I plug my phone into its charger and the screen lights.  I see that it is just past midnight.  Technically, then, it’s no longer Wednesday , it’s tomorrow, it’s Thursday.  But wasn’t Wednesday grand?

I started the day bathed in a coolness that has eluded me for several weeks, sitting in my rocker outside right after rising, with a re-warmed cup of coffee beside me and the newspaper on my knee.  At nine, I pulled the Prius into the handicapped space at QuikTrip and nipped inside for my morning bowl of fruit and GF protein bars, on special, two for a dollar.   That set me off well for the hard  hours of work ahead.

Jessica texted at a few minutes after eleven, Want to meet, I can drink coffee while you have lunch.  So off to Westport Coffee House I went, for an hour of planning a writer’s workshop with the Lady Jessica.  A bit later, with the coachings of a baby shark, I acquired my son’s driving record (spotless) to fax to Macon County for a recommendation, and then sat for two hours listening to an impassioned father persuade me that he deserved more time with his children.

I couldn’t agree more but unless he’s got the means to pay me, I can’t do much for him.  He understands that.  I ushered him out, emailed a proposed contract for his review, then headed for Waldo.  En route, I realized that I could not possibly face the chartering ceremony for the Waldo-Brookside Rotary Club  in clothes that hung from my frame.  So I detoured to my favorite shop, World’s Window, where the ladies have no trouble finding my sizes and soon had me suitably clad.

By six, I stood with my fellow officers to get inducted as the first board of the newly formed club.  I felt good standing between the co-sgts.at-arms and the Vice President’s two-year old, whom he held on his arm.  After the ceremony, I wandered the room, talking to colleagues, meeting visitors, spouses and children.  And then I read a text from Jessica  You coming to the show? Next stop, the Uptown.

I sat at the far right, row N, next to a woman clad in madras shorts.  Her date swayed to the beautiful music of Melissa Etheridge, hands on her pregnant belly, radiant smile lighting her face.  Three hours later, Jessica and I caravaned to the Holmes House, and then rode in the Prius to Charlie Hoopers, where we ate more potato skins, nachos and French fries than we should have and I drank two full glasses of water.

What a life!  I turned into a pumpkin twenty minutes ago, but I’m not complaining.  In fact, I’m still humming, still dancing, still picturing the couple next to me and the  astonished grin of the one nearest to me when I said, Is that your baby? and gestured to the dancing girl to her left.  And she gazed with love and wonder and then turned back to me  and said, Yes it is; and I shook her hand.  Congratulations! I told them both, and walked away, with an overwhelming feeling of happiness that I still haven’t lost.

Photo courtesy of Jessica Genzer.