I skipped my morning essay yesterday because we left at 6:15 to go play golf. Nice time of day to do that. Got the round in under four hours, ate a nice lunch, and came on home. I set no records. I did record a birdie and one or two pars, but the course is an unforgiving track. If you stray off the fairway, it punishes you. I strayed. I got punished. My score reflected it. That, my friends, is golf as played by a high handicap amateur. Plus, you can always factor in a lousy swing or two just to spice things up and raise the score.

Today I’m getting a haircut and my house cleaned. I get a haircut once a month and my house cleaned twice a month. My car will be in the shop for a while because the parts are on back-order and that’s okay, the dealer gave me a loaner and it’s a spiffy little car. There are lots of bells and whistles which is why cars cost so much these days. Of course, the trouble with complexity is complexity. There are more things to break and go bad and they’re not easily fixed. I wonder if a simple car even exists anymore. I can’t find one, but I don’t really need one so I’m not looking very hard.

My current vehicle runs well and if I keep it maintained, as I’m doing now, then it should give me another four or five years, maybe more. It might help if I’d quit driving the wheels off it, but I have things to do and places to go, and I need a car to do it. So, that’s that. And this feels as though it’s a good place to wrap things up and get my day underway, which is what I’m going to do. See you tomorrow.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale