Birthday, on the eve of Earth Day

Hello, world! I am celebrating all your bright spots, your green landscapes, your hope, your beautiful interplay of life and shape and form. I am celebrating the fact that for 69 years, I have been part of it all. So many sublime moments... So many breathtaking experiences! A few close calls, quite a number of challenging adventures. Life, rich and beautiful.

And yes, I'm going to call it a daffodil day at last. This counts, don't you think?

I do have to start the day with a visit to my eye doc for a post-op checkup. She has her usual gravitas about her, but proclaims the surgery to be a total success (so far). (Ed comments -- do they ever say "it went just okay?")

But I can't read! -- I protest.

You should not be reading. You should not be bending, You should not be doing anything after surgery. Just rest, okay?

No, not okay. That's instructions for old people. 70 years plus. I am 69 and I have been waiting for spring for a long time. Spring is here. I am done resting.

Well okay, she continues. But remember that gardening is dirty work. Keep those hands out of your eye!

Personally, I think working in a clinic with sick people can be called "dirty work," but hey, I get it. Farmette fields are basically a mixture of clay, compost and animal waste.  Though how I'm supposed to plant and weed without bending over is beyond me. Oh, the challenges of life!

 

Ed and I go out for breakfast to Paul's Cafe. How great it feels to sit here again, yes, with computers, but with some human exchange as well (we know and like the owners, Kim and Paul, and they put up with us... I'm lookin' at you, Ed!). Life, regained.

 

A visit then to Natalie's Garden Center. Another friend of long duration. I can't yet buy all the annuals because we're to have a hard frost this coming week. But I buy a little. To get us started.

It's a stunning day. All sunshine and blue skies. No jackets, just a sweatshirt. T-shirt for Ed.

And here's the thing -- my eye doc said I had had unusually cloudy lenses. Indeed. With my new one in the right eye, the world is as bright as lemon meringue pie! With the left eye? It's all mustard brown. I have to wonder -- which is the true color of our big beautiful planet? Is it really lemon meringue? Who knew!

Another stop to another flower greenhouse (Kopke's). I like to support Natalie, but there's stuff here that you cannot find anywhere else. Again, I buy carefully, with an eye toward the weather. Anything I put out today will have to come in next week as the Arctic air will chill us once again.

In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. She asks -- can we go to Bernie's Beach? Can I swim in the lake?

Oh, little girl! The lake waters have just melted! Yes, it does feel relatively warm. We touch 64F (18C) this afternoon. But the winds are strong and they'll be bringing the water's cold onto the shore. 

But I'm so warm!

She takes off her sweater. Her socks. I smile at her Wisconsin enthusiasm. Okay, little one. Let's go to Bernie's Beach. 

(Determined!)

(Cold? Maybe. But so fun!)

(A few minutes on the play structure, remembering previous games of "ice cream shop!")

At the farmhouse, I ask her if I can try out a pony tail with her hair. She hates pulling it all back, but it's my birthday and she wants to please. So, just for a few minutes!

And when I return her home, we all pause for celebratory champagne. With presents! 

We can't resist a photo. My girl's husband plays photographer!

Such a beautiful day...

But wait! Not done yet! Late, late in the evening, Ed and I go out to Sardine - a favorite restaurant by Lake Monona. We've gone there on countless family occasions, big and small. Memories abound. But it's been a while. A first for Ed and me since the pandemic. (We are in a golden moment where both have had the second booster quite recently, so eat-outs are less of a worry.)

People have very different attitudes toward birthdays. They love them, they hate them, they party through them, they get together in large packs and dance the night away. Me, I like to fill the day with small favorites: a special breakfast, a trip to the plant store. A bunch of flowers, a small pile of cards. 

A toast, a dinner. It can be at home or out, but something out of the standard repertoire. A cake? Yes, we'll do that later, on the weekend. A special drink with the younger family? That will come next week. It's this whole varied package of delights that makes me smile a big happy grin. Not one thing is exceptional or big or loud. (As Ed's card reads -- "There's just one difference between how much you're loved on your birthday and how much you're loved every day. Today you get the card.") But all of it, card included, concentrated in the proximity of April 21st, is just over the top wonderful.

To all who have reached out, or simply read along today -- thank you.

With so much love.

