Soporific

I'm always thrilled when I find a new way to get back to sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night.  I slept until 4:30, which is a long stretch of sleep for me, and then settled in to watch Morning Joe, as I do every morning, hoping it will put me to sleep.  Depending on how outrageous the president has been the day before is a measure of whether I will sleep or be kept awake by anger.

However, Jeri and Walt's sister Alice are here and I didn't want to wake them with the sound of the TV and since I have discovered closed captioning, I just turned that on and read the news.  However, found that reading the news, where you couldn't close your eyes and just listen and hope you'd fall asleep obviously didn't work and within half an hour i was genuinely sleepy, so decided to try going into the living room and lying down and I was asleep instantly!  Slept until 8:30, an amazingly full night of sleep.

Closed captioning may be my best discovery this year.  We've had it for years, but I didn't know how to turn it on and by accident managed to get it working.  What a difference in watching British drama!  But realizing that I could read dialog on TV programs, so as not to disturb sleeping people was wonderful.  I watched an entire episode of Call the Midwife after everyone went to bed....I got to see the episode and understand it and never turned the sound on.

BUT, yes Jeri is here.  Alice drove her up from Santa Barbara.  Whenever Alice and Walt travel, they send each other one word texts, letting the other know their location.  When we are going to Santa Barbara, Walt drives and I text.  So Walt sent a text around 1 p.m., asking where they were and Jeri texted back that they were in Salinas.  So when we got on the road at 3:40, I sent a text saying we were at Dixon and Jeri responded that they were in Sausalito.  Our ultimate destination was Norm's house in Petaluma and based on where they were and where we were it sounded like it was going to be a race to see who got to Norm's first.

As it turned out, we did, but they were right behind and about 5 minutes later, Norm's wife Olivia showed up.  We did what modern families do these days when they all get together.

 

In time we went to Lily Kai, a nice Chinese restaurant (where we had a Latina waitress) in Petaluma.  It was delicious and we sat at a nice round table which was just perfect for being able to talk to everyone.

 

Dinner was delicious and we talked about, among other things: plantar fasciitis, orthotics, mattresses, and teeth.....and I marveled at how old we had all (even Jeri) gotten!

Back to Norm's house for dessert and to watch the brief video of Jeri and Bri playing a duet and then we headed home, in 2 cars.  It was a harrowing drive since the road is narrow and winding and there was not heavy rain but heavy drizzle and too many cars.  I think we were all happy to finally get to the freeway.

Polly was on her best behavior and only barked a little and ended up in Jeri's lap.  Victory, after only 8 years.

This morning I made a big batch of waffles and sausage and then Jeri and Alice Nan headed off to Atria to visit my mother.

Alice will be leaving this afternoon and Jeri will be here another 2 days.  It's nice having her home -- well our home.  I realize her home is in Boston now.