Unidentifiable Flowers Among the Goose Grass

June 30, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  (Right now, as I’m trying to write down this entry, Moi, who just came home from Jazz’s and is upstairs getting things together for a 5-day job she has to do out-of-town, is interrupting me every few minutes, telling me about her last minutes with Atlas, showing me an Indian dress that Jazz got her in Nevada, boasting how after two weeks of spending time dog and cat sitting Jazz’s and Matt’s house is now clean and Atlas is a much better behaved dog.)  This morning I got up at 8, did the morning chores.  Squeak still refuses to eat the cat food I nuke for her; Mway started barking at me in anticipation of going out, something she usually only does when Moi is taking her out.

State of the Path:  It’s a cool morning, with a pleasant breeze (Moi is telling me that a frost is possible in the Northern Tier tonight).  The day lilies are not yet opened.  I walk along in a fog, encounter a spider web past the sumacs, which I knock down with my stick.   The dew is not too thick until I get to the seeps of bug land: there the grasses that I have to wade through throw some water onto my pants.  (Moi is telling me that Jazz and Matt found Hawaii to be very expensive: $150 a piece to take a cable car over a dormant volcano; Matt said it would’ve been more exciting to take a cable car over Centralia).  Along the creek I come across something that perplexes me:  two specimens of a flower or something on long stalks that look like white clover but are hard like a macaroon.  I’m almost afraid to touch them, because they look like something that could sting.  The stalks go all the way to the ground, but there’s some goose grass growing in the area, as well as another plant that I’ve been seeing around but don’t know what it is.  This latter plant has long tapered leaves that curl up at the stalk where they’re attached.  I don’t know if I have any hope of ever identifying what all this is.

State of the Creek:  Again we reach the creek without encountering the raccoons.  The pools of water are holding their own.  (Moi is handing me a Hawaiian shirt Jazz got for me; Moi’s afraid it might be too small for me.)

 The Fetch:  Again my muscles are sore as I bend down to pick up the stick after each fetch.  Perhaps I’ve been swimming too much in the pool, or perhaps they’re sore after spot mowing the lawn yesterday evening.  Mway forces me to toss the “pro-quality” stick and play “Put it down” more times than I care to.  (“When we’d play ‘Fetch it,’ “ Moi is telling me, “Sometimes he’d hide the thing under the laundry basket and make me look for it.”)