“It takes a long time to grow an old friend.”
Today is dark, damp and chilly. Staying close to hearth and home is the best way to spend the day. Sunday is the day of rest, and I intend to comply. The dogs were late waking me up this morning. We all lasted until 10. The dogs are on the couch napping now, such is their lives. I have hidden the cat treats in the closet. If Nala gets them, she deserves them.
My finger is the best it has been since before the bite. The gauze fell off during the night but has been replaced with a nice fresh, white gauze. The finger is still ugly but less swollen. It hurts by the pins where the ache doesn’t disappear, but I figure those pins be gone next week when I see the surgeon.
When I moved to the cape, I was devastated. I was leaving my friends, my school and, most of all, my home, the place where I’d grown up, the place with all my memories. Most of my friends I’d known for the whole of my life. We had been together all the time, in school, and especially, at drill. I was headed to a place where I knew no one. I was going to public school for the first time in my life. I wasn’t excited. Actually, I hated it. I’d get back from school and toss my books. I’d stay in my bedroom. I went back home as many weekends as I could, but as the year went on, I went back less. I got involved with school clubs. I met all sort of new friends. I came out of my bedroom. I stopped throwing books.
When I was in Ghana, my family moved back to my home town, to a different house, not to mine. I had no connection to that house. I had no connection to that town any more. My friends and I had lost track of each other. After Peace Corps, I went home to the cape, and I have lived here since then, but I got lucky in my home town. I found my oldest friends, my oldest friends in time, not age, and we reconnected. We are still friends today many years later. It is as if there is no lost time between us. I am blessed.
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October 23, 2022 at 7:11 pm
Hi Kat,
Today was another beautiful day with strong south winds. The high temperature is 87°
Tomorrow a cold front is headed our way bringing us some much needed rain tomorrow and cooler high temperatures. Unfortunately, not drought busting rains.
I’m glad to hear that your finger is improving. Don’t give up on your care plan.
My two best friends in high school have vanished off the face of the earth. One was born in Amsterdam and possibly moved back to Europe rather than going into the military during the Vietnam fiasco. My other friend was also born oversees in Germany after WWII. He also vanished. His family had a chain of German style delicatessen stores. I have Googled both their names to no avail. I did reconnect with another high school friend, but he moved to Bozeman Montana and became a right wing Republican nut case. I think he is one of a few Jewish people in the entire state. His grandson attends religious school at a group of ultra orthodox, Hasidic Jews. They are very conservative both religiously and politically. We can only discuss non political topics such as airplanes.
You are very lucky to have remained friends with a couple of friends who served with you in Ghana as well as the students you instructed while in the country. Of course you have all of us invisible but electronic friends here on coffee.
October 23, 2022 at 7:57 pm
Hi Bob,
It has been raining the whole day and is still raining now. Rain is also predicted for the next two days. The whole week will be warmish for this time of year, including 70 on Wednesday. Friday will be seasonal.
My finger still hurts at night with a jabbing pain at the pins, but I’m just happy the day pain is almost gone. I really hope to see the end of the pins next weekend.
I still have friends from childhood. I also have friends from high school and college. You are right about how lucky to have friends from my Peace Corps days of volunteers and former students. I do count as friends my Coffee crew, you among them. I really am lucky.