viva minus 14

There was a huge storm last night, which left me grateful to be inside, warm and dry under the covers trying to sleep. Unfortunately, the howling wind and claps of thunder made that rather difficult.

Today my actual best friend is coming over to go see the greenwood happenings and thereafter have a bit of a birthday lunch. We don't see much of each other any more. She's relatively newly married, as well, and what with her own house constructings and running a business she doesn't get a lot of free time. I miss hanging out with her. It's hard, then, to just enjoy time together when you do get it, because you feel like there's so much ground to cover - first, to catch up, and then to make up for the fact that you suspect you won't be seeing each other for another month or two!

I remember someone once saying how ridiculous they found the concept of "quality time" - when used as an excuse for spending a small amount of time with one's kids, for example. . . . [grammar question: does "one's" properly have an apostrophe there, for the possessive, or does that signify a contraction?]

Anyway, this person said something to the effect that more often than not it's really the spending of time with someone that counts - not just the supposed 'quality' of it. Granted, the quality counts, too, but not as much as we might like to think. You can't cultivate a friend from scratch by just spending one quality day a year - for example - with them. At some point, you just have to spend time. Riding in a car saying nothing. Skipping stones. Shopping for food together, perhaps, or going your separate ways in a bookstore (and meeting up afterwards to inspect acquisitions), enduring the boring recital because it's her kid and she asked that you go with her.

I don't excel at this, by any stretch. In fact, I'm pretty bad about it. Luckily, I've spent so much time with C over the years that I can get away with some patchy stretches. . . . every now and again, anyway. I think it's time to replenish the time-spent-together cache.

More reading today - I hope to get through 2 more chapters and then finish the dissertation tomorrow. At that point, I should have a better idea as to which works of my main author I wish to re-visit and in what order.