I'm Not Walking

[I]t’s getting harder and harder I find, 

to differentiate between schizophrenics 

and people talking on a cell phone. 

~Bob Newhart

And when there is a "bing" or "ring" in the night, there is no question who forgot to put it on "silent" or at least leave it charging in the bathroom. DH doesn't text. He doesn't answer the phone. He might play solitaire on it if he brings it somewhere, it still has power, and he has nothing else to do. I am the one with the always-working and well-worked cell.

I had told my walking friend I was "going to sleep late." I actually fell asleep early (IN THE BED and not my chair downstairs). But at 6:30 a.m. the cell "binged." I'd left the thing on the bedside table. It was a young friend (God knows what time she got up as she was traveling and letting us know she was safe). 

As 6:30 is actually late for me to rise, I was fine, but I think some of the others we "replied to" in our just-up-fog were not amused at the subsequent "bings." 

Guilty. 

So I stopped that, realized I was not going back to sleep, got up, and walked the dog.

I haven't walked our neighborhood (much beyond the little park around the block) in forever. 

Showing off the raindrops.

Everything was refreshed by the hard rain that started yesterday evening and continued overnight (I am trying not to bring up the whole drought issue and RAIN, but it is difficult when one finally gets rain after a long wait - when it seems that everyone else around you has seen it, smelled it, and yes, tasted it). Loads of tiny snails are out. I am used to seeing the big moon shaped invasives eating my plants, but these were small and scattered on the sidewalk like confetti. " A hatch," I thought before I realized I know almost nothing about the life cycle of snails and acknowledged a need, but also an unwillingness to look it up.

They will play havoc with the gardens soon enough.

Zelda was cooperative and we could have turned back early (she actually starts to turn back toward home when "she has walked long enough" and the plastic bag is full). But we haven't seen much of this street lately and decided to see if the woman of the wonderful flowers was up.

She is what I would call a "tough old broad," but ghosts flit around her edges. Her utility room is in the garage, separated a bit from the house, like that of JW, my childhood neighbor. It's the first place she goes in the morning and sometimes I see her through the window as we could see JW through her screened door. She wears a housecoat in the morning - like Mama and every other woman of a certain age. She grows flowers I know. She lost her son last year - he was 63 - so that makes her old enough to be my mother.

She was there, cigarette in her fingers (now, that reminds me of no  one, but I say a prayer for her lungs) and coffee cup in the other hand. We talked a bit about rain and water bills - pensions and children/grandchildren/great grandchildren. Then I begged off and headed home. 

My coffee was waiting.