I Like How the Day Sounds

These are days you'll remember
Never before and never since, I promise,
will the whole world be warm as this...

Tuesday morning I awoke to the kind of e-mail that makes you smile at a screen.

"Any chance you could come visit tomorrow (Wed)? We can hang out...spend the night? I know it's late notice. Think about it! You don't need to bring anything but a toothbrush!"

This from the woman I'd just met Sunday night at a crab feast at her colorful and stylish cottage on the northern neck.

You can probably guess how fast I accepted an invitation to the river for a couple of days.

I don't want to say I was excited about the trip, but I woke up at 6:15, laid there for an hour and finally realized I was too keyed up to go back to sleep and got up.

This from the person whose earliest waking time is usually 9ish and, more likely, 10ish.

Knowing how beautifully appointed her house is, I shouldn't have been the least bit surprised at the picture perfect day she'd ordered up: sunny, low humidity and the bluest of skies.

Arriving mid-morning after only a slight detour (of course I got lost for a short bit), we immediately took up residence on the deck overlooking the dock and river.

Stretched out under an enormous umbrella only slightly bluer than the sky, on lounge chairs only slightly less blue than the sky, we proceeded to talk as only two women born a year apart and with equivalent amounts of life experience can.

Since we'd been strangers just three days before, we covered every base from our old-fashioned childhoods (can you say crinolines?) through high school (pants, at long last!) and into adulthood with all the unexpected twists and turns of adulthood.

Memories tumbled out of both of us. A lot of Venus and Mars stuff. About the balance of power in a relationship.

It was a blast to discover how much we had in common and not just a disdain for sleepwear although goodness knows I appreciate a kindred soul.

We broke camp long enough to devour BLT salads she whipped up and brought to the deck before resuming our lounging to learn more about each other.

Okay, so maybe I had a little bit of a girl crush.

Mid-afternoon she asked what I wanted to do and graciously indulged my quest to ride the Ottoman ferry, something I'd been unable to do Sunday because the ferry doesn't run then.

Much to our surprise, it wasn't running yesterday either because the tide was so high, but at least I can say I tried. Again.

Someday my ferry will come.

Back at the cottage, we took a walk down Cow Shed lane where she showed me the old shed that used to house a thriving riverfront business .

Fifty cents bought you admission tot he nearby pool and $1 got you a night in one of the log cabins I could just see through the pine trees.

Best of all were the stories about the old shed back when it was a dance hall with bar stools made of saddles and weekly dances.

After too much fighting between male customers over girls, the Shed instituted a rule that men were only admitted if they had a date.

Because we know how men settle down when they're under the influence of a woman.

But since the dance hall days were long over, we were happy to accept her husband's invitation when he called as we were sipping limeades, asking to take us out to dinner.

And since girls gotta shower before being taken out, that meant I got a chance to take advantage of the roomiest, most attractive outdoor shower I've ever seen.

With the blue sky overhead providing accent color to the yellow and white shower room (stall is too small a word for this place), I took my time like I never do showering inside.

If you ask me, the world would be a happier place if more people showered outside.

Clean and dressed, we took glasses of Picpoul de Pinet to the deck to await the arrival of her husband, our collective date.

The drive to Reedville resulted in my first real look at the quaint town I had been in once, but only to catch a boat. This time, we took a slow drive to admire the Victorian and older elaborate houses that lined the main drag.

At the Crazy Crab, we got waterfront seats on the deck with a view of huge fishing boat masts and boats bobbing gently nearby.

The nearest boat was named "Love's Last Episode," a fitting title, we decided, for true love.

It was our server's first night and she barely looked old enough to bring us wine and Arrogant Bastards, but she did so she must have been older than we could tell.

She did a fine job of bringing us all kinds of fresh seafood: mussels, steamed shrimp, crab cake on fried green tomatoes, hush puppies and slaw.

Midway through the meal, another young girl approached us, asking if we wanted popcorn.

Not sure why we were being given  snack food mid-meal, we happily accepted nonetheless and a basket of popcorn soon showed up.

With a sweeping view of Cockrell's Creek and the orange setting sun, we took advantage of having male company to talk about relationships, both beginnings, endings and restarts.

My friends dated for years before breaking up, then spent a few years dating others before reuniting.

They now refer to the period apart as "the terrible awful," a phrase I find very romantic coming from them both.

Somehow the subject of music led to his penchant for a satellite radio Italian contemporary music station, music he finds sexy but not distracting.

"When Italian contemporary comes on, I know what's next," my friend said, making me laugh out loud.

Dessert was creme brulee and chocolate pots de creme under a dusky sky, pushing us solidly into stuffed territory. We left full and happy after such a pleasant and talkative evening.

I'd been given a choice of three beds to spend the night in and chose the one on the guesthouse porch, a twin bed under a ceiling fan and inches away from one of the three screened walls.

With the breeze whispering through the trees just outside, I fell asleep on the porch bed and slept like a rock until a cardinal alighted on the nearby picket fence this morning and began singing me awake.

After breakfast we took a walk down Queenstown Road to find the commemorative stones where local lore claimed that John Rolfe had first set foot.

No trespassing signs stopped us not long before the river, so we had to imagine it after all.

Today's plan was to take a ride in the boat and it turned out to be a glorious day for it because the river was almost smooth as glass under a cloudless sky.

We started out and toward Irvington and in no time, spotted dolphins nearby. Within seconds, one grazed the boat next to where I sat.

Jumping up to see them better, we powered down the boat and began, well, stalking them, allowing them to lead us, follow us or just frolic for our delight.

My friends said they'd never seen dolphins out there on all their boat rides, so I felt privileged to have been along when it happened.

After a while, it seemed as if the dolphins were playing with us, staying underwater for a bit and then popping up incredibly nearby, dipping far under the boat and coming up on the other side, entertaining us constantly.

Scads of pictures were taken as they rose out of the water in unison, so close we could hear the sound of them breathing as they broke water, impossible when you watch them from the beach at the ocean.

We followed, snapping pictures all the way to and under the White Stone bridge, where the bridge above created a silver and blue metallic reflection on the barely rippling surface of the river.

We passed a midnight blue sailboat looking quite patriotic with white sails trimmed in red.

They pointed out Merroir and the red-roofed Tides Inn with yachts docked in front of it. You could almost smell the money from where we were.

But natural beauty aside, the dolphins were our main focus and honestly, the delight we took in their antics was no less after an hour and a half than when they first began.

It had been so unexpected. They were so close. It was such a random thing. We were so lucky.

Eventually we returned to the dock for lunch and one last adventure: my first ride on a jet ski.

Taking the rear-facing position behind them, we sprinted around the river, even making a loop around the Ottoman Ferry in progress from shore to shore.

I'll ride you yet, Ottoman, she vowed shaking her fist at the quaint little boat making its way along at a snail's pace.

Back at the cottage, sadly it was time for me to pack and leave.

You lose track of time at this magic little place, not just because there aren't clocks to remind you of it, but because the days last so nicely with nothing more to do than relax and enjoy whatever is happening (or not happening).

If I were the type to conserve words (as if), I could have done a post that said, "Went to river. Got to know fabulously interesting and beautiful woman and the adoring love of her life. Dinner out. Boat ride."

But where's the fun in that?

...These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break
These days you might feel a shaft of light make its way across your face
And when you do, you'll know how it was meant to be