thanks guys. shortly after taking the pic, the weather shifted violently. 60mph wind gusts and hail. I hauled ass and got my plants under cover. I think I was fast enough, none of them died. but I love how the universe conspires to keep me on my toes. and my family makes fun of me for so frequently going out to check on them.

What a beautiful and thoughtful gift. I'm sure she appreciated it.

I was walking my dog yesterday. Typically in Florida, people wait until the sun gets low because its so hot and the sun blinding. While walking, I pass neighbors and we always chat briefly from a distance. I tell people my dog is not the friendliest and people respect that (not true). Yesterday a neighbor was walking on the opposite side of the street and we chatted briefly while walking. We were talking about how we were dealing with the virus and being isolated and how tired we were of the whole thing. Just chit-chat. Then she says, I think the whole thing is overblown and you'll never see me wearing a mask, gloves and all the crap. As I kept walking, I said, 'well, I certainly don't want to get it as I'm not a spring chicken.' She said, 'its all overblown and I wouldn't worry about it at all.' I'm 71 and my guess is she's about the same. We passed her house and I kept walking thinking, what makes her think it's all overblown? I have no idea but at my age, even if I survived, who wants to take the chance? Who wants to be sick for weeks? Not me, not worth it. I don't like being isolated, I don't like the restrictions its put on my life, but l also don't like the idea of catching this virus and its implications. Just not worth it. Jane

My mother was an awful cook. She fried almost everything, yet she was slender as were my sister and I. She had a 5-6 dish rotation: smothered steak (fried round steak cooked in brown gravy until tender-ish); fried pork chops; fried chicken; fried frozen shrimp on Friday nights (we are Protestant but she served fish on Friday); over-cooked, shoe-leather tough roast on Sunday; and at some point every couple of weeks, the worst spaghetti you’ve ever tasted. There was no such thing as a casserole. Green salads were rare to non-existent. I never could understand the penchant people had for mac and cheese when I was growing up. Here is Mother’s recipe: Cook elbow macaroni until it is flabby. Drain and put in a rectangular baking dish. Beat 2 eggs. Add milk. Pour over macaroni. Top with a few slices of very mild cheddar cheese. Bake until the macaroni is hard again. We had an abundance of vegetables because we had a huge garden (couple of acres) that we shared with the people who worked for Daddy. Mother did not can food, but she froze a lot of vegetables. I ate a lot of fresh tomatoes growing up. We had them for every meal, including breakfast, when they were in season. I would sneak into the garden, find a good one and eat it like an apple! Then there was fried okra; fried field corn (corn cut off the cob and cooked in a skillet with butter or bacon drippings); pole beans; yellow squash; cucumbers, butter beans (harvested when they were tiny) and crowder peas. For such a lousy cook, Mother had very high standards. Vegetables had to be small and tender. Tomatoes had to be vine-ripened unless they were being used for fried green tomatoes, in which case they had to be truly green and hard. Fruit had to be unblemished. We had no processed foods ever. I didn’t know what American cheese was until I was 23. It wasn’t that Mother was purposefully a healthy eater. She just didn’t like the taste processed foods. Mother never baked a cake from scratch, except a coconut cake at Christmas. The coconut had to be fresh (as in ”first you buy a coconut…”) and finely grated by her own hand. Her pie crusts were always from scratch and always flaky and tender. She had 2 pies she made, lemon meringue and chocolate. Biscuits and cornbread were made without a recipe and were always perfect. Mother’s best dishes were her potato salad and her cornbread dressing. I can’t make either one to save my soul. My sister comes really close on the cornbread dressing. Mother was over 90 when she died. She was living by herself in her own home, doing her own housework and cooking her own meals (still nothing processed). She did the light portions of her own yardwork but hired a really good-looking, very buff young man to do the heavy lifting and mowing. We teased her that she found things that needed doing just to get him to come to the house! I suppose my ”rebellion” is not cooking like Mother did. But I wouldn’t mind having her yard man mow my grass. 😉 ETA: My sister just sent me these pictures of Mom. She may have been a lousy cook, but she went some interesting places!