That Time of Year

        School's out! I'm free! Remember that feeling? All those wonderful possibilities await you. What should we do first? Go to the pool. Go to the river. Go to the beach.

        The last day of school was right up there with Christmas and your very own birthday. Nothing could replace that feeling of freedom, even today. Ah, the tragedy of being an adult. Say it out loud, "An Adult." Sounds like something to be avoided at all costs. Sounds like it costs. too.

        As a kid, my summer vacation wasn't always a free for all. For at least part of it, I had to work and go to summer school, which I thought was fun until the reality set in.

        But hours and hours of sunlight and good friends in the neighborhood made for many happy memories.

        And then there were expeditions. When my family went to the beach, a one-hour drive, you would think we were going for six days, not six hours.

        The station wagon would be full with every possible beach accoutrements, plus four kids and an anxious dog.

        My father would insist on leaving at 7 a.m. to beat the traffic, so when we got to the beach, we would be the only ones there.

        It was like "pick a spot, any spot." We got the whole darn foggy beach to ourselves. And the next five hours, the people would start to pour in. By noon, it was wall-to-wall blankets and umbrellas.

        An hour or so after noon, we would pack and leave. It was the best time of the day, and we would be headed out "to beat the traffic."

        Well, it didn't matter a whole lot to me. I'd spend the whole time in the ocean getting thrown around in the waves.

        A regular fish, my Dad would say.

        One time the waves were huge and I had accumulated several thousand grains of sand in my swimsuit, so I dragged myself back to the beach towel.

        That night the evening news said the waves were a record size, and many people had to be rescued from the dangerous conditions. Thank goodness I hit the towel when I did, but I learned the power of water at an early age.

        I had a near drowning experience when I was around 5 years old.

        Mom's friend had a pool, so every once in a while during summer vacation we would get invited to swim for an afternoon. Back in those days little kids who didn't know how to swim wore Styrofoam bubbles on their backs to keep them afloat.

        Well, I was sunning myself and got a little hot, so I jumped into the pool forgetting to put on the bubble and sank like a stone.

        I still remember looking up at the surface of water. It was so beautiful and so far away. Then I realized how badly I needed air. I pushed off the bottom of the pool with my feet and lunged for the steps.

        Boy, when I crawled out of that pool, my heart was racing.

        I took swimming lessons at the Y shortly thereafter and graduated by swimming 50 continuous yards.

        Not too shabby for a regular fish, my Dad would say.

{story first published in The Tribune on June 19, 2003}
{I think I was seven in the photo. Oak Creek, Cottonwood, Arizona}

The Cheetos Blog

I sometimes think the point of blogging is to write and post on a regular basis. And I sometimes think the point of blogging everyday (like with Nablopomo) is to find your "voice" in the everyday words.

I discovered my "voice" when I wrote a column for the newspaper. At first I was just giddy with being published, then it was a challenge to figure out what, if anything, was going to materialized by deadline, then it was a matter of trusting myself and just doing it.

Maybe I'm getting to that place with blogging everyday.

What I really want to talk about right here and right now is Cheetos, the puffy variety. The way you put one in your mouth and deflate it and how it sticks to the back of your teeth and you go outside and into the garden full of thought and think hmmm that Cheetos was good and the tongue searches around and scraps off a tidbit from the tooth and you swallow and in a minute or two you forget all about the Cheetos until you brush your teeth and wonder what *is* this orange crap and then remember oh yeah Cheetos.

Maybe that's what blogging is all about.

It's A Plane View

        Full of purpose, two black birds chased the crow. The crow dived. Climbed. Maneuvered.

        The black birds hit. The crow flinched.

        "Go, go, go," I urged the crow.

        The crow dipped over the hill, and two black birds retreated.

        Good for the crow. He got away, I thought.

        The crow came back into view flying up above the gently rolling hill. Only this time he was shrouded in a cloud of 50 black birds.

        Bad day for Mr. Crow.

        Even free flight has its perils, I suppose, yet I've always wanted to fly, self-propelled, just to soar in the clouds.

        In fact, I can still remember my first flying dream. It took place on the street out in front of the house.

        My brothers and our neighborhood friends were giving me instruction.

        "You have to get as high as the neighbor's pine, so you don't run into telephone wires," one brother said.

        "You have to run fast and will yourself up," the other brother said.

        So I tried and failed a few times and tried again.

        "Up! Up!" Everyone was chanting.

        I was shooting straight up in the air looking down at the little people milling about on the street, some waving me on.

        With very little control, I flew around viewing the world from above and finally landed in the high school baseball diamond a few blocks away. I walked home.

        Who knows why we dream. Some say it's a way for us mighty humans to process all the daily information we're subjected to. When we sleep, we store experiences in our database in case we need it at a later date.

