Anything Can Happen

This is becoming a habit. I got out of the city for the third time this week.

After being invited to a deck christening by the deck builder himself, I'd packed a bag and my favorite pork chops, ready for whatever the brief getaway entailed.

A whole lot of goofing off mostly.

Starting with a big breakfast accompanied by a glass of Prosecco to wash it down, we walked it off with a sunny stroll to a nearby pond in the early afternoon.

The sound of tree frogs dominated as I refilled the hummingbird feeders and within minutes, a tiny, red-striped hummingbird showed up to eat. How do they know?

In order to christen the deck, it had to be completed, so the builder added the last five boards while I finally finished my last beach book - Tom Dehaven's "Dugan Under Ground"- and started a new one under the fan on the screened porch.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a feminist through and through, but sometimes it's nice to be the girl and not have to do manual labor in the afternoon sun.

Especially because I did get to enjoy the celebratory Piper Sonoma Brut we used to toast the new outdoor room - by drinking it, not by smashing it over the bow of the deck. Please.

But, lovely as the new deck was, it was still taking the brunt of the late afternoon sun at that point, so it seemed prudent to use that time for a nap before finishing the celebration.

I warned you, I did a whole lot of nothing...and it was absolutely wonderful.

Post-nap, we took on the rest of the bottle of bubbles to the music of the Finn Brothers, in my opinion, always a fine choice musically. Don't get me started on the poetry of Neil Finn's lyrics - "Wherever You Are," "Fall on You" - the man oozes smart romance and nothing beats that combination.

Watching the sun slide down in the sky from the new deck lasted until dusk when the bugs arrived en masse and three citronella candles couldn't keep them at bay.

Dinner was pitch perfect with grilled heirloom breed pork chops courtesy of Fred and Wilma, corn on the cob, yellow teardrop tomatoes from the garden and watermelon.

Soundtrack: Pandora set to Marvin Gaye, so O Jays, Chi-Lites, Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes. Good stuff, funky stuff.

Most importantly, the new deck had its inaugural stump and drag session on the new outdoor dance pavilion in the country, always my goal for it.

Stargazing, happy hours, wiling away time reading, the new deck offers endless possibilities.

And absolutely no good reason not to cap every evening out there dancing under the stars. Like the Finn Brothers said: "Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you."

Even dancing.