A Wasted Sunday Morning (The Open Door)

 Okay! I have wasted my morning for a handful of breakfasts and a lot of cheese!

It didn't start out that way. It started out a simple necessary decision. I need groceries, among other things. I also need test strips that are Walmart brand. I tried to get them delivered but -- that's a whole 'nother story.

So, instead of going to Kroger, I went to Walmart. I could buy some other necessities there as well as some groceries. And if they had any Verizon phones, I could get that.

Off to Walmart I go. Pleasant, easy trip. Not a lot of traffic (church) and beautiful weather, and just a good feeling.

I should know better!

Amelia Walmart did NOT have my test strips. I even asked at the window and got the if-we-have-any-they'd-be-on-the-shelf. There weren't any.

They didn't have the brand of necessities I wanted.

No Verizon phones.

So I went to Walmart, used up my gas, and my time, for no real reason.

'

Well, I could still get groceries, although Kroger is cheaper and has better selection in most but not all foodstuffs, especially produce.

So I did. Kroger does not have $2 breakfast bowls, so I snatched me up a bunch of them, and Kroger doesn't always have the big box of cheese single, so I bought one of those. And a box of crackers. I wanted some fruit, but Wal-marts selection is bad and they want about twice Kroger's price.

anyway, I got those goodies, went to check out. Cashier asked about my day and I told him not well, but he didn't ask for any details. (He wasn't responsible and couldn't do anything anyway.)

Went out to car; loaded groceries into back seat, and tried to open door and get in, but couldn't. Somehow I must have locked the door. Easy enough to do when you're manipulating purses and canes and keeping an eye on traffic and all that other stuff.

I hobble around to the other side of the car and hit the unlock switch on the other front door which unlocks both. I see the driver side door unlock from the passenger side of the car.

Problem solved. (I wish)

Gimp my way back around and yay, hooray, but strange -- the driver door popped partially open when it was unlocked.

The damn door still wouldn't open!

I pushed it fully shut and tried again.

Nope, no luck. It would open just as much as it had popped, but no more. Well hell.

I figured the door panel must have slipped and been catching on the frame.

So I toddle around the car again, get in the passenger seat, flip the switch a couple times and then use my cane to force the door open.

It opens.

Yay Hooray again.

Back around the car this ridiculous fat old lady goes again -- I got some steps in today, I did. Yes,, the door panel was kind of loose and needed adjusting. Congrats on your clever diagnosis, fatso gimp (I'm starting to feel it by now).

I take care of that, seat myself, put my seat belt on, and the key in the ignition. (So I won't put it down and lose it -- I'm beginning to lose my faith in the Day.)

I close the door!

It goes KLONK and bounces back open!

Does it two or three more times.

It's not the inner panel. I can see that when I look, and the KLONK has a different sound than the padded panel should make. It's metallic!

omfg

the little hook thing that's supposed to latch on the door isn't moving. I can't exactly examine it or work on it there in the parking lot, but -- Heavy sigh -- oh well, I have a bungee cord, so I can hook it up somehow to hold the door until I get home.

Except that there is nothing in the car to attach it to!

Nothing on the door to attach it to, except for the rigging holding my window up. Well thank god there's that. Strange thing to be thankful for, but all things happen for a reason, right?

Except that there is still nothing IN THE CAR to attach the other end to. Did think about using my seat, but that was a no-go as a plan. I couldn't pull it hard enough, and if it was that hard to pull, could I trust it not to pull loose? As in either pull the seat out, or snap me in the back or head or something?

I guess i won't go to Kroger today.

Now if I can just get home.

Nope, nothing to hold it shut.

Guess I'll have to hold it myself. Yeah, like that's going to work.

I attach one end of the bungee to the strapping on the window, and run the other end up around the place holding the visor to the car, and just hold on to the other end of it.

All the way home.

I made it home, and here I sit, cussing and fussing, eating my breakfast and thin king of grilled cheese for dinner.

I'd really like to bang my head into the walls, kick a few rocks around, and maybe cry myself back to sleep.

I might do that.

When I calm down.

so, how is your day going? Please let me be happy for you

grayish rainish day

 It's been a grayish rainish day today and now that night is creeping in, the sunlight has taken on a misty mystic haze of almost-but-not-quite-a-rainbow light.

The air glows like golden dust.