        I think that's why I stopped remembering phone numbers. The database is full, and paper and pencils are highly functional.

        I had another flying dream last night. I have a half dozen or so a year.

        Haven't crashed once.

        The fun thing about them now is I know that I'm dreaming, so I take risks and do loop-de-loops like the biplane I saw at the elbow curve out on the Estrella.

        Boy, that looks like fun, but you would have to pay me serious money to have such pleasure.

        The country is a fine area to watch birds and planes. There's so much to see.

        For instance, what's that rumble? Why it's a C130 Hercules cargo plane just now flying over the house looking as big as ever.

        And those buzzards flying sideways in the side yard the other day. What were they after?

        Well, it turns out a dead snake.

        The cruising vultures were just doing their job. The cargo plane was probably delivering something due east.

        The black birds were protecting their nest from the crow, and the crow was probably looking a meal.

        Every bird and every plane has that freedom of flight but still had a purpose.

        Except perhaps the biplane. Maybe that's why humans dream. To do loop-de-loops.

{First printed in San Luis Obispo's newspaper The Tribune, May 2003}

The Cyclops Story

         It is a big round rock. Shaped like a flying saucer, well, sort of -- more round than saucer. It is called a dolomite concretion, I'm told. A naturally occurring round rock.

        "The only reason I have it," he tells me, "is because I can lift it." I sigh and take the laundry upstairs.

        Two weeks later I hear him saying those exact words to my brother.

        My brother, who knows all the right things to say in any given social setting, says, "Oh yes, it's very heavy. I tried to lift it and could only get it a few inches off the ground."

        He emphasizes the word "few." My guy has been collecting these kinds of rocks lately. Most are large but not huge. Most have been broken in half.

        I immediately saw their beauty as a landscaping item and did the "Oh-honey-wouldn't-it-be-nice-as-a-border-over-here?" deal. But I left it alone after awhile.

        One day I came home to find them placed in a semi-circle over by the water pump. Not all together, but spaced out evenly.

        After a couple days of consideration, I mentioned they looked like a giant was buried under the ground with his round teeth gnashing the surface. Now affectionately dubbed "our giant's teeth," the rocks have stayed put.

        Not that I could move them if I wanted to. I'd probably hurt myself trying.

        But that isn't saying much. I can't seem to open a new bottle of cranberry juice either. Even if I get really angry -- and I do because how silly to have to hand him the bottle and do this whole dance about being a weak female.

        It pleases me when he struggles a little with it too.

        But these rocks, like trophies, started to accumulate in the backyard.

        "How heavy do you think it is?" my brother asks.

        And out comes Cyclops. Many years ago we received this bathroom scale as a gift. It has a huge dial in the middle apparently for easy reading. One day my guy wondered out loud why the scale always had a towel on it.

        Well, that's when it got its name, Cyclops, and that's when it was reassigned to the garage. Years later, in surprisingly good shape, it reappears to prove gravity does exist.

        I really don't name everything. I know it seems like it, but I don't. For example, I have never named my car.

        My girlfriend who lives in L.A. was telling me all about Pete one day. After a few minutes I realized it was a car she was talking about.

        I said, "You named your car Pete?"

        And she said "Well yeah. What's your car named?" And then she asked me to hand over her purse, calling it Poochie.

        Anyway, my brother said the rock probably weighed 80 pounds and my man said, "No, more like 100."

        And they looked at me like "What's your guess?" and I said, "Oh you guys exaggerate. It probably doesn't even weigh 75 pounds."

        He weighed himself and then picked up the rock and weighed again. Set down the rock with a huff and announced, "The rock weighs 140 pounds."

        My brother was so impressed that he had to lift it again and the two of them took turns lifting the big round rock.

        A few hours later after my brother left, it dawned on me.

        "You know," I said, "you're the only one who saw the weight of that rock. It could have said anything.'

        He gives me that little smile, -- that little sneaky smile -- and said, "Yeah, I know."

{This column was first published in March 2003 in The Tribune.}

The Silas Factor

We are pond scum. There's an apt description if ever I heard one. You, me, and everything else. We are all pond scum.

That's what some physicists are calling us, the world, the universe, The Whole Enchilada in an effort to describe the "Brane Theory."

Brane -- as in membrane, as in imagine a really large sheet of Saran Wrap -- is a relatively new theory in physics. I read about it in the newspaper the other day.

Physics normally makes me want to clean the kitchen floor. I took it in college and quite frankly, the nightly homework left me sobbing.

But there was something about this article that caught my eye, plus it was conceptualized.

Now I can deal with conceptual physics.

