I went to the grocery store and I was hungry. Let me just say that my smoothie does very little to fill me up, especially if I walk and I know you shouldn't go to the store hungry but since I am eating all healthy and shit (and don't you think that would be a good title for a diet/cookbook? Eating All Healthy And Shit?) I bought things like spaghetti squash and beautiful peppers and avocados and and sweet potatoes and strawberries and fresh pineapple. Once you sort of eliminate certain foods from your diet, you do find yourself looking forward to eating really good food. My theory is that there we are always hungry for things like pizza and Doritos but if you just mostly put your foot down about those sorts of things and actually become hungry (not starving, but merely hungry), things like spaghetti squash can be pretty delicious.
Or I may just be fooling myself but it's working for me so fuck it.
Anyway, I did the shopping and came home and unloaded everything and cut up grapes to feed the babies when Owen and Gibson got here and oh! we had so much fun with those chicks today. Nicey, it turns out, is just perfectly named. She will actually run up to us and let us pick her up. Owen is delighted.
Who wouldn't be?
And Nicey seems to like to perch on your shoulder. Perhaps she was a parrot in her former lifetime.
Anyway, we had at least three playing-with-the-chicks sessions and several feeding-the-big-chickens experiences too. After Mr. Moon left for auction, Gibson wanted popcorn like I had made for his Boppy so I made a bowl for us and we sat on the back steps and fed Elvis and his wives and Gibson screamed with joy when Miss Ozzy ate out of his hand and Owen proclaimed Elvis to be his "brother" and when Elvis had the indecency to cover Miss Sharon right there in front of us, Owen thought they were wrestling and he fussed at Elvis and I did nothing to enlighten him about what they were really doing and it only lasts for about a second anyway, so no harm done and Elvis proceeded to eat popcorn from Owen's hand as if nothing had happened and there you go.
We went for a walk today. We walked up Main Street and stopped and visited with a Boston Bull Terrier named Harley and his owner's mother. She was a voluble woman with extremely black hair who explained she was house sitting because her daughter's husband was in Jacksonville "getting a new heart." Owen and Gibson talked with her as if they'd known her all their lives and it was an interesting conversation, I have to say.
We walked all the way up to Ms. Liola's house and I was hoping she would be in her yard so that she could see the boys but she was not and I didn't feel like knocking on her trailer door in case she was napping. So we turned around and came home but the boys got distracted by a small pile of dirt in the road. I swear. They had more fun in that dirt than they would have if I'd given them pads of paper and new boxes of crayons. Gibson literally cried when I picked him to make him leave.
Main Street in Lloyd is pretty much the road less traveled so it wasn't a big deal but after about ten minutes, I, at least, had lost interest.
The boys also dug around in the yard for treasures and as always we found broken pottery and we also found two old marbles and I thought about how boys and girls have been playing in this yard for over a hundred and fifty years. I always talk to Owen about these things but I'm not sure he can grasp that. One of these days, he will. Just as one of these days he'll figure out exactly what Elvis was doing with the hens and that it was not wrestling.
When we got back from the walk, Owen wanted to have a picnic even though there had already been about three snack episodes. Whatever, I thought, and we put sliced apples and a banana and some Chex Mix in a bag and went out to the back yard and I spread a tablecloth on the ground and we had a damn fine picnic and I laid on my back and Gibson attacked me and we talked about birds and Owen asked me when I was going to college and I told him that I already had and he asked, "Boppy?" and I said that yes, Boppy had gone to college too and then we talked about what Owen is going to study when he goes to college and no surprise- dinosaurs. I told him that would make him a paleontologist and we talked about how someone who studies the things that live in the ocean is a marine biologist and someone who studies bugs is an entomologist and that people who study people are called anthropologists and then I said, "What do you call someone who studies poop?" and he said, "A Poopologist!" and we laughed and laughed.
There was also a lot of playing on the play set and also, some fig-tree climbing. Here's Gibson, standing inside the budding branches, showing me how old he is now.
As you can tell, it takes some concentration but he sure can do it.
So there you go. That's what we did today. And it was great and I had plenty of energy and I have the spaghetti squash roasting in the oven and I'm going to make a little sauce with some leftover chicken I cooked last night with lemon juice and vermouth and garlic and onions and I'll throw in tomatoes and peppers and mushrooms and basil and pine nuts and spinach. Mr. Moon is on the road and won't be here to eat it but he's not that fond of spaghetti squash anyway although he would eat it because he's sweet like that.
It's about time to go shut up all the chickens in their various roosting places and there were at least two dozen cardinals at the feeder and in the camellias around it and just now a squirrel scared them all and they sounded like a buzz bomb, taking off for safety.
But they're already drifting back to snap seeds and I saw my first blooming wisteria today when I was walking with the boys and it's going to get chilly tonight but that is okay because it's going to get really hot really soon and the memory of these cooler days and nights will be sustaining.
Maybe.
Owen was talking to me today about how he wished I wasn't old. This is a big worry of his. But we discussed it and I told him I was still not that old and that I am still strong, which he didn't believe.
"I can still pick you up!" I told him.
"You can't pick up Boppy," he said.
"I never could pick up Boppy, honey," I said. Although the truth of the matter is that I guess at one point I DID pick up his Boppy and that too, shall be something that he will some day realize and I told him that one of the good things about being older is that you learn to love the people you love more than you ever did before and that also, you get grandchildren.
He pondered this and stirred his chocolate milk and I have no idea what he's going to remember about these days of long talks and Lloyd walks and chickens and picnics and digging for treasures but I'll tell you this- somewhere in his bones he's going to know that he was loved by an old woman who lived in an old house and that she may have been old but that she was strong enough pick him up and hug him to her.
And hopefully, so will his brother.
"Even after you die, you are still in people's hearts," Owen said to me today.
"That's right," I agreed.
And I started out to try and explain genes to him but I quickly realized we're not there yet. But someday he'll know.
Some day.
In the meantime, this day is plenty good enough.
That sounds like a good one, and I'm excited to come visit tomorrow. I'm going o get you to do some needle surgery on a nasty splinter in my finger, too.
ReplyDeleteMr. Downtown- I will do my best. I can't wait to see you. Thanks for agreeing to help your old mama.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like Gibson is actually saying,"two" in the picture.
ReplyDeleteHe is still loving the hat I see! My god he is adorable!
Oh my, indeed, the dead beloved are still in our hearts. Sometimes, in a way, I feel they are almost closer than they were when they walked the earth.
ReplyDeleteThis post filled up my heart.
P.S. I think I've had popcorn in similar circumstances.
Wow. What a day.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to take a marker and insert the word "fine" between the title's words. Some fine day. Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent day, yes.
ReplyDeleteBirdie- He will not take that hat off. I've never seen a child that attached to wearing a hat.
ReplyDeleteDenise- Your popcorn comment made me laugh.
Jill- Yep! It was a good one.
Juice- It was a fine day.
Ellen Abbott- Amen.
Ms Moon, this post is just about the sweetest thing I've ever read. And that picture of Nicey perched on Owen's shoulder is so dear and all of it just makes me sort of swoon.
ReplyDeleteIt's a wonderful life.
love,
yo
Sweet boys. Beautiful day. How lucky they are! And you. Such magic.
ReplyDeleteOwen and the chicken is so funny. He is really an animal person.
ReplyDeleteYobobe- I can't get over how grateful I am to have this old-fashioned, old-timey magical place for these boys to enjoy. It's a miracle to me.
ReplyDeleteJo- I know! Such magic here! And the boys just jump in and love it.
Syd- I think all kids love animals. It's a very awesome thing to observe and foster.