Goofin' Off at the Pharmacy

To build muscle, people my age need more protein, so driving home from the hair place I became roast-beef-sandwich-minded. But first, like most people my age, I stopped at the drive-up pharmacy, where I'm well-known. Charming pharm tech "Tonia" came to the window and microphone. Feeling goofy I said, "I want a roast beef sandwich. . ." and we laughed and she said, "So do I, bring me one, with fries," and we laughed some more.

On the day my hair is cut and styled I am very cute, so I chose this day and hour and really cute earrings to pick up my prescription because I'm flirting with the male pharm tech. As you know, proving your identity at the drug counter requires reciting your birth date. (When waiting in line, I am fascinated by everybody's birthday.) It happened that on one visit, after I told my birth date, the good-looking male tech said, "You're Aquarius? So am I," and we began talking zodiac signs & comets. We banter whenever he waits on me. Last week at the window he asked what I thought about the latest solar flare, adding that he plays trivia online at a local place, and I am thinking: He's cute and he's sweet on me.

Yes, I know that only batty old ladies think the pharmacist is a hot number.

Today he angled Tonia out of the window and said without preamble, "It wasn't our sun that belched, it was Beetlejuice." I was momentarily confused -- I didn't recall having a son with him, but anything is possible. Then he said, "Beetlejuice, the star. Last week I said the sun, and wanted to correct it." He meant Betelgeuse, in the constellation Orion. Recently astronomers saw a very unusual flare erupting from that star. By now I'm like jelly with silliness.

I said Betelgeuse is not in the zodiac so it doesn't affect us.

Tonia, with my bag of goodies, bumped my boyfriend away from the window. It was Aquarius hilarious. She wanted a signature and a form of payment, etc. and I tried not to laugh. As I took my crisp white paper bag she asked -- it's required -- "Do you have any questions for the pharmacist?"

Cracking myself up, I said, "Why was I born?"

The Old Horseshoe

The old bent horseshoe came with the house and hung above this particular door, outside, "heels down," for, like, 15 years until one nail came loose and I took the shoe down and left it by the door intending to nail it up again, and today was the day.

It's iron, all right: hot from the sun. I admit I'd never seen or touched a real horseshoe; this one still has one horseshoe nail. Age and origin unknown. Horseshoes repel evil. The tale is told of an Irish blacksmith confronted by the Devil, who demanded shoes for his hooves, right now! The blacksmith nailed on such painful shoes that the Devil screamed, pried them off, threw them aside and vanished, never again to bother humans at their work. (If you are idle, that's another story.) The Devil, traumatized, hasn't come near a horseshoe in ages.

It's also said their crescent shape or iron content repels evil spirits and that's why it's hung above the door.

Furthermore, it's said that nailed with heels up, the horseshoe is filled with, and retains, good luck. The Divine Cabin's horseshoe had been originally nailed heels down, and plenty of folks advised me that was not lucky. The lived experience with that door -- the late Demetrius's favorite port of entry to the room he favored and trashed -- was unlucky. Others say "heels down" lets the luck pour down on everybody passing through that door. Well, that's an old wives' tale, seems to me.

I'm lucky to be the owner and beneficiary of a real horseshoe, and to have the Divine Cabin, am probably the world's luckiest person, and want to keep my luck. Nailed the horseshoe up best I could, crooked and off-center, but hey. Or maybe I should turn it sideways. But then --  heels to the right or the left?

The Last Summer Sunday

So it is: the last Sunday of summer 2020; autumn equinox is September 22. Did I have a good summer? I did my best, like everyone else, and for the first time in life ate garlic any darn time I pleased. On October 1, I have lived here 19 consecutive years, not counting the 14 months' sublet in 1998-99. Filled the hummingbird feeders to ensure the birds won't leave me. (Smile; of course they must leave, always in September's final week.) But hickory nuts began falling and exploding on the roof weeks ago, and a monarch butterfly sat on a coneflower here on August 1 -- rather early for signs of autumn. 

On the walk today, luxuriated in all the greenery, noticing, compiling a mental keepsake. Missouri goes autumn overnight. Maybe a week from now it'll be golden rather than green.

Interior signs of autumn: Scramble out to get a flu shot. Wink at the good-looking pharmacist. Unbox the "happy lamp" and use it as lighting at Zoom meetings, something unheard-of a year ago. Ordered all new winter clothes, i.e. long-sleeved silk undershirts, hooded sweatshirts, and pants with fleece interiors; new coat, socks and sneakers; and the fresh flannel pajamas ought to arrive soon. One last wash and folding of the summer sheets before exchanging them for flannel. Huge dinner plates of chili spaghetti and excessive emotions about hot drinks (I love my coffee, but didn't know my coffee loved me.)

