Addendum.

After getting those flowers for her 80th birthday, my mother decided to stop by the local flower shop and tell the people there what a good job they did with them.

And, they told her thanks, and they also said that I was "very precise" in saying what I wanted for her.

I wonder if they really meant it, that I was somehow more exact in describing what she likes and what I wanted than most customers are, or if that's just something that they just always say in those situations to make the gift seem more personal, since they are in fact the skilled people assembling the flowers on behalf of me for money, after all.

Birthday present.

For my mother's 80th birthday, I got flowers delivered to her.

It was $80 for a decent arrangement and delivery, but, your mother only turns 80 once!

"I'm thinking something colorful and cheery," the lady on the phone was like, when I placed the order.

"Colorful is good," I was like, "But she hates cute. Something more elegant."

"So, that makes me think Bridgerton..," the lady on the phone was like.

"Ooh," I was like, "That's too overdone, more elegant and simple." 

"Okay," the lady was like. 

And, the people at the flower shop said that the drop-off would be between 11 and 2, so I made sure to call at 3 and wish her a happy birthday, only, she wasn't aware of any flowers, so I told her what I did and that I was confused, and she went out on the front porch and there they were sitting there.

And, she had been in town earlier that day and she came in and out of the house through the garage and plus my dad doesn't hear knocks on the door, so that's probably what happened.

And, when I called the next day, too, she told me that when she was spending time in different rooms in the house like her sewing room where she makes quilts, she'd bring the flowers with her, so they'd be there with her while she did things and she could look at them.

A new note-taking strategy for blogposts…

…since sometimes I can’t later remember the anecdotes where I jot down phrases to evoke them, even though I think at the time that I’ll be able to from the short phrases that seem so evocative and essential at the time:

I write down the person’s actual name and proper noun circumstances etc. in the short note, and just remove them in the write-up.

. . .

(Obvious in retrospect – why didn’t I think of that earlier?)

. . .

(Now the big problem is my penmanship, occasionally, although I'm trying to write in larger letters now, which helps some.) 

Some end-of-winter oddities:

1) I open my door at night and immediately look down and the light on the concrete slab in front of my door looks like snow, but then I see what it is, and it isn’t, it's just the normal slab with light on it.

2) At the local university library, I go to consult a picture of a manuscript in this long row of like 24 thin volumes, and as I flip through the plates, the exact one that I need to consult is inside of an uncut folio-page, and I can bend it open to glance at what I need and check it to confirm the reading, but after that I spirit the volume away and hand it over to a librarian, and I tell them that they need to slit the pages and check that entire row of books for that, since it seems like it was done inconsistently upon receipt.

Addendum.

Several months after this when I’m calling my parents on a Sunday, my mother tells me to be careful, I'm projected to be getting severe weather… on Tuesday.

. . .

(. . .)

Worrying of my mother…

…when I call my parents and I say that after I hang up I’m going to run a few errands in the rain before the impending front of thunderstorms moves in in like an hour or so:

“Don’t use an umbrella, it will attract the lightning.”

. . .

(. . .)

One of the last snaps of winter this year:

1) I go to vote in the local primary, and as I turn up the side-street to the municipal building, the wind is so strong and it’s so bitterly cold and it’s blowing so directly in my face, that it actually takes my breath away, and I have to turn my back to it and kind of angle-shuffle backwards up like a third of a block till I can turn in and walk in front of the building and be out of the wind and start walking normally again, but for just that little bit there, it was so horrendous, the wind was actually forcing itself down your throat and displacing your breath and like you actually couldn’t breathe at all, as your eyes watered too in these just great long freezing gusts that were happening constantly.

2) The new (pixie cut) (arts management) renter in the front house is out of town and I can’t put a package for her behind her front storm door like I usually do when I come across one – it’s too big and it leaves the door ajar and the wind catches it and rips it open and the package tips out from where I positioned it on top of the door-jamb – and so I just take it and put it in the corner of the front porch where no-one can see it from the street, and I hope that that’s enough until she gets home, although I keep wondering to myself if I should take it inside my apartment and just keep it there until she returns from wherever she is, even though she didn’t ask me to do that like she had once before when she was out of town.

3) The old (transgender) (FTM) renter in the front house leaves a houseplant outside in the warm spell preceding the cold snap, and then during the cold snap I suddenly see that it’s still sitting there on a table in the backyard, now covered in snow and withered and dead, however.