Eve of Relief

Cali-Daughter Reuniting with NYC Friends Last Ngith

Yesterday was spent totally immersed in feelings of anticipation since I’m getting the Cali-Daughter, Favorite Son, and the ABFA as visitors today. It will mark the first time we’ve all been together since Thanksgiving 2014 before my daughter and the WingMan went left coasting. It’s kind of a shame because this feeling of eagerness totally overshadowed a perfectly good Friday.

First Friday at Brew City

My excellent boss took me out to lunch and then we held forth, as required, for the celebration of the First Friday of the week. I couldn’t however shake the feeling of “let’s get this over so we can move on to Saturday and the kids’ arrival”. I hope the time I have with them will plod along as slowly as the time waiting for them but if it holds true to form it won’t.  There seems to be an inverse relationship between the amount of fun/joy you’re having and the speed of time.  At any rate the day is here and I won’t be allowed to wallow in despair when they depart tomorrow because later that day my favorite Panamanian returns home!

Meanwhile Down in Panama My Wife is Enjoying the Last of her Tropical Days

La Barqueta Beach Near her Home Town of David

And Some Tai Chi

Her arrival necessitated the week long cleansing ritual where I transform the house from good enough for bachelor living to something in the realm of barely acceptable. I don’t want here to think she hasn’t been missed so I will not raise the cleanliness level to the sanitary clean room standards she achieves.

Newspapers in the Snow

I was performing my morning ritual of chipping the ice that formed on the driveway from hell overnight when I noticed several newspapers peeking out of the snowbank. This is a sign the snow has melted to the levels where they were when I returned from Panama. These were the newspapers that kept jamming up my snow blower as I attempted to cut my way into the house. I shoved them into the snowbank once I removed them from the blades.

My Cali-Daughter recommended a book for me last week and since we don’t always share the same tastes in literary pursuits I went into reading Night Film by Marisha Pessl with a little trepidation. I shouldn’t have worried because it turned out to be one of those books that putting down involves actual physical pain. It was so good. The main character is an investigative journalist trying to track down a mysterious film director after the death of his daughter. He picks up a couple young sidekicks along the way and the bulk of the book is their dogged pursuit of clues left in the wake of the daughter’s death.

The story veers into the occult where the journalist, a skeptic, has his beliefs challenged to the core and the reader is left to make their own call on the ending. Some will probably take Ms. Pessl to task for some of the whimsy she engages in but I love it when an author stakes out a claim on your imagination and then leaves it to you to interpret. I liked this book so much I immediately bought the only other book she’s published. Maybe my daughter knows me better than I thought.

Here are some of Ms. Pessl’s words as the journalist observes one of his young cohorts:  “and anyway, he’ll answer to God for what he did.”  She announced this with great certainty. For a girl with nothing to her name but a parakeet, to have such unwavering belief in the reckoning of evil in the world-a belief I could never bring myself to have, having seen, time and time again, depravity go unchecked-it awed me, and it was some time before I could bring myself to speak.”  

Front Yard Today

Back Yard