everybody's taking what they can but they can't decide

I had a really nice day of #smalltownlife. When I woke up this morning, I went downstairs to get some cold brew and also chatted with Caroline about the day ahead. We started the morning off with a "walking tour" of my town (basically my usual walking route, with maybe an extra block or two, and way more talking since I told her stories the entire way instead of keeping quiet). Then we came back, freshened up / relaxed / etc, and I took care of a couple of tings.

Then, we put together the first half of an apricot jello salad - one of Caroline's requests was jello salad, and so I accommodated her request. We made the jello/fruit layer and cooked the initial part of the topping layer, and it came together much better than my first attempt in California (probably because my grandmother's recipe was a little unclear, but my mom's recipe gave me a few extra hints).

As the jello chilled, I had a random call with someone I used to work with - Caroline and I were discussing her yesterday on my balcony when she happened to text me out of nowhere and ask if I was available to chat about some roles she's interviewing for. So I had a video chat with her today - it was great to see her, and also I ended the call with a headache from thinking too much about my old world. I remain, as ever, glad that I left, even though I loved a lot of people there.

Then, I made some brunch-type foods - scrambled eggs with bacon/mushrooms/onions, which we ate with avocado and toast. After we ate, we did a bit more relaxing, and then we went to the museum and wandered around for an hour. The taxidermy is getting ever creepier as it continues to age, but they've put a lot of work into expanding new exhibits, so it was fun to walk around for awhile. Then we drove around for a bit - nothing particularly exciting, although I did show Caroline a dirt road that I used to get back to an old cemetery, which she found impressive.

A bit later, we went to my parents' house (with a drive-by of the Round Barn) to share some apricot salad with them and show Caroline the back porch where I took so many conference calls during the pandemic. The apricot salad lived up to my dad's exacting apricot salad expectations (although I maybe had slightly too much cool whip), and we had a lovely chat while sitting outside. Then Caroline and I had dinner at the Mexican place, followed by watering [censored]'s trees and spending some time chilling on my balcony (chilling made less pleasant because we have extensive Canadian smoke today).

And now, I really need to sleep since we have further adventures planned tomorrow - goodnight!