Here's an interesting truth: writing that last entry was the most fun I've had since returning to northern Vermont last Sunday. Hmmmmm....
My frequent m.o. when staying with G.&S. is to wake up during the wee hours, crank up the laptop and have quiet, wholesome wi-fi fun in my guestroom/hidey-hole. Not this time. Woke up, grabbed a book of S.'s that I'd glommed onto, plowed through a bunch of it. Went back to sleep. Didn't touch my laptop -- why does that make me sound chaste and virginal? -- didn't go carousing around the net. (And before drifting back off to sleep, heard the soft sound of mourning doves coming from outside, a sound of the warm season that felt like a gentle affirmation of the local world having turned a seasonal corner.)
Woke up later, found G.&S. starting their day, being quiet about it so their guest (that would be me) could snooze. G. had plans for the morning, I immediately browbeat convinced S. to accompany me to the nearby café to begin the process of rejoining the human race, me offering to pay (in a pathetic attempt to compensate for the previous afternoon when I'd offered the same but managed to leave all $$$ in my temporary squat, forcing S. to cover everything). Where the previous day's visit had been like a bit of café springtime -- open windows, wafting curtains, caffeine-inhalers looking carefree in a springtime way -- cold weather had reasserted during the night, bringing a dose of hard-edged, late-February reality (me hoping the mourning doves wouldn't wind up frozen to the ground in an alley somewhere).
Back at the flat, waiting for G., to return, S. & I resumed our places on the sofa, laptops open and running. More good, clean wi-fi fun. G. appeared at some point and joined us, me pausing now and then to torment entertain kitties with laser pointer, getting them to run all over the room, up and down furniture, even up walls in pursuit of that elusive point of red light. (The best part: their undeniable inability to actually capture it never seems to discourage them. They're not rocket scientists, but they are mighty cute.)
G.&S. suggested a field trip to the Sowa district of Boston to nose around, traipse through galleries, do the arty thing. In short order, I found myself in the back seat of their Subaru, watching Saturday afternoon Cambridge spool slowly by (Mass. Ave. traffic keeping progress to a modest crawl). Being chauffered around gets me happy like you would not believe, a kind of overdone happiness that could easily spill over the line into out-and-out obnoxiousness for anyone not sharing my simple-minded joy. G.&S. seem to handle it astonishingly well. In fact, they deal extremely well with my displays of goofy bliss in general which, sadly, propels me into even more cheerful states of being. Their ungrudging acceptance of the undiluted, excessive sunniness I often slip into when I'm in their company is one of the reasons I worship them -- not everyone has the constitution to bear up to that kind of perky, near-relentless contentment. Their ability to deal with it is one of those mysteries I prefer not to question or probe. I'd rather just slip into fun mode and exploit that near saint-like forbearance.
(Another tendency of mine you may have noticed: overstating things well beyond the point of common decency.)