quiet thoughts on a quiet day

Today, I've taken a vacation day -- a real one. I got up early, read for a while, fell back to sleep, and then Robert and I just hung out for a while before getting up. We had a late breakfast, including my friend Jen's excellent stollen bread (darn her -- now I will never enjoy anyone else's!!), followed by reading the newspaper and working some puzzles while the cat took a long snooze on my chest. (darn Robert's brother for introducing me to these puzzles. Now I'm addicted. They're called nonograms or griddlers (an example) and they're much more popular in the UK than in the US. Next time we're in London, I'll pick up a few more books.

I still have to go shopping for tomorrow's feast. I'm now down to cooking one dish, but it's a favorite -- spanikopita.

We bumped into a friend (our hair dresser, actually, but I've known her for a long time and like her a lot -- who else do you regularly get to spend nearly an uninterrupted hour with every month? And I've been seeing her for well over ten years. We've followed the ups and downs in each others' lives and have cheered each other and comforted each other through many of them). She was so eager to get Christmas over with, looking forward to it, but tired, and ready to rest at the same time. You know, I'm not feeling that way. Time can move slowly right now, and that's just fine.

The mother of a former boss (TomP) died a few days ago. I was privileged to meet her a while back when Robert and I were invited over for tea. She was very charming and funny and delightful. Unfortunately, I was in a dark period of my life when it was hard to create new connections and to keep them going. (I still struggle with that, though it's easier now. I still don't claim to do a great job of it, but I'm heartened to have seen some improvement over the last ten years.) And she was starting to struggle with her memory, so she couldn't keep it going either. I'm sorry I didn't see more of her, but I recognize that I couldn't have done it differently, despite my good intentions. I've had some brief emails with Tom in the last few days and hope to go to her memorial service in January.

Robert and I are going away on Monday to Provincetown, one of my favorite places on earth, especially in winter. We'll be there for a few days and enjoy more savoring of slow time. One friend who lives there has already let us know that his annual trip to Michigan will exactly coincide with our visit there, alas. But perhaps we'll bump into other friends, as we often do.