It's just a melon

The Garden Princess is equally overjoyed and embarrassed. What she assumed was a watermelon is, in fact, a cantaloupe. So, taking in other recent developments, she thought pumpkins were cantaloupes, and cantaloupes were watermelons. Either the Walmart garden crew was terribly remiss when marking their product, or Garden Princess had an extra glass of wine while planting her garden. Hmmm-m-m. Oh whatever. But...the great part is that Garden Princess now gets to see that brown vegetal mesh grow itself around the cantaloupe. Right now it's still mostly green and smooth but around the bottom there's this texture thing going on. A little bit more every day. (At this point I'll stop talking about myself in third person, which is really creepy, with the possible exception of Seinfeld episode #216). And It's only September first (Holy schmoly, it's September first!?). Plenty of time.
I think even this cute little eggplant will have time to get fat and ripe. Garden count as of today (including "picked" and "still growing"); 42 tomatoes, 9 yellow squash (squarsh if you're from Kansas. Go Chiefs!), 11 zucchini, 2 cantaloupe, 4 pumpkins, 2 banana peppers, 14 bell peppers, 7 turnips, 3 carrots, 2 beets, 3 eggplant and 9 okra.

Can I talk about my mother? She's going to go back to the memory unit on Tuesday. That's her real home. Now. It's on the third floor or the same building where she's been in skilled nursing. She's walking with a walker. She still cannot take direction or feed herself. She will never be able to do those things. Okay, she hasn't even done these things for the last year. The broken hip can heal, the other stuff is constant. But the memory unit is good. There are all this wonderful old people with no minds to speak of. I think of it as this alternate universe where these folks just mill about, with some of them back in their twenties, holding babies and getting ready to make pies, some of them in their forties, lives filled with spouses and kids and rotary meetings, and some angry or lost or only able to repeat the same word over and over. But really, they're all lovely grandmas and grandpas who just can't think well enough to still be in a house, crocheting or gardening or watching tv, like they should be. These are the people who might be surrounded by grandkids, and be bickering with the one person they were able to grow old with, if not for the strange little plaques invading the thought paths of the brain. (Was I the one who listed "optimistic" in my profile?) Moving on...

And speaking of pathways and brains, I started an African dance class (counts for 1.5 of my 4 hours, mind you) on Fridays. It is so fun and yet I felt like a total dork. The dance steps are just not that complicated but my brain (my melon) would not get it. First there's the feet, then you add in the arms, and then even your head is supposed to do it's own thing. And I am the absolute anti-exercise girl so there I was misstepping all over the place, arms flailing, out of breath, sweating like a pig. Too bad I don't have a picture of that :P I loved it.