Only two things

that money can't buy
and that's true love and home-grown tomatos

One can, however, purchase lovely heirloom tomatos in all kinds of colors (my favorites were the ones that were orange at the bottom and golden at the top--kind of a tye-dye effect) at the farmers' market and slice them up and sprinkle them with a little sea salt and some balsamic vinegar, and get some fresh mozzarella and some semolina sesame sourdough bread, and have one hell of a feast.

I got out of work early on Saturday, but I didn't do much of anything Saturday night except watch a movie ("Ocean's Twelve," because the other Netflix disc I had was scratched/cracked) and drink wine. Sunday I proofread, then had a wonderful four-hour dinner with J; she has either had houseguests or been out of town for the last three weeks, and she was looking forward to being home alone (and going to the gym) this week. Both her steak and my char were wonderful, and the bananas foster, well, it might be illegal in some states. Plus the server took pity on us and scraped up two spoonsful of sour cream sorbet; it had been for a dessert with strawberries that had been soaking in Grand Marnier and brown sugar and simple syrup, but they were out of it. I begged for a taste, and he managed to supply one, which made me wonder how those flavors could be incorporated into a tart that would last for a couple of days in the store. (And if i don't get a new keyboard soon, one whose keys don't stick, this one is going to be airborne.) Today I finished the proofreading, blue pen in hand, plus did the laundry so I don't have to do it next weekend (handball party on Saturday and Indy car race Sunday).

And today I haven't spoken a word to anyone except to ask someone in the laundry room if she was using the dryer. That part is peculiar: I lived alone for so many years, I got used to having days or even weekends of that kind of solitude. I'm sure I could have called someone if I particularly wanted conversation, and, in fact, there are several people I ought to have called, so it's not necessarily an enforced solitude. For that matter, if someone had called me, I would have been perfectly happy to talk to him or her, so it's not as though I insisted on the solitude, either. Anyway, it's familiar to me, because I lived with it for so many years, but the time with Chuck, especially when we lived together, meant I didn't have it that often, if ever, and it's sort of strange to have it back. At least I know how to do it.

I used to say that the good thing about living alone is that there's noone there when you get home, and the bad thing about living alone is that there's noone there when you get home. I don't really know how I feel about it over the long term. There are parts of the everyday intimacy with someone that I like and that I miss; I missed it when I was alone before, too. But living with someone . . . I don't know. I don't know that I'm a good judge, though; Chuck took up a lot of psychic space, and I don't know that everyone would take up quite that much. It's not an issue now anyway, mind you, it's that weekends of this kind of solitude make me think about it.