Quite A Day

I knew the gas company was sending someone out today to fill our propane tank but I wasn't sure when. The owner of the company assured me that the guy had my number and would call. 
Well, he did. He called at 9:00 a.m. sharp to tell me he was in my yard. 
Ooh boy. 
I was still in bed with Maurice. I was awake, but luxuriating in being under the warm covers and loathe to get up. Why does the bed feel so amazing when we wake up in the morning? Ten times better than it does when we get under the covers at night and that feels pretty damn good already. 
So what do I say to the man on the phone? I said, "Whoa! In my yard? I'll be RIGHT there!" 
And I leapt out of the bed, put on some clothes, tried to smooth my hair down a bit, and didn't even brush my teeth or wash my face and darted for the side yard where a very tall and also large man beside a propane truck held out his hand and said, "I'm KC." 
"I'm Mary," I said, and we shook hands like I'd been up since before dark, gathering my hand-shaking strength.
He'd never been here before and so I had to show him where the tank was. When we were walking over there I said to him, "I'm not gonna lie. I was still in bed when you called."
He laughed and said, "You recovered well."
I asked him if he'd like a cup of coffee and he said he would if it wasn't too much trouble. Four sugars and four creams. Okay! 
He filled the tank and I finished my morning face and teeth rituals and pulled my hair back and put it up and by the time I was finished, he was rolling up the hose. He wrote up my invoice and thanked me for the coffee and I thanked him profusely and, just to make conversation I said, "Do you think it really froze last night?"
"I don't know," he said, "But I'm from the Bahamas and I'm fucking freezing!"
Well, you know me. He had long, long covered dreds and a braided knotted beard that he tugged at and I just felt so at ease with him. All the guys who've ever delivered gas here have been almost wordless, most of them sullen, obviously not loving their jobs or their lives and obviously having no desire in this world to have any sort of conversation with me. But this is a different company, one we've never used, and I do believe it's going to be a different story. 
Next thing you know, he's telling me about his grandmother, 106 years old who walks to the fields every day and works in the fields every day and doesn't limp and doesn't have any problems with stiffness or pain and claims to feel just like she did when she was a girl. I told him that science needs to study his granny. 
He asked me where I was from and I told him I'd lived in Florida since I was five and he said, "But where are you FROM?" I explained that my parents were from Chattanooga, Tennessee and when he asked me how I came to live in Florida I told him the briefest version of how my mother had left my father when I was five and we'd moved to Florida where her parents lived. 
"So they got divorced and everything?"
"Yes."
"Did you see your father after that?"
"No. Well, I saw him once when I was thirty."
He was amazed and horrified. "But you were his daughter!"
And that's when, at 9:30 a.m. I started to cry and he pulled me in to one of those big men hugs and said, "I didn't mean to make you cry. I'm sorry."
I told him that yes, it was sad, but that I'd found a wonderful man who has been a great father to our children and he approved of that. 
Turns out he moved to Melbourne, Florida when he was young to attend school and that's where he learned to play football and hone his basketball skills because he had been playing that all his life. Now, Melbourne is about fifteen miles from Roseland and of course he knew where Roseland was. He went to FSU and played ball there. I think football. 

Anyway, that is how my day started out and before he left he apologized again for making me cry and again I told him that's okay, I cry easy, and I came away feeling like I'd been given a gift and I hadn't even had my coffee yet.

Then the next thing I knew, Lis called me! Good Lord! Could things get any better? 

I've spent the rest of the day like I said I would. I did laundry, I folded laundry. I enjoyed folding laundry on the folding table Glen made me so much with the sun coming in that window, shining through the stained glass my friend Lynn made and my treasures on the windowsill and bathing my nursery plants with light that I decided to bring out all the contents of my underwear drawer and refold and organize it all. I also threw away the stuff that has obviously outlived its wear-by date. I didn't even save anything to use as rags because I already have enough rags to last the rest of my life, even if I live to be a hundred and six years old like K.C.'s granny. I picked salad greens and I got an answer to my question as to whether it froze last night. 

The African basil is as dead as dead can be. A few bees were still flying around the blooms though, seemingly dazed and confused as to where their source of nectar had gone. The greens and lettuces were fine, of course, and I have enough of those picked for at least two salads. 

I did some mending and button-sewing-on and I just did a lot of little things that I've been meaning to get around to. 
My soup is ready to be puréed and add the coconut milk to, and I have enough dough rising to make a few naan breads.  

On top of all that, it's been a beautiful day. Cold, but so crisp, so clear, so intensely blue-skied. 

We do have leaves that turn color here. 

The mulberry tree. 

Look up. Look up. 

Magnolia Grandiflora. 

Pottery tomorrow. 

Love...Ms. Moon