June 4, 2008

I paid off a BP credit card which I will not use again.

I bought a lawnmower and mowed the lawn, for the first time since I don’t care to remember when. I loved my garden before, but I love it more now that it can be seen behind the wild grass, rather than substantially imagined.

Today, not having bitten my nails in two weeks, I will buy the first nail file I have ever owned in my life. I do not know what has brought on these changes.

My sister reports that dad is eating and drinking and wanted to join his new friends at supper. This is one of those times when it is impossible to know what to hope for, what to pray for.

My sister has her will rewritten, and gives custody of her children to Andy’s St. Louis brothers in the event of her untimely death. I say, "What about me?" She says, "Well, you’re out of the country all the time. " My next line was, "Well, I wouldn’t be if I had something else to do," but it seemed best to cut that exchange short. Here I am, the Covering Cherub, with almost never anything to cover.

Planted lavender verbena. The hollyhocks change from year to year. This time it is almost entirely the black ones. They’re black in the afternoon light, though at dawn, when the light blazes from the east into their cups, they are the richest blood red.