4/2/23

 Sunday, April 2, 2023

In bed at 9'30, awake at 3:18, up at 3:38.  Let Lilly out into 28℉, S wind at 6 mph, the wind chill at 21℉.  High today of 47℉, winds 1 to 19 mph, gusts up to 31 mph.  .3 inches of wintery mix in last 24 hours, no precip expected today.  Sunrise at 6:32, sunset at 7:19, 12+47.

Sarah's in town.  We're fortunate that Sarah's here in connection with one of her business trips to Austin and Middleton.  I begged off of brunch at Cafe Benelux with her and her Mom and Andy's family because of back and pelvic pain.  Sarah texted me this morning asking if she could come over to visit after brunch and that settle the question for me of whether to struggle to and through the brunch with a bad back and CPP.  Had a great visit after brunch and, as usual, she solved a problem I was having with my computer and retrieved some useful info re our HP printer.  Our WiFi problem is a common one; it's not us.

Kitty texts.  I have saved all the texts Kitty and I shared over the last 5 or 6 years of her life.  Yesterday I pulled them up and saw that the last text she sent me was on November 4, 2021: "Hi sweetie The tip ot y nose.  Hav e I tools yu lately s what a godsend CHRISSI s a n this house"  I continued to text her till the day she died, March 3, 2022 and even after she was gone, until March 21st.  Old habits are hard to break and my continuing to write my morning messages to her was just a form of denial on the one hand plus a reflection of my need to write something every day which led to the re-invigoration of this blog/journal.  The daily rant of a crabby old man.  Dancers dance, painters paint, singers sing, writers write. and mourners mourn.

The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai.  I just started this novel.  It begins with one of the narrators, Huong, relating her experience on her way to school with her grandmother, Dieu Lan, when an American bombing raid arrives in 1972, when Huong is 11 years old, her grandmother 52 years old.  What struck me early on was Dieu Lan's response to Huong's question whether they will die: "If they bomb this school, our shelter may collapse on us, but we will only die if Buddha lets us die."  Even Buddhists think God has a plan.