Friday News

 Here are the first sprouts coming up in the garden. They are Chinese cabbage, planted all of three days ago. The kale and arugula are also coming up and the arugula was only planted day before yesterday. This makes me so happy, those tiny little signs of life, those tender, tenuous promises of what's to come. 

I didn't answer comments today. I've just got home and it's almost six and not only is it martini night, but the clean sheets are not yet on the bed. We are having leftovers for supper so that will help with the timing of it all. I've been in town since about 12:30. I got a call from Lily at work that Maggie was complaining about what could be symptoms of a UTI and although Jason had already picked her up from school, the last time they'd been to an Urgent Care, they wouldn't let Dad in the examining room with her and Lily had not been able to leave work and Maggie cried and it was all very traumatic so...could I go too? 
Of course. That is something a MerMer can do. 
Maggie wasn't traumatized today and they let Jason come in the exam room too but I went to the bathroom with her to help her with the necessary urine sample so I was glad I went. The doctor recognized Maggie and Jason and was as sweet as she could be but not in a treacly manner. "Hey Pumpkin," she said to Maggie. "Where's my hug?"

A prescription was given and Jason took her home and I hurried on over to Jessie's house where Glen was going to meet me. He and I had planned to pick up August and Levon from school and take them on a date and we did that. We had a really sweet time and those boys are so funny and smart. We started out at Lake Ella which is not much more than a largish pond in Tallahassee where people come to drink coffee and walk and play chess and read and shop in the little stores that were once a part of The Lake Ella Motor Lodge. It's a charming little part of Tallahassee and is known far and wide for the many, many ducks that hang out there, living a duck's best life. 

Levon admired this one's iridescence and I liked its facial decorations. The boy found a white feather and put it on a rock in order for it "to be returned to its original owner." That cracked me up so much. 
We walked over to the cottage where you can buy ice cream or homemade candy and various brittles. The same woman has been running that business for years and it's one of those heartwarming stories. 

After the ice cream was all eaten, the boys and I walked a little ways around the lake and looked at stuff and talked about stuff. There's a Vietnam Veterans' "Hootch" on the lake with a Medivac Helicopter from the "conflict" right beside it. I told my grandsons about what we called the Viet Nam War and how I was a kid when it was going on and how stupid it had been and how we'd had no business being involved in it and how so many soldiers were killed. I thought about Ross but did not mention him, about how he had come back from that war which did eventually kill him with several different cancers from exposure to Napalm. 

 

"Who won that war?" August asked. 
"Not us," I said. 

May my grandchildren never have to fight in a war or a conflict of any kind. May their souls and bodies remain untouched by those horrors. 

And then we had Boppy drive us to the Goodwill Bookstore where I promised them each one book apiece or one game apiece. Their choice. It did not take them too long to settle on what they wanted. 

We bought their choices and then it was back to their house and all was well with the world. We'd had a good time, treats were eaten, laughs were had, a lesson in American History according to Mer had been taught. 

So I got to see three grandchildren today and I'm glad of it. I'm sorry that my visit with Maggie had to be at a clinic but it was not unpleasant in the least. 

Here's what my sprouting mangoes look like now. I need to rustle up some more pots. 

This is what my quite possibly a decade or more potted Roseland mango looks like now. 

It's had a very, very happy summer with no Bradford pears shading it out. 

And I wanted to say about yesterday's post that I had no doubt that the reporter who wrote me was not authentic. It was just the fact that an employee of a publishing company chose to write on notebook paper. It was a perfectly fine note. And honestly, I have no desire to have my house featured in the Jefferson Journal for any reason. I love my house and yes, it is old and yes, it has historical significance but I really don't have much information about the history. I do know there used to be a very small Episcopalian chapel where my driveway is now until there were no more Episcopalians in Lloyd at which time it was moved to Tallahassee where it still is. I don't think the house was used as a hospital during the Civil War as some people maintain, nor do I think it was a bordello in the forties, as the guy who sold it to us claimed. I've never seen any ghostly activity, or felt any paranormal energy. 
It is my house. For now. I am only one of the many, many people who have lived here, who will live here. I feel no need to draw attention to it. Let it be one of those houses that when you drive down a back road you see and think, "Wow. I wonder what the story behind that house is," and then move on down the road to the next little town, leaving that house in peace. 

So those are my thoughts on that. 

Happy Friday from a somewhat cranky old lady.

Love...Ms. Moon

Crepe Myrtles at Lake Ella