Just One Really Good Day

It was a beautiful day and it was more than a joy to spend it with Lily and May and Owen. We went to Costco and Owen was not especially well-behaved but a boy, just a boy, two-and-a-half now almost, about to get a new sibling, and he was showing off for his Auntie May and he was shot out of a cannon into the air and came down scrambling and running and yelling and that is what he does now, what he is- a boy. He made his Aunt hide with him in a garden shed, right there between the freezers and the garden stuff and his face in the window was full of merry evil that his plot had worked! He had her all to himself! He did!
For a few minutes, at least, and then he and his mama had to go back out to the car in order to calm him down and May and I finished up and joined them.

We went back to Lily's house and ate falafel and grape leaves, stuffed with rice and vegetables and rosemary olive oil bread and other Greek things and fruit salad, too. Then we cleaned and rearranged and by the time the midwife came at three, we were happy with what we had done. The midwife's assistant has an eight-week old baby of her own and she was just a jewel with long dark hair and a dimple in her perfect chin. The mother asked me if I'd hold her for a moment and my heart's desire was fulfilled. I complimented the mother on the baby's ear which was everything an ear should be and she had two, the clever child! Two of those incredible ears and oh, yes. Babies.

Lily checked out fine and tip-top, ready to go. Her midwife is a woman you can trust. While she was there, Owen sprayed his mouth with very diluted Fabuloso and May made him rinse his mouth in the sink but no one freaked out and we talked about things our children have eaten, swallowed, sucked into their lungs. It's a miracle any of them are alive. I feel certain that Owen will never spray Fabuloso in his mouth again.
We learn. We live. We live long enough to learn again. Or something like that.

After I left Lily's I went to Publix and now I have a king's ransom of good food in my house. Everything from a piece of salmon and fresh spinach to artichokes and red and yellow and orange peppers, two kinds of tomatoes, lemons, and that bread. I left the Greek delights for Lily. She is pregnant. She needs treats. I also have twelve beautiful eggs, gathered in the last two days, brown, green, one blue. I have left-over collard/mustard/turnip greens. I have fake-fried chicken (which, Deirdre, is boneless, skinless chicken breasts, soaked in buttermilk and then coated and baked with Shake'n'bake Spicy mix- I am not kidding you, it is good) and I am so tired.

Mr. Moon is still out of town and so I'll be here tonight all alone with that Rat, that Beast, that inhuman scraper of a door, that gnawer, that disturber of my sleep. I have opened the door between the dining room and the guest room and also the door to the side porch so that if the Beast wants out, he or she can scurry out there. I am not thinking it will. Not really. But I am giving it every chance. I wish I could figure out how to catch Ballsy, the almost-feral cat and make him stay in there tonight. I am not sure who would win if there were a show-down.
It would be bloody. That I know.

Ah well. I think I will go and cook that piece of salmon with lemon and dill and some baby spinach. I just went out to shut up the chickens for the night and I saw that moon. She is not quite full, but working up to it, flat and round and white-gold here from my vantage point.
There is an early frog croaking close by. He's getting his hopes up. He's getting something up, at least.

I am tired. But it was a good day. I am grateful for the round moon, the round belly of my daughter, the round merry face of my grandson. I m grateful for the time I got to spend with my daughter, May. She is beauty in and of herself. Owen would be a fool not be in love with her and he is no fool, that one. I am grateful for all of my babies and for my husband who is the other half of my sky. I am grateful for all of this good food, that which I can afford to buy and that which we grow and which my husband brings home from the woods.

And soon, so very soon, we shall behold the new face of a new child and we will hold him or her in our arms and we will swoon with the miracle of that.

Unbelievable. Just...unbelievable.

I will rest well tonight, separated by two doors from The Beast. I hope you rest well too and that no beasts or Beasts disturb you as you rest in moon-drenched slumber.