (probably invented by a Realtor -- they all have side jobs) battery-powered singing Barneys.

At least Barney and the dog love me. And I love them. And we're a happy family.

(Is the Barney song stuck in your head? If not, your kids are probably older and you're past the trauma. And I'm jealous.)