In the Brane Theory, the brane is sometimes described as the surface of a pond. The water below and the sky above are out of our realm. Our galaxy and all the other galaxies we know of are on the surface of a brane like scum on the surface of a pond.

The physicists are very proud of their description.

The beauty of this theory, for those who believe it, is that other branes exist in other dimensions that we cannot see or hear, and somehow or another this helps to explain "the wimpiness of gravity" and why we can't account mathematically for all that missing "dark matter."

I like the idea that other branes could be right here within arms' reach only we do not perceive them. You can't see the elephant that is sitting on your couch, someone said.

Shadow worlds, physicist Stephen Hawking speculates.
Isn't that wild?

Just think: another you, another dog, and another kitchen floor to clean.

If only you could squint your eyes just so and see it. There are other universes wiggling with life, other universes bursting forth with a crash.

Enter the Silas Factor.


That's not a mathematical equation here to ruin a perfectly good pond scum concept.

Nope. Silas is a 10-week-old kitten.

Kittens, I have observed, have three modes. Eat. Sleep. Play. And it warms my heart to observe them, especially the sleep mode after a vigorous play mode that included the ever so popular Silas the Shred-O-Matic. Insert claws and climb. What a scream!

Just when I was getting to the part in the article that would probably melt my brain cells, Silas, genius that he is, needs to play.

Now!

So I had to set the article aside and play "chase the string" for five minutes.

"Have wadded up piece of paper, will travel" was big a couple of days before that. And of course, there's always the old standbys "chase the tail" and "swat the shadow."

Have you ever heard the theory that children "see" things that adults don't because they're not jaded yet?

I know Silas sees something. He gets fixated on what is not really there.

Or is it?

Maybe Silas' brain can see another brane.

{This was first printed in June 2003 in San Luis Obispo's newspaper The Tribune.}

Clancey

Clancey never read the book on how to be a cat. You know, the one that says cats are aloof and discerning and they would never stoop to beg at the dinner table.

At least he never read those chapters. In some ways, he was all tomcat.

Clancey always came around for dinner, and even if I was eating something I knew he wouldn't like, he would insist on being the judge of that.

He liked roasted turkey. We ate a lot of roasted turkey to enjoy his company at the table. He never insisted or meowed. He just woke up from his nap, wandered over and sat down beside me. He was a wonderfully polite cat and big too. He had the long gene. Long body, long tail, long legs and long ears.

In the winter he liked to sleep on the bed next to my legs. His presence was so powerful; when he left I would think he was still there. I wonder how many hours I spent trying not to kick what was not there.

I think he had a bit of rag doll in him. It took me a few years to teach him how to be held in my arms. Finally he learned he could control my every move by squeezing his two front paws and claws around my finger. He knew how to hold hands.

He knew how to climb trees too, and that was a small problem after we moved here. Both cats became indoor cats because there are too many coyotes running around out here in the middle of the day.

The only problem, of course, is there are no trees in the house except around Christmastime, which is another story, so Clancey improvised using doors. He'd start running around the house real fast and then scale the French doors. The first time this happened I didn't know what I heard. So I crept down the hall and looked in the office, and this small meow came from over my head. He was on top of the door. "Clance," I said. "Get down from there." And he gave me this look like he didn't have the slightest idea how to go about it. Needless to say, I bought him a cat tower.

Clancey adopted us in 1995. His previous owner moved away and left him behind, perhaps figuring he could take care of himself. This is a common misconception people have. While some cats can hunt mice and find a ditch to hide in, most domesticated animals like house cats need to be taken care of.

Clancey came home with our other cat, White Paws, and seeing that he was a sweet cat looking lost, I fed him. And if you have ever fed a starving cat, then you know it's like signing a lifelong agreement that you will love, honor and cherish till death do you part.

Clancey passed away a couple of weeks ago. This summer he became quite sick with complications of feline immunodeficiency virus. The virus is transmitted through saliva and blood. Catfights, especially between toms, keep the virus swimming out there. Infected cats should stay indoors. There is no vaccination -- only prevention.

A couple of times we thought he might regain his health. He was so responsive to being touched. That was a chapter in the cat book that Clancey could have written: how to get your chin rubbed.

Now we only have memories of our big boy cat named Clancey, and we'll cherish them till the day we die.

[This column was published in September 2002. I still carry the picture in my wallet.]

Once Again

Not So Long Ago made with the words of my current blog. 

I Just Thought made with the words of the category North County Notebook.

  

I have a little Wordle addiction right now that I am working through. Honestly I would love a whole wall of this. Not a little page size, but one wall of huge words in vibrant colors with a cool red sofa in front of it. Maybe in a loft, in Chicago, hanging with people who get you. And laugh. 

  

Thanks Amanda for reading. 

