Home alone, ish

I put Mary on a plane to Westchester yesterday morning so she could go help her siblings support their mother, whose advanced years have brought accelerating health challenges, so for the second time in a month I find myself home alone, at once a pleasant and somewhat unsettling thing.

Yesterday as I was nursing my knee sore from tennis (I played on it Friday foolishly, but that didn't stop me from showing Z what the deal was 6-4) I had some periods of flat out loneliness. Tried calling Leslie, to no avail (I'm sure she's legitimately busy taking care of someone or something out in Boulder). 

I decided to head uptown to watch the US Open final to see Alcaraz conclusively enter history and parked on Franklin St. Ran into Ben and Paul from Scoremore in front of IP 3, but they were just watching football in there, so I continued on to 401 Main in Carrboro, whose owner Chris had recently celebrated three years of keeping the lights on -- no mean feat for a bar in these last three years -- in a Facebook post. Watched some of the match, had a flounder po boy with sweet potato fries and talked to Chris for a bit while there. Turns out he has some rentals available if Z doesn't have the right one for Graham next year.

Then I went to Trader Joe's and bought a few things, but forgot to snag a delicious dessert item. However could that have happened?

Later, while I was watching Ozark, my phone rang. It was Markus, out for a walk in his neighborhood, back from seeing his daughter in Atlanta and having had a classic Markus-type adventure. I was surprised to receive a call from him at 10 on a Sunday evening. This morning I got a call from Wes, whom I haven't talked to in a year and change and haven't seen in a decade or two, just checking in.

 It is fairly remarkable how robust a small town soccer network is.