After I took Ray to work yesterday morning, I picked up my Dad at this house. We stopped at the post office to mail Polly her keys. At my house, he fixed a gutter that had fallen off the roof of the tractor shed when we had snow and ice. Like many jobs, it occasioned lots of swearing when it was harder than anticipated. We decided to leave the other side for another day. The deal was, I would give him lunch, so he had some of the curry from the night before, while I made myself a sandwich. It was a beautiful sunny day and got up to the low 70s in the house. He also hung out the laundry for me.

At 2, I headed to the writing workshop, after taking the Captain home. I enjoyed it very much and read the start of a story I have been working on, about a family dealing with changes brought on by the sudden reduction in oil availability and increase in cost to $10 a gallon. I would love to write something like that and have it published.

venison at Etienne

Ray met me at the hospital and we drove home. I worked on some guacamole. We drove back to town for a wine dinner at Etienne Brasserie, meeting Dad there. He was sitting next to Jim Jones, who was there with a woman we didn't know. We had a lovely time. The food and wine were very good, although Ray enjoyed watching me have a good time more than eating most of it. Oyster, rabbit pate, quail, and venison (he liked the braised venison), followed by 3 chocolate truffles. Each course had garnishes/accompaniments like beet greens (with the quail) and carrot shavings (with the rabbit). The portions were very small, which was fine with me. And we had five wines, starting with Entre deux Mers and finishing with St. Emilion. Very nice. It made me miss France; I wonder when I will go again.

I was pretty much asleep when we got home after 10. But I woke up at 3:30 for a while and read a really strange book. I did get back to sleep eventually.