Purty Praple Flaars

I need to start "looking" at the west side of the house.  Looking and seeing, not just glancing, because I missed seeing this gorgeous iris when I drove up to the house after work yesterday.  This columbine is blooming too, blooming to beat the band.  And the poppies are coming.  I love their fuzzy little buds, well, they're not little little but they are fuzzy, and unlike other bud coverings (arils--I do crosswords) these fall off and dry up on the grass looking like something alien.  Eesh.  Does anybody know what this flower is?  It's a perennial or at least it's self-seeding.  Mom & Dad planted it/them years ago and neither of them remembered what it's called and now they're both dead so I can't beat the answer out of them.  Anyone got a clue?  Man, it's hard to not eat a candy bar when the day presents only one measly customer and that one's only returning a couple of rental tanks.  I wish Mr. Boss didn't have a stash of Snickers bars in the freezer and I wish he hadn't offered me one last week so it's not like I'd be stealing one either.  (Everyone knows stolen food tastes better.  What?  Didn't you ever raid a neighbor's apple tree when you were a kid?  You haven't lived.)  The phone didn't even ring all that much and most of those were robo-sales calls; I just hang up.  It's either feast or famine.  I did finish a triangle on my shawlette and start the next one, so that was good, and I finished a novel on my Kindle.  Oh, oh, I got a free issue of Birds & Blooms on the Kindle and decided to keep subscribing.  Good thing I did because the new issue is their Annual Hummingbird Issue and it's crammed with ideas about feeders and plantings and (Durwood's fave) how to hand-feed hummingbirds.  And getting a digital mag keeps me from having to give it house room for the rest of forever since we are the yin and yang of stuff--I tend to toss and he saves it all-All-all.  And then some.

 
May 17--Mary Cassatt, Young Mother Sewing.  It was so warm sitting there with the sun beating on the back of her neck.  She felt beads of perspiration roll down her spine to collect in the small of her back.  "Ethan," she said softly to her son, "don't lean on Mama.  It's too warm."  The sunlight caught her son's red hair and turned strands of it golden.  His tiny voice floated on the motes caught in the shafts of light.  "But, Mama, I need to be here.  You smell so good, and I need a snack."  She put down the handkerchief she was hemming and looked at him.  "You need a snack, do you?"  She smoothed the soft red-gold curls off his forehead.  "Well, I need a cool drink."  She stood and held out her hand.  "Let's go see what we can find."  She managed only a step or two before her vision blurred and she fell, dragging the boy with her.

Hmph.  I didn't expect that last sentence.  Interesting.  Hey, today's DS & DIL1's 4th wedding anniversary, can you believe it?  I sure can't.  Sometimes it seems like they've been married forever and other times it seems like 4 weeks.  But it couldn't be that short because they lived in Missoula, Montana for 2 years and have been back home for 2 years.  Adds right up to 4 years.  See how that works?  Have a day, folks, I'm going to work on having one too.  See ya.

--Barbara