Wednesday

Call me weird, but I have been genuinely curious about what eye surgery would be like. I've had plenty of operations in my life -- ones that cut me up solid -- so I am no stranger to hospitals or blades and knives that snip and chop away at your insides. But a sharp instrument that would dissect your eye? That was hard to imagine. Your eye, forced into an open position, awaiting the arrival of something that would pierce its wet surface -- like, how is it supposed to react? Wouldn't instinct prevail? Wouldn't you fight tooth and nail to keep that dagger from reaching your eyeball?

Perhaps it would be a stretch to say that I was looking forward to today's cataract surgery (with a laser assist, followed by an implant of the newest lens, though not of a multifocal type), but it is definitely true that I had an unhealthy eagerness to get to it as soon as possible. Because, well, I was curious.

No breakfast today (not allowed!) and a quick walk to feed the animals.

 

("hey, thanks for stirring up the dirt in the pots for us!")

And then, the trip to the Surgical Center. This is a place in our hospitals and clinics system where elective surgeries are performed. Eye stuff. Carpal tunnel release. Stuff you can do on an outpatient basis. Ed dropped me off, I went inside.

And the waiting began. I hadn't quite realized how much waiting. Perhaps everyone needs many many rounds of eye drops, or maybe it's because I skipped days of it that are typically required prior to surgery, but my oh my, we went through a lot of drips and drops. 

After several hours, the doc came in, discussed once more what's coming out and what's going in and at this point I was also offered one valium. You know, that woozey pill to make you think life is good and that you could easily climb Mt Everest if you just put your mind to it.

That's it? -- I asked. You're coming at my eye with a knife and I get one valium? I had hoped for something more trippy, so that I could not only imagine climbing Mt. Everest, but maybe even think that I could paint rainbows with my bare hands or at least run like crazy through a field of Alpine flowers. Well, no matter. I popped the valium, which had no effect on me whatsoever. Maybe it was only a pretend valium. I understand hospitals are stingy with those sorts of things. With good reason of course.

So now comes the trip to the laser machine room where they basically zap every offending piece of nonsense out of your eye with this huge laser zapper. Only they couldn't quite fit it into my eye. They assured me that the eye size was just fine, but the socket -- not so large. We went around this for a while until finally it was in and the zapping began. And here's the good part: even though your eye is wide open, you don't actually see stuff! I was told to look for the little oval shape and stay with my focus on that, and this kept me plenty busy as the little oval shape kept changing colors. 

After a while, the doc and the staff proclaimed total success and I got moved to a second surgical room. Here, they played 60s pop music and I noted that this was a good call, given the demographic that typically gets cataract surgery. I hummed along to "I Got You Babe" and so did someone else in the room. Maybe the surgeon, maybe the nurse, hard to tell.

Now came the implant of this new lens that is supposed to be quite the advanced technology, even if it doesn't offer good reading vision. What I found out today is that it also doesn't offer great super distance vision, but the doc reassured me that most of us dont really require great super distance vision, given that we are not football players or anything. I found that to be interesting reasoning. (In fact, I've always had pretty good distance vision. I'm the one who can spot a brown sandhill crane against a brown cornfield far far away, even as Ed struggles to do the same. Will it now be worse? So that we both will be mediocre sandhill crane spotters going forward?) The doc said we mostly use our midrange vision and this new lens is great for that. Well okay, if you say so. (I do trust my doc totally. She went to good schools and has been doing this for several decades and has the right serious surgeon's bedside manner, with just a touch of a smile. Nothing too big to make you think she's trying to sell you something.)

This second and final stage is where you see beautiful multicolored stars! I mean, it's like a very miniature fireworks display. This is also where they offer you an additional sedative. I dont know why. It would seem to me that scraping your eyeball with a laser is more of a candidate for easing your thoughts than implanting a small piece of plastic, but I went along. And of course, this had no effect on me either. Perhaps it made me more chatty because I distinctly remember my doc telling me to be quiet, as she needed my mouth not to move while she was pushing in the plastic.

And then I was back in my recovery room and Ed drove up and we went home.

Yes, it's a couch day for me. I mean, of course it is! But I did first sit down to breakfast. At around 2 pm. And I lit a candle, because, well, you've got to give some encouragement to spring this year and I figured one bearing the name "Bright," with hints of citrus, would do the job nicely.

And in the eve, well, call it a birthday eve. The flowers come from a guy who really wasn't one to celebrate anything, until, well, several prompts caused him to change his mind.

