Doot-To-Do

Shop for beans
and guacamole,

Feed the dog,
take out the trash,
snack on cashews,
read Ogden Nash.

Water the garden,
check the mail,
watch a short movie,
sip ginger ale.

Or grapefruit juice.

Eat cold chow mein
And chocolate cake.

Apply for a passport,
pack for a trip,
call your mother,
have a quick dip.

time for sleep.

one human: thinking

Don't believe everything you think. Seems to be the inverse of telling our stories.

Story-telling gives shape to existence, makes sense of chaos, reflects perception and sometimes Truth.

How to harmonize that with the freedom from suffering that can be found by dropping my stories? Letting go of defensive walls by not believing everything I think?

Happy St. David's Day

Take a moment to imagine here a photo of the daffodils blooming in my backyard. The photo Google is making it so difficult to post. 

It's been fun. But it looks like Oh My, Oma! is pulling down the shades, turning out the lights, and closing the doors. 

Keep doing all the good things you are doing.

Tissue By the Sheik

The one on the left ----> over there---->up there---^

Well, OK, she was on my left -- your right.

Yeah. That one. She's my baby.

When she was a few years younger 

she would request: "Tissue by the sheik?"

Which translated meant, "Can I kiss you on the cheek?"

or "Will you kiss me on the cheek?"

Sigh.

This photo was snapped not too long ago just before 

she headed off on her next great adventure.

She's out of reach for another year and some

and I'm really missing her these days.

When we meet again you can be sure 

there will be plenty of tissue by the sheik.

Walking to the End of September

Don't worry. It's just a ten-mile walk.

Autumn is a great time to visit Sequoia National Park.

No mosquitoes.

Blue skies. Pleasant temperatures day and night.

Good fishing holes. Like Emerald Lake.

Or Aster Lake.

Or Heather Lake.

See you later, September. 

We will remember you fondly as we walk forward into October.

Inspired By: Mirror Lab

Wish my dad was around so I could talk with him about this. 

Roger Angel at the University of Arizona has worked out some 
solutions to problems of astronomical proportions. 

Inspired by: Drawing From Memory

Oma's Art School is underway. Self-instruction, line drawings, watercolor, studying works that speak to me, restraining the chattering monkey mind that says this is silly. Putting the Red Elephant Journal created earlier to good use at last.

I have found helpful and inspiring this beautiful book and remarkable memoir of artist Allen Say, about whom I knew nothing before encountering this book. It is published by Scholastic Press and geared to middle grade children, but I would recommend it for adults and children of every age. 

Vicarious Thrills

I love my life.

I really do.

And I do not wish for the opportunity to do any of it over again.

Nevertheless I have on many occasions experienced the thrill of reading about the lives of others and becoming absorbed in their stories to the extent that their joys and adventures and insights feel almost like my joys and adventures and insights. Vicarious thrills.

Blogging, and lurking, and surfing the interwebs introduces me to so many more passionate lives.

Like this young couple gardening in the Oregon wilds:
http://www.readingmytealeaves.com/2013/08/wilderness-gardening.html

And this recent art school grad:
http://phoebewahl.blogspot.com/2013/08/project-dreamsheets.html


And this wild woman artist in Washington and Idaho:
http://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2013/08/22/smile-youre-alive/

Who are some of the interesting individuals you have encountered in your interweb explorations?

Thoughts on Air Quality

Ordinarily our air quality in the San Joaquin Valley is some of the worst in the nation so we really appreciate getting away from the muck and breathing deeply the air at the mountains or at the coast. And since our four seasons are Earthquake, Mudslide, Fog, and Fire this is the time of year we are accustomed to the subtle scent of L.A. or Santa Barbara burning. And it's always worrisome.

This year the Rim Fire is burning near Yosemite. We are not getting the bad air from this fire, it is largely polluting Nevada, but for the past two mornings I have walked outside and caught the scent of the fire. It activates my lizard brain to seek safety and then my heart gets heavy with the realization that the fire is in the Sierras where we often run when we are seeking refuge from the stress of life in the valley. Not a good place to run to right now.

