A Birthday Eve

That's the only decent picture I've taken all day long. It's a photo of one of the volunteer squashes which is making a squash. Now we shall see what sort it is. Any guesses? I'm still guessing acorn. If every one of the volunteers puts forth a few squash, we shall have an abundance of them. 

I am tired. I got up BEFORE SEVEN this morning to get to my blood draw appointment. It wasn't that hard, really. I felt fine and even cheerful. Cheerful enough that when I glimpsed something on the floor near my bathroom door when it was still mostly dark but not entirely and I didn't have my glasses on so everything was fuzzy anyway but it occurred to me that whatever the object was, it seemed to be rodent shaped, I didn't freak out. 
I vaguely remembered Maurice coming into our room last night making her "I have brought you food!" call. I was deeply asleep and barely woke up. It did register that she might have had a successful hunt but I was not going to deal with it then. 
And when I came out of the bathroom and it was lighter and I had my glasses on, I saw that indeed, she had brought us a mouse, quite a large mouse, in fact, so neatly killed that I didn't see a mark on it. 
I will admit I didn't look at it too closely. 
I got the broom and the dustpan and took care of the little thing, tossing her out into the bushes on the other side of the yard. Glen would have done it but he was not in the best of moods, having had terrible dreams all night which is most unusual for him. 
I thanked Maurice and then told her, "DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!" 
Right. She never listens to a thing I say. She usually only brings home game when Glen's out of town, feeling certain that I can't feed myself without his help so she steps in. Perhaps last night she sensed that he was not 100% himself and so did us both a favor by bringing us that tasty morsel. 
She's thoughtful like that. 

So I went and got my blood drawn and I cannot tell you how much I hate that. Not the actual puncture and withdrawal of blood from my vein. That doesn't really bother me. 
I'm sure I've mentioned this before but the thing I hate about it is that everyone should be able to keep some secrets. You know? The deepest darkest secrets. Things that are so private that you have no desire to share them with anyone. I think I am especially prone to believe this because of my childhood (surprise! surprise!) when I wasn't allowed to have a lock on my bedroom door because...
Well, my stepfather said so. Which meant that I spent years in subconscious (and sometimes quite conscious) terror that he could and would enter my room at any time, even in the darkest parts of the night. 
Back to blood. 
When my blood is drawn and then analyzed for signs of the myriad of things that could be wrong with me, or that are simply happening in my own personal private body, I get a feeling that I can't even explain. It is somewhat like terror, though. 
It is also like an unwelcome invasion of the very essence of me, my very lifeblood. 
And no, this makes no sense but humans are not always logical creatures. I could go to my "patient portal" and read the results. They have already been posted. 
But will I? 
Oh hell, fucking no. 
If something has shown up that can't wait until my appointment with my doctor nearer the end of May, he can call me. Otherwise, ignorance is bliss. I cannot begin to understand people who jump right on that information. My husband being one of them. He prints them out and keeps them in a folder! 
Who IS this man? 

So that was that. By the time I got home, Glen had already gone to the cabin to meet some guys who were going to help him move things back into the house from the porch where the flooring guys had moved them when they did their disastrous work. 
And I do not think that he's going to be able to live with that floor the way it is so I don't know what he's going to do. He told me the other day that he just wants to go fishing! Which is why he bought the place and now it's turned into this huge project which is taking forever because he's doing so much of the work by himself. 
Well. 
I don't really know what to say. 

I spent the rest of the day here doing one little thing after another from organizing my shirt drawer to weeding outside the fence where the Seminole pumpkins are growing to doing a lot of laundry to making a dessert that Jessie has requested for her birthday. 
Which is tomorrow. 
Pedicures and lunch are going to be involved. 
In 2008 I wrote a post about Jessie's birthday and her birth and I don't think I could do nearly as fine a job now in writing that story as I did then so I give you the link if you want to read about it. 

When I think about the fact that Jessie has birthed two children of her own and that I got to be with her when she did, and that her sisters and brother and daddy and of course her husband were with her too, I can't help but tear up. 

I have no more words tonight. 

Love...Ms. Moon