When I awoke at 7 o’clock this morning – earlier than usual – I didn’t contemplate lingering any longer beneath the covers. There was business afoot today. For a start, yesterday we had formulated the decision to replace audio devices for each of us, one a set of headphones for me, the other a set of bone-conduction audio devices for my partner. This meant a drive into the city. Meanwhile we had received notification from Canada Post that I was to expect delivery today of a Camaret Cap Marin from Henri Henri in Montréal. The delivery would be the fourth I have had of the same hat from the same retailer, three of which hats had proven to be the wrong size so expectations for the final order were high. And if these collective retail diversions were not enough to preoccupy my otherwise sedentary state of mind, I was yet recovering from yesterday’s late afternoon intelligence that my new car (which I had ordered last May) was built and on its way.
Each of these drawers of utility was naturally not without its limitations; by which of course I mean the utility of each was a matter of some dispute. Our most convenient argument resided with the electronic devices, the common thesis being that technology advances annually. The headphones and conduction audio devices had been around for several years or more. And we use the electronic aids routinely. The premise for the fisherman’s cap was less convincing. To be honest, I regarded the enterprise more a question of personal subjugation than anything else. The first hat I had ordered was 7½ inches diameter. It was too big. The second was 7¼ inches. It was too small. I then proposed out of frustration to buy a third of 7 3/8 inches but the retailer was out-of-stock. So I opted instead for another very similar hat by the same manufacturer and almost identical style but to my entire disappointment it proved too small. Accordingly, unwilling to admit defeat, I revisited the web site and saw that the 7 3/8 in the style I had initially chosen was now available. So I ordered it. And, yes, when it arrived today, it fit. Thank gawd!
If, by the way, you’re wondering what happened to the other hats, the 7½ went to a woman who by coincidence moved to Nova Scotia several weeks ago and who is building a home directly overlooking the North Atlantic Ocean. The 7¼ was given to a woman who is a neighbour. I kept the defunct 7 3/8 (perhaps for some unknown person in the future). As for my new hat that fits, I already have committed myself to wearing the damn thing on a regular basis when tricycling on the beach by the North Atlantic Ocean when we visit Hilton Head Island in February. The relatively cool winter air and the maritime atmosphere will be a suitable expiation of my commercial profligacy. And if not, I expect that I will have forgotten about the matter by then. In fact, I have already.
The sunrise this morning was magnificent. It echoed what for the past week has been a superlative start to autumn. Though the next two days are forecast rainy, the following week borders on exceptional.
The merchant activity lately has not been confined to things. Yesterday represented the last (for the moment) of what has been a month of seemingly non-stop socializing. Because we no longer entertain à la maison (we simply haven’t the room in our small apartment) every occasion of late has been at someone else’s table, at the golf club or in a restaurant. The culinary and gastronomic exploits have as always invited and excited discussion of new and additional options. It is perhaps a mark of the corporate decline from domestic activity among an aging population that these extraneous alternatives are swelling (as is my girth now that I reflect upon it). For me, having already confessed my immobility, the invitation is one I greedily accept without hesitation.
Punctuating this overall indulgent activity is my regular communication with friends by whom I am inspired to preserve a modest literary industry. This naturally includes my generous Readers to whom I am forever indebted for their perseverance and support; and, those about whom I am inspired to write. Yesterday for example I was overtaken by a whom sitting at a nearby table in the restaurant.
Not only was she captivating to regard; she unquestionably reminded me of one of my longstanding friends of similar report. I no doubt flatter myself to presume that she may have, for an instant, caught me in my transfixion. I regret I hadn’t the wherewithal to broach her howsoever briefly. One of life’s lost moments!