Why Am I Keeping This Stuff?

Yesterday when I was finding places to put my summer clothes away I realized that four of the six drawers in the dresser in the second bedroom were filled with things like clothespins and golf balls and broken watches, used up wallets and old photo albums and ping pong balls, binder clips and notepads and tablets of paper.  Those were Durwood's drawers and when I cleared out his things those were the things I couldn't make a decision about at the time.  Turned out that I could make those decisions today so that three of those four drawers are now holding my shorts and other summer togs.





The male hummingbird visited the feeder while I was doing yoga this morning so I quick grabbed the camera, took a shot, and went back to yog-ing.  This is not one of my best photos but I like it because it kind of expresses the speed of a hummingbird visit.





The lilies of the valley are starting to bloom.  Oh, that fragrance!  I love seeing those tiny white bells on their slender green stems nestled in the dark green leaves.  As I do every year I picked a few stems and pressed them into a card that's on its way to DD in Kentucky.  She's always loved them and I send her some to remind her that I love her.



The bleeding heart's blooming like crazy.  I realized that I made a tactical error when I moved the plant pots off the patio because now the bleeding heart has sent its leaves and flowers over the top of them.  I think I'll probably move the pots tomorrow, get them out into the light.



I ran an errand today and not to the grocery store.  My good, new camera went on the blink a couple months ago and, of course, that coincided with the lockdown.  Well, I looked up the date I bought it and discovered that it's still under warranty which meant I needed to get it sent in.  I planned to do it myself but instead of my receipt all I could find was the credit card bill with the purchase on it and I am confident that wouldn't cut it as proof of purchase since the item isn't specified.  So I had to go to Camera Corner, masked, to get it taken care of.  He looked up my purchase, printed off a receipt, and took the information so they can send it in for me, no charge.  It'll probably take 2 months until it comes back but I'm just glad it's getting fixed.  And I got out for a bit.  Everyone in the store was masked, they had an automatic temperature station at the entrance which called out "normal temperature" as you walked by, and they used hand sanitizer between customers.  Very reassuring.


26  May--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

"When was the last time it rained?" Manning crouched, hands on his knees, bending to look at the cracked sand they walked on.

"I don’ know, mon, but it has been months." Bunny shook his head, his dreadlocks lashing his shoulders. "Why you care?"

Manning straightened, took off his boonie hat, and wiped his forehead. "I want to know what made those prints and when." He kept walking along the trail of tiny bird footprints, glancing over his shoulder to frown at his own prints stretching back to the crumbling asphalt road. Bunny stood and stared after him, confusion rising in his red-rimmed eyes.

"It was just a bird, mon. Birds do not tell no tales." He lurched forward as if Manning had tugged on an invisible lead.

They walked down the deserted stretch of sand toward the mangroves. When they reached the dark edge where the spidery roots began their tangled quest for space, the two men argued..

“I not going into the mangroves,” Bunny said. “I don’ like the spirits that live in there.” 

Manning smacked his forehead.  “Spirits don’t live in mangroves, birds and lizards and spiders live in there.” 

Bunny’s face remained impassive as he shook his head.  “The mangrove fingers reach out to grab you, try to pull you into the muck with them. I won’ go.” 

Manning stared at him.  “Fine, you stay here and make sure no one follows me.”. He plunged into the mangrove thicket and soon disappeared.  

Bunny nodded his head long after Manning disappeared into the murk.  He crouched in the shade to wait, pulled the fattie from his dirty cargo shorts, lit up, and launched into a medley of his favorite Bob Marley songs to keep his nerve strong.

            Manning sat with his back against a boulder, black binoculars held to his eyes.  His elbows rested on his bent knees.  He was motionless, his gaze focused on the horizon.  With his hair bleached pale blond by sun and saltwater, his khaki shirt and shorts, and his tropical tan he looked like a part of the landscape.  He had arrived in the cool pre-dawn picking a sentinel spot that would give him a little protection from the midday sun.  As the sun rose, so did the wind, swirling the sea into a white blur on the shoreline rocks and sending a cooling spray that sparkled in the light over him.  As the day aged toward noon, the surface of the ocean, flat at dawn, wrinkled and crumpled into chop and then whitecaps.  Five-foot waves exploded in geysers as they met the coast, finally convincing him that no rendezvous would happen that day.

             An hour later, Manning stood in the pale-yellow sand feeling the warm saltwater swirl over his feet. He had a good feeling about this little bay, about the broken and jagged boulders that littered the stretch of beach. It seems realistic that a sailing ship full of treasure would have foundered rounding the point out there where the water foamed white and the gulls soared on the updrafts. There, right there where the turquoise of the shallows plunged into the navy blue of the abyss that was the place where he and Santiago had planted the broken pottery and encrusted metal that had come up entangled in Santiago's nets. The place where he fished was too deep to be visited by divers and therefore too deep for setting up the "investment opportunity" they had used to snare Jack. Part of Santiago's argument against the plan was the dishonesty but Manning convinced him that making the artifacts more accessible would make it more fun for the rich investors. Manning banked on Santiago's English not being up to the wild yarn he planned to spin to reel in Jack and his money.

The sun is setting behind the neighbor's trees these days but I still can't resist the orange and purple sky at sundown even if I can only see a little bit of it.
--Barbara