I like it when things work out, and they worked out yesterday. My daughter and her family came in from Houston. They bunked in at a friend’s ranch just down the road and came over to see me. Literally. We saw each other.

Winter is having trouble making up its mind. I had a spring-like day on the golf course yesterday with my brother. Today promises more of the same, warm weather not golf. Winter must have forgotten it has a job to do and let spring back in the house.

I’m starting to get a Christmas tingle. Normally, by this time of the season I’m worn out and ready for it to end. Now, I feel like it’s just getting started. I’m glad I held off on the decorations, both inside and out. Christmas day this year may actually be more like a religious holiday than a commercial festival.

I watched a movie last night about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. Actually, it was about two men key to the creation of the dictionary, but without the dictionary there would have been no story. So, for me the OED got the title role.

A measurable rain fell yesterday morning. Except the device with which said measurements are conducted, failed. Broke. Developed a crack. I was looking forward to the post rain trip to the fence but was sorely disappointed to discover upon arrival no solid evidence of the rain I had just witnessed.

For a while last week, I thought I had a poignant Christmas essay in my sights, full of pathos. With then and now, youth and old age, family and loneliness. Then, it melted away.

The southern porch sits close by the fence that marks one of our property lines. Consequently, we get fence trees, mainly hackberries. Sometimes they’re right on the fence, sometimes just off. A while back we had one just off and I let it grow.

There are three cameras monitoring the nightly comings and going of the local wildlife, which consist mainly of a fox, two skunks, a possum, an occasional deer, and what I’m sure is an assort of raccoons.

Fasting labs used to be no big deal. But that was before the routine was a carefully mapped out journey from dawn to dusk. Now they’re a break in the schedule, I have to write it down on the white board to remember it, and I have to wrap my mind around the idea of no coffee no food before the blood draw.

I’m washing windows. It started when I had several replaced last week. The new glass made the old glass look dingy. So, I mixed up a batch of homemade window cleaner, pulled out the old microfiber rag, and got after it.

Spring. We all think about it. We all love it; especially, when the days shorten to next to nothing and the cold pushes us indoors. And perhaps that’s why no one celebrates the green underfoot as the so called winter weeds begin to appear…

Several weeks back my good work gloves went missing. Now that sounds like they took off on their own. The truth of the matter, however, is I misplaced them. Don’t ask how. I don’t know. I had them. Then I didn’t.

For years a big metal sunflower, a gift from my wife’s Ya-Ya’s, has stood hidden behind the big rose bush at the east end of the house. When it was first placed there, the rose was small, the burr oak a young tree, the yaupon holly a child, and the Orchid tree equally small.

There appears to be moisture in the air this morning and the garage apron looks wet. I’m not going to dignify it and say its rain. Although, we need rain, and it would be nice if some would come.

I was thinking about joy yesterday and trying to remember where I used to find it. And while I was thinking about it the subject of happiness came up as did pleasure and I began to wonder how inter-related they all were and if you could have one without the others.

Yesterday was an ordinary day until about five p.m. Then I got the text, along with pictures, that my wife’s monument had been placed. Nothing like a ton of gray granite with your loved one’s name engraved on it to announce the finality of death.

I finally planted the Pansies. Originally scheduled for porch pots, I put them in the ground. Now I can see them when I look out the kitchen window.

It’s a cold, spare morning today, just like the other cold, spare mornings that preceded it this week. There’s nary a breeze, and it’s setting up to be a nice day. Should be easy on a personal level as well.

Standing in the dark of my yard, staring across the dark of the park next door, I can see above the tree line the Christmas lights of Pedernales Electric co-op.

Yesterday, I decided I needed something to contemplate, some tiny thing. Some obscure thing that didn’t even know I was looking. Some thing that could use a good writing about, even though most folks wouldn’t give it a second glance.