Also Hopeful

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I'm doing a little better today.

I got a free half-day, and Tim is working from home.  

It was for the sake of my sanity.  After three straight days in the one-room studio with my poor chicken-pox baby, I was on the verge of a meltdown. The kind wherein you huddle in a corner and chew on your own hair, and then maybe stick your head out the window to scream at your neighbor.

Who, incidentally, lives two floors down, one apartment over, and plays the loudest, most awful music well into the wee hours.  Mostly bass, all vibration.  I will strangle him the night before we move stateside, if I can restrain myself until then.  We'll see.  For now I will content myself with getting up just after the noise has stopped (and I think he may be asleep), and vacuuming. 

We are the most hated people in the complex, I'm sure.

This morning I went for a 5k in the sunshine, the first honest-to-goodness warm day of the year.  I hope it's not a false alarm because I have already unearthed my sun-dresses from deep under the bed and will probably cry if I have to wear an actual winter coat again before November.  The little white snowbells are popping their heads out of the mud, also hopeful.

I think I love them.

And now, after a not-so-brief encounter with the downtown unicef guy (who, incidentally, is my age, almost to the day, and told me it was a sign, and also that rather than contributing later I should go ahead and make an immediate donation because 'PEOPLE NEED TO BE VACCINATED!') ...

... I am sitting in a deep yellow armchair in my favorite cafe, writing this blog post the end of a short story, and reading the last of my book club novel (do you know that quote about finishing a good book? How it's like a death in the family? I almost want to leave a page unread so I can pretend I'm not quite finished).

There is an old man in the  corner who wears round-rim sunglasses straight out of the '80's, woolly multicolored socks peeking through his teva's.  The place is mostly volunteers, in the black shirts with the bird logo that always make me think of Poe.  They're playing a collection of blues over the main speaker, and whenever the harmonica comes in the old man snaps his fingers and bounces up and down in his chair, shaking the wine glass into which he poured his mid-day beer.

And that is why I love this place.

Also they gave me a cookie with my coffee.  Can't beat that.