1. Lunch with a Loved One. Miss L’s new school has been such a better fit for us and we couldn’t be happier with her teacher, her pre-care and after-care, and the overall environment. It’s a Leader in Me Lighthouse School that operates on the Covey principles, and the kids and staff take it seriously. (I overheard Miss L playing with her stuffed ponies recently, and she was rewarding one of them for ‘being a leader of himself’.) This week was Book Fair and Lunch with a Loved One, and Miss L got over her fear of mascot ‘Spot’.

2. My last big presentation was Wednesday and the room was full of people. In a bit of a departure, I decided that I wasn’t going to rehearse or practice my already familiar slides. If my biggest flaw is nerves, I reasoned, I had to just say ‘I don’t give a fuck what any of these people think of me’ and stand up and do it. Now, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone else, and it probably will never work again, but this time, it DID. I wasn’t nervous at all, no tremors in my voice, no quavers. I’m the first one to realize when I stink, but this time I was pleased with myself.

3.  GB & I were discussing the mechanics of safely watching the partial eclipse and he reminded me that there is a welder’s helmet in the garage. One of the benefits of having a house still full of my ex-husband’s stuff (I know, it’s weird, I think he’s working on it) is having access to items like that. I watched for a little while but ultimately realized how slowly the whole process went and even with the welder’s helmet it was still pretty painful to look at. Still, I do like the interaction that my ex-husband and I have at times. We laughed about the welder’s helmet and it’s nice to make each other laugh. Even though it didn’t work out between us, it reminds me of why we were friends in the first place, long before marriage and Miss L.

4. I didn’t get to run much this week, and I feel a little anxious about that, but sometimes you have to choose companionship over fitness, so instead of using my free lunch hour on Friday to exercise, I went out to lunch. My running buddy M and our colleague MC Granola and I don’t eat out together very much, but we have a few Ann Arbor places that we love, and are very compatible in our food choices and conversation and music. We listen to the rap channel on satellite radio and hit Casey’s, or Chela’s, or, as on Friday, Monahan’s Seafood (see above – M graciously photographed me with the lobster). Monahan’s is a seafood counter in the Kerrytown market, there are daily specials or the standard salmon burgers or crispy fish sandwiches. Everything is fresh, beautiful, amazing, you order over the counter and there’s only limited seating, so we take our food out into the adjoining courtyard. On Friday the weather was mild and autumnal, almost chilly but not quite; the sparrows fluttered around us for crumbs and the gardens were turning orange and brown, fading hydrangeas and ivy on the mossy brick walls. The Kerrytown Chime sent clear round notes floating across the Historic District, and when we were done, we wandered over to Zingerman’s for coffee. We lingered on the corner then, talking idly with our coffees, and letting Ann Arbor bustle around us, bell notes and leaves falling around us in the mild breeze, unwilling to say goodbye; and then we drifted apart, calling goodbyes, the moment broken and dissipating, time always moving.