Today is Tom's birthday, so I will be spending a chunk of my day making dinner for him. We'll begin with an after-work snack of cheese and smoked fish (not yet purchased so I can't share the details). Then, as a first course, we'll have whole artichokes with a vinaigrette dipping sauce. The main courses will be beef stew (with Harmony beef) and ratatouille, both garnished with lots of basil and scallions. Then we'll have a salad of grated vegetables, probably daikon and broccoli stems. For dessert, we'll have panna cotta with Harmony raspberries.

In between cooking and shopping, I'll be trying yet again to get my violin bow rehaired, this time by someone who, I hope, won't be out of town when I arrive by appointment and won't subsequently fail to show remorse or even embarrassment.

In other news, Paul and I discussed the aptness of the word fluster, which sounds exactly like it feels, and was exactly how I felt yesterday when I realized I had to find a gas station and figure out how to put air into my tires. Somehow I've managed to get through life without ever doing that for myself before. And Paul was no help. As he once cheerfully told me, when he was about ten: "It's a good thing we have Tom and James. You and I don't know how to do anything."

Actually, I do know how to do a few things. And so does he. Hardly any of them involve cars, however.