An Abundance Of Riches, Or...You Can't Always Get What You Want But If You Try Sometimes You Just Might Find, You Get What You Need

I am so damn stupid. Really. For some reason I just thought that the day an album was released, it would be available in stores. Of course, Tallahassee has no "record" stores that I know of but places like Walmart and Target do carry a small selection of vinyl but come on! Did I really think that there was the slightest possibility I'd find "Foreign Tongues" there today? 
 Well, I figured that Target might have it. Maybe? 
But I went to Walmart first because I was right there, having had lunch with my husband who was in between getting home from the lake and packing up and leaving to go fishing tomorrow. 

I hate Walmart. 

I hate it with the heat of the burnings surface of seventeen suns. 
Okay. Not really. I just feel so uncomfortable there. Like...Help! Get me out of here! Oh wait. Maybe I need a pink hand mixer. You think? 
No! No! You do not! Head towards the exit now! 
And the lighting is horrendous and the shelves are messy and crowded and there's too much. Just way too much.
For some reason, Target is so much better. So I went there. They didn't have the album either but I did pick up one more pair of men's cargo shorts, two tank-top tee shirts, a bar of Dr. Bronner's citrus scented soap, and so forth. 

I am ready for our trip!
Which begins next Wednesday. 
More on that later.
And somehow, instead of becoming agitated and anxious as I do at Walmart, I am slightly soothed at Target. Not quite sure why but the employees at Target look a lot less angry than the ones at Walmart. And that means a lot to me. 

I've written enough about that part of my day and shall now move on to these.

Google tells me they are fairy ink cap mushrooms. They're so tiny and so cute and so abundant around the tree stumps where I feed the crows their meal worms. 
Another sort of mushroom is growing around a different stump.

These may or may not be honey mushrooms. Any thoughts out there? Any mycologists?
I am a Googologist which theoretically means I know everything that AI knows. And that's a lot! 

I was thinking that I might give a small review of two books I've read recently. One with my eyes, which is "Marrying the Ketchups" by Jennifer Close and the other, via audiobook, "The Calamity Club" by Kathryn Stockett who also wrote the wildly successful "The Help."
Very different books but I enjoyed them both. Okay, I haven't quite finished "The Calamity Club" by Kathryn Stockett but it's almost thirty hours of listening. I have to be honest and tell you that although I thought "The Help" was probably an important book in some ways, in others it was very much a book written via a white woman's perspective which I am sure could have been better written by a Black woman but you know what? The white woman's perspective of what was happening in the south (and still does- trust me) in the early sixties has a place in the literary world. I certainly have my own memories of that time.
I'm going to give Stockett credit for writing a damn good story in "The Calamity Club." There are parts that are a tiny bit (okay, very) hard to believe but the author really does take on topics that are difficult to discuss, even now. In this book, she puts a face and a voice to sex workers in the Great Depression. And other things. Class, the role of women in society, not to mention how children who, through no fault of their own or even their mothers, end up in institutional care. Hypocrisy is in there along with race, prohibition, alcoholism, vice laws, child sexual abuse, poverty, wealth, the patriarchy ...well, as you can imagine, a 650 page book can cover a lot of ground. 
One complaint I have about it which is definitely not really a major complaint but which bugs me nonetheless is that the main character's name is Birdie and why does every novel set in the south written have a female character named "Birdie"? 
I have never met a Birdie in my life. It's a fine name but let's move on, shall we?
Also, the narrators of the book are very fine. 

As to "Marrying the Ketchups," well, that is a completely different sort of a story. It's about a family restaurant and the characters are terrific. Ms. Close has either spent some real time working in food service or has done a hell of a lot of research although it, too, has a few places where the circumstances may be a little hard to believe. But not many. And in fact, it inspired me to revisit the Hulu series "The Bear" which I tried watching quite awhile back and decided was not for me. It, too, is about a family restaurant and its characters are both well-written and well-acted. In fact, it's the characters who are drawing me back as happens in any series. If you don't care about the characters, it's hard to love the story. 
That's what I think. 

So. Mary. What are you going to do about procuring a vinyl copy of "Foreign Tongues?" 
I had thought I could come home from shopping today, order it from Amazon and probably have it tomorrow. 
But no.
Expected delivery would take place on July 19th and we will still be in NC and I hate having to ask Mark to look out for packages because sometimes they are left in front of the fence and so far, no one has stolen even a one but it's still a responsibility I do not want to lay on his head. 
So. I shall wait until we get back to order it. 
Meanwhile, I have bought the album on iTunes which means it's on my phone and here in a minute I will put my ear buds in and play it. That will have to do for now. 
Should I make another martini and dance in the hallway? 
This could happen. 
A blog reader named Mary sent me a link to The Guardian's review of the album which was quite positive, four stars out of five, and in it they linked the video for one of the songs, "In The Stars". 
I started watching that video a few days ago and it was so obviously AI created that it turned me off and I didn't watch the whole thing but this morning I did and I'm so glad. 
Yeah. AI is involved but the music is all Mick, Keith, and Ronnie. It has ear wormed itself into my head and I think it may be one of the best songs they've ever written. Here's one of the verses:

Well, there's a poisonous cloud, there's a sickness in the land
All the judges in their robes got their rubber stamps
Well, do you wanna dance 'til the roof caves in?
Yeah, and the guitars scream and the choir still sings

Oh. My heart. And there is such dancing in it. And I swear to you- Mick Jagger's voice has never sounded better. So, I'm going to embed it here and if you want to watch it, you can, and if you're eschewing all the AI you can, I understand. I do. I really do.

Here I go. I may, as I said, dance. 

We shall see.

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon