A while ago a young friend sent me a paper she has written in her field of teaching children who have learning disabilities. I didn’t read it beyond the first sentence because it was written in “academic speak”. Somewhere, somehow, this friend, whose personality and style are totally unpretentious, has bought into the importance of impressing colleagues who are stuck on being above plain language and comprehension. It’s a little like those computer nerds who write programs only they understand (like Vista) and foist them on the buying public.

Anyway, she never followed up to ask me what I thought about it, to which I might have answered “duh.”

I have mostly recovered from my URI (upper respiratory infection) but Ed is feverish and undone and has canceled a lot of appointments and is finally making himself rest. I am not, however, in such great shape that a walk or bike ride doesn’t wear me out.

We have been invited to a super bowl party tomorrow and I said I would bring the salad. You all may know by now that super bowl hoopla is like Sanskrit to me – the game, the mystique, the strategy, the enthusiasm, the rah rah – more than a foreign language, an alien planet. Actually, I am more intimately at home with the Borg and the Cardassians from Star Trek II. However I can always try because I love the hostess, Fatima.

Ed will not go, it’s pretty certain, because he is in no condition to socialize. Nadine, gtf,* will pick me up or if Ed is not much improved, I’ll give her the salad and stay with him.

There is a regrouping of the wine tasting club Ed and I were part of last winter season and one will be held here on the island next Wednesday. I will at least drop in because it is near enough I can walk it. Actually since so many people bring red wine, that I do not drink, I mainly socialize and avoid the tasting. They write their opinions (full-bodied, robust, etc.) of each wine. The opinion I might write for each and every red, is dark, gritty, sour. I can only drink a very little of it and if I am serving it, often I will give the rest of the opened bottle to my guest to take home. My nightly wine is one glass of dry white and that is another reason to be cautious at these events. I don’t do well with more than one glass of anything.

So, here’s to teetotaling. Thems me thoughts.

xx, Teal

*gtf=go-to-friend