Day 44

February 13, 2021

Barton's Cove 2/13/20

We took a special trip to Hadley today to buy stuff for a care package headed for Bard on Monday.  This is an Asian Market with food from all over the East.  It is a tiny cramped store with lots of stuff in it and labels in languages I do not know, written in conji and letters spelling words that are just confusing to me.  What a blast.  We had a shopping list and at least Diane knew what most of it was.  I didn't.  It brought me back to being in Japan.  My brain wants to figure out patterns in order to make sense of it all.  Once I knew if something was a spice or a noodle or a snack, I started to get it.  We loaded our baskets up.  I brought home some really good dried mango and some chicken Chinese dumplings.  Nice outing.

We decided not to go to Barnes and Noble though.  There are 500 new cases of COVID at UMASS; it felt too close and the one crowded shopping stop was enough.  We came back to Greenfield and ate Greek.  

Don't worry, I wasn't driving. And I actually didn't take very many pictures.  I was just enjoying being with a good friend.  I got pretty lonely this week.  It was nice to visit and go do something different.

Emily Goodwin gave me this hibiscus tree when I moved into this house almost 25 years ago.  It was a tiny little thing and that first summer it grew big bright red blooms.  It grew and grew over the years and some years it has been fairly thick with foliage and some years it produced flowers.  This summer it actually bloomed several times, but once I brought it back into the house in October it lost all of its leaves and I thought the end was near.  My book says 25 years is a long time for an hibiscus.  But this morning I noticed some new growth and I have a bud.  Ahh, life.