Bloodchild

Here's my pour-over morning coffee. Please join the T Stands for Tuesday blogger gathering where we share a post with a drink in it and visit with one another. All are welcome.

Bloodchild is a science fiction short story by Octavia Butler. You can read it online here. It begins,

My last night of childhood began with a visit home. T’Gatoi’s sister had given us two sterile eggs. T’Gatoi gave one to my mother, brother, and sisters. She insisted that I eat the other one alone. It didn’t matter. There was still enough to leave everyone feeling good. Almost everyone. My mother wouldn’t take any. She sat, watching everyone drifting and dreaming without her. Most of the time she watched me.

I lay against T’Gatoi’s long, velvet underside, sipping from my egg now and then, wondering why my mother denied herself such a harmless pleasure. Less of her hair would be gray if she indulged now and then. The eggs prolonged life, prolonged vigor. My father, who had never refused one in his life, had lived more than twice as long as he should have. And toward the end of his life, when he should have been slowing down, he had married my mother and fathered four children.

But my mother seemed content to age before she had to.

*******

The rains came back Sunday night and are still adding to our unusually high rain amounts. The patio suffered from the recent sudden freeze (not the snow, because it didn't get cold enough to hurt anything, but the actual hard freeze before that). My poor hydrangea!

The honeysuckle is showing signs of blooming:

The mint is coming back nicely:

I'm hoping the Dogwood tree (left below) survived in its pot. It wasn't happy being moved. The rosemary has over-wintered well this year.

I'll be happy when it's dry enough and warm enough to have morning coffee out on the patio, but for now I'm enjoying my view looking out at it.