It's been quite the April thus far. Unusual and strangely beautiful.

With love...

Tuesday

When you have more than one child, you know not to make comparisons as they grow. Each one has superior traits, and struggles with unique sensitivities. You love them for who they are and you help them thrive in the way that gives them as close to a lifetime of happiness as is possible.

So why do we still compare everything else on this planet and rank it all as if it were one competition?

Why did I, for example, sneak a peak at my blog post from April 19, 2021, just to see what flowers were blooming then? (Answer: daffodils were almost past their peak, tulips -- those not chomped down by the groundhog -- were starting their show, and hyacinths were bulging with bloom buds.) It just made me groan with despair as I looked out onto the stubbornly cold garden. Well, maybe not despair, but I did have unfavorable thoughts about what's taking place now (very little) as compared to last year (a lot).

I mean, does this even count as a first daffodil bloom of the year? I don't think so.

Maybe this?

Nope, not yet. Really, I have to be satisfied with these, from the store (and yes, I baked muffins this morning):

At this point, I have to remind myself of the huge significance of April 22nd -- and I don't mean the fact that it follows April 21st. I mean that it is, at least since 1970, Earth Day. Did you know that it was Gaylord Nelson, then a junior senator from Wisconsin, who came up with this celebratory date, picked from the calendar almost randomly, in between spring break and final exams at our university, so that it would capture a large student participation? 

For me, Earth Day is like a reset click: the time to make sure I am really paying attention to what's outside in my immediate environment, and how it's thriving under our stewardship. This week, everything will be very late in showing its spring growth, but even in this unique year, we will get there, and a spring burst of color will come eventually. Patience, Nina! Cultivate patience!

In the meantime, it is still cold outside, but I am finally motivated, so I do garden prep work, digging out weeds -- for the flowers that will eventually go in, for the seeds that are yet to be sown, for all that I hope to accomplish this growing season.

I'm also getting the tubs ready for the annuals. They are a super important component of my garden plan, as they carry me through early spring and late autumn and, too, I experiment with new and old plants in combinations that are both familiar but sometimes sort of whimsical. Ed went to Farm and Fleet and picked up some tin tubs to replace the wooden planters we've used up to now. The wooden ones do not last more than about three or four seasons. They rot, they splinter, they disintegrate. So he wants to try something more durable. Talk about funky! I'll take a picture once there are flowers inside. Right now they look like the tubs my grandma would have used for washing clothes outside, back in the 1950s.

And right around lunch time the phone rings. This, I have to admit, is an expected call, though I wasn't sure it would come so I kept it to myself. It's from my eye surgical team and they want to fit me in for surgery on my most offensive eye (sorry, no insult intended) for tomorrow.

Tomorrow??  Yikes!

What about the second eye? (They only do one at a time.)

Well, that's a problem. We don't have another opening until late summer.

Wait, I will need glasses for one eye and a reading lens for the other? That sounds totally weird.

I have to agree -- she tells me. It will be strange.

Nonetheless, I am moving ahead with it. I am not one who likes waiting around for exciting new developments. [Wow, two unrelated surgeries in one week! Am I feeling old yet??]

 

And in the afternoon, Snowdrop is here. It's just warm enough for her to be tempted by the outdoors again. Well, for a few minutes anyway.

In the early evening, we pick up Sparrow and I drive the two jovial kids home.

("hey, I'm jovial too!")

(daddy's still at work, mommy's busy with dinner, so she helps him with homework...)

After that, the evening is a blur, not the least because I'm pumping mega amounts of drops into my soon to be butchered eye. (You're supposed to be medicating the eye for three or four days prior to surgery, so I'm making up for lost time.)

Dont you think it's a perfect moment for a frittata?

 

(with spinach and oyster mushrooms from the Saturday market)

 

 

And if it's frittata, then I'm almost sure to get a FaceTime call from the Chicago group! It just somehow works out that way.

Later, much later, Ed pops corn and I pour a nice fat glass of white Burgundy. Drinking wine was the one thing that did not make the list of all that I cannot do in the next twelve hours. 

What an interesting way to end my run as a 68 year old, don't you think? (By Thursday, I'll be 69.)

With love...

 

Monday

Somewhere in the middle of the night, Ed comes up to the bedroom and tells me -- I can't get the cats out and by the way you should take a picture of what's outside.

