Life As It Ever Was

Here's a picture of beauty berries which are at peak maturity right now. If that isn't the prettiest color in the world, I do not know what is. I made a silk dress that color once to wear to the wedding of my mother and Glen's father back in 1991. 
Boy. I'll never forget that day. 
Our friend Sue officiated as she had her notary's license which is all you need in Florida to perform a wedding. At one point I had one too and did a few weddings myself and I loved that. But back to the point of the conversation here, if indeed there is a point, is that what I remember about the dress is that I had gotten the spacing of the buttons slightly off and I was desperately unhappy with it but silk is not cheap and I had nothing else to wear to the wedding so that's what I wore. 
But that was the color. The color of beauty berries. 

I'd always heard that a jelly or jam can be made of beauty berries and a few years ago I gave that a whirl. 
Sigh.
The color of it was remarkable. The taste? Eh. It wasn't bad. But it wasn't that good, either. At least now when the berries make their annual appearance I don't have to wonder if I should try using them for jam. I already know the answer and it is "no." I can simply enjoy them for their color and shine and get on with it. 

I took that picture this morning on a walk. I finally decided that the Covid excuse was pretty worn out when it came to getting off my ass to walk. I mean, really. And so I stepped out of the house and made my way down to Harvey's and a little further on and then turned around and came back past our house and on to the P.O. where I knew that a package from Duluth Trading Company was waiting for me. I had ordered a third pair of their short overalls. I already have a pair of the glorious blue ones and a pair of fairly boring gray ones and these and tank tops have become my summer uniform. But they went on sale and so I got a pair of the green ones. I've spoken of these before but they honestly are the best damn overalls I've ever owned with the greatest pockets and hardware. Jessie and Rachel have both gotten a pair but in a cute mushroom-print and the other day we started texting about what all you could fit into the pockets of these things which ranged from a newborn baby to a rotisserie chicken to medical marijuana, lighters, tiger balm, spare ibuprofen and a snack.  

So I was excited to get my green ones and I'd also ordered one of what they call their No-Yank Tanks because it too was on sale and I just like the sound of No-Yank Tank. 

My god all I'm doing this evening is making one segue after another. 

Anyway, my walk felt fine. I didn't feel overheated although yes, I did a lot of sweating, and I didn't feel like I was dying and I thought it had all gone quite well for the first walk in weeks (a month?) and everything was fine and then this afternoon I sat down to shell some peas and had to fight to stay awake. This is unusual for me. I may get tired during the day but I don't usually feel like I need to sleep. So there may still be a little bit of the Covid circulating in my blood. I was talking to Glen about this and he says he's been experiencing the same thing around three o'clock every afternoon. 

I did something today that I've been "meaning" to do for weeks, which was to clean off the railing on the back porch which had been covered in the black dirt of Lloyd which settles on everything, especially when thrown up by the lawn mower when it hasn't rained in awhile. They have been purely filthy and I've just been pretending they weren't to no avail, of course, and it's been bugging me so today I got out the vinegar/Fabuloso/water spray and a few of my many, many rags, and cleaned them up and I can't believe what a difference it makes. 

Why did I wait so long to do this? I doubt it took me ten minutes. It's sort of changed my whole outlook on life. 
Well. You know. In some ways. 
I think we all do this- put off doing things for illogical reasons and then, when we finally can't stand things the way they are anymore, actually do the work and it never takes nearly as much time as all the fretting we've been doing about it did. 

And then on the other hand, we think we can do something in an hour when we know for a fact it's really going to take three hours. I spoke about this last night in regard to making the shrimp salad. 

Humans are delusional about so many things, aren't we? 

I would say that cats are delusional too in believing that if they stare at us long enough we will get up from where we are sitting to do what they are silently commanding us to do with their alien-mental powers but in fact, we so very often do follow what they command that it doesn't qualify as being delusional.

Here's a picture which came up in my memories a few days ago which has absolutely nothing to do with any of this except that it does sort of represent the meaning of everything for me. 

Cousins. 

Those little feet, those precious little fingers, those golden curls and those sweet faces. 

We need to get another hugging picture of those bebes again soon. 

We're having leftover shrimp salad and leftover soup tonight but I've made a new batch of naan that I'll be cooking to go with it all. I am almost inappropriately excited about this. 

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. Let me make it quite clear that I am receiving nothing from Duluth Trading Company in the way of merchandise or any other type of compensation. 
I fucking wish.