This morning there is Chai in the teapot rather than coffee in the percolator, when I watched Stacey caffeine-cramp halfway up a wall last week I told myself maybe I ought to start cutting down too... First drugs, then smokes, maybe a little alcohol too.
Yesterday was smile after smile, racing out of here in time to find that despite the evilness of cars Ford only lives twenty minutes away, racing into Fordlet's cranky afternoon but his smile is still big enough to eat your head.
We chattered about all of it, her project and the first ever article about the internet, how she still wants to call me monstre and how I am quite happy to respond to that name, we talked about the "Docks" and her discomfort with the T&A-ness of it, and my total obliviousness to the drunken pickup trucks everytime I pass them.
We chattered through the grocery store, of Tamari sauce over Soy, of how to pick the right type of tofu, of indian food and echinacea's pretty purple flowers and the magic in its roots, of strength vs flexibility and how to build both at once, of yoga (which seemed to be a theme throughout the day) and how everyone does the "downward dog" quite wrong and then all of a sudden we were back at her place, Fordlet tangled in his blanket on the grass and Ford and I in stretchy cotton pants in strange upside down positions
And she talked with so much passion in her voice and apologized again and again for over-explaining but it was so alright, I learned so much just from the way she thinks about the hows and whys and wherefores.
Racing home my addicted five minute pause at the computer made us late for dinner at "Tortilla Flats" where the Fajitas were lovely but not nearly as tender as the smiles rebounding from pint glasses and deeply burnished walls.
When Mr. Pyke jokingly pointed out that he loves me for my body, Kitty was so wonderfully adamant that SHE would be keeping my for my mind.
Keeping me.
Keeping me.
In my head I thanked Mr. Pyke for leaving her such a glorious opening, she said it so sincerely, grinning ever so wide, and when I mentioned having overdone Ford's "salutatio to the sun" (slightly more complex than the one in Paris) she perked up even further than talk of boots and pornography, and "downward dog" became a theme for the third time that day.
Watching drunken Rob shyly push himself past deeply ingrained barriers, watching Kitty laugh with glee in her sweet way, watching Mr. Pyke look up to his friends and the way the eddies of affection tumbled about each other.
Walking out of the restaurant, marching two by two to the car, Rob dropped back and barked for my keychain, and oh I KNOW I'm overanalyzing this one but when he gave me the compliment of Mr. Pyke's extra car key because it made more sense for me to carry it than him...
I took it very happily, the extra weight on my keychain some form of acceptance I hadn't realized I'd been wanting for.
I certainly don't want it from the current climbing crew, or from this or that coffee patio gang, but somehow from these painfully intelligent, congruous, passionate people...
When they invited us in after dropping them and their montreal-bagels off, when Kitty turned out to be another morning person and the two of us giggled plans shyly at each other to go play in the stores before the rest of the world wakes up on Saturday when we stepped into their condo and I perched on the couch with one cat in my arms and a a second one crawled over my lap and a third one purred up against my leg and the fourth, the unfriendly one, headbutted my arm for attention and Kitty exclaimed "everyone wants cuddles from Gila!" I thought I would cry my pint glass right out my eyes.
Taking it too seriously again, these little words, but coming from them they were so large, almost as large as the invitation to come by for kitty and Kitty cuddles anytime, almost as large as the purring cuddles themselves.
We came home to each other's arms, early enough to spend real time together, ad I bubbled on for extended minutes about yoga and Kitty and Rob and how happy I was to have met them and oh how wonderful they were and endless patented monstre enthusiasm, and when I finally fell asleep
the recurring nightmare of the past few weeks
took well into the night before it could sink small sharp fangs into my membrane again.