This is one of those days I'd have loved to invite a friend to ride with me (in my car, not tandem) to a Hill Country town, to poke around in little shops, and to have lunch together in a restaurant. (Remember restaurants? The kinds that serve great salads and quiche and pie?) Then we'd stop and sit on the bank of a river and feed stale bread to the ducks and talk, face to face, in person--all the kinds of things we took too much for granted, pre-pandemic.
Kate's birthday was both a taste of almost-normal and altogether wonderful, as she held court on her porch and people called, stopped by, texted, brought goodies from the bakery. My contribution was Chinese food for lunch. Her daughter brought dinner and her son woke her up singing a song on video while playing a ukulele!
My gift to her was a little heart-shaped cactus. We walked around her yard filled with plants and she sent me home with cuttings of so many succulents and three big fat lemons from her tree that I felt like it was my birthday!
I wish everyone could see Kate's transformed house. If you drive down Russell, you can't miss it--a vivid turquoise house trimmed in pink and yellow, just beautiful, so Kate! Her casita in the back is painted in identical colors and looks, as Kate says, like a Fisher Price toy house.
"I feel just like I did when I was twenty," she said. "Except I know a lot more."
To a neighbor who said she liked the house a little better the way it was before the new paint, Kate asked, "Does it offend you?"
"Oh no, I love it,"the neighbor said. "It's just a little loud.....But then, you're a little loud yourself."
"Yeah,"Kate said. "I'm living out loud, Baby, and I'm loving it!"
Since she's planning on celebrating her birthday "all the way to Jesus," (the 25th), let me just say another great big HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Kate--and you just stretch it out as far as it will go!
No comments:
Post a Comment