I’m on the precipice of some big thinking. Back in those old days of singleness and steady employment, I had plenty of time for big thinking. I had a set schedule and no one to talk to except myself. Now I’m finding it hard to sit still long enough to come up with juicy thoughts. I’m always preoccupied thinking about cleaning the kitchen before Brett gets home and sending out those proposals before some other florist swipes that obnoxious bride out from under me, and I really should go polish my vases, and pickup some flea medicine and aren’t we running low on detergent? Did I order Margie’s baby shower gift? Oh, Ari turns 30 this week – don’t forget to call her. Did I submit that floral order? My tire pressure Iight is on again and I’ve got to meet that bride at 3:00. Don’t start anything that can’t be finished before 3:00. Should I make a cake for Ari? My parking ticket. Don’t forget about the parking ticket. It’s chilly. Where’s that sweater I like? Now what does this bride want? Horse hair? Oh, don’t forget to do a blog post soon.
I aint stressed er nuthin’, I just cant stop thinking. But I feel like some juicy thoughts are on the horizon so you just hang in there.
Last weekend, Ari and Nate invited us to do some pickin’ and grinnin’ and we’ve had strawberries in every form since then. We did our picking out at Boone Hall and I didn’t see a single face I recognized. They have a whole new batch of folks working there now and I looked at the girl selling the veggies under the tent and wanted to tell her that I used to be the girl selling the veggies under the tent and that it really means a lot to me, but I knew she wouldn’t really care, just like I didn’t really care when customers would tell me that they grew up on a farm or grow their own tomatoes or whatever meaningful flashback a farm gives to a person. Open land seems to give humans nostalgia. (Well lookathere, a big thought. Let's dive deeper.)
After feeling like we’ve been too busy for quality time, Brett and I had a Dueling Date week. I made a squishy Indian Bazaar on the back deck one night and then Brett took us downtown the next. On my ethnic night, I filled the back porch with pillows and clusters of candles and lanterns from my Lux inventory. We sat on the floor and ate supper with the mosquitoes and listened to tunes. On Brett’s Solid Furniture date, we ate supper with the upscale mosquitoes of Downtown and then went for an evening walk and that’s when Brett pointed out that from behind, it looks like Francis Marion is flashing people, and I don’t know how we’ve never noticed this before.
The best part of my week was an impromptu Ellen-Mama-Lu day where we went on an adventure to a home goods store in North Charleston. Mom called to tell me she needed outdoor pillows and to see if I needed anything and I said, “Nope, but I’ll come with you!” and then Ellen called seeing what I was up to and she said, “I need things! I’ll come too!” so we happily piled into one car and couldn’t remember the last time it was just the three of us in one car. What made the day so fun was Ellen. She was so happy and chatty and silly acting and Mom and I gave each other strange looks about how much she was talking. Ellen stopped saying much at all about nine months ago so this was a real treat. Ellen yammered all the way up the highway, making observations out the window and exclaiming silly things in foreign accents. My little heart felt like it was going to pop.
Once we got to the store, we elected to share an oversized cart but within four minutes Mom was moving too slowly for Ellen’s taste so she wandered off in another direction. I followed Ellen out of curiosity and my endless study of her behavior. Ellen wandered up and down the “Storage Solutions” aisle, picking up small plastic bins, turning them over, and then setting them down again. “I need closet organizers,” she told me. Then she saw a tiny colander and had to have it. She also grabbed some coat hangers and a lantern for her back porch. I left her for a moment to look in the garden section and when I found her again she had an armload of incongruent home goods.
“Do you know where Mom is?” she asked.
“Huh uh. Want me to hold something?”
“I think if you pull anything, it’ll all come tumbling down.”
So we wandered the store for 10 minutes looking for Mom. Ellen’s armload of things sagged lower and lower as we walked.
“Ooh I like that,” Ellen would say and then she’d waddle over and poke at it with a free finger.
“Want me to grab it?” I’d ask. She accumulated more things and soon, finding Mom and the cart became a desperate operation. It seemed like an hour passed. Where was she? And then, far in the distance, I spotted a lone shopping cart with a single pillow inside.
“Wait,” I said, and Ellen halted, “Look there, in the distance. That nearly empty shopping cart. Do you think?”
“Let’s see. One item in 45 minutes? I bet so.”
“It looks like an outdoor pillow.” I said.
“It’s tropical print!” Ellen exclaimed, “It’s definitely Mom!” and we barreled towards the lone shopping cart and found it hilarious that Mom was in fact, just out of sight, mulling over a second tropical pillow.
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