L...A Little Leave, Not For Long..

I am taking a short Leave to catch up with things that are getting beyond my control. If you check in now and then, I won't be gone long. Life is good, it's just that sometimes Life, Like Laundry and Lists and Learning to do new things require Longer periods of time.

This may be totally inappropriate, it has nothing to do with L, (well, perhaps I could use the word Livid) but it does have something to do with Me, and this is a Me Meme.

What is happening in this country when we pay certain people loads of money to play certain games? We ignore education, the hungry, the homeless, the sick and the disenfranchised, the helpless and just damned common decency. This person apologizes to his team. This person says he made the wrong decisions. (This was a Decision? This is just plain sick.) This person is acting meek and mild. This person needs to do some community service until Hell freezes over. This person should never be allowed within 100 miles of an animal. This person should be banned from ever playing and making money off of the game which gave him his livelihood.
If I live to be a thousand years old, I will never, ever understand how a person could harm an animal. I will never understand the mentality that says, "This is o.k."
In my anger, I would just like him to have a taste of his own medicine. I would like him to be helpless in the face of someone who has power over him. I would like him to truly understand that cruelty to anyone, be they animal or human is inexcusable. I sincerely hope that God is keeping score. If He is, this person will never win again.

Kaleidoscope of K

...totally unrelated K stuff.
I have pictures of my new kitchen (well, it's a year old new) but I can't find them on my computer! So no pics to look at. I do love having cabinets that close, that look nice and that don't have 26 years of yuk on them. I appreciate an oven door that closes all of the way and actually opens fully so that I can get a casserole in and out of it. I like having a sink that hasn't rusted so much along the edges that it's rising up out of the counter. You can get that picture I'm sure!

K is for my first born, Kevin. There were times when I wasn't sure I would survive him. Perhaps I should have paid attention to the fact that he actually broke my tail bone during his entrance into this world. I should have taken that as an omen. He pretty much challenged every dang thing that came along. Well, he's all "growed" up and is a joy to be around. I am very lucky to see him almost every week day as he works in the nursery. He's funny, he's good with people, he's a wonderful father and I just love being with him.

K is for Kitcat...my cousin Clodagh. When my grandfather left Ireland in the late 1800's, he brought part of his family to Hawaii. His sister Lily married the Rev. Kitcat and they went to New Zealand. I vaguely remember Auntie Lily. I do remember Clodagh because as a wee girl I just thought her name was hysterically funny. I was also fascinated by her because my Uncle Angus used to refer to her as "the eyebrow raiser" (he also called another relative "flannel brain"). Anyway, Clodagh would come now and then to visit us in Hawaii. I would perch on the edge of my chair and be mesmerised by those active eyebrows. They were like fuzzy woolly bear caterpillars which moved across her forehead with every word she uttered. Alas, I am sure that the Kitcats of New Zealand are no more. I am sure that Clodagh died 40 years or so ago and I know she never married. Here's to you Clodagh Kitcat. You were something else!

J Has To Be For...

my husband. We met in college, had our first date on a Friday the thirteenth.
It has been quite a journey all these years. It has certainly not been all sunshine and roses. There was a time in the 70's when I would have gladly slipped ground glass into his coffee or flesh eating bacteria into his clean laundry....but, we have survived and evolved. It's been well worth some rocky roads.
I love so many things about J. He works incredibly hard. He is enthusiastic and "digs life with big shovels". We are polar opposites in many ways, but we have learned from each other through the years. He has always encouraged me to do whatever I have considered doing. He has supported and helped me to be more independent and to appreciate and recognize my strengths. He has been a fantastic father to our two boys. He is positive, funny and very up-beat. I love him and wish that we could have 40+ more years of toodling down this road we've been on, holding hands, but letting go now and then so that we can have our "separateness together".
J...thanks for the journey. It continues to be the trip of a lifetime.

"Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum.
You came along and everything started to hum."

The Impossibleness of I

This little letter I is causing me a bit of Indecision and Irritation. I am not Inspired. I'm going to go with some "I am's" and some "I am nots"..

I am not particularly Industrious

I am Interested in many things

I am Imaginative

I am Inventive

I am way too Introspective

I am an Idiot when it comes to math..just try to get me involved with numbers and I become Immobile and will go to great lengths to make myself Invisible.

I am somewhat of an Idealist

I am not Impulsive

I am sometimes Impatient

I am done now.


Best!

