Remembering This And Remembering That

I took this screen shot yesterday morning of my Merlin bird identifier app which is offered free from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I was mostly wondering if the crows who come to dine here are really crows or if they are, in fact, ravens. They're so big! Like twice the size of regular crows. But the app said they are American crows and I suppose I'll trust it. What surprised me was the number of different birds the app was picking up. Some of them I was not surprised about- our regular visitors like the Carolina wrens and the cardinals and blue jays but frankly, I don't think I knew that woodpeckers, either downy or pileated, make calls. Of course they do! There were more coming in every second but that's the screen shot I got at that moment in time. 
I just looked up a video on what the pileated woodpecker sounds like and of course I recognize that sound! I hear it all the time! 

I swear. The older I get, the more I realize I do not know. The more I realize I do not even know enough to even wonder about what I do not know. If there's one thing about dying that makes me feel a little sad, it's that I'll die without the slightest idea of all that I've missed, right here in front of me. Forget the things I don't know about history or botany or architecture or art or music or biology or how electricity works- I'm talking about the very birds that live in my yard, the spiders, the wasps, the favorite foods of my loved ones, the tides, the constellations right above my head, and how Keith Richards has managed to live this long. How I'VE managed to live this long. 
It's all crazy miraculous to me and perhaps that's the best way to look at it all. 
Still. I should freaking know what a pileated woodpecker's call sounds like. And now I do. 

We got rain today. For once the forecast did not lie. It has rained on and off most of the day. Not a great amount at any one time and not exactly steadily but in the coming and going of it, we are definitely a bit less thirsty here. 
I was going to get so much done!
Story of my life. And in one way, I did. My oldest constant friend from childhood called me and we talked for two hours and twenty minutes and had not even begun to run out of things to say. When she called I had just started making a little headway with my goal today which was to sweep the entire house thoroughly. I'd gotten my bathroom done and had almost finished up with our bedroom but when that girl called, I knew what was about to happen and I just sat my butt down and let everything else go. 
Both of us know what's important and we are important to each other. The best of friends since sixth grade and we share the kinds of memories that you probably would not tell your children about. 
Like the day we were part of a small group of people in a Karmann Ghia who blew up a gas station? Okay, I'd tell my kids about that. I didn't crash into the gas pump. I wasn't holding the beer. 
Still. 
You know what I mean. And that incident is hardly the most scandalous thing we may or may not have been involved in. As we always end up saying to each other- it's a damn miracle we survived. And yet we did, and here we are, and our lives continue to present us with situations that we need to talk about, discuss, empathize with,  relate to, and laugh about. 
Laugh about. That's probably the most important thing. After all these years, we can and do still laugh. 

So that's mostly what I did today. Oh, of course I washed the sheets and remade the bed with them. I have a loaf of the high-fiber, high-protein bread in the oven and I am going to cook some more scallops. Last night's supper was truly a southern delight although I put too much garlic in the pork roast if that's even possible. 
Trust me. It is. 

And the cobbler? It didn't need no stinkin' whipped cream or ice cream either one. It was pretty perfect as it was. 

I believe Dolly would approve. Granny Mathews too. 

Should I talk about 9/11? 

What more could I add to the somber discussion of that day? What I've been thinking about is how I have such a very, very strong memory of it, even the part of the morning before I knew it had happened. Was happening. I was just thinking about this the other day, how it almost seems like my brain took a clear and crisp photograph of that day and presented it to me in such a way I would never forget it, both the before and after. I remember specific details of Lon and I driving to pick up Lis at the hospital where she had had gall bladder surgery. I think. That part I am a little fuzzy about. It may have been an appendectomy. When we walked into her room, she had the TV on and said, "Have y'all seen this?" and we watched as the Twin Towers fell in a cloud of smoke and we had no idea what we were really watching and yet somehow, Lis got checked out of the hospital and we drove to a pharmacy to get her prescriptions filled but before all of that, I can completely recall Lon's and my discussion in the car about a dream he'd had the night before and I remember how I interpreted it and of course, as everyone remembers, no matter where they were, how beautiful the sky was that day. How blue and clear and cloudless. Empty of clouds.
How perfect. 

I know I've posted one version or another of this song by Bruce Springsteen on many anniversaries of that unfathomably unbelievable day. Here's another. 

I still don't understand. I doubt anyone does. 
But it happened. 

And nothing will ever be quite the same again. 

So. Here's Bruce. And his wife Patti Scialfa.

Music often says what most of us cannot. 

Love...Ms. Moon