Tuesday

For someone who is not very entrepreneurial (according to Ed, who is very entrepreneurial), I surely can be competitive. Unreasonably so and in strange situations. Who else feels she has to outperform everyone, beating the dickens out of a treadmill during a stress test?

I was due for such a test (at least, my docs and I think I was due; Ed thinks I would have better spent my time working in the garden) and I had one scheduled for early this morning. If you've had one, you know the whole bit -- don't eat much, don't drink coffee. Plug yourself in and go go go!

You want to keep at it?
Are you asking if I can? Of course I can! Raise that incline!
Okay, that's enough. We're going to stop now.
You don't have to!
How do you feel?
Great!

I have to sometimes wonder why I choose to push myself even when I don't have to. 

I mention all this not because the test revealed anything pernicious (so far as I know it did not), but to explain that it is nearly noon before we sit down to breakfast. And because it is that late, the air has warmed and we can eat on the porch.






The sun appears through a misty haze and it is really a lovely way to start, no excuse me -- to continue a day.

(Daffodil, unfurled.)






(Others will quickly follow.)





Afterwards, I need time to throw stuff into a suitcase. I'm going to Chicago this afternoon and I wont be back until Saturday. That's very many days away -- almost like a Europe trip. It requires careful thought in packing, especially since the weather is see-sawing violently this week between extremes.

In packing my backpack of essentials, I am terribly dismayed to find a small piece of chocolate and a sealed bag of nuts in my zippered pack. Leftovers from my March trip to Chicago. Unfortunately, a mouse found these way earlier. How did it get inside a closed up pack? It chewed a nice big hole in it, shredding the pack significantly and making a general unsanitary mess within. Ugh!

Ed, I have the perfect gift idea for you for my (upcoming) birthday!

Why am I going to Chicago so early in the week? Well, it appears that even a day care center closes for spring break. I get it. People need time off. Unfortunately, parental work doesn't halt. Primrose, my one year old granddaughter, will thus be playing with me during her spring recess. Lucky girl, eh?

But before catching the late afternoon bus to Chicago, I pick up a sleepy Snowdrop at school (which already had spring break, in March, when there was snow on the ground and spring seemed hopelessly far off).






She tries to fit in our usuals in the short amount of time we have together.






We read a whole book, she draws...

(Oh! Bring out the scissors! Bang trim needed!)





... and she is just settling into nice independent play when her father comes to pick her up.



I grab my stuff and make my way south. The usual way: car to bus, bus to L train, then finally a walk to my daughter's home.

I always said that seasons are less relevant for city life. I mean -- you button up in winter, you open up for summer (though air conditioning does put your right back into the land of sweaters and wraps). Your days are rarely set by the weather.

And maybe that's true to a point. But walking now along streets that in winter would have sent shivers down your spine, I have to say, I am very much feeling Chicago's spring. It's a lovely evening, even for doing nothing more than pushing a suitcase along a bumpy sidewalk.

I don't see Primrose today -- it's way past her bedtime when I arrive. This is my time with my daughter and her husband. Tomorrow they'll be second row stuff and my attention will shift to their daughter.