The sun is behind the trees now. The trees are haloed in the diffused light. Not quite colors quiver as leaves tremble.

Along the alley, a long lazy ray of white light makes its way down the pavement, perfectly placed evenly with the edges. At those edges, where the light meets the grass, the color blossoms into golden fizz, dancing above the ground.

I reach for my phone, my only camera, and try to capture this ethereal moment that was already fading.

I cannot, of course. The magic is beyond both my skill and the phone cameras abilities.

I hope my words have helped you to see it. A slice of time such as this is meant to be shared,and i am sharing it with you.

The Heat of a 'Cool' Night.

 was awake/woke up again around 5 am. Temp was down to 73F so I thought I'd go outside for a while. Water my poor baked roses and make sure the lilac wasn't dehydrating (as if I'd be able to see that in the crepuscular predawn.) Get my clean laundry and the rest of my pop out of the car before the world starts heating back up.

Walk in the grass, wiggle my toes in the dirt, stuff like that.

Now, since it was still dark I just put on my spaghetti strap black sheath dress. This weather has my hair looking like a toilet brush (or a large bottle brush, if you prefer a different image.) So there I am, wandering up and down the fenceline, barefoot in black, scrub brush hair sticking out all over, randomly pouring water out of milk jugs, talking to myself, the water, the sky, and the green of summertime.

It's probably a good thing there was no one out, although it would have been delightful if one of my neighbors had come out and lifted the clothes hamper from the bottom of the steps to the porch at the top. One car came down the alley. No one up or down the street. No one was at the The Plane Street Coffee House and Cafe yet. Or at the childcare center. They usually start trickling in about 5:25. 5:20. It felt like I'd been out there an hour. I had planned to type this up while setting (not sitting) on the porch, but I gotta tell you. I sat down twice to catch my breath and slow my heart (and sweat) rate, and they ain't no way I'm staying out there. Hottest 73F I've been out in for a while. I'm getting worried about my trip to the dr Thursday, but at least I'll have some minimal air movement while the car is moving. Worse comes to worse, I can ask my sisters and we can put our heads together and patch together a Plan D. (One sister is plan B and the other is Plan C)

I believe my neighbor(s) have been watering for me, though. Either that or my tightly capped water bottles have sweated themselves back to full.
They are wonderful people, are they not, and I am blessed to have them and grateful for them, believe me.

And 73 degrees with a hot humid hazy headache high-pressure dome is not, I say NOT, a comfortable temperature.

Stay cool.
I'm going to.

A Wreck of a Good Day

Well, y'all are not going to believe how I wrecked a beautiful wonderful day. I was finally going to get the jello shots for my knee, so maybe I wouldn't be so wibbly-wobbly. These were due in April, but, y'know, life was happening in the meantime.
Plus this day was already above 80 degrees F. Whew!

Got up early (for me) got all cleaned up, dressed, organized, etc. I even went outside and checked the reservoir on my car because it doesn't like heat when everything works., and everything hasn't worked for a while, but the car still usually gets me where I need to know. Filled it up. Didn't take a lot, which was a cheerful discovery.
Came back in, took medicine combed hair, packed phone and wallet in purse, since my dress has no pockets.

 
Checked my mail and Facebook, because I still had time. Lots of crazy stupid accidents going on. Accidents on 68 in a couple places -- not going that way-- and around and about downtown on the interstates and -- oh no! An accident earlier on Five Mile. Car upside down and on fire. That was the direction I was going. although it had been cleared up by then.

 
In other words, just a normal day with an unusual number of accidents showing up in my local feed.
Other interesting calls that have come in today include a kid around New Richmond selling a dead kitten, someone in Ripley skateboarding and flipping people off, a 15 year old girl kidnapped by a Ford 150 from King's auto mall, wearing a tie-dye shirt. (These were later and are just to show what kind of day this is here.)

AnyWay, I leave early enough to get gas in my car and head on down the road. Now this dr office is about 45 minutes from home on a good day, so I leave plenty of time beforehand. Once I'm out of town and the traffic has cleared a bit, I pull into the inner lane, so I won't have to change lanes to make a left turn when going through the business/professional area which is the last part of the trip, dr's offices being a professional setup.
All is going well. Cars in the outer lane are NOT passing me so I'm maintaining speed well, and stopping appropriately at the red lights. Nice smooth driving, although it doesn't seem as if I'm getting very far very fast.
Still, I have plenty of time.

