Plain old Wednesday.

My cold/flu/whatever is still lingering, but I feel better. Yesterday was a busy day, considering that I haven't been out of the house much since we got back from Germany. I wanted to keep all my germs to myself, and I didn't feel well enough to go out until yesterday.

I had a dental appointment, which I was able to keep. Miraculously, I didn't cough or sneeze while the hygienist was cleaning my teeth. I told her to work fast, just in case, and I was in and out of there in record time. The dentist has moved to a newer, larger office. Their old location was small and cozy, now it's big and corporate. They're in a four-story building made of black glass. When you're on the inside of all those black windows, you can see out but no one can see in. Everyone in town calls it "the onyx building," because that's what it looks like-- a giant block of black onyx, dropped in the center of a lush green lawn.

I also kept an appointment I had made to get my hair trimmed. I was overdue for this trim, the ends getting a little scraggly. As always, N asked me if she could cut my hair shorter. Her scissors are aching to give me a shorter, more trendy style. Which is why I never let her wash my hair and cut it wet.... she cuts it dry, just snipping off tiny bits here and there, keeping my style the way I want it, which is easy for me to keep up, easy for her to maintain. When N is finished cutting my hair, she always does the same thing--- points to the floor around the chair and tells me that I hardly let her cut anything at all. Which is just the way I like it. N may not be entirely happy, but I am.

After the cut (or non-cut, depending on whom you ask), I went into the antique shop to see our friend J. Well, J wasn't there... he has been in and out of the hospital since we went to Germany-- with heart problems, for goodness sake. He went in for routine tests and his blood pressure plumeted to next to nothing, and they rushed him to a heart specialist. The general prognosis: he needs a pacemaker. Not only a pacemaker, but one that will jump-start his heart if he flat-lines again, which he did three times during his hospital stay. J will know by the end of this week when the procedure will be done, and for right now he's home, but he isn't allowed to do much of anything. Dealers and friends are taking care of the shop, and struggling with computer records and J's unique bookkeeping style.

This day may be just a plain old Wednesday to me, but it's a glorious day for our friend J. Any day when he isn't on an operating room table with a flat-lining heart machine next to him would qualify as a great day indeed.