// There is a bird that begins singing within a few minutes of midnight every night. This bird lives right outside of our bedroom window. There was another midnight bird outside of my apartment in St Louis -- found this old photo from my move in day, December 30, 2009. So I consider midnight bird songs auspicious. Also I miss those windows something fierce (also the entire building).
// If I explained the plot to you (68 year old man drives around New Jersey) it sounds like a snoozer but I couldn't wait to get back in the car each day to listen to Richard Ford's Let Me Be Frank With You this week. On yesterday's drive home the protagonist wanted to visit La Fogata here in San Antonio - the collision of art and life! A huge component of my enjoyment of this audiobook was narrator Richard Poe -- I could listen to that man read anything. He read several of the Cormac McCarthy books Luke and I listened to when we shared a car. Richard Poe reading Blood Meridian -- I still feel chills.
// Luke installed a bunch of shelving to curb our clutter problem -- and we have kitchen surfaces again!
// George. George works at our dry cleaners. I drop in there no more than once every four months but each time he remembers my name and greets me, at 7:05 am, with an ebullient -- JULIE! IT'S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU! And then we chit chat and I leave with a smile on my face because he makes me feel so special and recognized. This week I dropped off two silk-front shirts and a sweater and even though it's been more than six months since my last visit, George exclaimed JULIE! GOOD MORNING! WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU? Before I picked up my clothes the next day, I popped over to the diner next door and bought George a blueberry muffin and presented it to him (YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO DO THAT!) and he told me that he noticed my sweater was cashmere but he charged me the $5 noncashmere sweater price instead of the $14 cashmere price (IT'S OUTRAGEOUS!*) -- and set up my account such that I would always receive the deeply discounted price as a military discount. To which I replied, George, it always makes me so happy to see you, you just make my day. I walked around the counter and we hugged.
It made me think about the Georges in our lives ... let's all try to be a George for at least one person.
*if you met George you would agree he speaks in CAPITAL LETTERS
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