I wake up. It's dark out. I look at my watch, pushing the little button to light it up and putting on my glasses (missing one bow) to do it. Almost 5:30, pretty good. I have slept well. I wore my CPAP until 2 am, I recall. I had Nyquil before I went to bed, but don't think I had anything else at 2. Now I am very thirsty. I get up and fill my little stainless steel water cup again and lie down to try to sleep. No way, for one thing, this cold has reached the stage of incredible body-wracking coughing. Nothing will help but strong medicine. I am so glad to have this available to me. I am generally a person who resists medication, but there have been times that I have been out of cough syrup or for some reason (pregnancy?) not been able to do anything but cough and cough. I think of our forebears, on the prairie or even in the caves, with nothing to do but cough helplessly.

My Dad would help us with hiccups by saying, "Don't think of a white bear," and then he would ask, "are you thinking of a white bear?" And I would be, no matter how hard I treid not to. Now the thought comes that a week from today Molli and Adrian will be leaving again. I try to bury it. "Don't be ungrateful," I say. I give in and get up, filling the little cup with Dayquil and drinking it a sip at a time, appreciatively.

Yesterday morning I would have liked to do some baking or cooking, but didn't feel quite good enough. I made myself breakfast and worked on my knitting a bit and read my e-mail. After a while, Ray got up, then Amelia. We debated when we needed to wake Molli up. Four of us finally got in the car and we arrived at our destination about 10 minutes late. Ray stayed home. It was a caterer in Madison, Georgia: Hallie Jane's. It was a funny building, clearly a working caterer, with examples of china and other supplies everywhere. The office was upstairs, open to below, also crowded with resources, as well as desks and computers. Bethany was expecting us. She wore Tina Fey glasses and was quite competent. We talked about style and menu for almost two hours. Adrain said very little. I mostly let Molli speak, but did throw in my opinion sometimes. She will mail us two proposals, one for a sit-down dinner and one for heavy hors d'oeuvres. Then we will begin to take things away and try to get it to a price we can live with. Of course, we are meeting with one other caterer as well. Before we left, we asked her for the best restaurant in Madison. She was not enthusiastic and the place she would have recommended was closed on Mondays.

We wandered through an excellent antique mall in the same building before we left the caterer. I bought some silvery napkin rings, something Adrian had requested for a wedding present. Amelia was very slow. Molli was the least interested. There was a lot of great stuff.

We ate at the Chop House. We made fun of the menu and the waitress and the clientele. The food was okay--Amelia had some frozen reheated vegetables with cheese. Molli and Adrian really enjoyed their meat and my fish was quite good. The Caesar salad had too much cheesy dressing on it and I only took a couple bites. Now I am becoming one of those people who asks, "can I have the dressing on the side?" Molli and Adrian treated us. We talked about the caterer and the wedding and whether we really want to assign peopel to tables and have them sit there. Molli is taken with the elegance of beng waited on. I do not want people to feel like they are trapped in their assigned seats and waiting for the next course or activity. Someone points out that if you have assigned seats, you can introduce your friends to people that they didn't know; otherwise they will only hang out with the same people. Amelia advocates for something none of us had thought of until the caterer mentioned it: famly style. You assign tables but not seats and serve food in bowls and platters so people can take what they like. A little friendlier?

We wander down the street in Madison and go itno another antique store. Adrian finds some Masonic cuff links and admires them. Amelia and Molli buy them for him--a wedding present from Molli, while I attempt to distract him, clumsily. Although he doesn't speak English and is not familiar with our customs, I suspect this practice is not specific to us and he knows perfectly well what is going on. There are many things in this store as well, but I manage not to buy anything! I am intrigued by the idea of having a store where I buy up things and resell them. I would go to Madison and other small towns around and bring them back to Athens to sell at a profit. Surely other people have thought of this and are doing it. I could start with a few yard sales or a booth at a flea market. First to clean out my house of my own junk...

