11 July 2023
Well, I’m 1-1 for today as of this writing: one solid poop, one liquid poop. I’ll take it.
Nancy and Michel picked me up at 11 this morning and we headed to Mustard Seed Bistro for lunch. They advertise themselves as serving European style dishes. Over the years, I’ve eaten there three or four times and it’s always been excellent. Nancy had a ceviche shrimp salad, Michel had a turkey salad and I had the taco special.
What the bistro is really known for is their cupcakes. They are outlandish. They are regular size cupcakes but they are decorated to the nth degree. If you go to their Instagram page at @mustardseedbistro you can see the cupcakes. The menu changes daily. They really are a little bit of heaven.
Service was excellent even though it did take a little while for the food to come out. The photo above makes you think that it’s not busy but by the time we left all the tables were taken and there was a short line inside waiting for tables. There were four outside tables that sat empty. Hmmm!
It seems to me that years ago they also offered gourmet gift baskets. When I was union president, I often used them to send to faculty who were ill or had a death in the family. The baskets were extraordinary. Most of our union dues went to support the National Education Association and the statewide organization but we got a percentage of our dues back to our chapter based on our membership. Since our college had one of the highest memberships in the state, we got a decent sum back to service our members. Believe me when I tell you a gift basket to the family of a deceased faculty member or to a faculty member in the hospital did a world of good.
It was hard on me as the president because I often had to represent the union and faculty senate at the funerals. Almost always, the grieving family were amazed that I showed up to offer condolences on behalf of the union and senate. The college never could figure out why we had such high union membership in comparison to other colleges and universities in the state. I spent too much time at funerals and I no longer attend those nor weddings. I still go see people in hospitals though.
I was pleased to beat Nancy and Michel to the bill and treat them. They too often treat me for lunch or dinner and I was just pleased to see them before my surgery.
After they dropped me off, I headed to the local Publix (ugh!) and stocked up on Lean Cuisine-type meals for the few days after surgery when I doubt I’ll be up to cooking anything. This was at the suggestion of my walking buddy Chris. I thought it an excellent idea.
South Florida is under another heat alert. The feels-like temperature is 103°F. The dew point is 76°F which means that is the temperature which it would need to fall to to reach 100% humidity. The air temp right now is 94° and that’s why it feels like 103°F even though the relative humidity is at 56%.
The plant of the day is Ixora coccinea also known as simply Ixora or Jungle Flame. It’s native to southern India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka according to Wikipedia and is probably the most common ornamental plant in south Florida yards. It grows as a small shrub and its evergreen so you get nice foliage all year and it pretty much blooms all year in my environment. It also has medicinal properties.
When I moved down here, it was one of the first plants I ran into which I had no idea as to what it was. I knew it was a member of the coffee family (Rubiaceae) – it had four petals with tubular flowers and opposite leaves. You’ll hear the genus pronounced two different ways: IX oh rah and ih ZOR ah. My old botany professor said to put the accent on the third from the last syllable when trying to pronounce latinized terms so I go with IX or rah.
I’ve probably mentioned before that when I started my coursework in botany at Ole Miss, Dr. Pullen required us to learn the characteristics of about 75-100 plant families. Rubiaceae was one of those and I couldn’t understand why that family was included because you didn’t often run into a plant in Mississippi in that family (at least not like some other families). When I moved to south Florida I understood. The place is lousy with plants in that family both in different species and the number found in that species. They are everywhere down here. It took about 50 years but that little nugget of information paid off in the long run. Later, I found out he grew up in south Florida. Mystery solved!
Biota of North America (BNAP) reports 11 genera with 23 species of Rubiaceae in Mississippi where I did most of my collecting and 29 genera and 56 species in Florida. That’s a big difference in the number of species. Thirty-nine total species are recorded in the U.S. with most of the extra genera in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California so you can see a trend towards warmer, subtropical climates for this family.
One and a half days until surgery.
Stay tuned!