An Ordinary Day

Morning. Daylight awakens me. It's going to be a nice day, but a cold one. My guest informs me that we are going to Walmart. Super-crowded, 20-shoppers-per-register Walmart. She buys things to give as Christmas presents. I, too, buy a few things, including fire logs.

Then we go to Target, where we burn time and buy nothing. I navigate the shopping center to an exit road and we go home. The Jeep is unloaded and we walk up the street to visit my friend Butch. For an hour or so we enjoy conversation. We leave.

Back at the house, we put things away and I take a short nap. When I get up we talk for a while, and my guest tells me she's hungry. "What do you want?" She shrugs. "Hot dogs?" she asks. That sounds easy, so I assemble two chili dogs with sides of coleslaw and potato salad. They're good.

I light a fire log and we sit at the end of the sofa, beside the fireplace, and watch Leonard Cohen videos. We both are fans of his music. I've been a fan from the evening I watched him perform a concert on Austin City Limits many years ago. That concert is now on YouTube.

The house lights are low and the fire casts its hypnotic, flickering glow on us, over us, around us. She goes to bed, and I go to my keyboard to type a blog post that I did not have time to write earlier. It's a post about nothing special, about an ordinary day in many ways, but a very nice, ordinary day. Except for the firelight, the house is dim. The air is 37°F outside, on its way to 29° tonight—a foretaste of winter. Tomorrow's high will be 57°. The boiler in the cellar provides our heat; the fire log and the music provide our comfort.

Good night, all. I hope your evening is pleasant, too.