Saturday, of a kind

It is a singularly odd day with many good things going for it. First and foremost -- Ed is home and I have forgotten how grand it is to have him here again. (The forgetting, I suppose, was deliberate: you adjust to change by not thinking too much about the downsides of the new normal.) Then -- another welcome event -- his old pickup truck died and thus it has to go to the junk heap. That truck was held together with scotch tape, I swear. I feel better about it being off the road (absent a miraculous fix, but Ed thinks it is pretty much a gonner). And one more thing: it's cold as anything outside (we wake up to 45F/7C), but the sun is out, which makes it seem like a very warm winter morning! May be odd, but not unpleasant. 

I leave Ed to rest and head out to the farmers market, buying almost nothing. Just these:

It's an excuse really. To take in that crisp winter (haha) air! From there -- to the bakery.

And now we are finally ready for breakfast together. Not you Dance! I mean him and me!

There are many details of his sail across the Great Lakes and I ask about some of them. Basically things went very well except that they got stuck waiting for winds for several days toward the end. Logging in some quality guy time! 

I had suggested a bike ride for this afternoon, but things have been slipping with my mother and so instead, I went over to spend some time at her place, discussing too with the Hospice nurse our options going forward. I remember when I was way younger, when Hospice care first came onto the scene, I thought to myself -- I have to remember about them in the future!  Of course, it then became mainstream and what a relief it is to all of us who have parents in need of that kind of help at the end of their lives! My mother never really accepted her move to Hospice nursing care from her assisted living room. She thought she was being shortchanged in the care department. How wrong she was! The staff has been round the clock helpful. I could not have managed this without them.

Toward evening Ed did prod me out for a ride. It's jacket weather!

We did the loop, using the new bike trail addition to keep us off the busier road. Ed grumbled a little about how it took the hills (and thus the challenge) out of our ride and, too, the newly paved bike trail cut through our beloved prairie in a really unattractive way...

... but, the sun was still out and the breeze was light and so on balance, it was a fabulous ride.

(Pause by Lake Waubesa: no, the photo isn't crooked, the wharf is! Which is why I am not standing on it.)

And guess who didn't have to put away the chickens tonight! Odd to be suddenly free of that chore. Odd, but in the nicest way.