Actually yesterday will have been the last (high of 79F) perfect day of the year, with a dry, clear little wind which bespoke the end of summer and whispered warning, to those of us with ears to hear, that it's time to go. So I wandered the whole day among my usual avocations and inclinations (or proclivities), nibbling late-season grapes from Patty's 100-year-old vines, going to Gerald's first, then to Diana's, then back to Gerald's, and on to Kristen's--all the while inwardly visualizing my exodus. Kristen thought to twit me, during the chat with which we filled the interstices of our playing, with my never having so much as mentioned the fact that Selma had suffered a stroke a couple of weeks ago. The implication of which Sin of Omission being: (1) that I'm a failure as a gossip/news source, and (2) that I don't really care. So I told her, in compensation, what I've had occasion to observe anent Selma's dire affliction and hospitalization; how her friends and family at first denied that it was a stroke (They [Patty and Annie] spoke insistently of a "transient" and "temporary" pre-stroke condition, even as it appeared that Selma was suffering loss of memory and cognitive skills, as well as partial paralysis of the left side of her body); then, curiously, they [Annie, at least] grew angry with her for all the dumb things (smoking cigarettes, over-eating) she had done to get herself into this condition, and pretty much vowed to abandon her if, when she gets back from the hospital, she resumes smoking. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it seems we are talking about Grief here. Tum placata Kristine, we did fair, clear and accurate, justice to the Surprise Symphony.