I mumble, indicating half sleep -- I saw it. Snow. It's too dark. Get the cats out or else.

We have this rule: the cats do not overnight in the farmhouse. On the rare occasion that they refuse to leave, we close the door to the bedroom on them. But that should happen only when all else fails. Apparently all else failed. (Likely they were put off by the snow. Well who wasn't!)

No, you really should take a picture. There's a certain quality to the light...

Yeah -- the quality is that it's dark. If I get up, I wont fall back asleep again.

In the end, the cats complained loud enough that they were excluded from the bedroom if not the house, that I had to get up anyway. I have a more forceful personality I guess, because I had no trouble chasing them out onto the porch. And as long as I am downstairs (now wide awake, mind you), I may as well take that picture, which properly belongs on a holiday greeting card. Only not an April holiday greeting card.

Of course, that was it for sleep. Still, there is something luxurious about staying in bed and watching the light slowly creep in. Ed reads, I just revel in the comfort of not having to do much of anything.

But I do have to be up and running on the early side of things. I have an eye doc appointment. Right after I brave the horrors outside...

... and eat a quick breakfast.

My eye appointment is a bit of a gift. I had it scheduled for early summer (first available!), but then on a lark, I called on Friday and they had a cancellation and so boom! I grabbed it.

This is to discuss the apparently crucial need for cataract surgery. I still don't know how I went from "you dont need it yet" last year to "you really need it ASAP" this last month, but once I came to terms with that, I decided I wanted to move ahead with it as quickly as possible. Visions of shedding my smudgy glasses forever, with their imperfect progression of progressives (you always have to tilt your head just so, to catch the golden spot for reading) suddenly became so rosy and beguiling that I could not wait to get in queue for the procedure.

The visit with the doc was long and it was sort of like peeling a banana you had hoped was only slightly soft but turns out it's rotting all the way through. In the space of an hour, I moved from having just a wee problem (cataracts), to having wrinkly surfaces and holes in a retina and who knows what else, disqualifying me from the super cool surgery that would have given me near perfect vision, eliminating glasses forever!

So, only monofocal for me? -- I ask, both glumly and naively.

Oh, no! You are eligible for the Vivity lens which will give you arm's length vision in addition to far away vision.

Well, at least Medicare will pay for that, right?

Wrongo bongo!

At this moment, I'd been at the doc's office for over two hours and my grocery shopper was madly texting me about substitutions, so I kind of tuned out the cost estimate for these not quite super cool lenses. But it was high.

I came home discouraged, but then I had a brilliant idea: Ed, are you still looking to give me a birthday present?

I'm not sure budget breaking eye surgery is what he had in mind (having instead planned a visit to the Dollar Store -- a favorite shopping place for him for Gorgeous cards), but at least he's thinking about it. And, he was much more upbeat about my ostensibly imperfect lenses. 

They're the newest thing! They weren't even available when I had eye surgery 2.5 years ago! I'm not sure why Ed is so keen on the newest thing in eye surgery given that he wears the oldest cheapest Timex watch on the planet and our clothes dryer is a curbside salvage from thirty years ago (man, does that thing spew hot air!), but still...

By the afternoon the snow had mostly melted, but the day's high is stuck at 35F (that's less than 2C), so you can tell where I chose to be parked during the remainder of the day.

April 18th, and this is what we have for my fields of daffodils:

On the other hand, as I noted to whoever was listening a few minutes ago -- I could be ending my sixties blind, and we could be at war. So yes, it was a very very good day, even though, last I looked, it's snowing again.

Sunday

Earth week, Passover week, Easter Sunday, Ramadan month -- all April holidays (this year), all human derived celebrations, all born of a desire to connect, to look beyond your own space, to use restraint. For me -- to engage with the natural world.

But first, well, I sort of grew up with Easter and it seems right to do a breakfast suited to the day, so I pick up a pack of cinnamon hot cross buns at Batch Bakehouse.

Ed says they are bland (this from a guy who actually likes plain bagels) and he is correct, but I think part of it is the mindset. Hot cross buns are supposed to be bland. Once you accept that, then the touch of cinnamon and the cream cheese frosted X can actually be lovely, in a soothing and cuddly sort of way.

