Proud mama here – I’m watching the young male cardinal who fledged in my garden as he inspects the offerings. The bird feeder is full but he just checked out my spices on the deck, landing with no trepidation a few feet from the kitchen door. He’s soft brown streaked with flame, with a bright orange beak – gorgeous.

And more proud mama – for any of you worried about keeping the bee population alive and flourishing, I have 3 words for you: rose of Sharon. I have two big trees, and they’re stuffed with bees rolling around or splayed out on those long exposed pistils, coating themselves with pollen in such a languidly sexual way, they almost make me blush. 

So much going on. Still no word on a CT scan, so my health is in limbo, but I’m feeling better. Watched a doc on Chuck Berry and another on Buddy Guy, a brilliant but shy musician finally getting his due. It’s interesting that he first found acclaim in Britain in the sixties – the Beatles, Stones, and other Brit bands revered black American music in a way the Americans did not. 

Yesterday, a busy day: I went up the street for a therapeutic massage with Laura, because she’s leaving the business. So skilled, those fingers! Then a few blocks west to get my hair cut with Dianne, my first cut with a professional since last January – so skilled, those fingers! And then next door to a restaurant called Noushe to get Persian takeout: chicken-pomegranate stew with saffron rice, sublime. All within a few blocks of home. I love my ‘hood.

When I got back, I tried a selfie – slightly retouched, I confess. The magic wand, wiping out a few of those tiny lines. If only we had one in real life. If only my chin were a little smaller, my eyes not so hooded, the lines beside my nose not quite so engraved. But – as Dianne said – enjoy what you have now, because in five years, you’ll miss it. Wise words.

In the nice words department, Ruth just wrote, I finished All My Loving, and loved it. So much going on in your young life, and so well depicted in just the right voice. And of course, your rich vocabulary and your imagination at that young age is “awesome”, even “gear”. 

And Anne wrote,  re my fervent recommendation of Late Migrations a few days ago, “In case you don’t realize what an influencer you are, I put a hold on this book within a day or two of your recommending it.  At that time, there were no other holds. Today there are nine for the ten copies. Good job!!”