Happy Little Tree

 

I was out watering the coleus and the baby maple tree when I saw that the little tree had made a few helicopters (seeds) since it was planted.  I'm assuming that means it's happy in its new home.


 



Dad's rose is blooming again.  One flower only and without Japanese beetles (shh! don't say that out loud).  I may pick it tomorrow to enjoy it indoors (and save it from the beetles).





Another flower I'd love to have indoors is the Stargazer lily.  It's fragrance is very strong and sweet.  If I do decide to bring a blossom in I'll knock off the orange pollen things (stamens? sepals?) because that pollen makes a nearly unremovable stain.  I'll have to think about that one.





I finished the second piece of play food pizza this afternoon.  It's supposed to be sausage and green peppers.  I was going to put on mushrooms too but I don't think the kids like them and didn't want them to be disappointed in their new play food.





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

The first few weeks Fay worked for Brady were like those magical first few months in a relationship.  They were careful of each other’s feelings, never yelling, stopping short of snappy remarks, painfully polite to each other. 

By the end of the first month, Brady was sick of doing all the cooking and missed talking to his customers.  He had made a habit of walking around the tables, especially during suppertime, gathering compliments and complaints in nearly equal measure, and picking up hints of things he could add to the menu.  When he heard that Fay could not, or more likely would not, cook, his heart sunk.  That meant he would be back trapped in the kitchen, or galley as he kept calling it from his navy days, drenched in sweat and grease and seeing his world through the pass-through. 

He imagined himself as a genial host, in the manner of the fat but friendly pub owners in old black and white movies, serving hearty fare to weary travelers.  That is why he did not hesitate when he learned that the old Home Towne Diner in Stinson was closed and for sale.  He plunked his pension down on the realtor’s desk the very next day.  When US Highway 58 was the main road across the country and cut straight through town becoming Mason Street, the diner did a thriving business, as did the muffler and tire shops and the motels which began as nice places owned by locals but once the interstate had been completed and bypassed Stinson, the area had just plain declined.  The tire and muffler places did all right fixing cars that broke down nearby but most of the motels had degraded into hot sheet motels run by hard men with broken noses and Italian last names. 

Brady hated the way the neighborhood had declined over the years but he kept his place up, kept planting red geraniums in the window boxes out front and white petunias in the planters next to the door no matter how many times the plants got stolen and the planters got overturned.  He believed that you had to keep doing what you believed in, no matter the odds, even if the odds were roving bands of nine-year-old vandals on bicycles and roller blades.  He was sure the planters’ nemesis was driving a car.  One morning he had arrived to find the planters overturned, a broken chain still attached to one, and twin skid marks across the parking lot, over the curb, and down the street.  But he kept righting the heavy concrete planters with the help of a few friends, scooping the dirt back into them (taking out all the cigarette butts and bottle caps and other trash inconsiderate people threw in them) and replacing any broken plants.  He would give the reborn planter a nice long drink of water, pat the scratched cement side, and go back to his kitchen. 

Today's toss was a bag of bags, a garbage bag full of purses.  I didn't realize how many purses I had until I started digging them out this morning.  I had a lot, big ones too, and I'm over carrying a big purse so all of them are on their way to new homes.  Well, they're in the back of the car for now but they'll be going to new homes once I fill it up again.  I checked for money and goodies, found two wallets but no money.  Dang.

Once the pizza was crocheted I spent a couple hours trying to figure out stuff to add to Better Than Mom's and how to end it.  Right now it has no ending, it just kind of peters out.  Not good.  Never fear, I'll figure something out, even if it's wrong.
--Barbara