nature's candy in my hand or can or a pie

i watch the neighbor squeeze a fresh peach to see if he can eat it. the peaches sit on the bricks of his driveway near to his truck. on his way to the back porch he picks one up and, sniffing it, says, "oh yea, this is ready," and does not put it down but swings it up the stairs with him. i hear the screen door bang shut. later, his wife fills a bag full of the peaches and hands them to me with a laugh and a boast about her son's green-thumb-luck. she waves at a waving jude and rushes into the house to finish something made of tuna. the boys and i walk home to wave sticks, to run crazy, in our own yard, gently placing the bag of peaches on our own driveway. the peaches on their bricks look over at the peaches in the bag on our concrete. they wave and roll their eyes about something made of tuna. the peaches in the bag try to see us with our sticks, to see the other peaches on the bricks, but cannot for the density of the bag and the crowding of the other peaches. later, much later, after dinner and baths and stories and bedtime, i remember the peaches in the bag on the step and retrieve them, piling them over the tomatoes and sweet potatoes in the bowl on the counter. i squeeze them, sniff them, but they are not ready.



a rainy day again! it's nice to not have to water everything that needs watering. the summer was dry and dusty. the topiaries died, much to my frustration. during a nap i victoriously ripped them from the pots and threw them in a pile of sticks under a tree. orange mums to take us out of summer and into fall, hopefully golden and healthy through an orange halloween.



jude's feet are too small for the yellow boots that henry wore at this age. but he wears them anyway, walking a funny walk and sliding in the grass. they wear raincoats and slide through mud.



puddles are for splashing and, as busy as it is, i feel my irritations of the day wane as we splish our way to grandmama's house. henry sings, "i'm singing in the rain!" with his umbrella, twirling it and trying to kick up a good jump. who knew gene kelly would be so emblazoned on his brilliant little mind?

our fabulous house continues to surprise us. i peeled back the funkily disgusting carpet in the downstairs bathroom (who carpets a bathroom? seriously, WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE? to those who are contemplating the laying of carpet in a bathroom: don't do it! but if you must, please DO NOT GLUE the wretched thing to the floor!) and, to my delight, found a hard wood floor (covered in the hideous glue) like unto that which sprawls from one end of this place to the next. who knows what is hiding under the kitchen linoleum?

and, speaking of household stuff, our shop-vac is fixed! thanks, dad. you and your large nimble fingers, electrified mind, and box of strange tools came to the rescue, yet again. my first shop-vac died by strangulation when henry's supersilk (cape) was caught in the fan of it after henry stood too close in front of the vent in order to get a little cape-wind. i love to vacuum. something in this house is vacuumed at least every-other-day, sometimes every day. how can i resist?

henry is nap-free today. i debate the goodness of this. the day is rough but the nights are bliss when he doesn't nap. when he does nap the evening is long and chatty. i say it daily and i'll say it here and now, it's hard to know what to do, particularly when it comes to routine and slumber. it makes me tired just thinking about it.