Update...

The blood test results are in...more in a moment.

I painted the walls my choice of green...well Clara's choice of green. She loves deep colors, she breathes them in and I get to see them in her eyes, so I paint her whims.

I have to still do the second coat.

Clara sleeps, she needs it, she worked into the night in the kitchen, I awaken to surprises every morning.

There is plastic draping on the furniture I now think needs to be tossed out. I am listening to music that still sounds good after thirty years next to music that still sounds good from yesterday. And life feels in tune.

Clara's blood test shows she is the stuff of motherhood and wife. She is clean, but I knew that!

The paint dries. I lean into the fan, cool air getting warmer. The sky is blue and clear. One more coat, a shower and I will be ready to get out and enjoy a little air.

My blood test, taken with a long needle shining in the perfectly flat light of East Boston Neighborhood Health Center on Gove Street, shows I am one clean fellow...amazing after all the life I have seen, felt, tasted, listened to and smelled.

And I am off to be a husband!