Homefront

Any time spent on John D (after the day before, having a bit of trouble calling him John Dear) wipes me out, so all was quiet on the homefront here yesterday.  My ambition and endurance have their limitations.

Bessie Anne was feeling so well yesterday that she started a spontaneous game of Chase Me, in which she races around (maybe not as fast as in the past) the dining room table and I'm expected to menace and try to catch her.  She snatches up one of the many toys laying around and I'm supposed to take it away.  Somehow I never do.  It's a game she initiated and has loved since she was a puppy.  It made me so happy to see her playing.  John D and I may be on the outs, but Bessie will always be my dear girl.

Camille and I were talking and I told her what a stinker John D had been and where I'd left him.  She offered to come today with her quad and pull him out of the dirt.  She also told me that two guys were just then weed whacking along her fence line on the side road, and then started on the section by the paved road.  Going out to thank them, she found out they were husband and wife neighbors who had, for years, watched Cam work so hard keeping their road clear of weeds and decided to return the favor.  Between Cam's offer to me and the gift of time and effort of her neighbors, I am reminded of Blanche DuBois's line in "Streetcar Named Desire" (1947, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Vivien Leigh), "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."  These may not be strangers, but they are most certainly kind.

Cam and Honey may stop by today, quad work notwithstanding, to watch the running of the Belmont Stakes, the third jewel in the Triple Crown of horse racing.  Justify having won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, I can't help but root for this big boy.  So many have come so close without taking the crown, only thirteen since the 1800s.  I know what I'll be doing on the homefront today.