When Is Summer Going to Be Over?!?

Complaints about the cold hereby retracted. I realize that, besides reacting to the current chill, I was assuming that the cold part of the year had set in and that there would be unrelenting misery until April 1 or so. Today I went to the monthly lunch of my father’s classmates from University High School. There was a fellow there I hadn’t met before. I don’t know if he was attending for the first time ever or just the first time in a long time. He looked mildly perplexed as a metalhead noticeably younger than the rest of the group walked right up to him and stuck out her hand. I asked if he had known my father. He said he had. I said, “I’m his daughter.” He said, “Are you really!?” It is very satisfying to be with people who knew either of my parents, as there are hardly any such people left.

The restaurant we go to is the Knight’s on Dexter Ave. My favorite thing there is the Reuben, and I always get an order of onion rings to pass around, because everyone likes a person who gives them an onion ring. It has been a while since I’ve had a Reuben there, however, because they often have a special that looks great. Today I had something called a cowboy burger, with gloppy barbecue sauce, bacon, cheese and jalapeño slices. It was very messy to eat, but delicious.

I walked out with one of our group, who said she is glad I join them. I said I am glad they let me come! When I got in my car, the temperature read 94 degrees, and it was even a bit humid. I could see a sheen starting to appear on my forehead.

I went to Arbor Farms to get the treat I feel I am entitled to after eating out; I think of these as days of indulgence. The treats have lately become one kind or another of Hu Chocolate, of which there are several wonderful choices (because unrefined coconut sugar is just completely a different thing from sugar sugar). (I know it’s not.) (But I don’t have it every day.)

I stopped by the post office to mail the signed proposal for the survey of my lot, and I went to Sherwin-Williams to get paint samples for the outside and inside of the new screen porch.

Back at home, I visited my plants and watered the ones that seemed to need it. I snipped random bits of ivy here and there, and weeded some weeds. Each day, I offer metta to each new plant, and I try to consciously see something about each of them: the tallest branch on top or the one sticking out the farthest to the left or right or what might be a new leaf.

I booked a flight to go San Francisco in November, ordered a small fortune in cat food (thank goodness, the clinic in San Francisco is still approving the prescription cat food), and reserved a Zipcar for Thanksgiving in Sacramento for me and Tom. My trip to SF will be long: three weeks, but I have various social events scheduled, and I have to eat at Plain Jane and Orphan Andy’s, and I need to get over to the succulent garden in Golden Gate Park to put a token amount of my parents’ ashes there hopefully without being apprehended—this was an explicit wish of my father’s—and I also hope to pack up my stuff and have movers come and fetch it all and drive away with it while I am there.