One fine day

Friday morning I had my monthly allergy shots and then drove to Staten Island to visit Polina, who has been sick with a nasty ear and throat infection for the past five days. The small upside is that she has been receiving more visitors since she's been sick, which she usually enjoys.

Her friend Afiya (who was at the PolyNYC meeting on Wednesday) stayed over Thursday night, so she was still there on Friday when I arrived. The three of us had lunch together and then watched the premiere episode of Firefly since Afiya has never seen Joss Whedon's show. Someday we'll have a Firefly marathon and get to watch Serenity together.

Afiya was to meet some friends in Manhattan to go see the new Terminator movie, so we drove her to the Staten Island Ferry terminal and returned home. Penny's mom came home while Penny and I were taking turns reading aloud from the book 1066 and all that: A memorable history of England, comprising all the parts you can remember including one hundred and three good things, five bad kings and two genuine dates.

After a trip to the doctor's office, we came home to light candles and bless bread and wine for Shabbat, the first time I've participated in this Jewish ritual. It was lovely, and inspirational for a spiritual novice such as myself. Penny was pretty wiped out from the doctor's visit, so we all turned in early for the night.

The next morning we blessed the bread and wine again at breakfast and Penny's mom and I administered medicine for Penny's ears, which consisted of stuffing her ears with gauze using a pair of long tweezers and applying medicine drops to them, a painful process for her. We did some computer stuff, played cards and cuddled for a bit until it was time for me to go to Central Park to join my lesbian Meetup group.

I drove across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge through Brooklyn then into the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel into Manhattan. I parked at the Metropolitan Museum and walked across the park to meet Anika (whom I met last weekend) at the 72nd Street entrance. We found the group and met some of the other people there. My friend Angel showed up - I had just seen her two days ago at the PolyNYC meeting, of course.

Anika and I played some card games with some other people, one called Set and the other called Quiddler, which is like a combination of Scrabble and gin rummy. Set was freakin' hard, but fascinating nonetheless. It was just a little frustrating because Anika is so good at it. There was also a volleyball net so I played a couple games of five-on-five - won one, lost one.

In the early evening I went to my family's house for our first barbecue of the year. Bug made salads and baked beans, and Tara and I had hot dogs while Bee and Bug had soy burgers. We saw two young female deer stroll by and run back and forth across the field adjacent to the golf course in their backyard - that was exciting to see. We watched birds and squirrels, ate, laughed and chatted until nearly dark before coming inside to watch Spaceballs, which I'd never seen before. It's a Mel Brooks spoof on sci-fi movies, specifically Star Wars, in case you didn't know. Tomorrow morning we're all going to see Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

Today was one of my best days - I spent some quiet time with Polina, some active time with my new friends Anika and Angel, and some quality family time with Tara, Bee and Bug. It's not often that so many of the disparate parts of my life contribute events that are enjoyable, significant and memorable, all in a single day. It makes me very happy about my life and the people in it.