Apocalypso

It seems to be the time of year for red flowers and yellow flowers. My roses have just put out new bloom and I was shocked to see them. I've brought some into the house because they smell so good. I noticed them when I was out in the garden trimming back my Mexican basil because all of its blooms have died, probably from lack of water. 

The sad Mexican basil. 

Or because I moved them. I'm not sure. Only the African basil that I started from two or three tiny sprigs I rooted from a plant of Rachel's is really looking robust and thrilled to be alive. 

African basil.

Bloom of the African basil. 

This time last year the pollinators were thick on the Mexican basil. They were waiting in line to to take their turns at the blooms. I have a few on the African basil and a few on the Thai basil but nothing at all like the bees I was seeing last year. 
And now I have just looked up whether or not pruning basil encourages more flowering and no, it does not. 
Well, hell. Probably should have studied that before I got out the pruners. 

This feels an appropriate thing for me to have done today, meaning, the exact wrong thing to do. I have not felt well all day, the kidney stone situation going into its next phase of fucking around with me which is to cause mild lower abdomen pain and even less of the desire to eat along with a general feeling of malaise and simply not feeling good. When this happens I always think of people who suffer chronic illness or chronic pain and I feel like such a baby for whining about these issues which come and then go. So I'll shut up about it for right now.

Glen has made it safely back to the good old fucked up USA, having landed in Nashville late this afternoon. He'll probably get up early tomorrow morning and hopefully will be home tomorrow in time for supper. I may well burst into tears when I see him. 

I took Rachel and Hank their soup today along with a few other things they needed or that I thought they might want. And I have not yet mentioned the most Very Important Thing that happened today which is that Floyd and his son, Sam, have begun work on the house. They came this morning and got right to work on the place outside the laundry room which needs siding replaced and probably around the window too, and oh, god, who knows what else? As glad as I am that this project is finally happening, I know it's going to be a very trying time, having work done on the house for who-knows-how-long? 
Well, one more thing to learn to accept, I suppose. The work has to be done and there is no magical way to make it happen fast. 

Here's what the pine cone lily's bloom looks like now. 

This is a fascinating member of the ginger lily family.  

As I say every year, the lily is also known as the "shampoo lily" because traditionally, the liquid in them is used as shampoo. And no, I've never tried it. I'm sure that if the Trumpalypse occurs we will indeed be using them although how we'll be getting water to rinse the shampoo out is beyond me. 

And as I was outside, taking pictures of the same hurricane lily I posted the other day in its next stage of bloom, 

I looked up to see a different one, fully opened.

And yes, the wood behind it needs to be replaced too. Perhaps I better just get that lake house the way I'd like it to be and move there for a year or so while the work here is going on. 

Yeah. Probably not. 

Okay. That's enough self-pity for one day, especially coming from a person who has every damn thing in the world and whose husband is coming home tomorrow. 

I'll leave you with a song that Jimmy Buffett wrote and performed on his album "Fruitcakes" which was released in 1994 and which pretty much, along with being able to live across the street for a summer from the Gulf of MEXICO, gave me reason to live after my friend Sue died. I don't expect a one of you to listen to it. But I will tell you that the memories I have of living in a tiny "apartment" in a cement brick building with a yard full of nothing but rocks and sandspurs and being that close to the Gulf which at that time, had no houses between it and the water, being able to see the Milky Way over the Gulf at night, the dolphins every morning and afternoon as I walked the beach with Lily and Jessie, brought me back to something resembling whole, and listening and dancing to "Fruitcakes" was a huge part of all of that. 

This is the song I would listen to when we crossed the bridge from East Point to St. George Island with the windows on my mom-van down, the seagulls screaming their bitchy demands, the pelicans floating by on the air currents, occasionally flapping their prehistoric dinosaur wings, the water below, the sky above, my heart joyful to be back by the ocean, a thing Jimmy Buffett loved and knew a hell of a lot about. 

Love...Ms. Moon