Then I get to Amelia.

Let me tell you about Amelia.
Amelia is a town that isn't a town. The town government disbanded itself not long ago, after a couple hundred years of existence.
It is also. metaphorically, an inch wide and miles long. Narrow lanes, uncoordinated lights, 5 lanes in some places but not in others, lots and lots of traffic, including semis and oversized trucks.
No village police, since the village suicided itself when no one wanted to be the Big Frog anymore.
I keep having to slow down and sometimes momentarily stop for left-turners. Annoying, but not as annoying as constant lane changing in what looks like heavy traffic to me.

 
I get through the center of town, and there's a stopped car at a green light in front of me. I had watched two or three cars cut around him, changing lanes and getting back, but I didn't mind waiting. A sheriff pulled up behind me, and he waited too. There was a lot of oncoming traffic, so the driver ahead just couldn't go. In the meantime, traffic passing on my right had nearly stopped completely.
I decide to cut over like those other cars had . So, I checked mirrors, looked over my shoulder, checked mirrors again and pulled out
And some horn went off and a white car tried to barrel past me.

 
That did not quite work out. It's a good thing I was starting from a complete stop, and she wasn't going too fast (I guess) from traffic. I don't know where she came from, since I hadn't seen her coming.
No big smash up (nobody turned upside-down and caught fire). A few chips of paint out of her car and maybe a couple of dents. (I still haven't looked at mine.) No injuries. She had a passenger, also uninjured. I never got out of my car (combined heat and wibbly-wobbly knees)

I no longer had plenty of time. 
I did not make my dr appointment (dammit), but considering all the weird things happening out in the public, we were pretty lucky.
But that is how I wrecked a good day.
Although no needles in my knees was a fair positive.
And at least we didn't have to wait for policed. 

Reaching Out of Your Mind.

 Tis the season 

when sadness looms, when despair overwhelms, when the light is literally gone or going, when life becomes filled with dark, cold, empty spaces.

When many of us retreat so far into ourselves that the corridor has closed behind us and we are stuck in a place with no door, no window, and no way out.

All we can see is the can'ts, wont's, don'ts. 

We do not want anyone to know how far, how remote we've become. We pretend we're fine. We smile and make jokes when with others so they won't know how bad things are with us. 

It's a time of year for joy and love. For literal warmth. For family huddling together in their caves until the world grows back into light and warmth of its own. 

As happens when this season rolls around, there are many suicides and suicide attempts. Sometimes the mind collapses in on itself like a pile of so much rubble.

That Which Survives is buried, with pressure pressing all around. Pressing, pushing. compressing, making us smaller and more ineffective.

Recent suicides in my area have sprouted a lot of conversation on social media. 

The messages are, or should be, hopeful, cheering, encouraging, optimistic. 

For the most part, that is what they are --

to the ones not reduced to rubble in the dark places of their own souls. 

Depression is a disease with many forms, many and varied symptoms, and a whole lot of unknowns. We, as a society, are finally acknowledging the disease aspect of this, and we even think we know how to help. 

All the patient needs to do, is reach out, ask for help. Anyone can do that, right?

Well, no. 

No one expects someone with a high fever and delirium to be walking around and talking sense. 

No one expects the starving man or the thirsty child, so ill that any movement exhausts the energy in their muscles to the point of pain and unconsciousness, to get up off the floor and walk to the nearest kitchen and fix themselves. Shouting at a pneumonia patient to just breathe (or cough) is NOT going to make the air go in any easier or more effectively. 

Yet this is exactly what you are asking of the lost souls buried in the dust, pebbles, rocks, bricks that are the rubble smothering and shredding them into components.

You ARE wonderful, opening yourself to the ill and offering to be their go-to when they need help. All they have to do is ask, or tell you of their need. 

Their disease prevents them from doing so. It is a symptom. 

They cannot ask.

They cannot reach.

It is not a matter of will.

It is not something they can do. 

It is a symptom of their disease. 

If you want to help, to prevent, to heal, YOU must be the one to watch for the symptoms, to reach out, to do the asking.

And it can be a helpless repetitive job. 

You may not get answers. 

You may get lies instead of truths. 

You may be ignored and you will probably be shut out.

Darkness does not allow the admission of light, because when light enters, darkness is no more.