I think we might have to rename Twitter -  to - Whereas username says: blahblahwoofwoof

For example:

Whereas JudysNotebook says:

I just ate the goldfish as sushi. So fresh. Ha Ha!

24 days ago

Yep, it's a go. I love the word WHEREAS!

Nothing Is Quite As Exhilarating

As being chased around the garden by a tarantula hawk. I must resemble the biggest tarantula ever seen, or perhaps this insect just wants to dance with me. I'm not sure.

A tarantula hawk is a wasp, a very large wasp. The first time I saw one, I thought it was a hummingbird buzzing along about 10 feet above the ground.

When I finally figured out what they were, I became concerned. Nothing like a little knowledge to wreck your day.

Wasps and spiders have a unique relationship, and if you ever need to stay up in the wee, wee hours, I recommend finding a good picture book on the subject.

Yellow jacket wasps have stung me twice: once when I was 5 and again about 10 years ago. Being an adult did not make me scream any quieter.

This is an experience to avoid at all costs.

So I give to you a small nugget of free advice: Never stay at a campground called Yellow Jacket Camp.

"Gee, honey," I said. "Isn't this great! We have the whole campground to ourselves."

And then we fried up a steak, and 500 of our closest neighbors invited themselves over for dinner.

He said, "I read somewhere that all you have to do to get rid of them is put a little piece of meat downwind, and they'll leave you alone."

Moments later, reinforcements showed up.

We swatted a few like we meant business. That's fine, the yellow jacket swarm might have replied. They eat their dead, too.

So into the tent I went, zipped up tight for the remainder of our short visit to the memorable Yellow Jacket Camp.

I accept wasps as a part of the package here in North County, even though they scare me. Just like I accept the threat of fire here in the middle of summer when everything looks like a tinderbox.

I'll tell you though, nothing makes my knees shake like spotting a smoke plume in close proximity. Nothing.

Last week, for example, my man called me at work to tell me not to be concerned when I see the cloud of smoke.

"The fire is south of us," he said calmly. "I just wanted to let you know so you wouldn't worry."

So zooming home, I rounded the first bend exposing the big sky to the south, and there it was.

This was no puff of smoke. This was huge.

Don't worry, I told myself. He told me not to worry. But, I thought, that was half an hour ago. It could have spread. So now I'm zoom-zooming down the road.

And the closer I get, the more ominous it looks.

At twilight, the cloud enveloped the sky above our home. It was miles away and right next to us at the same time.

I don't know how it started. I have no details at all. But I do have a suggestion. A lot of fires are started by carelessness. A cigarette thrown from a vehicle, an unattended barbecue or an unscreened fireplace or the clearing of dead weeds in the middle of the day, and a spark occurs.

Nobody wants to deal with a fire, so let's be careful and save our excitement for an event that really matters when it is sweltering.

That's right, the Fair opens soon. See you there.


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I Did It On Purpose.

Make no mistake about it. Our old toaster oven was beyond ever being completely clean again, and every time it was used, it smoked and smelled up the house.

The last time it was used I said, "Well, say goodbye. That's the last time that toaster is ever going to be used in this house again."

He raised his eyebrows like, "Oh sure."

  
When the greasy beast cooled down, the toaster, that is, I picked it up and marched it out to the dump pile. It was a small appliance fire waiting to happen anyway. When I came back in, he shot me this look like he couldn't believe what I just did.

Maybe I made a mistake because I immediately desired a crunchy piece of toast smothered in melted butter.

The next weekend we went to every box store in North County looking for a replacement.

  
Finally I saw it -- the toaster of my dreams. It took me back to the days of my childhood. Not a toaster oven, but a glorious chrome number with settings for bagels and pop tarts, and a crumb tray. An old-fashioned toaster that pops up the toast.

I brought it home and became a toast mistress.

At first, it was set half way between the darkest and the lightest setting, but I like toast to be a medium brown, so I upped the setting. After about a week of wondering, I finally said out loud, "What is going on?" It took me three cycles to get the English muffins the proper shade of tan. I complained vigorously. It goes good with morning coffee.

"It worked fine at the beginning," I said. "Now it's like it has already burnt out."

I was ready to nominate it to the POG (piece of garbage) Hall of Fame.

"Hey, now," he said calmly. "Be nice to your beautiful chrome toaster."

I grumbled and gave it a hard look. And that's when I noticed. I turned the setting to the lightest not the darkest. Oops.

  
I tell you all this because I want you to know I am capable of making a mistake now and then. Perhaps it's even a mistake telling you so, but because I make them every so often, I'll share another.