H is for Hanahauoli

...my beloved elementary school. Hanahauoli is in Honolulu and I was a student there from kindergarten through the sixth grade. It was an amazing little school. Poor in as much as the buildings were simple wooden structures which gathered around a central court yard. Poor in that there was no glass on the windows except for the office, but absolute richness abounded in every classroom and in the expanse and depth of the curriculum. Looking back, I guess we were immersed in a sort of Waldorf/Steiner/Montessori soupiness of education. We had art, music, rhythms, shop and never ending opportunities to "study, make and do".
I learned to use saws, drills, hammers and nails and a treadle sewing machine in shop. I made a bird cage..it probably weighed 40 pounds. I made an entire set of bowls by pouring slip into my mold, firing them and then glazing them. I sewed and designed my own softies as you would call them now. We all designed and made a stepping stone. We carved linoleum blocks and printed with them.
I learned to make a "real" book with hand sewn pages and hard cover. I still have that book.
I could go on and on...it would take up pages. Hanahauoli was an amazing school. I loved it and the gifts it gave me still amaze and delight me.
This is a picture of my sixth grade class.(click on it for a ginormous view) Aren't we a raggedy, but happy looking melange of innocence and youth! I am in the second row, 4th one in from the left, dead center. I'd go back in time in a heartbeat and relive those years again.

G is for Gratitude and Grace

Gratitude for the abundance of Gifts that have been bestowed, Gratitude for the Grace that has been given...there is no place else I'd rather be than right here, right now...each and every day. I have questions about deserving all of these Gifts. I am reminded of the song:
Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good.

Perhaps, I just don't know...but I do know it's important to give thanks to all Gifts Given.

Best.

F For Flowers and Fragrance

These grew all around my green mountain valley home. Don't let anyone tell you that there's no magic in this world. Fragrance is the magic which carries you back over years. It carries you back over thousands of miles. It carries you back to the life you lived so long ago.

E=Emergency

This is what it could have looked like yesterday. Fortunately with the help of two helicopters, a spotter plane, a battalion of firefighters and the DFPA, there was a happy ending. It sounded like a war zone here, and I guess it really was a war against such a potentially dangerous enemy. It started on the other side of our property, probably from some logging equipment. This time of year, all it takes is a tiny spark.
I can live without this kind of Excitement. Thanks are given!

Best.

Another Entry to D..

I have a very short entry to the letter D.
When I was an eighth grader, my beloved brother left Hawaii to go to school in California. I was bereft, I was in mourning, I couldn't imagine life without him.
My sister had been gone for several years...I was alone and I didn't know what I was going to do without my brother whom I adored. Enter a cousin whom I had never met.
Dan was the son of one of my Daddy's favorite cousins. He had survived horrendous things during the war in Korea. For some reason, he came to live with us. He had been a graduate of Stanford and, I think, just needed a place to be and call home.
He was my savior. He gently guided me through algebra, through geometry...he was my substitute brother, he was the one that allowed me to be silly and outrageous. He called me Bubbles, which I loved, because it affirmed and granted me the chance to be silly..to be, in my limited way, wild.
He still lives in Hawaii. He has Alzheimer's now. I will forever be thankful for him, I will forever love him and remember with joy how he helped me through such hard times. I will forever think of him and will probably be angry and unaccepting that he and his family are having to deal with this terrible disease. I love you Dan and I will always thank you for what you did for me.

D=Daddy and The Dear Diary of a Demented Domestic Diva

I can't talk about Domesticity without mentioning some of my Daddy's Disastrous and Deviant Doings. (You may want to have a rest before you read this...it may be long and Dumb)
We used to have a refrigerator like this. It was a behemoth, weighed a ton and couldn't be budged. We lived in a huge old house, the kitchen was immense. My mother wanted the refrigerator moved from one side of the kitchen to the other side. She kept threatening to call a moving company to do so. One day when I was very little we all went somewhere, leaving Daddy to his own Devices. When we came home several hours later, the refrigerator stood exactly where my mother had wanted it. Nothing in it had been removed: the milk bottles were still in the same place, the leftovers undisturbed. My father had attached a pulley and rope to the frig, had gone out to the garage and found a big can of axle grease. He greased the floor and slid the refrigerator across with the rope and pulley. It worked like a charm, except for the fact that it took my mother several days to remove the axle grease.
On another occasion when left alone, my father decided that our yard needed some fertilizer. He had some chicken manure on hand and an old pump. He somehow reversed the motor on the pump and blew the manure all over the yard. This also worked brilliantly except for the fact that he had neglected to close all of the windows in the house. We arrived home to find manure in every nook and cranny and the not so Delicate scent of chicken manure wafting through the rooms.
Now being the Daughter of such a man, you can imagine that now and then, I can indulge in Doubtful and Dodgey Domestic habits.
I have been known to wash chard in my washing machine (no spin cycle) when I had picked so much of it to freeze. I was going nuts rinsing it off in the kitchen sink. The little light bulb went off above my head! Ta Da..it did work.
I've used my handy dandy shop vac to suck up all manner of dried vegetable matter that has been hiding in my refrigerator. That worked too!
I also shop vac one of my Newfoundland dogs. She loves it. That also works well.
This I do not recommend: the Drying of bread crumbs with your hair dryer. It's not a pretty sight when you're done.
I leave you with a poem that's really not about housecleaning, Domestic Doings or brooms, but it's lovely. Emily Dickinson wrote this:

She sweeps with many-colored Brooms--
And leaves the Shreds behind--
Oh Housewife in the Evening West--
Come back, and dust the Pond!

You dropped the Purple Ravelling in--
You dropped the Amber thread--
And now you've littered all the East
With duds of Emerald!

And still, she plies her spotted Brooms,
And still the Aprons fly,
Till Brooms fade softly into stars-
And then I come away--

Best!

The C Conundrum

By Cracky, C Certainly is. Can't Conjure up much of a Collective today.
Consider Color...what a bleak world we'd be living in without all that gloriousness.

Consider Culinary Creations...this one Could have been a Catastrophe, but it is a delicious Concoction. I have loads of plums, pluots (sp?) to be exact and I had two peaches. I cut them up only to find out I did not have enough regular sugar...and no transportation today to get to the store. I used Turbinado sugar, threw in some sour Cream, Cinnamon, ginger, flour and butter and I think it is just about perfect! I am sporting a Cheshire Cat grin about now.
I gotta get back to Cleaning out my Closet.
Ciao!

Best.

Babbling, Blundering and Blogging Through B

Be still your hearts! I know that this Beautiful Bag will cause some of you to Blush and Bemoan the fact that you do not have one. It's Both Becoming and Bemusing...and yes, it's where I keep my circular needles, my measuring tape, my stitch markers, my needle gauges, stitch holders, double pointed needles, scissors and a Bounty of things. I can even fit a little Book or two in the pockets on the outside. It is not an original idea to me, I saw it somewhere, but can't give credit where credit is due. It works for me and I love it for its portability, etc.
B is also for:
Brendan, my Beloved son
Books...how could I live without them..they are everywhere, in the car in the Bathroom, in every room in the house
Blueberries..yum!
Burt's Baby Bees stuff
Bobbysoxer..I would have been one if I had worn shoes
Brontes
Baking Bread
Baobab trees..I want to see them up close and personal before I leave this world
Baroque music
Bach..Beethoven
Bluebonnets
Botticelli, Breughel
And since I've exceeded the Bounds of Brevity, I'll say Bye Bye.

Best!

Joining In

I am way behind on the Encyclopedia of Me Meme that BellaDia has launched, but I was out of town and I do want to participate in this fun.
I am going to just Amble through A today. Some of my favorite things begin with A:Acorns, Asparagus and Artichokes. Oh, and not to forget that I also love Avocados.
I am Amazed at the following: The Abundance that is present in my life...family, good friends, space and time now to not be scheduled, my home that I love so much, the beauty that surrounds me every day, my health and so many blessings too numerous to count! I am Amazed to be the Age I am. How in the world did I get here? How did I Arrive at this stage in my life when it seems like only yesterday I was jumping rope, climbing trees and playing jacks. Only yesterday I finished school, got married, had babies and turned 30, then 40, then 50 and more. Here I am in Astonishment. Here I am getting Attention from AARP, from the Neptune Crematorium Society, from the Afterglow Funeral Home!!! I don't feel that Aged. I still Ask questions, I still don't know the Answers. I'm still Absurd at times and I am still taken Aback by this Adventure that is my life. Amen!

Best!

Hush, She's Resting

I found her resting in the vines, resting and restoring herself for the next show. Each day she'll grow a little rounder, a little fuller, a little brighter until she's ready for her Harvest Show. Rest well little Moon. Be safe and secure in your viney bed.

Moon, worn thin to the width of a quill,
In the dawn of clouds flying,
How good to go, light into light, and still
Giving light, dying. (sara teasdale)