As we start home, we debate buying a Christmas tree. Since we bought this property in Kenney Ridge, we have always cut a tree from the land, but this year I am not finding any that seem good enough and I have been toying with this thought and trying it on with various people. We came by the sign for Jack's Creek Christmas trees on our way here and will go back by it. This is where we used to cut them years ago. We call my Dad and Ray and ask us to drive down in the truck and meet us (with the saws). We get there before them and walk through the rows of trees: pine, cedar, some other odd varieties. The pines are small and misshapen, a cedar might do. I don't care a lot, but allow Amelia and Molli to decide. Amelia has the strongest opinions.

We wander back toward the entrance, to meet the truck. A puppy comes up to me and I pick it up. The owner is tall and thin. He has a cap on and a strong country accent that we enjoy hearing. There are a couple of fir trees in a barn, already in holders. They are very tall and one is $100. The other is $75, but the owner says he would go $40. When the men arrive, we show them a cedar and the fir. My father is horrified to spend that much money on a tree, but he loves getting a bargain. The fir smells like Christmas and, for me and my Dad, is a "real" Christmas tree in a way that a cedar is not. The owner shows us a few more, even taller, in another barn. They have been kept in water and Amelia says they are still fresh. They were cut in North Carolina; they don't grow around here. He says he will let us have one of them for $40. We can fit a very tall tree in our house. Of course, it is late in the season and he will likely not be able to sell these big ones to anyone else. An assistant materializes who is Mexican. He and Adrian chat briefly and he bales our tree in netting. Ray and Adrian put bungie cords on it and tie it into the back of the truck, the top hanging out. The price tag says $175. I am giddy. It is an incredible tree. Will people believe we cut it from our property? They are going to be amazed to see it at our house, knowing that we usually cut our own.

I ride with my father back to town. He tells me of his adventures earlier in the day, attending a holiday luncheon with the exercise group my mother attended. One of the men, Dr. John, has introduced Daddy to a woman whose husband just died. "I know you're not ready," he says, "but..." Daddy is annoyed. Why would anyone think that was appropriate? I know Dr. John. He is very kind. I can't really decide whether to laugh or be sad or angry. Now I am sad, but yesterday it was mostly funny to me. We stop in town at the Porterhouse Grill, where they have saved some food scraps for us. The bucket is heavier this time.

At Karen's house, Ray is waiting for us. He carries the bucket to the pigs and dumps it out for them. I get the pocessed food for them from the giant garbage can. The food from Porterhouse overflows their "dish." It includes grits (from Sunday brunch) and cheese, as well as lots of vegetables. The pigs are in hog heaven...it is fun to watch them. Karen sells me some cheese (queso blanco) she has made and some cultured vegetables a raw food cook she knows is selling. I ride in the back fo the truck with the tree from Karen's house. Ray's back is hurting and he rides up front. We seem to go very fast; the wind is cold, so I duck down behind the cab with the empty food bucket and the smell of fir tree. Life is good.

At home, the girls are preparing food and drink. Molli is working on a hot toddy for me. Amelia is peeling potatoes for latkes. It is the first night of Hanukkah and it is just past sundown. I quickly light the candles, the shamus and the first candle. My Dad stays just long enough for that. Molli looks up the right words on her computer...baruch adonai elohenu...blessed art thou, the Lord our God...then some of us sing a song we know about the Maccabees. Captain leaves. Adrian reads the Godfather in Spanshi. Molli has bought it for him because he loves the movie, the idea of respect. Amelia doesn't want any help; she won't even use my recipe, but has found one on her iPhone, on Smitten Kitchen. Molli makes chicken for herself and Adrian. She doesn't really like potato pancakes and Adrian would always eat meat at every meal. There is leftover pork roast, but Amelia has put her foot down, no pork with the latkes. I try to wait for a good time to finish up the dessert and put it in the oven--chocolate eclipse. The kitchen is a mess, but after we eat, Ray loads the dishwasher and starts it. We talk some about the next day and then Amelia goes up to the sewing machiine. Ray and Molli and I watch the first episode of Big Bang Theory. She is a fan and our excuse for saving every one of them, which is crowding out everything else and using up our DVR space.

My phone ran out of battery in the middle of the day, so I have no pictures. Amelia has taken some of the great tree hunt; probably they are on Facebook. It is almost 10 when I fall asleep.