We just had a partial solar eclipse on June 10. For the life of me, I thought it was supposed to be on June 9, a Sunday. The height of the eclipse was to be in the evening, around 6 p.m. Around that time, I kept on asking him every five minutes or so, "Honey, does it look any dimmer to you?"

  
And boy, after a while, it was pretty clear who was looking dimmer.

  
Say goodnight, Gracie.

But that's OK. By the next day I was all ready for the moon to get in the way of the sun. And when the illumination started to drop and that eerie color was cast across our California landscape, I began to wonder if the sun would ever return.

It's just an eclipse, I told myself. But what if Mr. Sol didn't come back?

Well, my friends, we would be toast, but I was glad to be mistaken again.

{This was published in June 2002.}

  

What's in your past?

Loobylu is back, and she's started something called Friday's Archives. I love this idea of posting old creative endeavors. One of my labels, North County Notebook, is the column I used to write for the major paper of this county from 2000 to 2006. 

This blog started when that column ended. Named Judy's Notebook instead of North County Notebook, I thought I would carry on a weekly chat, but going from writing for money to writing for free changed my motivation, as you can imagine. I needed to change my frame of thought, and I finally did. 

Check out Loobylu. She's an award winning blogger from down-under.

Still Wanting Peace Six Years Later

It's normal to wake up in the middle of the night for no particular reason, fret about something stupid, then go back to sleep, I tell myself at precisely 1 a.m.

Lots of people do it. It was even the central theme of a recent Sunday's Hagar the Horrible comic strip. Only, the punch line was that his house was surrounded, so maybe he did have something to worry about after all.

I don't know what wakes me up. We don't have any barking dogs or police sirens. And that's kind of nice. When I lived in the city, it was a constant orchestra of car alarms, sirens and screeching of tires. In one place I lived in when I was a bachelorette, the neighbor's place two doors down always had cars coming and going, day and night. A police helicopter and its spotlight would regularly circle the place. I always had this feeling I had to stay low, if you know what I mean. But out here I only feel the need to stay low when the neighbor does target practice on the weekends.

So in the wee wee hours, I finally said the heck with it. I'm wide awake. It's two o'clock in the morning. I've been lying here for an hour. I'm going to get up.

This is usually a signal for the cats to rush the kitchen and insist on a nice dish of milk. But the hour must have caught them off-guard. They were almost too stunned to meow. They got over it.

I figure it's a part of being human, this waking up in the middle of the night. It could be a survival mechanism to wake up occasionally to see if you're still alive or something.

Yep, still here, but did I turn the space heater off at work?

They say lots of folks are sleep deprived. And then they say people who sleep fewer hours, live longer. So whatever "they say," there is an equal and opposite "they say." If not to nullify it, then to simply smudge up what the first "they say" was hoping to convey.

In other words, if you wait long enough, everything bad becomes good again.

Who are "they" anyway? Scientists, pollsters, anyone with a Ph.D.

Numbers can be manipulated to say anything, as most of us know. But still we use them like we're determining the odds in life, like we're gambling.

It certainly feels like a gamble whenever I drive down the road lately. I mean I know it's difficult for SUVs to stay in their lane, especially when SUVs take up the whole lane, but I sure wish they'd give it try, especially on those blind curves.

It's now three o'clock in the morning and I'm reading yesterday's news. And here's a tip: if you want to go back to sleep, don't read yesterday's news.

People are growing tired of the Sept. 11 tributes, one article said. I can see that. To pay tribute to a tragic event over and over devalues it -- both the tribute and the tragedy.

And the death and destruction of this "war" and the potential that our leaders will start other "wars" are not sleepy-time subjects either.

Haven't we evened the score yet? Isn't it time we sit down and discuss peace? Isn't it time I go back to bed?

Thomas Jefferson once said, "I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be."

Almond Blossom Watch Alert

Gentle rain tapped against the double-paned window. So slight was the sound that I hardly noticed it.

That's how used to the rainy weather I've become.

Used to be that every time a raindrop hit the deck, I would be exclaiming, "Look! It's raining!" -- even when one could only call it a mere sprinkle.

This year was different. This year moats of water formed around newly planted buildings. Creeks flowed like gray ribbons of remembrance. And the roads accumulated small lakes of runoff around every dip and turn.

I was getting to like our real winter this year. The wind blew, and the rain pounded. Storms came in slow and stayed awhile.

I was expecting this weather to last for a few more months. I stocked up on drinking water. I recharged my emergency lamp. I replaced my flashlight batteries.

Bring it on Wildman Winter. I'm ready for you.

Apparently I was just in time for it to change.

Now sunshine is beaming off the pea green hills, and the roadside flowers have taken their place in the focal parade, front and center.

It's like a chain reaction no one can stop.

I want to warn the posies that a freeze could hit any day, but even the squirrels and birds have come out to play.

