Garden Produce

I went out into the garden this afternoon to pick cucumber number two and look for number three but there doesn't seem to be another one growing yet.

However there is another tomato reddening.  I'll be keeping a close eye on it to make sure that it doesn't get blossom end rot like the other one did.  If that seems to be happening I'll be dosing the plant with Epsom salts which is the cure for blossom end rot.  So simple.  (Thanks for the reminder, LKS!)

The big chore of my day was scrubbing out the garbage bin.  I suspected that it was grubby enough and the trash was smelly enough that it was a cause of the fly invasion last weekend so it needed to be cleaned.  I took out the small push broom and the hose and sprayed and scrubbed until it was all shiny clean.  Then I let it dry out in the sunshine before putting it back into the garage.

In the afternoon I added another row or two to the Hawk's Wing shawl.  I read the pattern and have eight more rows to knit before the edging and binding off.  Every right side row increases by eight stitches so the longer I knit on it the longer it gets.  I'm no more able to "read" my knitting and see what to do than I was at the beginning so I'm still wedded to the pattern although I can leave the TV on when I knit now.  I can't look up at the screen but at least I can listen.

29 July--Barbara Malcolm, Better Than Mom's.

          In the last week of the first month Fay worked for him he hired a woman to be his assistant.  She was one of the single mothers from the apartment complex behind the diner.  Fay had encouraged him to hire her; her name was Naomi.  She worked out pretty well; her gravy was like silk and she had the habit of singing along with the songs on Brady’s favorite jazz station, so the place was filled with music.  Even the customers commented on how much they enjoyed Naomi’s singing, especially the Sunday lunch crowd.  Naomi had herself just come from church services where she was a leading light in the choir, and she would belt out the songs as if she could soar to heaven on the notes.  More than one person was observed patting away a tear. 

Peace reigned at Better Than Mom’s now.  Brady was happily back to wandering through the diner, clapping people on the back and pouring coffee.  Fay and Naomi laughed to see him. 

“He acts like he is a king greeting his loyal subjects,” said Naomi. 

“He does, doesn’t he?” Fay said. 

The women had become friends the day after Fay, with the help of the tow truck driver and his pickup truck, moved her two suitcases and seven boxes from the broken down Honda into the one bedroom apartment she had rented in the complex behind Better Than Mom’s.  That had taken about fifteen minutes, and then it took her a half hour to convince the driver she didn’t need more personal help.  She closed and locked the door behind the grumbling man, slid down the door to sit on the floor and broke down and cried. 

She gave herself the rest of that hour to feel sorry for herself, then she unpacked her belongings, and then shoved around the sticks of furniture that constituted “furnished” at this level of housing—a bed she had no intention of sleeping in until she fumigated it or replaced it, a beautiful maple dresser that looked like an antique, a Formica and chrome kitchen table and three chairs in gray and pink, and a brown and orange plaid loveseat that looked like it had done time in a kennel leaning toward an end table made of two cinder blocks with a scrap of plywood on them and a lamp without a shade.  All in all, not quite ready for a spread in House Beautiful.   But it wasn’t the worst place she had ever lived it and frighteningly close to the best. 

“I have got to figure out a way to attract better luck,” she said to the smoke stained and peeling walls. 

She walked down the block to the Safeway, bought a giant economy size box of baking soda to clean with, coffee, and a cheap pot to brew it in, some skim milk, a box of no-brand cereal, bread, generic oleo, house brand jam, real mayonnaise and a jar of Extra Crunchy Jif (a girl had to have standards, after all), cheap lunchmeat, two bananas, three different flavors of ramen noodles, three for a dollar boxes of macaroni & cheese, a four pack of toilet paper, a six pack of sponges and a toilet brush, a roll of paper towel, a dishrag and kitchen towel set, a bath towel, hand towel and wash cloth, a three pack of bar soap, two bowls, two plates, two each of knife, fork, and spoon, two mugs, two glasses, a fry pan and a sauce pan.  She asked the bagger to get it all in as few bags as possible so she could carry it all and went back to her new place to get started making it livable. 

Her first task was to scrub out the refrigerator with the hottest water she could stand and plenty of baking soda to sweeten it.  That took her an hour, but when she sat back on her heels and surveyed the gleaming interior, she was proud of herself and her ability to make mighty tasty lemonade out of the lemons life kept handing her.  

Her supper that night consisted of a half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bowl of pork flavored ramen noodle soup, which was not nearly as good as Brady’s soup she had eaten for lunch, but she was not going back there again until tomorrow morning when she clocked in for her first day of work. 

Today's toss was three backpacks.  I'm one little old-ish lady, I don't need a half dozen backpacks, and someone will be able to use them.

I saw a hummingbird on the lantana this morning but, of course, it flew away just as I got the camera in my hand.  One of these days I'm going to snap one again.

--Barbara