All Well And All Is Well

As you can see there, I felt much better today. Practically perfect! Well, you know- for an almost 70-year old woman. And I went to Publix and got cat food and CAULIFLOWER which I will be eating tonight with my soybeans because I think they're just about done. Last night I made my mustard-shrimp dish with rice and it was so good as was the salad that was as plain as could be.

Greens and carrot from the garden. I dressed it up with a little lemon juice, balsamic, and olive oil. Salt and pepper. All you need for perfection in my opinion. Funny that this dish is called a salad while that plate of cheeses and bacon with some chopped tomato, a few small pieces of lettuce, and a half of an egg we ate at the restaurant four days ago is also called a salad. I told Glen while we were eating that delicious sin-on-a-plate that it was a salad in the same sense that a mixture of Jello, pretzels, and mini marshmallows is a salad. Which it must be. Look at any good southern church's self-published cookbook in the "salad" section and you will see that I speak truth. I once discussed pretzel salad on this very blog many years ago and by golly, the very next day I went to a funeral in a Texas church and what do you think was on the salad table at the reception after the service?
Yes. That is right. Pretzel salad! 
We do things a little differently down here. 

Sometimes I miss Jello. 

I didn't take a walk today. I got distracted. I do not want to go into great detail here but a possibly Very Exciting Thing happened this morning. A friend of mine who lives in a certain village near the east coast that I adore texted to tell me that a house there might possibly be going up for sale soon. He'd spoken to the owners who are considering a move to be closer to a sister which would mean selling their house. This house is on the river about two lots away from where my Granddaddy's river property was in front of his house. I have known this house since I was a child. It is almost catty-cornered across the white sand road from where Granny and Granddaddy lived. 
Every time Glen and I pass that house I say the same thing- "I sure wish they'd sell that house."
It's a tiny house. A cottage, really, with one bedroom, one bath. An addition has been built on connected with a screened-in breezeway with a bedroom, sitting room, and bathroom. The original house is probably about a hundred years old and very, very old Florida. 

I read my friend's texts to me and I bet my blood pressure went through the roof. He told me that he'd asked the couple who owned it if it would be okay for him to tell me about it and they said sure and he sent me their phone number. They really liked the fact that I had a long history with that area, not wanting someone to buy it, raze the house and build a mini-mansion. 
I have talked to them now and they are a very nice couple. I told them about my childhood in that little community and how my dog Snoopy used to go visit the people who lived in that house because the lady who lived there always gave him something to eat. Children and dogs were free-range then which is nicer than saying "feral". 

Mr. Moon has spoken with them too, calling from Arkansas, and he doesn't have the feeling that they're quite ready to make a move. There is absolutely nothing certain about this and prices for real estate down there are astronomical. And we would not live there full time. You know I can't possibly leave my babies and their babies for too long. Also- I love my house here in Lloyd. 
Two very, very different types of old Florida houses, two very, very different types of geographical areas in the same state. While we have giant oaks and camellias, cypress trees and magnolias, they have mangos and avocados, pines, cedars, sea grape, many varieties of palms and hibiscus. We have the gulf of Mexico close by, they have the Atlantic ocean. 

It's funny but the worse things get in Florida politically, the stronger my love for the land itself becomes. 
The house that might possibly be up for sale is very close to the railroad bridge that goes over the river there. That would probably not appeal to a lot of people but of course here in Lloyd, the railroad tracks go right behind my back yard and I am quite used to having my house shake when a train goes by. I asked the couple if the dolphins still play under the trestles. They said that they do. 

Well. I remember how excited I got when my grandfather's river property went up for sale. A very ugly house had been built on it but still- I could deal with that in order to have the sunset that I loved over the river so much. The smallest part of me, the part that has an almost primitive woo-woo faith thought that perhaps this was it- this was my gift from the universe for loving that piece of dirt on the river so much. 
And the universe laughed and laughed and someone else bought it. 

So I'm not going to do that this time. (She said.) And I could happily live right here for the rest of my life. 

It's so odd to be at the age I am, contemplating something like this. There is absolutely the possibility that we could buy it, make it our own, enjoy it for a year or two, and then one of us could die. I mean- let's be real. I read the obits. I'd like to think that I'll be hale and hearty for at least another ten years but who knows? And even ten years is not that long. I've lived in this house for almost 21 years and it's gone by like a dream. 

Then again- if we're ever going to do something like this, now is the time. 

Love...Ms. Moon