Saturday

...and the day ran away with the spoon!

It's rare that I sit down to compose my first Ocean words this late, so be patient as I gather my diffuse and sleepy thoughts.

Instead of starting off with a chronological recap: how I slept in, how breakfast was late again...






...how the garden was hanging in there, after very many bursts of rain...



(toward the entrance edge of the porch)





(toward the great willow)





(toward the side where we eat our meals)


...I'll stick with noting just two small events from this day.

First, the trip to the farmers market.

Ed hasn't tagged along to the great downtown farmers market this year at all.
You go and bond with your daughter, he'll say each Saturday, which is really another way of saying -- no, I don't feel like it.

But today he agreed to go. My daughter is away for the day and I told him I had just a short list of produce to pick up.

On our way there, we paused at my daughter's, just to peek in on her cats. Two out of the three were delighted to see us. The third hid underneath the couch.



(Virgil and Ed, at play, with a feather toy)




(Virgil at rest)





(Goldie, the old timer and Virgil the newcomer; Goldie surely is wondering why anyone would waste energy jumping after a set of feathers on a string)


Okay, that was nice. But the market? It wasn't the usual joyous affair. Madison's food festival (Taste of Madison) was encroaching onto the square, the same square where the vendors sell their produce and so the whole downtown area was in chaos.  In the end, Ed waited in the car to the side, while I dashed out to pick up the essentials.



(I know what they're thinking: why do so many people not like eggplant??)


Not the kind of market experience you like to have. Still, we got terrific corn, mushrooms, cheddar-cauliflower and salad greens, so I was only modestly disappointed.


The second event? Oh, that's a repeat of something that we both think of as uniquely our own: in the late afternoon, we go to our favorite secret tennis court to play.

If anything speaks to the joy of these days it's that game of tennis that we go back to more often than I even mention here. It's very quiet there and the smell of pine trees is intense. The game is bouncy and perky and it goes by rules that we've made up, though we've never felt compelled to say them out loud. There is always laughter. More than in any other setting, here, on the tennis court, I laugh loudly  -- at my misplays, at his stumbles. It is our language here. The game (which we began very early in our time together) has forever been a joyous event and on days where some worry or fret is so intense that we can't let go of it there, on the court, we end quickly and go home. But not today. Today, we played!