a day full of promise

I look out my window.  Sunny and cool.  A great, do-anything day.  What should I do?

I still have a $15 credit from a street vendor who sells books on the Westside.  I’ll walk through the Park and use the credit.  I call to confirm he has one of two books he had yesterday when I was thinking of walking over, but didn’t.  Today he has neither.  So much for that plan.

I need a manicure; my polish is chipping.  I start to leave and decide I can take off my own polish and skip the manicure.

I will go out and photograph spring in New York.  I take out my big Nikon SLS camera, and notice it needs to be charged.  I’ll charge it and delay leaving by a half hour.

My mom calls while she is out for her daily 3-mile walk.  She’s 83 and you would never know it.  I am telling her something and in the middle of my talking I hear, “Hi, how are you?”  Without missing a beat, she is starting a conversation with a fellow walker.  I express my annoyance; she gets huffy; I realize it’s not worth an argument; and our conversation ends naturally and nicely.

I eat a quick lunch of yogurt and lace up my sneakers.  The phone rings again.  It’s Meredith.  A short conversation becomes a longer one and my interest in a leisurely picture-taking jaunt starts to wane. 

I finish the last few pages of my Book Club book, This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper — a bad title for an otherwise touching and funny book by a very talented writer.

I speak to Alexander.  I pay some bills.  I read a long email from my friend Hazel in Chicago and look enviously at the pictures she’s sent of a rustic villa where she will be staying while on vacation in Panama. 

It is now almost four.  The sun is no longer as bright.  The day is almost over.  I’ll start out earlier tomorrow to take some photos.  Yes, that’s what I’ll do.