Little Coincidences

I spent Saturday hanging out with Matt, after a solidly heartburn-inducing breakfast from a deli called Hymie’s, near Jen’s dad’s house. It’s funny how, having known someone as long as we have (Matt and I first met some 18 years ago, in 6th grade), that there’s very little compulsion to do BIG HEAVY DUTY CATCHING UP – instead, we went and got low-beam headlights for my car, both of which had burned out in the space of 3 days, then meandered our way to MicroCenter, where Matt bought himself geek gadgetry cheaper than they’d have it in the UK. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing with the new drive, showing off my stereo, and shooting the shit until it was time to take him to his ride to the airport, with Jennie and her folks.

It’s not that I’ve become blase to seeing him, nor him me, it’s that we have become so persistently present in each other’s lives that we know we’ll be around.

Other than that, a weekend punctuated by a lot of work (big releases at work coming up, and the easy proximity of my computer does not make it easy for me and my poor impulse control to get up and stay away from helping out) and some tasty cooking. Roasted Root Vegetable Chili (good, but would be improved by peppers and faux-meat, I thought) and oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies (good, but would be improved by removing the oatmeal, Kate thought).

My grandmother, a week and 1/2 ago, went to the hospital feeling confused and not well. For a while, it was looking like she’d taken a definite turn for the worse, and I made plans to drive up to Boston early, to check in on her. First I was going to drive up Saturday night, then, when she was feeling better, Sunday night, and finally I just made my trip when I’d been planning to do it, tonight. She’d gotten her medications confused and had been taking too much lithium (hard on the kidneys) compounded by her diuretics (also hard on the kidneys), but now that she’s hydrated and having her meds doled out by a nurse, she sounds a lot more coherent, and the nurse-practitioner at her retirement community concurs. I’ll be seeing her next week for Thanksgiving, anyhow, to judge for myself.

Flew up to Boston tonight, sleeping most of the way, and took a cab to get Joachim’s car. The cab ride was exactly the kind of ride I dislike; the guy drove angry, cutting everyone off and swerving between lanes, turning the radio on loudly while I was still talking to Glen on my cellphone, taking a bizarre route to Harvard Square… I was glad to be out and walking the rest of the way, through the white-wine air.

Oddly enough, when I got to Joachim’s car, both of his low-beam headlights were out, too. Looks like I get to buy another set of headlights this week.