Mother Jones magazine has a good article about why this is not just another wildfire. Click here if you are interested.

I am reminded of the earlier tragedy in Prescott, Arizona and overwhelmed with gratitude for the over 3000 firefighters engaged in the job of containing this fire and protecting life and property. 

Yet I continue to struggle with the idea that human intelligence must control its environment to its own ends. What I mean is -- the forces of nature are indiscriminate and awesomely powerful such that puny human intervention seems ridiculous. Earth will move, fire will burn, floods will come, winds will blow. And we are not going to control the forces of nature.

And Life wants to live. We can engineer and build amazing huge construction projects, but the idea of gaining total control of the Environment or Nature to benefit our needs or desires for adventure ahead of reverence for life just seems like the height of human arrogance to me. 

So here I sit.

Hoping the Rim Fire will indeed be contained by the estimated September 10th date, and so very appreciative of the great human effort involved in bringing that to pass. Also, saddened by the scarring the fire will leave on some of the most beautiful wilderness in the world. And hopeful that we can find ways to balance the needs of all life; to correct our mistakes and mitigate the irreparable damage while we support continued life cycles of all varieties.

Yet I know that the wilderness will recover. Trees and bushes and flowers and grass will grow again. The marvel of regeneration occurred after Mt. St. Helens in Washington state erupted and half a mountainside was "destroyed" in the early 1980's. Later that decade Yellowstone National Park suffered a tremendous fire and there was great controversy about how the fire should be "managed" but once it ended the meadows and forests grew again. Wilderness does not need us to intervene in its cycles. But peaceful co-existence with Mother Earth needs us to work with her rhythms and cycles.

The smell of smoke in the air provoked these musings on our need to carefully consider our place in Nature because the natural world preexisted human beings and it will continue to go on with or without us as witnesses to its awesomeness.

Sore Gums, Stardust, and Succulents

This morning I distracted myself at the dentist's office with the July 2013 edition of National Geographic and I was very excited to read about a spacecraft launched in 2004 called Stardust. 

It went way out in the solar system and collected stardust that was returned to The Utah Desert (!) in a parachuted capsule for the study team to recover and study. Based in part on the information gathered from Stardust, some new theories about the birth of our solar system have developed. 

I love our Solar System! If you are remotely interested, click here for the link to the article. 

If you are not even remotely interested, the picture above is for you. It has nothing to do with space exploration, but it is a lovely little succulent garden at the deli in San Simeon that Mr. Last and I visited earlier this summer. I'd like to create something similar along the walkway at the entrance to our home. 

Oh. And the extraction sites where the infected broken molar and its compadres were removed from my mouth last week are healing nicely, thankyouverymuch. The worst is over, and restoration of Oma's oral health and wellbeing has begun. Take good care of your teeth, kids, because deferred maintenance is very costly.

Hey! Hi.

So. It's been a while. And while I've been busy trying new things and writing in other (mostly private) spaces, I've missed you.

I'm still old.

Older than I was when this photo was snapped.

And I will be donning the Santa hat again before you know it.

But right now I am enjoying the beginning of Second Spring. It gets so oppressively hot here in the summer that growing things mostly go dormant and use all their reserves just to keep from withering and dying. Some make it. Some do not. Those that do begin to awaken when the temperatures drop a bit.

Last night we enjoyed a breeze at sunset and Mr. Last and I took a cold beverage out to The Park where we sat and talked in the dark and watched the stars come out. It was so pleasant and relaxing.

We are going to do more of that.

And I am going to do more of this.

Second Spring for growing things, and a return to blogging for Oma.

Good things go round, it seems. I suppose bad things go round, too. Perhaps the greater truth is --

Things go round. That's kinda what got me starting blogging in the first place.

So hang on. Here I go. Round and round some more.

*tap tap tap* Is This Thing On?

Oh, hi!

Do you like ham?

Oma the Great makes great ham.

She made me.