Look around you, at the people you live with, work with, deal with. 

Are they being more quiet OR more noisy than is normal for them?

Are they preoccupied or often not occupied at all?

Are they just not themselves? 

Ask them.

If they don't answer, or return generic answers -- "Just got a lot on my mind" or "it's been a tough time" or even "I'm tired; that's all. -- ask again. 

Tell them you are here for them. 

Then be there. Helping hand extended.

They cannot ask. The disease prevents that.

They may not be able to respond, and you are going to have to wield the shovel and shift the rubble. You are going to have to use an ice pick to bore a hole through a solid wall to let in the ray of light. 

You will have to administer the treatment.

And they may fight you. Resist by non-response. That first beam of light can be painful to eyes that have too long endured the black blankness. Effective antibiotics can make an infection seem worse by declaring war on the invaders, who increase their numbers until the drug cuts off their reinforcements.

Do NOT say, they could've -- no, they couldn't. Their illness does not permit this.

Pay attention to behaviors, words, attitudes. 

If YOU care, you must, must, must be the one to reach out. 

The Seasonal Pause

Tonight's the night! 

Put on the socks, wrap a quilt around my head and shoulders, wrap my hands around a hot cuppa (for me, coffee) and sit on the porch.

It rained today, so the light is shimmering.

The lowering temperature has the air smelling so clean.

The clean smell of falling leaves and fading greens; of pollen-heavy goldenrod and foxtails, and all those plants. 

of long darkened evenings and darkening days and long nights ahead when warmth is the best aroma and even in our electric or gas or other technology age, the scent of warmth calls to mind woodfires and cooked food and family.

Too soon the coming cold will be tiresome. The wet, dark evening will be an annoyance.

We'll be over it.

the plants will die, the greens will brown, and the trees will be bare.

But for now, for tonight, we can enjoy the changes in the air. We can cherish the passing of the seasons. We can await the coming hours of darkness knowing that, one way or another, the light will come again.

Eventually.

And the cuppa warms the hands, the nose, and the heart as surely as the socks and quilts warm the body

Magical Monarch Moment

There was some magnificence in today though. It was a beautiful day with a nice breeze. The birds, bees, and butterflies were busily enjoying all factors.
It's so nice that the small creatures of nature appreciate the work that I (and mostly my friend) put into creating a place for them.
It is also "nice" that I can sit at my desk and look out my door or window and see them going about their lives, adding their own color to the patchwork and their own movements to nature's dance.
I saw the little white butterflies that we called cabbage moths playing tag or chase, whooshing up an ascending breeze and drifting downward when it passes. They chased one another through the flower beds and across the yard for I don't know how long.
It made me laugh.
The magickal highlight today wasn't the white wingers playing tag together though. 

The highlight of the day was a single monarch butterfly.
This monarch, which looked to be as large as my hand, cruised in the center of the yard, away from the flowers and the weeds.
This monarch was alone. No companions; no playmates.
This monarch was in the spotlight -- I mean sunlight -- in the middle of my freshly mown yard, with the treetops tossing and the leaves cheering on.
And this monarch performed for it's audience.
(or was it only playing?)
Up and down it swam and soared and slid and sailed. Climbing and banking, or drifting in a straight(ish) line from one end of the yard to the other.
I swear I could almost hear it shrieking "Whee!" on several dives, and "Oooh!" during the climbs. I could feel the wind beneath its wings and the surety that came with that.
As I headed back inside, it floated toward me, rested for a moment -- I think it was smiling -- and then flew off in another direction.

Everywhere a Name! Everyone a Name!

"You (he/she/they) stole my baby name" is one of the most profound entitlements seen or heard every day. Titles -- another word for names -- are not subject to copyright for a reason. (They should also not be subject to trademark, especially now that some institutions are claiming possession of single letters, but that's another story.)

In most cases, the person making this claim heard, read, or otherwise saw the name somewhere else and really, really liked it. You'd think that this would make it self evident that the name had a previous owner, but it doesn't seem to be working that way.

The only excuse I can think of is that these name-owning people are all the poor children named Amber Nicole, or perhaps Tiffany, if female, and some variation of --aden or --axson if male. I do feel a great sympathy for those like-named persons.

But still, it is most likely that someone else had it first, and that you are the thing you are raging about.

Gifted Gifting

Here is a little slice of my life for yall.

