We went to one of our favorite places to eat dinner tonight. Friday night with my girlfriend, best friend, lover, mother of our children and life companion. It was a good time. Christmas decorations are everywhere. People are visiting and gathering for the holidays. Bacall’s Cafe was loud. It was full of us old people chatting and eating and drinking and gathering. We were all catching up with each other and the world.

It seems to me that the smaller local restaurants have better service. Those restaurants seem to provide employment to the youngsters in the neighborhood.

Friday night has a special atmosphere. It always has for us. When we were younger and still working full time for others, it marks the end of commitments for the week. Often Cheryl and I would meet for a quiet dinner somewhere. Just us and our conversation was a special time to relax and take stock of things. When the kids were small Friday was often chaos. But those years passed by too fast and it was just us again.

These days I think that it is important to stay with her in her remembrances. If she wants to talk about long ago I try to stay with it. But I also try to gently steer her to the present if she has strayed far off the road. As we were driving to the cafe she asked me where I wanted to celebrate my birthday next week. — Her deceased father’s birthday is next week and her brothers had been talking about meeting for dinner somewhere to commemorate that event.

I am still on a learning curve with this sort of conversation but I calmly reminded her who I am and reiterated the conversation about celebrating her dad’s birthday. I switched the conversation to where do you think we should go? She switched it back to I wonder where Dad would go if he was here. And we went down that road for a bit until we arrived at the cafe.

AHA: Preserve any routines you can. Embrace any memories she has. Calmly help her find her way back to the here and now. Emphasis on calmly and watch the pitch and tenor of your voice.

Date nights are not always for the young. We had a long wandering conversation about the place we were eating. We talked about other places we have been. We talked about family. She had a coke. Years ago it would have been a glass of rose or white zinfandel. I had a gin and tonic. Years ago it might have been a nice single malt scotch. As we have aged we both like sweeter things. It was a good time.

As we were getting into the car for the drive home, one of her old time friends, Donna, called my phone. I almost did not answer. Robo-calls are annoying. Donna had gotten my number from one of Cheryl’s friends that she had met in church. She called to get together for lunch one day after the holidays. A new conversation about Donna happened on the way home. We will have lunch somewhere in a couple weeks.

Carpe date night Diem.