Not A Sweatshop

I volunteered.  DS and DIL1 asked if I had any masks left.  I have one, but they wanted ten of them to offer to their employees when they reopen this week.  So I said I could make them over the next couple days.  I went downstairs, got them all cut out, and sewed up six of them before time to come upstairs to Zoom with DS, LC, OJ, DD, and IT (before he conked out since he'd been napless for a couple days; naps are important when you're 2).



It rained all day.  No really, it was steady all day, not a downpour, but what Dad used to call a soaking rain.  Now the wind has come up so it sounds like trucks are driving by.  I'm glad I mowed on Friday.






The male Hummingbird made regular visits to the feeder this morning before I went down into the sewing area.   I want to know how something so small can fly in the rain without getting knocked down by the raindrops or blown tail over head by the wind.  I could sit and watch them all day.

17 May--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

Mona parked around the corner from It Rains Fishes on Kaya Engelhardt, a tiny alley of a street linking the main road, Kaya Grandi, with the oceanfront street, Kaya Craane.  She walked toward the ocean reveling in the postcard view afforded by the space between the houses at the corner.  They cast a dark shade that made the bright sunlit water and the small island a half mile offshore look more appealing.  Turning left she dodged around a couple of cars parked up on the sidewalk then slowed as she reached the restaurant. 

She was feeling a bit presumptuous for having called a relative stranger and nearly begged her to have lunch with her, insisting that it had to be today.  Even if Susan had not heard it, Mona was very aware of the tight pleading in her voice on the phone when she had invited Susan to lunch. 

Susan’s calm British voice had seemed so soothing when she had said, “of course, I would love to have lunch with you, Mona” almost as if she knew how much Mona needed to have someone to talk to.  Someone normal, almost like a real girl friend, something she had not had in too many years to count, for sure she had not had a close friend since she had moved in with Jack. 

There were days when she wondered what perverse impulse had led her to agree to move in with Jack.  Jack was in no way the type of man who appealed to her, he was not very tall, and he was twice her age.  His wardrobe looked like it had come from Dean Martin’s garage sale and he acted like he had been caught in a time warp and been transported from the nineteen-seventies to the present. 

She was certain that he had to send away to Asia or someplace like that for his Sansabelt slacks and Banlon shirts.  The one time she had tried to convince him that it was not against the law to wear natural fibers and tried to wheedle him into some khakis and a linen shirt he had been so angry she had been forced to wear long sleeves for two weeks until his finger marks faded from her upper arms.  He never hit her, no, she was at least spared that, but he would grab her and squeeze so that it felt like he could rip off her arm with a flick of his wrist, then he would lower his voice to a whisper and through clenched teeth tell her in no uncertain terms exactly what was wrong with what she had done or said. 

Mona looked down at her clothes, a bright Indian patterned broomstick skirt, a navy tee shirt and some gold thong sandals, hoping that she was neither over nor under dressed for the restaurant.  She looked up to see Susan’s smiling face. 

She looks like she’s happy to see me, Mona thought, I wonder why, but she was not in the mood to argue with finding a friend so she smiled and waved back and climbed the three steps up from the street into the open air restaurant. 

After they were seated at a table along the open front of the restaurant and Susan had ordered a bottle of white wine, “I know you will enjoy this, my dear, and it is my treat,” she said when Mona protested that she was not sure wine was wise, Mona thanked Susan for meeting her. 

“Oh, do not thank me, Mona,” Susan smiled and patted her arm. “I should thank you.  George is always insufferable after a party.  He keeps wanting to go over how very charming it all was and then I must spend at least half the day telling him that he is the personification of a good host.” 

Mona had trouble thinking of a response.  “That sounds… frustrating.” 

“Oh, it is not frustrating, a bit tedious, but George is seldom frustrating.  Since he retired from government service, he has taken up a couple of hobbies that consume his time and interest so there are days that I feel I need to make an appointment to see him.”  She paused while the waiter poured her a sip of wine, she nodded her approval, he poured them each a glass, and he nestled the bottle in a bucket of ice that he set on a tripod next to their table.  “Is Jack like that?”

Mona avoided answering by taking a sip of her wine.  “Jack is…” she said, “Jack is not like that.  He is only interested in making himself look like a big shot and, and,” her voice got softer and high pitched, “making me look small.”

Susan did not even think and reached across the table to rest her hand on Mona’s.  The small kind gesture broke through Mona’s self control like nothing else would have.  She began to have trouble breathing, to gasp with agonized inhalations trying to keep some semblance of control over her emotions. 

“Oh, oh,” she said, “I did not mean…”  Her voice failed her.  Certain that saying one more word would open the flood gates and send her wailing and weeping to the tile floor she blindly reached for her wine glass and brought it trembling to her mouth. 

Susan removed her hand and picked up her own wine and took a sip.  She turned her gaze to the horizon.  “Look at the beautiful sailboat,” she said quietly to Mona.  “It looks like a flying dove, does it not?” 

Mona turned her face toward the west, her lips white from the strain of holding in her emotions.  “Yes,” she said, her voice squeezed from her paralyzed throat.  “It is beautiful.” 

           Susan replied softly, “It almost makes one weep,” giving tacit permission for Mona to cry.


I got an email from the greenhouse today so I'll be hoping it stops raining tomorrow so I can comfortably go pick up my plants.  I'll pick up the plants tomorrow no matter what but I'd prefer to go when it's dry.  I'm getting onion sets, a Roma tomato, a cucumber vine, potatoes, parsley and basil, and a bunch of flowers, and it's a local business so my money stays here.  I like that.
--Barbara