Well, Here We Are

Maurice is looking a bit shaggy, isn't she? Yesterday I decided to get in the garden and kneel in the dirt and get my hands filthy and so I did. I didn't stay out too long because it's still hot as blazes and as humid as a sauna but I enjoyed the time I spent out there, doing a little weeding, and of course I always love it when Maurice joins me. She wandered among the greens and the mushrooms which have sprung up since we got that rain. 

That looks like an angry mushroom to me. 

When I came in I did laundry and a few other chores and then I decided to clean out the freezer which for some bizarre reason I thought would take about twenty minutes. 
Two hours later I was done. I got rid of a few things and tried to organize the other things but it's still far from perfect. 

And then I made our supper of mahi-mahi and grits and salad and leftover okra and tomatoes. It was all good. I was tired by nine-thirty but managed to stay awake until eleven at which point the light went out and I slept eight hours straight. I knew I had to get up early because today was pottery class. 

I got up in plenty of time and made it to Jessie's house to pick her up and off we went to Lafayette Park where the studio is and just as we were getting started, I got a call from Lily who was at work. Poor Lauren was in such bad pain from lower back and hip pain that she really wanted to go to an ER. So Jessie and I cleaned up our spaces and drove to pick her up. We were going to take her to the free-standing ER associated with Tallahassee's main hospital where I have received such good care for my appendix and kidney stone situations. However, on the way there, we saw that the local orthopedic clinic where Lauren had an appointment scheduled for tomorrow had an urgent treatment clinic which none of us knew about so we took her there and they saw her in a reasonable amount of time. I say that as someone who was not in agony. I'm not sure she'd agree with that. 

They did X-rays and a doctor examined her and they gave her a shot for pain (not a narcotic) and a steroid shot and told us we could take her home. Jessie and I felt terrible for her. She could hardly move at all and there was no position she could be in that was even vaguely comfortable. Not sitting, not standing, and not laying down. 
Jessie was a great nurse for her, giving her Ibuprofen before we left the house, and making sure she had water. She tried every comfort measure she could think of. 
They ordered an MRI for Lauren but her insurance company has to approve it before they can schedule it. I am pretty sure that the doctor agreed with her own diagnosis of sciatica. The X-rays did not show anything that Lauren didn't know already but they did indicate that a nerve was being pinched. 
I think that strangled is more like it. 

We took her home and she laid down on the couch to rest and I hear she was able to sleep some although her pain has not abated much, if at all. Damn. There's pain and then there's...pain. You know what I mean. Wicked, unrelenting pain. And that is what she is having. 

I dropped off Jessie at her house although to be perfectly honest, she was doing all the driving. She had to pick up those boys and take them to piano. Because I still had not set my car clock to the correct time due to the fact that every six months when the time changes, I forget how to do it and have to google it, and I just hadn't gotten around to that, I thought it was after four when it was really only after three and so I did not go do my grocery shopping which had been part of my plan today. I have now successfully set the clock but I guarantee you that come spring and another time change, I will not remember how to do it. 

Mr. Moon did not sleep last night because he felt and does feel "like shit" which concerns me. The man ignores illness until he absolutely cannot. The feeling like shit, according to him, has nothing to do with any illness but some other random thing he has come up with involving an acid blocker that he didn't take one day last week. Seriously. 
So I am making a soup because soup cures everything. Am I right? The greens that I picked for a salad are now cut up and simmering in the pot with broth and onions and carrots. While I was out in the garden I took a little video of the bees on the Mexican basil. You really can't get the entire scope of how many there are as the camera cannot take in what the eye can but you can get a sense of what's going on there.

And the honeymooners had their first New Orleans brunch today and oh my god. I want some of that. 

Hank is about to attack a benny flight which I understand is a selection of different takes on Eggs Benedict. 
GET OUT! 

And Rachel is eating an omelet, grits, and a biscuit. She said they are probably the best grits she ever ate. 

I would not doubt that. 

And that's the story. I thought that life would be back to normal by now but let's face it- normal is not a concept which we can truly expect any more and we have no idea what the new normal will be but I have no doubt that whatever it is, it will only get worse. 
In the meantime, let us eat all the benny flights and grits.

Let us love our sweethearts. Let us take care of each other. 

Love...Ms. Moon