Birthday Lunch

My son and his best girl celebrate their birthdays just 4 days apart.
Thursday past was hers and we all met at Four Winds for lunch.

Smoked turkey salad with asiago cheese...

cold drinks...

herbed salmon and artichoke salad.
 Perfecto.

Train Series: CSX Train Yard: Boxcar Graffiti: Geepers Kreepers

Click to enlarge.

Because Rabbits

A sea of carrot tops are ready to be harvested and run through the dehydrator. 

The Mother Root

  These are parasitic wasp cocoons attached to some carrot top,

 they caught my attention because they looked like a wad of gum.

A Facebook group I'm in identified them for me, they're beneficial so they've been put in a safe spot until they hatch.

Girl Size

We had a storm that woke me up in the middle of the night and then had me scurrying to unplug everything I could reach. I also thought to go out and take down the canopy over the hot tub. Why is rain so wet?

This was followed by going late in the morning to have blood work done. I blame giving 5 vials of blood on an empty stomach and not having had much much sleep for choosing the restaurant next door, Twin Peaks. Think Hooters goes to Montana.

 The beer wasn't bad.

The people watching was excellent.

UWF

The University of West Florida has a beautiful campus, set back in a wooded area away from busy traffic. The other day I photographed this panorama* of the new entrance, Argonaut Village, a shopping center. I'm hoping there will be trees.

*Click to enlarge.

Last Things

In the fall of 1999 my husband rescued a young dog living in a culvert behind a chain link fence in McIntosh, Alabama. The first time I saw him he was dirty and emaciated but I don't think he was afraid. Standing there in the driveway he seemed expectant and curious more than anything else, a personality trait that never left him. I named him Ranger after a character in the Stephanie Plum books I was reading at the time and I can't imagine ever naming him anything else. I didn't know exactly how old he was or what kind of start he had in life but judging from the state of him and the rural area where he was living I guessed he was just one more pup dropped off on a country back road, left to fend for himself.

Maybe it was a kind of survival instinct but Ranger always set his own agenda and I'm no dog whisperer so over time we agreed we were going to accept each other just the way we were and it worked out pretty well for nearly 16 years. We actually had a lot in common: he didn't like having his picture made and neither do I. I'm not all that well socialized and neither was he: the word feral comes to mind. One area where we differed was the subject of bathing; I'm a water baby and he was a hydrophobe in the extreme.

Of all the things we did together any kind of grooming was always his absolute least favorite so I imagine he was always relieved when I loaded him up for a ride and it didn't turn out to be the groomers. He much preferred the drive-through window at the bank. He wasn't judgmental about things, just very particular. I once took him to the vet because I thought the groomer had injured him, maybe struck him, but she said that he just couldn't stand that long anymore, that the arthritis in his back wouldn't allow it. I realized we had turned a corner with Ranger and started bathing him before taking him in to be shaved but eventually I settled for bathing him and trimming him up with scissors while still wet. Trying to do it when he was dry set him to growling and showing his teeth and in any case, his fur was thick and wild and sticky, there was never much I could do with it. Worse still, he always looked so deeply depressed until he was left to dry on towels and then to roll on the rug, trying to overcome this latest indignity.

Last week I realized I would have to face his unhappiness one last time but it wasn't meant to make him presentable as much as I needed to memorize him in a way no photograph could convey. By then he didn't want to be touched more than the occasional pet but I was pretty sure the warmth of the water would allow me a kind of last embrace. He seemed to agree and didn't mind it at all. Well, except for being brushed out, he definitely had the last growl on that subject.

The problem with last things is I don't always know when they're going to occur. I unexpectedly lost my rabbit, Landy, four days before Ranger died and the last things I shared with her weren't the kinds of things anyone can plan for. I could and did do that for Ranger and the last thing I chose to do for him was to wrap him in a quilt I made over 30 years ago, a kind of family heirloom, and then bury him near Landy under the Cherokee roses that came from the first home he shared with us. Still, despite all my efforts I don't think there's any easy way to say a final goodbye to someone I love. I can only think that Last things aren't really about goodbye, but possibly more like, "I'll see you later, Kiddo."