On Sunday afternoon I rested. I'd done two Farmer's Markets in a week. The Downtown Market is exhausting simply because I'm not used to getting up at 4am. I did well. And on Sunday I felt entitled to a long restful day.

I took a nap, but for some reason I woke up before I was through napping. I felt disoriented and enervated (Billy's big word; it means without the energy to move).

I grabbed a book and went out to the front porch to lie on the very uncomfortable wicker couch. The fan whirred and moved the hot afternoon air around, making me comfortable enough to want to close my eyes, in spite of the cushion springs' occasional jab.

I put my glasses on the little bench beside me and soon I was in a world of my own -- until the front door opened. It was Billy. He came out to check on me. He'd been in a world of his own in front of the television set watching the French Open. He sat for a minute and we talked. He went back inside and I tried to drift back into dreamland. To no avail.

And then I thought orange sherbet! I hoisted myself off the couch and began looking for my glasses. There they are! On the rug! OH NO!! Someone had stepped on them!! Again!!!! Just the way they did last Sunday afternoon! What a coincidence!

Only this time instead of one arm of the glasses being broken the big foot got both of them.

Glasses are a recent development for me. I've been wearing readers for some time, but have had 20/20 vision otherwise. Then, the last time I had them checked the eye doctor asked what kind of glasses I was wearing.

"Reading glasses," I told him, "they're 175."

He said, "According to your exam you need 300's."

No wonder my eyes were hurting.

FYI: gardening and glasses do not a happy marriage make. Don't get me wrong. I'm very grateful to be able to see. I love the soothing comfort of putting my glasses on and feeling my body relax from the strain of not being able to see. But composting, digging, mulching, building, weed-eating, grass cutting, none of those things lend themselves to wearing glasses. For two Monday mornings in a row I've been in my car on the way to LensCrafters to get my glasses replaced. Billy was thrilled, of course (not).

Echart Tolle says that in the West relationships are a "spiritual exercise." And Martin Luther said that marriage is a "school for character."

I tried valiantly to convince Billy that he'd been the one who stepped on my glasses. "You must have done it when you came out to check on me."

I was very convincing, but not convincing enough. He hadn't been anywhere near them. I honestly don't remember stepping on them and I didn't hear the awful crunch sound. Oh well, all done now.

I was just thinking about my Aunt Velma who's 90 years old. Her eyes are better than mine. Speaking of whom:

Here's the feverfew in bloom. She gave me a very small plant from her garden back in the early spring. I have a new sunny spot in my front yard. It was all very odd. I wrote a blog piece about "The Canopy." That's what I call the shade we have here on my street. I love the beautiful ancient trees, but I'm human. I must find things to complain about, so I wrote about the lack of sun in my front yard and my neighbor's growing young oak tree.
That very day I came home and saw tree trimmers. They'd removed a huge oak from her back yard and cut lots of branches from the young oak in her front yard, the young oak that was blocking all my sunlight.
Here's a delicate little daisy I got the same day I got the feverfew. The plant had a bud on it when I put it in the ground back in early April. It bloomed a few days later and has been blooming ever since.

This is the seed pod of a poppy. Aunt Velma has poppies in her garden and I think they are so beautiful. They're like upside down ballerinas dancing high above the other flowers, catching every breeze, showing off their lovely soft red skirts. After they bloom she harvests the seed pods and puts them in a ziplock bag. In the fall she sows them again in her garden and is always pleasantly surprised to see who germinates and flourishes.
Poppies hate to be transplanted, but I got this one very early and on a nice cool day. We'll just have to see how things work out. Maybe next year I'll have poppies in my garden.