I am lacking sleep, needing more coffee, but well-fed and happy. We are spending the weekend with our Maryland friends, J. and L., who have two adorable twins, a girl and a boy who are five years old, plus a one-year-old boy who is now walking and exploring everything like crazy. L. has this special dish she always makes for breakfast on Sunday mornings called a Dutch Baby. It's a eggy crepe-like dish that's baked in the oven, has lots of butter and is served with a lemony butter and confectioners sugar glaze that you dribble on top. They served this to us this morning along with two strips of bacon, a wonderful fresh fruit salad AND (we really didn't need this) an assortment of danishes. These were cut into fours, so that by having one piece you could convince yourself you weren't eating that much, a theory that falls flat when you find yourself reaching for the third piece...
But this was our brunch. We got to sleep late after a very late night out at a party. We are getting too old for this sort of thing (ok, not really!) and P. and I are certainly not used to being up till 3:30 a.m.! When we go out in New York and stay out past midnight, arriving home around 1 or so, it feels very, very late to us. But then, we've gotten in the habit of getting up pretty early. I used to be a night person when I worked as a newspaper reporter and it took me YEARS to break that habit. Now that I am used to a more "normal" schedule it's strange to stay up so late. Sleeping past 9 a.m. feels weird. Even if I get the same number of hours sleep, my body has an extremely hard time adjusting and I feel a bit sick. So, I'll try to take a nap later.
We click with J. and L. in so many ways. We are about the same age (they are about two years younger), we all like to read a lot, we all like to play games -- we're planning to play Taboo or Scattagories later) and we usually like the same kinds of movies and music. The three of them are more into science fiction and fantasy reading than I am; I am more of a dabbler and tend toward uberrealism or sometimes surrealism (I'm thinking Henry Miller; I don't know how you'd classify him). We are sorry they live so far away, but we've been coming down every few months to see them. J.'s mother lives near my parents in South Jersey, and next weekend we'll get to see them again because they'll be up visiting and we'll be down south in order to attend a party in Delaware.
I left my cats Fat Orange Boy and Booger Face at the vet's for the weekend. All the time I've had my cats, nearly 14 years, I've never left them at a kennel. I've always left them with family to watch. Now that Fat Orange Boy has diabetes and it's more work involved not so many people are willing to step up and help out. He needs shots twice a day. This isn't hard to do at all, and he doesn't fight or make a fuss at all. In fact, he seems to like it because I give him the shot while he's eating. But I can understand not wanting to take on that responsibility for someone else's cat. Booger Face is no problem; he's easy to take care of, but I wanted them to stay together. I felt bad about it the whole first day. They can't stay in one cage because of vet's rules, but they promised that they could be in adjoining cages. I KNOW they'll be fine, I just miss them and worry about them. We have to leave really really early tomorrow morning in order to pick them up before 3 p.m.
I'm tempted to lie back down NOW and sleep...
