Friday's summary

So where am I at the end of the week? Well, in a good place, as they say. Visualizing the possibilities. Understanding the limitations.

It helps that according to the weather gods, this weekend brings with it the tail end of the bitter cold winds from some deeply northern territories. Here, in Wisconsin, we're not bracing for winter anymore. We've embraced it and we're moving on!

Both Ed and I get up to let the cheepers out. On this bitter cold morning, after another night of corresponding with my sister in Warsaw, I'm up at dawn to give her a quick call and Ed rises too and I say -- if you're up anyway, then you may as well go out and open up the coop, and he says -- let's both do it.

This is as close as we get to recognizing that it is Valentine's Day weekend.

The deal on the Warsaw apartment is still very much on the table (the seller is scrambling to produce needed documents), but in the meantime, I'm looking at other places -- ones with ugly kitchens and terrible bathrooms and horrible floors and walls. I'm trying to imagine how I would transform an awful space into a beautiful space, because ultimately, that's the best way to invest in something you think may be (eventually) a thing of great beauty, isn't it? Whether I have the stamina for flipping an apartment --that's a decision for this weekend. But I'm exploring the possibilities.

Breakfast, at the kitchen table.





Typically on a Friday I do grocery shopping, but I had to squeeze in a doc's check up and a haircut into some available weekday hour and so this was my morning for it and it was grand to emerge from both unscathed and with a fresh look (well, at this stage of life, no hair cut is really original, unless I go to a short short style, which I have threatened to do, just for shock value, if Ed continues to not notice such important details of appearance). It feels grand to not be sick and to sit back and let someone massage the scalp. It's a fine mix of the important with the superficial and silly.

I have a few minutes to kill and I go for a cappuccino at the same place Snowdrop and I have been hanging out these past weeks. That turns out to be a mistake. The table is long and empty and the child's voice I hear is not hers. I hurry with my coffee and move on.






And yes, the rest of the afternoon is with Snowdrop.

Let's play ball! -- she seems to be saying.






Bounce away, Snowdrop.






Tickle, tickle, little pickle!






Last week she tracked the habits of older Italian men (hands behind her back, pacing...), today she tracks the habits of older Italian women: the walk with rosary (in this case, teething beads).






I go home just as the sun sinks low and the winds gust to a vicious speed, giving me a real taste of how biting this season can be. No matter. Tail end, my friends: we're at the season's tail end.