The real clincher that spring is around the corner is that those rare almond trees that haven't turned into grapevines yet are full of buds and blooms.

I surrender to the will of nature. If the rains come back, then so be it.

The sun is shining today.

Of course this means I have to break from my wintering habits, too, and I must admit I do have a strong fondness for my space heater.

If it were on wheels, I'd drag it from room to room by its electrical cord, like a leashed pet.

Come along, you little foot warmer.

I know my days with the mini heater are numbered, but I refuse to let go just yet.

I read somewhere that women tend to feel the cold weather more intensely than men, and in many households control over the thermostat is an ongoing battle.

I say this is an unnecessary conflict that can easily be rectified by one simple action.

If he is too hot, he can go outside.

We are still getting down into the 30s at night. Twenty minutes on the porch outside ought to make him appreciate the toasty 72 degrees inside.

No, no. I'm kidding Honey. Here's the remote.

But it does bring up a thought: What ever happened to taking an evening stroll? It's not just a summertime activity. You can check out the flowers and watch the birds building their nests, and it makes the house feel warmer and the food taste better.

And have you noticed?

The sunsets have been spectacular lately.

A Conversation With Dad

Ring-ring, the telephone woke me up.
Barely able to get out “hello,” I answered.
At the other end I heard my father’s voice. He was just checking in with me, as he likes to do these days.
“Did I wake you Honey?” He asked.
“That’s okay,” I said, “just sleeping a little late today.”
“So how was your day yesterday?” He asked.
Worthy of a few pictures, I told him, but unfortunately I left my camera at home.
I was up and out early for a morning meeting. The air was crisp as an apple, I told him, and the dawn was beautiful.
“Then,” I said, “I thought I saw a large deer cross the road, but it really didn’t look like at deer at all.”
In fact, the animal was too big and the wrong color, and I just knew it wasn’t a deer.
I stopped the car and watched the animal with fuzzy antlers cross the road.
“I think it was an elk,” I said.
“Wow!” Dad replied.
It went over the fence along with five girl elks, and they ran up the valley away from the dirt road stopping only once to look back me.
“As big as horses, Dad,” I said.
That’s amazing!” Dad said.
I continued my story. After the meeting I went to the car shop for an oil change. I thought I’d be in and out in a half-an-hour, but that wasn’t the case.
“They found a huge rat’s nest in my engine,” I told him.
You just wouldn’t believe how intricate it was. Made with all sorts of materials like burlap, lint, strips of paper, dried clippings from the rose bush, and sage weed.
I told Dad the service technician didn’t seem too thrilled to stick his hands in there and pull it all out.
“Who could blame him,” Dad said.
“I bet that rat couldn’t believe her good fortune,” I said, “finding such a warm dry place to nest for the winter.”
“Oh my,” Dad said. “What are you going to do to keep them out?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “Maybe lift the hood every few days.”
As it turned out, no wires or tubes were chewed through, and the car runs fine.
“Well, honey,” Dad said, “sounds like you had quite a day, but I’m glad it wasn’t the other way around.”
I paused.
“What do you mean, Dad?”
“Well,” he said, “you could have seen a herd of rats cross the road and an elk could have made a nest in your car.”
I paused.
“Oh Dad!”
We both laughed.

Dance Dance Dance

I’ve not embraced the saying “Dance as if no one is watching.”
I think it’s supposed to be a part of a recipe to happiness. I want to be happy but not a happy fool.
During my formative years when I was ten years old, my girlfriend and I would dance in the living room of my home. We would move the furniture out of the way and practice dance routines, usually to rock and roll songs.
I can remember quite specifically on one occasion when my father came in and started to “dance” too. He looked like he was surfing as he rocked back and forth.
My girlfriend thought it was the funniest thing she had ever seen.
I was mortified.
I decided right then and there, there will be no dancing when I get old, especially not to rock and roll.
So now I’m old and so is everybody else, but as the population ages, we carry our likes right along with us. That’s why commercials use rock to sell us just about everything.
I still like rock and roll and most every other kind of music, and I still like to dance.
But as far as dancing goes, I don’t want any witnesses.
I do it only in the privacy of my own living room.
Let’s face it; you get to be a certain age and rocking out looks pretty silly.
So when I saw that PBS was going to show a revival concert of the rock music group Cream, I just had to watch.
I didn’t think they would look silly. At least, I hoped not. I was always fascinated that the group was comprised of only three people: Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, and Eric Clapton.
They didn’t make a lot of LPs, but all their songs were pretty good.
Remember long-playing albums? They had cover art and the liner notes, and a nice big format. I’m sorry, CDs just don’t compare.
The concert was held in England at a packed Albert Hall. They walked out on stage and started with the song "I’m So Glad." Basically that’s the song. “I’m so glad. I’m so glad. I’m glad. I’m glad. I’m glad.”
I wonder what it means?
As I watched them perform this song, I thought that the drummer, Ginger Baker, was going to have a heart attack.
Clapton didn’t look too bad, but Baker and Bruce had me worried.
I kept watching. The music kept getting better too.
Not all rock and roll music has held up to the test of time. Some of it sounds terribly dated, and often re-makes will add something more contemporary. That usually wreaks it.
Cream stayed with their original sound.
At one point they played “Rollin’ and Tumblin,’” and the audience started to gyrate.
It was a dance explosion, and I had to join in.
All of a sudden I found myself rocking back and forth on a make-believe surfboard.

