My friend, Gloria, left a message on my answering machine last night: “Do you know it has been nine days since we have seen each other?” Indeed, Day 17 of this Advent blog describes my trip to the movies with Gloria. She also told me that it had been a week since she had even been out of her apartment, since the weather had been so darn cold. My first act of LOVE, then, this morning, was to call her and ask if she would like to go out for coffee...