Good morning. It seems that I’m beginning to get more neglectful about my responsibilities. I have no excuse so please forgive me.

It is 0850. I got up about 20 minutes go but I woke up at 0254, 0412, and 0731. I have a busy bladder alarm clock and I can’t seem to reset it. This is a normal night for me any more. It’s just diabetes at work, I guess. Because of those multiple awakenings, my afternoon naps are justified. It’s not because I’m old. It’s a medical condition.

Or, maybe I should quit drinking water a few hours before lights out. I’ve thought about that many times in the past but my thirst overpowers my desire to sleep through the night so I’ll just work on a plan to live with it.

I’m not sure I did anything worth sharing these past few days but that’s not unusual. When scrunch my face up into thinking mode, the initial response usually gets me back to yesterday, not 3 days back. Let’s go backwards and see what happens.

Yesterday Lydia left me alone, unsupervised, to go to Portland for her appointment with her Eye Lash Lady. She does this every 3 weeks and calls it her 2-hour nap while getting new hairs glued to her eye lids. I bet she listens to music while that’s going on. Maybe next time she’ll let me go with her so I can watch the process. It actually kind of fascinates me in a way. The end result is Lydia has gorgeous eyes. Can’t deny that.

She’ll probably eat fussy because I put a photo of her out for everyone to see, so please don’t tell her I did it. This is an older photo, by the way, but it is definitely Lydia.

While she was gone, I planted myself in my rocking chair and settled in for another binge session with Veronica Mars. When she returned I quickly switched channels so she could continue her binge-ing of Gray’s Anatomy. I find it kind of comforting to sit and watch GA with her because I’ve seen many of those shows with you. It helps the illusion that you’re right next to me.

After watching it for a while Max convinced me that he needed a trip to the river so he could look around. When we got there darkness was falling … now there’s a mental visual for you … darkness falling. Thinking about that makes me wonder what kind of sound it makes when it hits something. Considering it’s a thing about nightfall (there’s another one) I can only imagine it’s a gentle “thud” that’s generally not noticed by the masses.

Anyway, I took his leash off and let Max run willy nilly because there weren’t other dogs to capture his attention. He loves to run, as you know. When he lags way back I’ll make a soft whistle and he’ll perk up. Then he accelerates to full throttle and comes at me with a big smile on his face. He used to stop by me after that, but now he goes by and I can feel the air move as he zooms past me. He’s full of joy in that moment and you can tell he‘s pleased with his position in this life. That makes me happy. I was so relaxed the rest of the evening that I forgot to take my evening pills. That seems to happen often any more. Guess I better set a daily pill alarm, huh?

Sunday morning I went to church and was surprised by the increased attendance. There weren’t other over 30 people there. Amazing. There is an increase in folks much younger than the rest of us and that’s a comfort. Perhaps we’ve completed some sort of cycle where old people get out numbered by the young instead of having just old people around. It’s encouraging.

After church I went to the Walters’ home for lunch. I think that’s becoming a tradition and I enjoy it. I’m not allowed to bring anything but myself because they are following a strict process about what they eat. We had a really good salad with sourdough bread. Jennie is becoming the sourdough queen of Matzen Street. Maybe of St. Helens. She says she has starters all over the place and she’s getting really good at it. She may convert me to sourdough yet.

I think that covers the gap in communication so I’m going to stop, now.

I love you still.

Me

PS — In case you’re forgetting, this is us. I confess, however, that I have a beard now because you haven’t told me shave it off.