The Here And Now

Coyotes usually don’t howl at 10 o’clock in the morning. That’s what made me turn to the east.
I was standing outside with the sun on my back trying to get warm, and the coyotes sounded way far away, but definitely to the east. I wasn’t concerned.
I noticed how the hazy day had set back the tree-covered mountains. The gray-green digger pines looked like they were floating in a sea of atmosphere.
The local golden eagle flew ovals back and forth against the steep greening hill and disappeared and reappeared through the pines.
My eyes, now shaded with my hand, followed the eagle for as long as I could see him. When he disappeared one last time, I waited a bit and then looked straight overhead at the wispy clouds.
It was a cool morning. My hands, in particular, were having a hard time warming up.
But the sun felt good, and I thought, no time like now.
I know it’s popular to be “too busy" and want more hours in the day to “accomplish things,” but I think some moments deserve to stand alone. Like right now.
The coyote stopped singing, and all I could hear was the little birds hiding in the tumbleweed.
“Chip, chip,” they said to each other, probably leery of a human standing so close to their hangout.
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’m not going to eat you.”
They all flew out in one motion and headed for the very top of the tree.
“Alright,” I said. “Don’t believe me.”
Although I could sense that they did believe me. They just wanted to make themselves comfortable.
I can understand that. Yesterday they weren’t comfortable at all.
We've been having a bit of rain, and it felt like twilight all day long. It was a weird day.
I was standing in the laundry room staring out the window lost in thought when I noticed a Cooper hawk hopping around on the ground underneath the tumbleweeds.
I presume he was hunting either rabbit or little birds, although I couldn’t say for sure. I definitely have never seen a hawk pursue its prey on foot.
I stood there for a long time watching the bunnies alternatively freak out by running around in circles, or stop and remain motionless.
The little birdies were making a racket, but staying put. I thought they would head for the tall tree, but maybe they felt safer in the dense bush.
I didn’t see the hawk catch anything that day, but I think he must have found something to eat at one time. He keeps coming back.
The little birds have to stick together, and bunnies have to multiply. If the coyotes want to sing in the daylight, then that’s okay by me.
We all have to make ourselves comfortable. Because all we have is now.

My mother taught me to sew

I supposed she tried to teach me to pace myself too because you need to when you sew. You can’t complete a complex project in one night, she told me, and if you try, it will come out looking terrible.
I proved her right, of course, when she enrolled me in a sewing class at the Singer Sewing Machine Shop in Burbank.
I think I was about 10 years old.
Burbank wasn’t a pretty town back then. I always got the joke when Johnny Carson would smile into the camera, you know his sly smile, and tell the audience that The Tonight Show was being broadcasted from “beautiful downtown Burbank.”
Anyway this class Mom took me to was in one of those open malls where most the shops were closed down with people were sleeping in the doorways. Everything had a smoggy cement color cast upon it.
The sewing shop had a backroom with rows and rows of machines set up for use, and I sat down with my pink sewing box at one of them.
Right off the bat, two girls about my age began to pick on me. They teased me something awful, and I didn’t want to go back.
But Mom made me.
“Just ignore them,” she said.
Each student was to make a complete outfit like a dress or a pantsuit and compete in a contest like a runway model dressed in their creations.
Oh great, I thought. It was going to be hard enough just to make something and now I’d had to parade around in it and be judged inside and out.
I’ve never really understood this concept of competition when you’re a child. Let’s face it. Contests are fun only if you win, especially when you put your expertise, such as it is, on the line.
I suppose the “everybody’s a winner” that children deal with today is no better.
Well, I decided to make a teal dress with wide lapels and bell shelves and a crocheted vest. It was very mod, very early 70s.
The dress was coming along fine except for the back zipper. Zippers are tough. I waited till the last night before the contest, and in a moment of frustration asked my mother to help me.
“Oh no,” she said. “You have to do your own work.”
So I did, staying up late to finish it, and it wasn’t pretty. It worked though, and I participated in the fashion show.
The two girls who teased me didn’t finish their outfits. They sat in the very back of the audience with grim looks on their faces next to their mother who had a grim look too.
So I guess I learned that hard lesson on how to pace myself when I was a little girl.
Now I do it so well that I can put down a project and not come back to it for years.

