Upturn

I have been so down lately.  But that's not so interesting so I won't write on that until I can figure out what was interesting about it.

I feel happy tonight for the first time in weeks.  What a relief.

My dear cousin (one of many, but one of a kind) Danny is on the farm here in California; he's staying for a couple weeks to do some portraits of people.  He's an artist and has no idea how adorable, or talented, he is.  (Some background:  Danny is the middle child between Mike, who was born two weeks after me and whom I was in the same class with from 4th through 12th grade, and Annie, whom I've written about before.  The three of them and the three of us [Megan, Brendan, and I] were both raised on the East side of Madison and are closer to being siblings than cousins in many ways.)

Tonight Aunt, Uncle, Danny, and I sat around after dinner after having a lively discussion on abortion and health care and somehow got into liquor. I mean for some reason I ended up sitting on the floor rooting through the liquor cabinet and we tasted the difference between a fifty year old whiskey and a much younger scotch, then opened up the encyclopedia to discover the differences between gin and vodka.

As I surrounded myself with dusty and interesting liquor bottles and realized how much fun I was having, even though I have to get up way too early to start the farmers market rotation again, Danny asked me if they were witnessing my downward spiral, and the dog in the meantime had fit three tennis balls in his mouth.  I haven't laughed like this in a hot minute and it feels good to dust it off.