I got those shoes from a railroad man

For Father's Day, my brother joined us for soup dumplings, almond cupcakes my niece had helped frost, and a plum and strawberry upside-down cake made by my father, of which I don't think any photographic evidence survives, or much of the cake at this point either. I had preemptively presented him with Edward J. Watts' The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome: The History of a Dangerous Idea (2021), since we had recently had a long conversation that wound up with the Byzantines. I am running so tired that for the second evening in a row I fell asleep trying to work or write, although I did wake up tonight in time to watch Daniel Radcliffe win a Tony. My mother was so delighted to see Pete Townshend introducing the revival of Tommy that she took some enthusiastically terrible phone footage of the TV screen on which he appeared. The twins and their entire family are down with strep throat, which after half a week of constant interaction we are all hoping to miss. Nonetheless, spatch is driving me to my next in the equally eternal round of doctor's appointments tomorrow.