I work in the garden despite the cold. I'd been reading more than my usual share of articles about things that grow out there and though I've been slow this year to connect with all the farmette plant life (and there is a lot of it), it's not to say that I have ignored it at some spiritual level. Still, I have this need to actually touch tender shoots and pull out domineering invasive plants. And so I work. Not too long, but I do make progress! And that's a good thing because this coming week I'll begin my planting.

Easter dinner: the young family is here of course. 

 

 

 

They've already done a bunch of traditional stuff with the kids, so by the time they come here, I think we can keep things low key. I even tossed aside the idea of baking a cake. There's a lot of chocolate floating around on Easter. Yes, even at the farmhouse. So I resist baking.

(Sandpiper the bunny rabbit)

(wait, what's Sparrow doing? ice cream? okay, ice cream!)

So, a good day. A happy day. Sweet and playful. April, despite the weather, at her finest.

Saturday

Once unleashed, you cannot hold her back. She rushes with the strength of a cascading stream, ignoring the obstacles. Others join her and soon there is not just one raging maniac, but a herd,  an avalanche of energetic movers and shakers. It all happens so fast! That's her key feature: she never once stops. She keeps on going. Fast. 

This, to me, is spring.

We were up pretty early. The two older kids are coming over for a farmette morning and Ed and I have a few things to take care of before they arrive. It's cold outside -- the water dish for the animals is frozen solid. No matter. I pour the usual warm water into it, feed the hungry beasts...

... and quickly fix a breakfast for Ed and me.

And immediately after, we go downtown to the first outdoor Farmers Market of the year. We have lots of farmette eggs which we typically trade with Farmer John for cheese. We hope to see him there. 

I often skip this first market. Many vendors don't show up for it either. Unless you grow hoop-house or greenhouse produce, you're not going to have much to sell. There are, of course, the year-round producers: the bakers, the mushroom growers, the honey merchants. The cheese guys. But to me, the market is very much produce centered and so I hold back until there is a great abundance of veggies. Asparagus, for example! Maybe in a couple of weeks?

But today, Ed wanted to go and so here we are, on the Square, expecting little, but feeling great delight in what we do find today: familiar friends, some I've known not for years, but decades now -- flower grower David, cheese farmer John, spinach farmer Bill, Jamie the mushroom guy. 

 

 

 

New people too,  like the guys with a flashing sign: Mr. Dye's key lime pies! We had to try it!

It feels unreal to be at the market again. Could it be true? Have we stepped into full blown spring?

 

The kids are certainly energetic! And hungry. For farmette play time, book time, lunch time. 

 

 

 

Finished off with market maple syrup suckers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's later, in the afternoon, when I walk back along the driveway, that I notice the explosion of Syberian Squill out front. And I remember how two or three days ago I was taking a picture of just one blue flower. This is how spring works: from one, we move to a thousand!

And it just gets better and better going forward!

Every single day of this season is so pungent and potent and bursting with something new for us.

Dinner? I cook a green soup. It seems so fitting: green onions, asparagus, peas. With basil and parsley pesto.

Such an enchanting season this is! How good it would be if all us northerners could enjoy it..

With love.

Friday

Well, us gardeners are really pushing it all forward this year here in south central Wisconsin. Six more days of cold weather ahead means six more days of waiting. Holding back. Keeping the perennials in the mudroom. Not bothering with annuals at all. Waiting, because at least here at the farmette, growing flowers isn't a business. It's a hobby and a love. If the joy of working outside isn't there yet, then waiting makes sense. 

It will be a very short spring this year for us.

All the more reason to enjoy a leisurely breakfast.

And to complete the odious task of filling out tax forms. This morning I finished my mom's and then groaned as I got that nasty e-filing reject email. Entirely not my fault -- the verification failed: the AGI did not match for who knows what reason. Probably because the IRS is sooooo behind in attending to last year's filings. (So you print, and you paper mail, and grunt and grumble some more, because it's all such a waste - of paper, time and mental energy...) The end of the tax season marks the end of the grumbling season. A few more days of patient waiting for better weather and we will be on track for bringing that color back into the yard!

For now, the color comes from visits with the grandkids. Snowdrop's school is closed today (I know -- so many closed days in the year!), so we do something a little different: a quick shopping trip so that I can figure out what the girl considers to be wearable clothes for the summer. 