Some folks don't like autumn, but at the equinox it's only 90 days until the solstice, and when I was in my 20s and complaining, a fellow worker in his 60s said, "Don't wish your life away."

Why Hollyhocks Are Old-Fashioned Flowers

"Old-fashioned beauty," "old-fashioned Southern favorite," "definitive old-fashioned garden plant" -- why, when someone says "hollyhocks," does "old-fashioned" precede it? These yesterday were on an island in a strip-mall parking lot: showy, heart-colored; perhaps the popular "creme de cassis" color. I want some! Blossoms the size of a face! I want to meet whoever planted them for our enjoyment. And I want to know why they're old-fashioned.

My brother-in-law just phoned and I told him "hollyhocks" and he said his grandmother mentioned hollyhocks in one of the poems she wrote.

They're originally from China, where they're called "shu kui." Google Translate says "shu" means "book" and "kui" means "God," "chief," or "serious"; Wikipedia says that in Chinese legend, Kui was the inventor of music and dancing. In 15th-century England the plant was named "holyoke." They are neither holy nor oak, but it is said, who knows if it's true, hollyhocks arrived in England from the Holy Land.

Ancient photos show the house I lived in from birth to age 7 (house built 1887; no longer standing; it's a parking lot!) had a tumbledown white-painted arched wooden trellis, with two seats.

Me and Aunt Anna in Sunday best. The car's four "ventiports" identify it as a Buick.

Photograph taken summer 1958 is of me and "aunt" Anna Savin (nee Weiss), a German who during the war dug ditches in Russia. The trellis held morning glories in season, and behind us, outside of the fence, on long bare stems, are hollyhocks. Alongside the house in spring grew violets and lilies of the valley, and in summer,  "four o'clocks," cradling smart black seeds; we also had peony bushes. A lilac bush and orange lilies bloomed out back. My parents planted none of these. All these flowers are still designated "old-fashioned" perennials. There were rambling roses, because I remember the scent and thorns.

Those are all old-fashioned flowers because they're English cottage-garden flowers, and there must have been a time when English was the type of flower garden for a Midwestern householder to have. In the language of flowers, hollyhocks mean "ambition" or "fecundity."

I remember as a kid crumbling between my wondering fingers the corncob-like stamens of the hollyhocks. The flowers in the parking lot in 2020 I did not touch.

Things I No Longer Worry About

• Did I leave the iron on?
• Did I take the meat out of the freezer so it's thawed when I get home? (There's no dinner for the family if I forgot.)
• Did I miss that important phone call?
• Will the dimestore have my size of typewriter ribbon? Or must I go downtown on Saturday to the office supply store?
• Did the bookstore already phone me saying they had my special-order book? (Why must all the books I want be "special-order"?)
• Will my airplane ticket arrive in the mail in time for my trip?
• Running up long-distance phone charges; so I'd call after 7:00 p.m.
• Will I have enough cash at the checkout?
• Did I shake every bit of sand out of the driver's side floor mat so my father won't know I went to the beach?
• Am I wearing two different color nylon stockings?
• Can I run to the grocery store in time for them to cash this check?
• Is my slip or my bra strap showing?
• Do I have a dime with me at all times in case I must make a phone call?
• Oh no, I have no quarter for the collection plate! All I have is my last dollar bill!

I'll never forget the time I went on a movie date and for some reason my mother was convinced we had gone to see a terribly forbidden movie, The Happy Hooker. Planning to catch me there, she dragged my father that evening to that movie, the first they'd probably seen in a theater in 20 years, and probably the last in their lifetimes. The joke was on them. I think Ray and I saw that evening The Towering Inferno.

Bunny 2020

This bunny is in its Eden. Always as the sun sets, a couple of bunnies enjoy dining on the part of the lawn kept mown. The day had been one of those stunningly blue and temperate June days (I think today is another). For a while this property was low on bunnies, but this year young ones were born, too young to know enough to run away from me. They grew up. So I know bunnies are thriving as they should. The second bunny ran as I approached, so this one looks lonely, but I assure you it isn't.

Territory

It's a young turtle if its shell is vividly and clearly painted and shines, and surely a young one if it's crossing a road, likely in search of a place claim-able as territory. With great self-possession -- animals seem to have more confidence as humans have less -- it held its pose as I sidled near and snapped the camera. In the background is my own home, my own protective shell. So this is a picture of what's important to us both.

On this walk just a few minutes before, yards down the road, I met a pencil-slender baby copperhead snake lounging on the gravel in the exact spot copperheads in summer quite often lounge on the gravel. Recalling well the first time I met a copperhead -- full-sized -- at that spot and nearly stepped on it, on every walk year-round I glance down at that point on the road, and step lightly. Perhaps I bring them into being by imagining them there. Happy summer solstice.