I wrote my February generic letter today and I've got it mixed up with my blog and my diary. I do hate repeating myself but it's hard to keep me discrete (sic). I seem to keep bogging down (blogging down?)into a limbo state, halfway between then and now, but then, when you come right down to it, that's where any of us is - between then and now, I mean.

So what did you learn today? What did I learn? Well, I'm cooking chicken for Matt, who is coming for dinner, and I'm doing a new-to-me Weight Watchers oven version of southern fried. I don't have any Panko (I didn't even know what Panko was until about a year ago), but I found a slice of bread in the freezer and crumbled it. It's not much different, taste-wise, this chicken, that is, but way less fat. That's not really a big lesson, but a useful one.

I read the Sunday NYT online today. It's not the same. My joy used to be the Sunday NYT paper issue, delivered to my door and I would spend the day with it, reading and clipping things for me and others. Now I send newsy items and ideas by email. During the week I read too much of the daily NYT and I must ration my time and choices. On the other hand, I signed on for the Cooking column to come to me online and it is loverly. I don't, of course, have to cook everything but I pick up ideas. I'm like a war horse, I guess, still responding though the battles are over. But, see, I learn something.

Every day.

Matt's birthday. As one of his advisors said, "He'll never learn long division but he'll always make friends." He works as a buggy gopher at a Loblaws store and on the occasions I have met him there, his co-workers all tell me what a friendly, polite young man he is - not so young any more. As I told you, he's 54 years old today. He's smart enough to be aware of his limitations. He asked me early on, "Am I going to push grocery carts for the rest of my life?" I guess. He was given his 20-year-service pin a while ago. I told him it was as significant as my Order of Canada. It meant he showed up every day, as we all must.

He's a glass-half-full kind of guy, thank goodness, and he has an amazing sense of humour and an awesome resilience, oh, and a forgiving nature. He's had his share of bullies and con artists and neglect and he moves on, hurt but not resentful. Without a birthday book or an app he remembers the birth dates of his entire family, including his nieces and nephews, as well as his friends. He has his own home, an apartment he shares under the aegis of Community Living Toronto.

It hasn't been easy. I vowed when he was born that he would grow up to be an independent person with a life of his own, a welcome guest in his siblings' homes, not an undesirable boarder, and he made it. I'm very proud of him.

And that's all I have to say about that.