She is the exact opposite of any shopper I've ever known: she loves trying on anything and everything in that little fitting room. But she hates buying most anything at all. I fear she has been hanging around Ed too much!

And then she comes to the farmhouse and we do the usual.

 

I know many of you are celebrating the various springtime religious holidays this weekend and I wish you a happy time of gathering and eating and bunny chasing and bread breaking. It all sounds extremely warm and wonderful, especially if you think back to the past two years. Ed and I aren't big holiday fussers around this time of the year, perhaps because our noses are so turned to the earth and the garden and plants and all those seasonal wonders that give renewal a very nature driven meaning. Still, may you have a lovely celebration. We all deserve some positive thoughts and family moments. And good foods. Never forget to appreciate what's on the table! With a toast -- to renewal and to peace.

With love.

Thursday

The second half of April starts the march toward our growing season. Onward and upwards. The lilac leaf buds grow plump, the flower gardening centers are officially opening, and my bulbs, though not yet popping out daffodils, are certainly gettin' there!

Yeas, this would be my label for this mid April day: we're gettin' there.

Breakfast.

The wind is gusty today and we have a chilly week before us, so our outdoor work time is still limited, but the tomato seeds have sprouted lovely plants under artificial lights inside, and the few daylilies I did purchase arrived in a stuffed box today. They'll wait in the mud room for a few days. Ed has finished planting all the peach trees. We have about a dozen nut and fir trees still to put in, but we're not quite sure when they're arriving, so we are happily enjoying a reprieve from heavy digging.

An equally important component of any gardening is using your eyesight to observe and take note. In this early phase of the season, I do a lot of that. I look at the strength of stems, I note where weeds are a threat. Each day has something new to show me and all of it is quite beautiful. Spring doesn't disclose the mistakes I've made. That's a summer thing. Right now, it's all good!

Snowdrop is here this afternoon and once again I am reminded how blessedly easy is the work of a grandparent as compared to that of a parent. Sure, she and I usually have a bit of homework to get through, but otherwise, my sole directive is for her to wash her hands when she comes in. Everything else is a joint project, with some small negotiation over the food consumption, but otherwise she is the master of her fate. No wonder the farmhouse is such a favored escape for her! The task of getting through the day's essentials is left to the parents, at home. Here, once the homework's out of the way, she just coasts.

I'm still a little bit taking it easy today and so Ed and I order pizza for dinner. I cannot really love it in the way we loved our pizzas in Italy, but we've finally found one that is good enough and we must be getting really ancient because for the first time this year, we've discovered the joy of pizza delivery. Imagine: you tick off a few items on their website and a pizza of your construction arrives at your doorstep! 

Isn't life amazing? That is, if you live in peace. 

With love.

Wednesday

A guilt free day! After a predawn trip to my oral surgeon for the much needed sinus surgery, so that I can continue with the usual implants and other weird things that they stick in the mouths of older people, I am told to take it easy, not move much, pamper myself as best as I can and do nothing that spells exertion. "Dont even blow your nose!' Well now, that sounds kind of gross, but okay! A do nothing day!

But before I settle into my life of leisure (for the day), Ed and I drive home from the clinic with a stopover at Paul's coffee shop. We haven't been here together (indeed anywhere together) in ages! Ed has his computer, but I don't have mine (being rather dopey post surgery and not trusting myself to write anything sensible to anyone) and so I sit and just take it in -- that wonderful feeling of coffee and a cinnamon pastry, with Ed across the table, eating something unconventional (soup? for breakfast?) just because it's been a while since we've been in coffee shops so why be boring...

It's a warm and stormy day today and having now done my taxes (though I still have my mom's but I've got time!), and reviewed my manuscript edits, I feel rather free! Though I am caught in the conflict between my ENT doc (who says my sinuses are basically acceptable) and my oral surgeon (who says they are not at all acceptable), so I sniff dopey stuff and I dab and pop anti-infection this and anti-infection that and altogether it is a very forgetful day in all senses of that word! (Ask me what I did all morning! I'll have to say truthfully -- I don't remember!)

Sometime in my walk from couch to kitchen then back again, I noticed that Dance has found a new favorite resting place near the ceiling and Ed said it's quite photographable. So I took a picture, since today I allowed him to entirely tell me what to do.

And there you have it! A sniffly and odd kind of a day but hey, we ate breakfast out, for the first time in years! Something to celebrate, no?