You know her life was saved by rock 'n' roll.

I could gripe about how I didn't get the job I interviewed for. And the excessive agony of playing phone tag when another position is on the line. And I could gripe about how my Alma Mater has billed me for some reason probably unknown to even them... but I won't.

But in retrospect, I had a pretty good day.

With iced tea in hand and Mr. Lou Reed as our spirit guide, Jojo and I headed down to the sea- to Newport- to escape this stagnant humidity that's crushing the frosty souls of the Northeast. It's the kind of weather that makes the octogenarian crowd drop like flies and prompts PSAs about the danger of keeping children and pets in sealed parked cars.

We went to the Norman Bird Sanctuary, a favorite of my clan. Thank Jebus RI is "the Ocean State," because the coast is a life saver. Now I know why a bunch of Robber Barons (i.e. old, fat, rich white men), had houses there- it's so breezey and lovely. We had some banana bread, sat on a small cliff, saw some nature about which Goulet would be proud to sing, and made a pact to find ourselves some pie. We tried a couple of places around Newport with no luck, but third time's the charm. We had a dinner of some apple pie and nice coffee in a cute little cafe. It feels pretty good to get what you want.

Looking down from the cliff to the marsh.
The marsh and the beach.
The meadow, which was chock full of Monarch butterflies.

Like my trip to New Hampshire a couple weeks ago, it reminded me of how much I like New England. I know I need a change of some kind, but New England can be pretty darn nice sometimes. (Once late October rolls around, I'll surely retract my previous statement.) I know that I'll probably always be counted among those sort of surly, coolly polite, guarded people who have a personal space bubble of 6 feet in every direction... in some capacity...