And I've moved here to ham it up for the grandkids:

yoursillyoma.tumblr.com

Flannel Sheets

Changed the bedsheets last Friday. While I always enjoy fresh bed linens, there are two times a year when I really enjoy the task of stripping the bed and making it up again: early Autumn when we switch to flannel sheets, and late Spring when we switch back to cool smooth cotton sheets. Perhaps I could convince the legislature to quit monkeying around with the clock and instead declare specific days when we are required to Fall Back Into Flannel and to Spring Forward Into Smooth Cotton. I dread the monkey business with the clock, but I do so love Falling Into Flannel Sheets every year at this time. And I love Sipping Hot Sweet Beverages. And consuming Creamy Carbohydrate-Laden Meals. Fall is full of so many small pleasures.

Flannel sheets bring back happy childhood memories of wearing tights to bed on cold winter nights and making "lightning" under the covers by pedaling my legs rapidly against the tented up flannel sheets. Oh, the simple joys of discharging static electricity in the dark.

I think I'll wear tights to bed tonight.

I love Fall.

Earthquake

Last night a 5.3 shook the ground beneath us (epicenter near King  City about 90 miles south of San Jose) and woke me to heart-pounding attention just before midnight.

Sometimes one needs a good shake to awaken one from unconsciousness.

As a native Californian I've been shaken before, and I expect to be shaken again. Unlike some, however, I cannot just casually shrug and return to life as usual without some time to reflect and respect the awesome forces of nature that will continue to shape Our Home.

We talk about being "grounded" or having a certain steady reliable base upon which to stand, but perhaps we would be wise to consider that nothing truly stays the same. Not you. Not me. Not the Earth. 

Yet we can wake up every new day in what seems to us to be the same place. But nothing stays the same. The ground beneath us shifts. With or without our approval. A shift may be slight or it may be catastrophic and reform our world in unexpected ways.

Humans possess endless creativity in the ways in which they respond to change. Some deny it and cling to what was. Some ignore it and carry on as if nothing happened. Some welcome a new or different way of being. I've tried coping with the shifting ground of my life in all those ways and more. And what I've come to know is that I have within me whatever it may take to scramble to the next place that is steady.

Until the next earthquake.

Drought

It's been a long time since we've had a good rain and it's been awhile since I've checked in here at the old bloggity-blog. The words are just not flowing for me right now.

Winter vegetable garden is growing: peas, carrots, beets, broccoli, cabbage. I stewed up the couple of Roma tomatoes and all of the cherry tomatoes we grew and then we pulled up the tomato plant jungle to make way for the winter veggies.

The yard is still our favorite place to be but it's looking rather tired and torn up just now. The citrus box is nearly complete with a few orange trees and a little lemon tree planted. We've excavated ground for a shed beside the garage and a circular spot in the wild place we call "The Park" for a small brick patio where the laid-down pepper tree was removed. We've pulled up some brick pathway to be reset and a whole bunch of hex pavers are being repurposed.

I suppose all the physical labor has drawn the energy I would otherwise put toward mental tasks such as stringing words together in coherent patterns. It appears that you can have my brain or you can have my brawn, but it's one or the other. I had to rest up to write this.

May the rain come after a while like my words after a rest, and in the meantime I'll be outdoors grunting and sweating and shoveling and wheelbarrowing and moving pavers and taming the wild overgrowth with my trusty garden tools.

Soundview Cottage in Seattle

I'm a wee bit reluctant to let you in on this secret, but if you ever get the chance to stay at Soundview Cottage in Seattle please enjoy and tell Annie that Julie from Central California sent you.

For two lovely evenings after our explorations of Seattle we restored ourselves in this cozy hideaway that had easy access to all of the local attractions yet felt like it was miles away from civilization. Upon arrival on a Sunday evening we were graciously welcomed by the lovely owner of the cottage, Annie Phillips, and we marveled at the view from the deck. In one direction, the sunset:

 And in the opposite direction the moonrise through the pines:

Yes, you see a hot tub, and yes, we did enjoy it both evenings we were there. Very relaxing after a long day of sightseeing, as was the comfy bed with luxurious linens.