Sometimes a project can be so large

It can be difficult to even begin with it. Such was the case with my garage full of boxes of memorabilia that I have carted around with me from place to place all my adult life.
Originally most of these boxes were stored at my parents’ house in their attic, but one year one of my brothers decided to “help” my father out and divvied up the common childhood games and such and delivered it to me.
Good grief! It was just what I didn’t want at the time.
That’s how it ended up in the garage stacked up with other boxes of items collected over the years. In the end all these memories took up a space where a car should have been parked.
Ten years later I started the process of going through each box to decide what to save, sell, recycle or throw away. It turns out mice made many decisions for me.
Somewhere along the line, the mice invaded nearly every box leaving behind a micey mess.
I bought a box of Hefty Bags and threw out half of my life.
But I didn’t feel bad about it at all. As a matter of fact, I felt relieved.
I almost completed the project when I hit a lull. Five boxes remained. A month passed.
Then I got the call. “We’ll be arriving to install new carpet. Everything needs to be moved out.”
“Holy cow,” I replied.
Going through five boxes was nothing compared to the zillion books that needed to be boxed and moved.
In the mists of freaking out, an old friend, whose nickname used to be “Gorilla Arms,” said he needed “some exercise.”
He transformed the dining room into my study by moving three bookcases and a desk.
I think I’m going to keep it that way too.
I was now ready to tackle the five boxes. They turned out to be the most interesting of the whole bunch. Serendipitously I saved the best for last.
One box was filled with my first writing and coloring. My mother must have put it together. In one box I found some short stories that I had written in eighth grade. My English teacher, Miss Newman, loved them.
I cringed reading them now, but that was my creative writing beginning, so I kept them.
One box had very early college papers and correspondence of that time frame. Another box was full of later college stuff.
And the final box was early career papers and such. I took myself so seriously back then.
I saved most of the contents of these boxed time capsules.
The whole progression reminded me of this time of year when we look back at the past and look forward to the future. So I decided to try a new project, one that I won’t wait for ten years to start.
I plan to take items from each stage of my life and devote a few pages in a scrapbook to them. Nothing fancy, just a short narrative with plenty of blank pages for the coming years.

Yesterday I Climbed A Mountain

The first quarter mile was the toughest like it always is. The body isn’t fully warmed up and all the joints are creaky. But I just tried to concentrate on something else, anything else and a butterfly flitted by me.
I think, “Wow, I hope you know where you’re going.” And then I think I could be saying those very same words to myself.
I decided to count the steps as a distraction. I decided when I hit numeral 100 I would stop and rest. I lost count around 53.
My mind wandered at the prospect of growing old.
It is something I never wanted to do until now. Now I think if I make it to 53 I would be so happy.
I stopped for a short rest. I brought with me one apple, a chunk of Prima Donna cheese, two sourdough rolls and a liter of water.
I ate the apple under an oak tree. The oak must have been under 100 years old because it was growing out of a stone footing of an old homestead. The stone footing was all that was left. I wondered if it was a happy home. It seemed like a beautiful place to live.
Something caught my eye and 7 turkeys were cruising about 20 yards from me. They slipped under the brush and out of view. I drank some water.
I figured that there wasn’t any magic transporter that would take me to the top of the mountain, so I would have to get there by myself.
So march, I said.
It wasn’t that hard. It’s just that it’s so much easier to watch TV.
I reached the summit, and the view was expansive. It was exhilarating.
I wished I could name all the mountains, all the valleys. I wished I could fly.
A breeze hit my face, and I had a strange feeling. Suddenly I felt like I was not alone.
Do you know that feeling?
I didn’t know if I was being watched or stalked or if I should be scared.
Suddenly I really really wished I could fly.
So I did the next best thing. I decided to sing.
“She’ll be coming around the mountain when she comes.”
Pretty good choice, I thought.
One time I had to make a presentation in front of a lot of people, and, of course, public speaking gives me the jitters, so the whole way there in my car I sang “Don’t Bring around a cloud to rain on my parade!”
That was a good choice too. I have a good internal panic DJ.
Meanwhile all the little hairs on the back of my neck were saying RUN! But I knew better. If the presence were a mountain lion, then I would look like dinner. Chances were unlikely, but why take chances. So I continued.
“She’ll be driving six white horses when she comes.”
And moved slowly to the largest clearing while flapping my arms.
I’m sure the ghost at the old homestead had a good laugh