Dinner at Alice's

It was a very long week as my body was fighting some major infection and I spent too much time with a very bad fever and in the company of doctors and nurses. Today Jared had the opportunity to help out and "work" on some demo rides up at Alice's. Claire and I got to stay home all day and I wasn't much fun. As the day wore on I was desperate to get out of the house. Somehow, it seemed rational to drive an hour through the forest to go have dinner with Jared and a few others. So glad that we did. Claire loved it, as she does eating in any place that is not pretentious. She was particularly smitten with Tim, one of the characters from Jared's work. It was such a simple dinner. Sitting and talking about the day and all sorts of other nonsense. During this sublime experience it occurred to me that Claire just fit in and everyone that we saw excepted her. I started to wonder why is it that because she does not use her mouth to speak and her hands to play like normal children, why do I assume that she will not be accepted. I suppose it is because there have been times, when she has made others uncomfortable and it has been brought to the forefront that she is "different". How sad it is that there is a part of our culture that requires that we conform to boundaries and expectation, but what a blessing it is that we live in Santa Cruz, where there is a lot more room, and people seem to be accepting. After it was wrapped up and Claire was snug in her pj's, back into the car and our journey home began. Quite the journey it was, words cannot explain the beauty of Skyline Blvd. just after sunset with a beautiful moon.