Pining For Camellias

The Japonica varieties of camellias are still not blooming but both of the sasangua varieties I have are. This is the pink one I have growing here. Both it and the red and yellow one are blooming more profusely  than they ever have before but so late! In late December of 2023 my hallway altar looked like this. 

And in 2018, on January 29, it looked like this. 

It was such an embarrassment of riches every year. Those camellias have been my joy and my reminder of miracles every winter. 

I have not given up hope though. I refuse. There are a fantastic number of buds and I am hoping that whatever mystical series of weather events has to take place for them to open happens soon. 

I did see something else I consider magical today though. I was on my back porch, as usual, when I heard a tap-tapping and looked up to see a pileated woodpecker on the pecan tree right behind where the camellias grow. I could not get a picture but here's what these magnificent birds look like. 

They are huge birds. They can range from almost almost sixteen inches long to over nineteen inches. When I see one, which is not very frequently, I feel as if I have had a religious visitation. They are that striking, that regal. 
So there was that this morning and I felt so lucky to have seen it. I fear that the pileated woodpecker will go the way of the ivory-billed woodpecker which, now extinct, was an even larger bird who was also  known as The Lord God Bird. There have been reported sightings of that bird but none verified in many years. Their habitat, like the pileated woodpecker's, was encroached on to the point where they simply could not survive and since humans' needs for development seem to have no boundaries, I am mortally afraid the pileated will become rarer and rarer until it, too, is more myth than reality. 

So you can see why when I sight one, I am filled with a sense of being blessed and not in the way people mean when they tell you to have a "blessed day" which is a common occurrence in these parts and sort of makes me want to screech, "I'm an atheist!"

I had to go to town again today. This going to town thing is getting to be a far more frequent event than I'd like. I had to go to the pharmacy where my hormones are made to pick those up and then to Costco and then to Publix. To reward myself for braving the urban world of East Tallahassee once again (haha!), I asked Jessie if she wanted to meet me for lunch at a Cuban restaurant. I was craving a bowl of their garbanzo bean soup. 
She did. And we discussed some very deep topics and that's not a joke. Our conversation was a more serious one than we usually have but it was a good one. 
And the soup was perfect.

I saw Brenda at Costco and she did not look like her usual boss self. She's been very sick with flu and bronchitis and even had to go to the hospital. Still, she was beautiful in her Brenda way and I hope she is better soon. Obviously, she needed more time off to recover but back to work she had to go which sucks tremendously and is simply wrong. 
I went a little crazy at Costco. I bought two new towels and a new set of sheets. I have no idea what came over me. It's just that the quality of these things is so good and their prices so much less than you'd find anywhere else. And I did what I did and I am not sorry. 

Mr. Moon is home. He has gotten so much done this week. He sent me this picture today.

A successful weld! Is that the right term? A weld? 
Fuck if I know. But I think it's part of the downstairs shower situation so definitely important. In fact, I'm almost certain it's part of the downstairs shower situation. As far as I know, the upstairs shower situation is fine as it is.
So. Painting, plumbing, welding. 
And I know he loves it all. 

Tomorrow we go BACK to Costco to see Ms. JaLisa and I am not sure Glen's going to keep his hearing aids. He is not happy with them. In the last few weeks he has not worn them every waking moment. I am doing my best to convince him that he needs to keep them for when he's not hunting or fishing or alone at least. I'm not thrilled with mine, either. Perhaps I really do not have as much hearing loss as I thought I did but I do know that I CAN hear conversations better and I can hear my grandchildren better and I can hear what the guy who oversees the dump says better and I can hear the TV better so I'm not surrendering mine for a refund. They can be a pain in the ass and the quality of the sound when I'm listening to books or podcasts with them is so inferior to my AirPods that I understand how Glen feels and there may be times when I don't wear mine either. Times when I'm home alone, specifically. I can hear the birds and the breezes and the rain and the oh my god, THE TRAIN, just fine without them. But I know Glen and I hear each other better with them even if he is loathe to admit it. 
I need to be flexible, I need to be open to adapting, I need to face the fact that aging creates changes and challenges which need to be addressed as best they can. 
Sigh.

The sky did another beautiful thing at sunset this evening. I didn't take a picture of what it looked like in the west because I've done that recently but here's what it looked like to the south. 

Not nearly as dramatic but there is beauty in subtlety too. I love the pink clouds.

I am not going to discuss the horrors. Not tonight. 

Love...Ms. Moon