Gibbous

The call never came last night. Rather it came (or so I thought) while I was in the shower this morning, the house phone ringing as I was shutting off the water and me too slow to get to it. I tried calling the number back - my brother's cell - with no luck, becoming more concerned each time. In between attempts, I raced to dress and throw the last few items into my duffel, convinced that a call from him that early meant I needed to scramble. 

I finally gave up on him and tried my mother, to find she sounded worse, unable to keep any food down.  She told me my brother was planning to call her physician when the office opened, and a plan would be developed.  When I finally reached him, he confirmed this.  I checked my schedule - did I dare load everything up and drive to the office?  It was a light day, so I opted to work from home. It was odd, deciding at the last minute like that, all showered and dressed and lunch packed, coffee in a travel mug.  Planned work-from-home days are sketchier - maybe I shower, maybe I don't; maybe I'm wearing jeans, maybe yoga pants. Definitely no shoes, and coffee is taken earlier, leisurely, on the porch while the birds find their way to the feeders and before the heat of the day.

Oddly, it was a productive day - I knocked a couple things off my "To Do" list, while I waited anxiously for a text update. They were waiting in the clinic.  He was entertaining my father. She was going in for a CT scan.  The longest waiting then, for an outcome, results, something that would indicate the direction this was going.  And then at long last a text  "They see nothing" and a diagnosis of sorts - she has a sensitive stomach and needs to stop eating at the greasy spoon dives they favor. That word - nothing - such a relief.  Your mind jumps to conclusions, you start thinking of and planning for the worst, even as you can't plan for it.

Like a weight lifted, my work day ends.  Loose ends are wrapped up and I text a friend.  

"Free tonight?"  
"Sure", she says.  
"Dinner?"
"Where and when?"

We finalize our plans, and I pick her up.  We catch up as we walk around the wholesale club, me buying candy for the office, and fruit for me, her grabbing a case of water and teasing me for the sheer volume of candy in the cart.  It's been a few weeks since we've seen each other, but we have that ability, to just pick up where we left off.  It's comfortable, it's good.

Dinner is too much food (always) and having some fun with our waitress.  It's one cocktail each even though we both want more, and not finishing the last bites, and talking about her work and my work, and the husbands and the kids.  And before you know it, it's time to go and attend to more of our mundane worlds.

Coming home means rolling the trash bin to the curb, which reminds me of last week when the boy and I had a close encounter with Stinky. It's skunking hour, just about dusk, and I hope there are no unfortunate brushes with nature as I walk silently back up the driveway.  

There is still time to sit on the porch, watching the gibbous moon rise, bright in the sky and pushing away more of the shadows in the front garden. Are the cooler nights leading to fewer lightning bugs, or is it just the brightness of the moon?  When the mosquitoes find me, it's time to come in - I don't want to ruin the kiss of the moonlight by lighting the citronella candles anyway.  And so another day ends, and the house prepares for the next.