Abstract Thursday. : : Imprints*

The weather is trying hard to decide to rain. We would welcome the rain but would appreciate it if it just got on with it instead of drizzling halfheartedly making it cold but not nearly wet enough. I realize that the British reading this are probably not very sympathetic to this whining. We had to laugh at a picture of our governor standing behind a podium in the middle of a dry, cracked lake bed surrounded by cameras, lights and reporters to announce that we are in a 'drought emergency'. There was nothing forthcoming about what to do about it , so sit struck us as an exercise in wasting fuel and exacerbating the conditions contributing to climate change rather than doing anything useful about it. I hope that whole entourage was driving electric vehicles.

I hear Matt referring to this as a 'semi-official' vacation, but I suspect that between Covid restrictions, the fact that his company headquarters are in St Louis and he is in charge of products made in Asia, means he can do whatever he wants from wherever he wants. I'm learning a lot about baseball bats....Or at least I'm learning that there is a lot more to baseball bats than I ever thought about realized. Matt's activities have switched from wine and beer to golf today with Jim and Will. 

His presence here  has certainly livened things up. Spike barked at him every time he came out of the bedroom for a couple of days, but he  definitely knows who he is now and is even happy to snuggle on the couch with him...an honor reserved only for me until now. He  has made great progress in getting used to welcoming extra people into the house since Matt got here. He seems to be getting the picture that if we let them in, he doesn't have to protect us from them! John's scooter and crutches have also helped him realized that if they come in carrying ladders or vacuum cleaners they do not have to be driven off!

John and I saw Kathy and got relief from our aches and pains and general words of encouragement as John is getting pretty fed up with the boot and crutches, I am getting sore with fetching and carrying things up and down the stairs, and we're both fed up with each other's company. I told Kathy that I felt that I had aged far more than a year in the last year....I suspect everyone is feeling somewhat that way but when the years remaining to us are feeling more numbered, we feel the need to get out and make the most of them more. 

California has the lowest rate of Covid infection in the country with 60% of people having had at least one vaccine shot. I think the main concern about opening up again is that we will do it too soon, as it seems to be quite rampant in other places. But we certainly can't live like this forever....

Tomorrow we are going to our beloved Willi's wine Bar for dinner with Jim and Dana and Will  (inside...we're all fully vaccinated) before Matt goes home on Saturday.  Our last meal out at a restaurant before the Lockdown began on March a year ago  was at Willi's with Blipper Evelyne Naylor and her husband. It will be be fun to go there for our first meal in a restaurant since then.