The Remembering Dates Slippage Thing in Everyday Ramblings

I took this shot Monday over in another part of town where the dahlias and the hollyhocks were robust this year. These plants are in a big vibrant community garden.

Instead of getting all het up about have house guests for the weekend I was feeling a bit wobbly last night after walking on the track listening to a Jack Kornfield dharma talk and so I came home and took care of the cats and birds and went to bed absurdly early.

When I got up this morning I had missed two calls from my totally exhausted sounding niece in Seattle about travel arrangements for the girls. They were planning on arriving at 9:45 PM on Friday night so they could take the evening train after school. But it turns out there is a hard and fast rule that as unaccompanied minors they are not allowed to arrive after 9:30 PM.

It looks like they may be coming on Saturday morning instead.

We’ll see. It is all subject to change and will be I am sure until they are safely home.

I am trying to think of this as a big adventure. When they are here I am sure it will be great fun but there is the de rigueur fretting in play beforehand and when they are off on their own in the wilds of the city. How my oldest sister managed not to go slightly insane when I was 14 and 15 and off in the wilds of the city on my own I will never know.

She was temperamentally less anxiety prone than I am. And she was busy. And we didn’t worry so much about that sort of thing in 1970. I remember Leonard Cohen saying that he was allowed to roam around town at will as a teenager and he had all sorts of adventures that enriched his artistic life enormously.

I am going to hold that thought.

Kes and Most Honorable are running away for five days to the house at the beach we stay at starting tomorrow. I am jealous. And they are jealous of Miss E. being here instead of where they are. They understand that it is Portland the girls are coming to visit and not me.

Great aunts are supposed to be eccentric anyway, right? It will be good practice for my dotage.

I have been thinking lately, mostly because my head is full of work minutia and yoga stuff that I am not remembering specific significant dates anymore. I know my wedding anniversary was in early September 1975, that I stopped smoking two days earlier 29 years ago, that my first live in boyfriend took his life in July and my mother passed away in February, at least I think it was February and my father in July but I haven’t a clue what the actual dates are anymore.

I do at least still remember birthdays so that is a good sign, at least those of the folks I am closest to, some living and some not. And some weird obscure ones as well, as the Peruvian guy at work I had a major crush on in my early forties… ah…

Okay, speaking of work, I have some to do and I need to figure out what to teach tomorrow and…

Last updated September 10, 2015