By And Large in Everyday Ramblings

The lilac garden this morning, a bit sun drenched even though it was still early. The Park Department gardener told us about a year ago as she was putting in bedding plants that she took making this place enticing and accessible during the pandemic when folks really couldn’t do much except go to the park seriously. She must have a choice of what she puts in. This year it is all wildlife friendly plants. The echinacea cone flowers were covered in bees.

I am waiting for my Imperfect box today and then I will take the red chard I ordered and cook it up with the greens I picked yesterday from my own plot and pine nuts and parmesan. I can do this in the Instapot, and it won’t generate hardly any heat.

It is more normal hot here getting up to the mid 80’s later in the day. The 57 degrees when I got up this morning felt heavenly. It usually is gloomy in June and then “real” summer starts now, the day after the holiday.

When Mrs. Sherlock and Frieda and I walked through my old neighborhood on Saturday there was a lot of plant damage becoming visible. The hostas, hydrangeas and hollyhocks were particularly hard hit. It depends on where they were.

We had a good talk. It was kind of strange to walk with her on the route Mr. Finch and I walked practically every day after we met before I moved over here, and his lungs were in such bad shape not much walking occurred.

As you may have noticed by what I write about here I don’t spend much time in the past in my head. I go there for points of reference, but I do try, and by and large, succeed, in sticking to the present except when I am calling on past experiences to inform the present.

We walked by this delightful traffic divider that used to have a wooden sculpture of an eagle and I could remember so clearly Mr. Finch and I having this intense screaming match fight there. It was of short duration and didn’t rile up the neighbors and I have no clue what it was about, just the fact that it happened.

Now in the same spot there is a different wooden sculpture of an eagle and a beautiful poetry pole with this etched metal overlay. We didn’t see any unhoused folks or trash or evidence of drug use. The dogs were friendly. The big church whose parking lot my place faced and where all sorts of things played out, now has these beautiful, segmented planters scattered throughout it. And the dumpsters are no longer there.

Last week an electrician came and put a substantial cover on the outside plug with a combo lock hanging off it. He said the job was a bear. It was hot but I thanked him anyway. He also moved the paving stone away that the men who broke the last cover used.

I had mentioned to Mrs. Sherlock that Charity seemed to be mad at me or for some reason not happy in terms of interacting with me. She has been very short when I run into her outside. Short and polite. I know she has hated the heat and July is not her favorite month. Mrs. Sherlock suggested that maybe she was dealing with her own demons.

When she dropped me off after our walk, Charity was out front with another neighbor and the only way I can describe her behavior towards us was shunning. She shunned us all, including Frieda. She was short and polite.

It made enough of an impression on Mrs. Sherlock that she texted me later in the day to say she was thinking about me after that. I replied, hey, well, at least you know I am not imagining it.

I have a plan that involves making cookies and dropping off a book I know she doesn’t have but is interested in to see if I can get some idea of what is going on.

On the same day she left a battery for me to add to my Ridwell recycling box and brought in my paper. ???? I am baffled and hurt. Getting to know her has been one of the great joys of the pandemic.

It was such a relief to have no fireworks last night. Everything here is so dry. I am always happy to make it through the 4th and hunker down through the rest of the summer moving from shady spot to shady spot until we turn towards fall.

Last updated July 07, 2021