Rescued Another One

This morning there was another rose bud just opening (and no Japanese beetles in sight), 

so I grabbed my little scissors and snipped it.  I'd rather leave them on the rosebush because they last longer but not with the Japanese beetles lining up to gobble them down, so I pick them when I see them and enjoy them while I can.  The petals are like velvet and it smells so good.  Thanks, Dad.

The mint blossoms were a hive of activity this morning.  You can see a couple beetles on them but the bees were moving too fast.  Every shot I took was a flower with a bee blur.

I went to Sunny Hill farm stand this morning to get corn for supper with my neighbors tonight.  They provided the steaks, and tomatoes and cukes from their CSA.  Just as we were ready to eat it started to rain which meant that we couldn't eat outside.  So I put a leaf in the table and we ate social distanced.  Everything was delicious.  As soon as the meal was done it stopped raining.  Of course.  We sat outside in their backyard where he lit a little fire.  It was nice.

 

The zinnias are almost done.  The Goldfinches are enjoying the dead heads and this one little red orange flower is still shining brightly.

 

 And the Stella d'Oro lilies are still blooming.

As I drove home from the farm stand I realized that the reason I was thinking of DD and SIL1 was that I was following an Aramark truck and that's who they work for in KY.  Silly, but it made me smile.

20 August--Barbara Malcolm, Better Than Mom's. 

That brought his head up; he excused himself and went into the kitchen to get back to cooking.  Despite their disreputable looks the row of bikers were fairly well behaved, aside from periodic shouts of laughter, which caused a few of the more nervous of their fellow diners to spill their coffee.  Fay was kept busy filling the bikers’ mugs and mopping up spilled coffee from other tables.  She served them their breakfasts, each of them thanking her politely when she set the plate in front of them.  By that time most of the other diners in the place had finished their meal, waved her down for their checks, paid, and left.  Fay noticed that no more customers had come in since the invasion of the bikers.  She hoped that they did not make a habit of stopping in; she needed the tips that Sunday customers, generally a bit more generous than weekday customers, left, and so did Naomi. 

Brady had a policy that the waitress shared tips seventy/thirty with the bus person.  Naomi had argued that the busing was not much work, so she felt like she was stealing Fay’s money, but both Fay and Brady insisted.  Brady had brought in a crock he picked up for fifty cents at the thrift store next to Safeway that he put at the end of the pass through that wait staff dropped their tips in.  He said he did it to save arguments, but Fay figured the afternoon waitress was not as scrupulous about spitting tips with Marcus as Fay was with Naomi.  Fay used to keep them in her pocket, but the bills got bulky and the coins got heavy, especially on Sundays, so she was glad to empty her pockets and put the money in the crock.  She wondered what kind of tippers the bikers were as she walked back down past them, a coffee pot in each hand, filling their mugs.  She was amazed to hear them discussing T-bills, emerging market funds, and Impressionist Art, in addition to cams and chrome wheels.  Fay knew for a fact that most bikers would not know an Impressionist painting if it was tattooed on their arm.  But then she was not sure she would recognize one if it bit her on the ass either.

By the time the bikers had used the last of their biscuits to sop up the last of the egg yolk and gravy from their plates, they were the only people in the place except for Naomi and Brady in the kitchen and Fay behind the counter.  

“Fay, another round of coffee for my men,” Fearless Leader said. 

She made one more pass down the line of mugs then she started clearing the booths and tables closest to the counter.  One by one she cleared tables, neatly stacking dirty dishes in a bus tub, and sliding it onto the pass-through for Naomi to put in the dishwasher.  Then she wiped each table with a clean, soapy cloth, making sure to move and wipe off the salt and pepper shakers, the sugar jar, the napkin holder, and the seats.  She straightened up the menus in the holder, made sure there were not any obvious food spatters on them and the dessert flipper cards, reset the table with clean silverware wrapped in a napkin and fresh placemats, ready for the lunchtime diners.  Once she had cleaned her way to the back of the diner, she started on the buffet table.  She checked the time to make sure that it was after one o’clock which was half an hour after the posted end of brunch, and then she began scraping the remaining food into a bucket stored under the counter, and stacking the empty steam trays on the pass through.  Once she had the steam trays all emptied, she started unloading the clean dishes from the tubs Brady had lined up on the shelf under the counter so that everything was clean and refilled for the supper crowd.

 

Today was Goodwill donation day so I loaded up all of the fishing poles and the tackle box along with the other things that had accumulated in the car and made a little drop off.  Wonder what I'll find to toss tomorrow.

--Barbara