My indulgence for myself this month was 2 books on the PNW, the setting of most of my (full length) stories. A book about the flora and fauna and the geology of the area. The other was an adult coloring book of the same.

Do you know they don't have fireflies as we know them throughout that region? I'm so glad I researched that before I included them in a pastoral scene! I really was looking to see when they appear there, being that region is north of me, and happily saved myself from an inaccuracy. (So happy!)

Anyway, it made me think since so many of my stories are in that setting, I needed a good reference book at hand. (Google leads me down too many rabbit holes.) 
I thought the coloring book would help me become more familiar with the wildlife especially if I use the pictures in the other book as guidelines. Easier for descriptions and environments and other details.

So, I ordered the books.

Now, you may know I have a granddaughter.
This beautiful child (while I can still get away with calling her that-- she's about to turn 15.) If you've followed this blog, or looked at many of my pictures on Facebook, you have seen this child's work.
She is as gifted in her art as I am in mine (I say modestly)
Her art is not the same as mine.
I draw my scenes with words.

She actually draws her scenes.

For a long time now, she has mostly drawn people. Anime to start. Actually it was Sponge Bob to start, almost as soon as she could walk and talk, and hold a pencil, pen, crayon, or chalk. But she has advanced past sponge bob, and even passed beginner's anime. 

She drew a couple pictures of her mother, from photographs. So lovely.

She has tried landscapes. 

She can't help what colors and lines flow from her fingertips  any more than I can do more than direct the barrage of words that flow through mine. 

She was with me this weekend, and I showed her my coloring book, and while looking through it she seems to have fallen in love with the pictures. You could almost see her mind adding in the colors -- with her alcohol based markers, specifically. So she instantly knew the medium she'd use, and was applying colors as I arrange words at such times.

It's not often our gifts arrange themselves in such harmonious fashion., and those times will become even more rare as we both age.

Perhaps someday she will illustrate my books.
Or create backdrops or CGI images for productions of said books.
What a nice family connection that would be for future generations.

So
Happy Birthday (early) Hailey, and ENJOY.
Enjoy using your Gift with my gift to you. 

And I'm gonna buy another coloring book. 

Chasing Water

 I love waterfalls. 

They are beautiful, shiny, wet, and wild, and wonderful.

I've seen big waterfalls -- I've been to Niagara. 

I've seen mostly smaller ones. 

I've seen bright waters arcing out from a narrow opening in rock, and I've seen the water dripping, seeping, and pouring and running down hillsides of rock. 

I've seen from one extreme to the other, but I've not seen it all.

More than the visual appeal, there is power in these falls. The falling water somehow scrubs the air. You can feel the friction in the air. You can feel it bristle and rub against your skin. You can smell and taste the freshness. Something to do with ions and an exchange thereof. 

It is electric. 

Water, falling, with power, speed, and mass practically begs us to -- do something with it. 

Make electricity.

Grind wheat or corn, or boulders into pea gravel. (That's how nature often does it, after all.)

Operate machinery. 

Cleanse ourselves, our souls, and our environs.

There is nothing that compares to the free-falling of free-flowing water. 

But, for all the magic and thrill, and ionic-exchanging fresh electricity, we must remember that power misused or misdirected has the ability to destroy. That same roaring rush of 'might' that lights your home can also send it spinning like a rubber raft on the ocean in a hurricane. 

I love waterfalls, but I have a dread of floods, but in a way, a flood is a horizontal, not vertical, waterfall. The beginning of most floods, as they breach a dam or slam into a bridge uses that same power harnessed and misdirected as a vertical fall down a hillside. 

Of course, flooding can also be sneaky. That compares to the waters that drip, ooze, and fall over rock walls and fallen trees. The water level can rise, and spill over in increments, and before you know it, you are knee deep, hip. deep, waist deep in sapping, sucking insidiously flowing waters.

I suppose, in conclusion, that the leaping, roaring waterfalls are inherently more honest than flooding. They excite and refresh me, mentally, spiritually. and physically. They thrill me, in so many positive ways.

I seek them out, in my own small way. 

I avoid, or try to, the floods, and I fear them.

Power is power, and it is a personal choice how we see it.

How we use it. 

But we should always be aware of it. 

We should remain in awe of it, not differentiating between horizontal and vertical. As power is power, so water is water. It is for each of us to decide how we see it.