Back to Normal

Last night my wife returned safe and sound from her month's visit to Florida, and now everything is back to normal around here. Complications around Charlotte, N.C. turned what would normally be a 12-hour drive into a 13 1/2 hour one, but she was none the worse for the wear, especially in the big, comfortable Caddy that she inherited from her mother last year and that is just the ticket for ordeals like that.

The month passed by fast, partly because the time always does anyway, with every day accelerating by a few seconds over the one before, and partly because I was able to keep my mind well away from brooding over her absence and the fact that I was completely alone in these usually silent woods with just the company of a cat that is as aged and scruffy as I am. I had plenty of interesting things to do, though I tended to restrict them mainly to my stained glass activities, where I actually fnished several projects and started a bunch of others.

Also things were helped along by my neighbors, especially, G. and C. K-J, after they themselves returned from a long vacation on an island somewhere just south of Canada, near Ohio. They invited me over to share in their meals three times, though even there I didn't exactly gorge myself. Eating and sleeping enough, even in the midst of having enough food and time to sleep, were my chief problems during that month, but then they always are. I can't make up my mind as to whether that's good, bad, or inconsequential.