18 Years, nightmares (unrelated) and other stuff

Wrote the beginnings of this a couple of nights ago and forgot to post it. So for the record:

Tonight my best girl and I had a date to celebrate our 18 years together. The intrepid Zach and Rebekah agreed to keep the twins while we went to DePalmas for dinner. We rode around for a little while and talked, then while waiting for a table we saw the Polhemus sisters I had lived next to forty odd years ago, and we were ultimately given a pleasant booth against the wall where we had a lovely meal together. Even a few minutes together is such a rare thing for us nowadays, and three hours was just splendid.

Parker came to me first thing one morning recently to tell me about his nightmare. He said he dreamed that he had come into my room in the night to say Dad I hate to wake you to tell you the bad news, to which I responded something like What is it, someone's blood pressure or cholesterol? Yes, he said, the Sox traded Youkilis (their first baseman, one of his favorites) because his cholesterol was too high. I was reminded of how dreams tell us so much of what is on a person's mind - in this case baseball as the backdrop and his awareness of conversations Mom and I have about things like my medical checkup.

I've been renovating the treehouse the last several days, a minor repair turning as such things tend to do into a major project. As Parker said, Just think, all this started with the removal of a little rot in the roof. Several days later I'm still working on it and probably have a few days ahead of me. Having a little trouble getting the steps right, and this is the sort of thing that slows a project down. The devil is indeed in the details. I think it will be worth it ultimately, and the yard looks better already.

I'm taking Lucy to be spayed in the morning. We debated whether to postpone this given the extra work load with the twins out of school for at least the next two days due to what Henry calls the flyin swu. No one in our house has been hit yet, but it's definitely in the schools, so we're being extra cautious. Anyway, Lucy is supposed to be calm for the next week or so after this procedure, which should be interesting, but we decided that the effort of keeping her still outweighs what we would have to deal with should she come into heat.

So another installment in the saga of the Evans clan. Tired now, going to bed.