The Perfect Sunday

I’m almost scared to write about my perfect Sunday (yesterday) for fear I will jinx any future Sundays, but I’m not superstitious, so here goes.

Our plans for this weekend were to take off a few days and drive to Portland, sort of a Daniel apology and belated birthday trip for me. However, with the uptick in COVID-19 cases and increased mask mandates, we decided to reschedule for a safer time. But all was not lost!

As a result of a catering job we did in Dayton, I recently met a lovely lady who is a Waitsburg resident. She read my column and took note of my love of tennis. She told me that she is also a tennis player and asked if I would like to get together and hit sometime?

She is much younger than me, played tennis probably since she was a young girl, and played on her college tennis team. Since our Portland trip was put on hold, I agree to the invite with trepidation, but I’m used to being humiliated on the tennis court. We played Sunday, and although she is a much better player than I am, I was not humiliated so we set a date for the next Sunday. I had fun and maybe even made a new friend.

It was an excellent start to the day. I also had high hopes for dinner. We had lobster and ribs on the menu last week, and although we sold most of them, we had some left. Ribs and lobster are two of my favorites, so I was ready for dinner!

On my walk back to the house, anticipating a great dinner and feeling pretty good about my tennis, I bumped into our friend Eric. He just returned from visiting his family in North Dakota and was bearing good news for Daniel and me. He brought us the North Dakotan candy we love! Daniel got his “chippers,” dark chocolate-covered potato chips, with emphasis on the chocolate. The licorice was a new addition, and he brought my favorite, “butterfingers.”

Eric joined us out on the deck, and we snacked on some prosciutto, cheese, homemade bread, along with our cute, tiny tomatoes. Friends, beautiful weather and topped with great candy, Perfection!

The following day, Daniel got started on his usual Sunday mowing, edging, and weed whacking routine. Not to be outdone, I decided to clean up the area in the back of the yard, where I had been picking, dumping, and building a huge pile of dead plants, weeds, and tomato branches. I cleaned, dumped, bagged, weeded more beds, and dug through plants to pick more of the pea-sized tomatoes. Yes, Eric, they are truly a practical joke of a plant.

After all the dirty yard work, I took a long hot shower, changed into comfortable clothes, poured a glass of wine, and realized that Daniel was deep into “computer whatever” in his office/studio/man cave and I had the couch, the remote and the TV all to myself. I watched the Vienna Philharmonic give a concert, as thanks to their health care workers, filmed live from a spectacular outdoor venue. Perfection!

While enjoying the concert, I pulled out my knitting bag to continue to work on the baby blanket I’m making for Kate’s grandson. If he’s lucky, he may have it for his college dorm room at my current pace.

My perfect day ended with our dinner of leftover ribs and lobster on our deck, with very few bugs harassing us. Later we managed to watch a movie together, one without guns, monsters, aliens, or disasters and destruction. The perfect ending to my perfect day!