One of the sights we saw was the Space Needle at the Seattle Center, and we enjoyed the Chihuly Glass Exhibit.

We also hiked to the Seattle Public Library, rode the monorail, visited Pike Place Market, walked along the waterfront and rode the water taxi from downtown to SW Seattle, so you can imagine how lovely it felt to return to a cozy cottage at the end of that day.

In fact, we cuddled up to enjoy a DVD before slipping into the hot tub to ease our achy bodies.

The next morning we leisurely cooked a spinach and mushroom omelet from the ingredients in the fridge stocked by Annie. She had contacted us in advance of our arrival and asked if we had any dietary restrictions or special requests, because Annie doesn't cook breakfast for her guests like some bed-and-breakfast establishments do. And it turns out we rather liked puttering in the kitchen in our jammies. It made our vacation even more relaxing and comfortable.

We were reluctant to pack up and go, but we had to board our ship shortly after noon for the Alaska cruise. We know we will return to Seattle to explore some more of Washington. And when we do we will contact Soundview Cottage first thing to see if we can stay there again.

Alaska the Beautiful

The experience is bigger than words but I'm working

on a narrative of the journey. These few images carry me immediately back to sounds, sights, smells, and feelings provoked

by Alaska. There is so much more than just what you see here.

The Bigness of Nature overwhelms the senses when one is introduced to Alaska. So much water, so many trees, such steep high mountains, fresh sweet air, constantly changing weather. Whales.

*sigh*

Finding God's Country

First you must head North.

To the Evergreen Playground.

In the Emerald City you must follow the Red Brick Way

to the top of the hill:

Notice the lovely architectural detail:

And I love this person's seasonally appropriate outfit:

I also love the Man With the White Moustache.

Together we ascended the Yellow Escalator to Heaven.

Further instruction awaits at

the Highest Height (otherwise known as theTenth Floor

of the Seattle Public Library)

Ah, yes. Reading.

So many choices. So little time.

Ooooo, the Historical Atlas of the American West.

I really love a good map, don't you?

(I also love a good nap, but that's a topic for another day.)

Let's take a peek, shall we?

Well, look at that!

We found God's Country.

Traveled all the way to Seattle to discover

that all one needs to do is click one's heels

three times and repeat:

"There's no place like home."

"There's no place like home."

"There's no place like home."

What??

You were expecting maybe scenic photos of

Alaskan wilderness?

Patience, my pretty.

All in good time.

Garden Post Sans Cucumbers

So last night Pete took me to a lovely garden spot where I captured a lovely self-portrait with Mr. Last.

Last night. 

In Victoria.

British Columbia.

CANADA!

Pete, charming host and highly entertaining bus driver, delivered me and 100 of my closest Carnival Fun Cruise friends to:

Did I mention we were in CANADA?

Last night!

Tonight we are safely home in the Central Valley of California. Which is a lovely place in its own right.
But is certainly isn't CANADA.

I had to peel off my tights right after we touched down at the local airport this afternoon. It was 100 degrees.

Firefighters were hosing down the smoking side of the freeway as we drove home. True story.

So much to tell about our recent adventures to The North.

Stay tuned.

She's Golden

Today.

It's her Golden Birthday.

Twenty years crammed full of living can be messy sometimes.

So sometimes it helps to keep a Brother under one arm and Another Brother under the other...

Other times it's not a Brother, but Your Mother, that you need...

Of course the one who's really got your back is your Big Sister.

You'll always be the Baby and she'll aways be your Big Sister.

It's awesome.

We know it's not easy bringing up the tail end of this bunch, but the good news is you've always had a village looking out for you and you always will.

On this Golden Day we celebrate you. And...

...the teenager you were salutes the adult you are becoming.

Happy Birthday Baby.

So glad you were born. So glad you are alive.

We love you.

And I love you BIG.

Forever. For always. No matter what.