A Much Better Day

Today everything conspired to make it a much better day.  My lilacs popped open so I picked a bouquet and now the whole house is filled with their heady fragrance.

On my way back into the house from picking flowers I saw two asparagus stalks poking up and ready to be picked.  Guess what vegetable I had for supper.  Fresh picked asparagus!  So good.  Thanks, Dad. (Dad used to drive around with a shovel and a bucket and he'd stop to dig out wild asparagus in roadside ditches, that's where my asparagus patch came from.)






Here's a much better wren picture.  He even has his tail properly cocked.

For most of the day I trooped up and down the basement stairs swapping summer and winter clothes.  I also culled out a big laundry basket of clothes that I just don't or won't wear.  I tried on a bunch of things and was happy to discover that they fit better now that I've lost some weight (although my poor eating habits the last couple weeks caught up with me at the scale this morning so I'm back on the straight and narrow).


I got to spend part of this afternoon visiting with DS, DIL1, LC, and OJ.  I'd gotten some books for the kids and used them as an excuse to go over for a while.  The books were a hit and the visit made me feel so much better, not so lonely.

25 May--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

Gray skies hung over the island.  No wind stirred the palm fronds or blew away the sticky humidity.  Everything was a struggle in the still air; tempers were frayed. 

Jack closed himself in his office and moodily checked his emails and tracked his investments online while waiting for someone, anyone, to bring him coffee. 

Mona made herself a cup of tea with an herbal teabag she found in the kitchen and stood sipping it as she watched the little tendrils of humidity rise in the first shafts of sunlight that peeped through the clouds. 

           Just before sunrise, Manning showered and shaved while the water perked in the ancient Mr. Coffee.  The water dripped through so slowly that the resulting brew was black as mud and tasted like tar.  An ex-girlfriend suggested he use it to strip the rust off his beloved Jeep.  He liked his coffee just like his women, he told her, hot and strong.  Then he laughed.  Very few women who heard him say that ever laughed or stuck around long enough to try and change him. 

           After dressing in his usual khaki cargo shorts and washed out aloha shirt he headed into town on the shore road.  He slowed down when he got to the Town Pier and scanned the row of bleary-eyed men huddled under the roof around a brazier with a battered coffee pot on its grate.  Manning beeped the horn and Bunny detached himself from the group, his jaw wagging as usual, his enthusiastic wave barely acknowledged by the Venezuelans. 

           “I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” Manning said when Bunny settled in the passenger seat. 

           “I don’, mon.”  Bunny turned his ganga-red eyes to face Manning.  “It is the spiritual connection of the downtrodden we understand.  The brotherhood of the spliff, mon.”  He dug in the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a joint just as they drove past the Customs office. 

           “Put that away, for God’s sake,” Manning said.  “You want to give those tight asses an excuse to arrest us before we have made our score?”  He pushed Bunny’s hand down and held it until the younger man stopped trying to put the joint in his mouth. 

            “I hear you, mon.  I put it away now.  Don’ get all in a ruckus.” 

            Manning glared out the scratched and spotted windshield.  “How unlucky could I be to get myself a helper like you?”

I was very pleased with myself while driving home from DS's this afternoon.  I saw that Culver's flavor was Midnight Chocolate with Toffee, my all-time favorite, and I didn't stop.  I thought about it and even had my turn signal on, but I drove right on by.  It was tough but I managed not to whine.
--Barbara