Happy Mother's Day!

To all of my friends be they moms, aunts, stepmoms, or any other permutation of motherhood.  I celebrated by declaring today Pajama Day.  I put on socks because my feet were cold in my Crocs (don't have any slippers) but that was the extent of my dressing.  I did brush my teeth and combed my hair.  I'm not a complete slob, not yet anyway.

This cardinal came to call while I was doing yoga this morning.  I quick grabbed the camera, snapped the photo, and only missed 10 seconds of the plank.  Maybe I should have taken two shots.




Here's a closeup of my Mother's Day geranium.  Isn't it pretty?  It smells good too, earthy and spicy.




It was overcast and windy today but this bunny came up onto the patio for a snack.  I don't know which of my sprouting plants it was eating but it looked soft and fuzzy so it got its picture taken.


10 May--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

Jack Spencer was a self-made man. He had started with one dry cleaning store in Evansville, Indiana that he turned into eight in less than ten years. He was a smart investor and was lucky to hire honest managers. As his income increased so did his opinion of himself. He began to hang out with other newly wealthy people and shucked the values and morals he had grown up with. He started to dress like Dean Martin, and he acted like him too. For a while he was never seen without a drink in his hand but then his liver started to give out, so he quit drinking and took up smoking. That only lasted until he started to wake up with a hacking cough. Turned out Jack was not the tough guy he always imagined he was, at least physically. He kept his Rat Pack wardrobe and love life and let the excess of drinking and smoking go. He even watched his diet, but he did not change his attitude toward life and especially toward women. He considered them stupid, second-class citizens. Some of the women he met quickly turned away when they became aware of the contempt he held them in, but others were happy to fall back into the old ways and trade their independence and self respect for having all their bills paid and all decisions made for them.  At times, his treatment of them became too much and they would rebel, but Jack threatened to smack them around and they either left or changed their ways. 

Mona had been with Jack the longest of any of his women, mistresses, whatever you want to call them. She had just left the corporate world and started to work as the assistant to Jack’s tax attorney when she came to his house on her way home one day to deliver his quarterly estimated tax forms. He invited her to stay for a drink. She stayed for a drink and within a month she had moved in with him and quit her job. He teased her that he was not acquiring a lover he was sleeping with an employee. She smarted back with a flip remark that she expected to get paid then.

Jack grabbed her arm in a tight grip and through clenched teeth said, “I will be the one who decides when you get paid.” 

At that moment Mona thought about leaving but in the next breath Jack was smoothing his hand down her back to her bottom and breathing in her ear how she turned him on. That night at supper there was a jeweler’s box at her place with a diamond bracelet in it.

“What is this for?” she asked.

“A welcome home present,” he said.

All the same she suspected that it was an apology for his behavior earlier.

Through the years whenever Mona acted or spoke more independently than Jack thought necessary, he would clamp down quickly and let her know that she had crossed the line. After a while Mona lost her need to rebel and forgot all about getting away, almost as if she needed to be kept in check.

All I did today was camp on the sofa, watch TV, and knit every once in a while.  Talk about frittering the day away.  I did check the ingredients of a recipe I want to make soon.  It's Investment Cooking time again.  I'm down to two portions and one container of marinara sauce which is two more.  Time to cook so I'm going to the grocery tomorrow.  My list is too long for a pickup order and I have a few non-food items on the list, like weed killer and a hose connector.  I have no confidence that I'd get what I want so I'll mask up and go myself.  I shared a report on FB by an immunologist that made me less anxious about going to the store.
--Barbara