Yellow and Not Yellow

 


Just about everything that caught my eye today was yellow.  The center of this daisy with the tiny irridescent fly,

this lone yellow day lily,



 



and the Goldfinch that came and posed for me on a shepherd's crook.








However, the preemie hat I knitted tonight at Friday Night Knitting is periwinkle, not yellow.  Sorry.


I spent most of the day sitting here writing dialogue to make narrative into scenes for Better Than Mom's.  I plug in earbuds, turn on the 5 hours of nature sounds on Amazon Music, and get to work.  Every day I'm grateful that I developed the habit of writing with nature sounds when Durwood had the TV down the hall on all the time.  I couldn't not listen so I played white noise sounds--rain, waves, flowing water--to block out the TV.  Now I plug in those sounds and off I go.  It's not magic but it works often enough that it feels like it.

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

Brady motioned John away from the sink, handed him a frosty bottle of water, and led him out the back door to stand for a few minutes in the shade of an old maple tree enjoying the cooling breeze.  “Man, we're lucky it's cool today,” Brady said. 

“Yup,” said John, willing to let the older man lead the conversation. 

“When it's humid like it was last week, no amount of air conditioning keeps that kitchen cool.” 

“No.” 

Brady was silent for a time and the two men drank their water, drops sliding down their necks and dampening the necks of their shirts.  “Tomorrow you might want to leave your nice shirt in the office and just work in a t-shirt.”  Brady tugged his own white Hanes.  “You'd be a bit cooler.” 

“Okay.” 

They finished their break and turned back toward the steamy heat of the diner. 

“You like it so far?” Brady asked, carefully masking his hope that the younger man would say he did. 

“I like it fine, Mr. Brady, so far you are not working me too hard.”  John turned to smile at him.  “But I think that won’t last too long, huh?” 

Brady laughed and John joined in.  “No, you're right.  As soon as it gets really busy one night, maybe tonight, or one waitress doesn't show up, you can be sure I will be yelling at you just because you are standing there in the target area.  But I won't mean anything by it, I just holler when things get busy or I see people wait too long for their food.” 

John pulled a tray of clean dishes out of the dishwasher and began sorting them.  “I understand, Mr. Brady, sometimes yelling is the easiest way to blow off steam.”  He clattered a handful of spoons into a crock.  “I do not mean nothing when I yell too.  Most of the time.”  He wiped his hands on his apron.  “What do you want me to do next?” 

After stirring and seasoning the simmering soups on the back burners, Brady had John chop lettuce for salads and assemble pasta salads to slot into the buffet that got set up for supper.

Brady did not believe in shopping in a big box store, buying vats of pre-made salads and sides.  He wanted his customers to know that someone had cooked a meal just for them at least once a day.  Brady was not what he appeared.  A hardened veteran of the navy he had spent his career in the service feeding sailors on each of the seven seas.  He had served soup to men on decks, in submarines, and carried coffee to the captains of destroyers, aircraft carriers, and just about every other kind of vessel the navy floated.  His years in the service had taught the softhearted Brady to build a hard shell around his emotions and bottle up his heart.  Too many of his buddies had fallen for a soft pair of eyes in some foreign port and lived to regret it.  Oh, there were a few happy marriages that grew out of those chance encounters but most of the women took their new husband’s money and PX card, outfitted their family hovel at the sailor’s expense and then disappeared.

Today's toss was three coffee mugs that I really like but don't use and a cream pitcher I bought at Goodwill last year for a special meal, used once, and put in the basement.  Into the box they went.

Turned out that the lawnmower was just fine.  Not low on oil, not falling apart.  Whew.  My neighbor, LJ, came down and checked it out, gave the go-ahead, I mowed the front, then took it up to LJ for him to clean out the grass under the mower housing.  He's a good guy.  I'm lucky he's up the street.
--Barbara