Perfect Day

Sunday was a perfect day. Because of people. And even the weather was perfect. The night before, we had gone to a party for our wonderful friend Lobelia. Sunday morning Joe and I talked to our neighbor across the street, and his little boy not yet three. After lunch, our family went out for a walk with the kids in the double stroller, and ran into the mom of a newly-adopted one-year-old baby girl. They were out on the sunny sidewalk. This is important to us, because being a mom isolates the mom. They need friends that they can have "play dates" with, but the kids need to be of similar age. So my wife and the lady three doors away got to meet each other. I made sure that they exchanged phone numbers. And the babies met. My daughter was walking a long, long way on the sidewalk, with me hovering near, as she waved away my offer of a finger. Big girl. Then our friend Honeybee showed up. She's in town because her father had an operation for cancer. We'll learn more about that this week. It was great to see an old friend. While she was here, I got a phone call from another friend who has come over often on an emergency basis to help shore us up when the kids were sick. Her brother is going to help her buy a house. Good. Then, as Honeybee was driving away (under a load of books we had given her), my old pal and neighbor pulled up to the curb, honking his horn. He's the one who taught me how to work on my house. I remember him hobbling around, carrying lumber for me even though his feet hurt at the time. He was taking pain pills then. Bikram Yoga solved that problem for him, and he threw away the pills. Then his wife died, choosing not to go through chemo again. After our baby girl was born I rushed her over to their house, maybe the next day or the day after. She got to hold the baby, said how sweet she was. A week or so later she died. Her husband, my pal, took off wandering around the country. We rarely saw him for a long time. Now he looks just great, healthy, happy with his new girlfriend. She's a Real Western Lady. A lot of my relatives are Real Western Ladies so I don't mean anything but respect by that. She's just exactly the sort of person I feel comfortable around. I am happy for them both.

The nature of contemporary American life is isolation and atomization, even for people who like other people. It is a rare day that involves contact with so many good people. And yesterday was a banner day.

Lizard points out that the Spirit Rover has a blog