Coronation Day

Today started mighty early for me.  I mean, even earlier than normal - which is pretty early already.  But I was getting up at 3:45 on my day off because I wanted to watch King Charles III's coronation.  This is something that hasn't happened in 70 years, and I wanted to see it.  

Besides that, it was on a Saturday -- a Saturday that I had off, at that -- and I was able to watch.  I don't usually get to see things like this.   I don't even get to watch our presidential inaugurations, because I'm usually at work.  The last one I got to see was Bush 43's inauguration in 2001.  

Anyway, it was everything I expected it to be.  The pomp.  The ceremony.  Even the religious aspect of it -- what with the monarch being the head of the Church Of England.  I loved it all.  

You know what else was everything I expected?  People's reactions on Facebook. Seriously, y'all are as predictable as the sun coming up in the east.   The people I expected to be geeked out over it were appropriately geeked out.   The ones I expected to be self-righteous and judgmental were indeed self-righteous and judgmental.  The ones I expected to be arrogant and obnoxious were exactly that.  The ones I expected to be hateful were indeed spewing hatred.  And the ones I expected to make incredibly stupid comments...well, let's just say they didn't make a liar out of me.  

I ended up watching the livestream on Daily Mail's YouTube channel, which was good.  I'd started out trying to watch ABC, but the endless yammering of the talking heads made me turn that off right quick.  Daily Mail was nice, because it was just the coverage of the event.  No commentary.  No analysis.  No talking heads.  Just a stream of what was going on. 

Towards the end, I switched over to BBC channel, where they did have some analysis.  I might go back and re-watch that stream a bit later, because I'm sure there is stuff I missed.  

Once it was all over, since I was up anyway, I got dressed and ran up to Batesville to Walmart and Lowe's, to see what they had.  I was marginally disappointed that they didn't have a lot of what I wanted, such as lemon verbena or chocolate mint, but I was able to pick up some lavender, 

and peppermint. 

They are now safely nestled in my planter.  

By the way, my rosemary has perked up considerably since I put her into the planter,

and also by the way, I made rosemary tea the other night and it was delicious.  I didn't add anything else but sweetener.  I just picked a sprig rosemary, put it into tea basket of my coffee maker, and added some stevia, and it was so good.  I'll be making more of that, especially when it gets cold again.  

Yeah, I had to turn my air conditioner on this afternoon.  It's not really that hot, but the humidity was unbearable.  

The final thing I bought was this blanket flower.  

I was looking for purple coneflowers, since the ones I planted never did anything growth wise, I mean, but they didn't have any.  I was actually on my way to the checkout when I spotted this and picked it up.  I don't know yet where I'm going to put it, but it'll be somewhere in the back yard. 

Now is the part where I sound like an infomercial spokeserson:  But wait, there's more!

Yes, that's right.  As if the day weren't already busy enough, today was also Derby Day.  I opted to skip the 7 hours of pre-race coverage -- which started about the time I left for Lowe's -- but was there for the race itself.  

Every year, I do the same thing.  I don't have a hat.  I say, "Next year, I'm going to get a hat."  But I don't get a hat.  The next year comes, and I don't have a hat.  I say, "Next year, I'm going to get a hat."  But I don't get a hat.  And so it goes, ad idfinitum.  

That ended this year. Yes, you read that right. This year, I had a hat:

Not sure it made a difference in the race, but I can now report that I finally had a hat for Derby day!