Bits

I have lost my wine glass. It's just not that big of a house. Or yard. I had it half an hour ago. I was pulling dandelions, making zucchini bread, doing dishes, watering the lawn....and somewhere in all of that I set my wine down and forgot where. Then, I asked my son, "Have you seen my glass of wine, I can't find it"? As soon as I said those words I thought, that's not the thing to ask your ten year old. Oh well. I'll probably find it in the yard tomorrow, miscellaneous bugs crawling about, or more likely, dead from alcohol poisoning. You know what it means when you misplace your wine? Go to the cabinet and get a new glass :)

We found a fuzzy caterpillar. Weeks ago. (I'm liking fragments tonight) We put it in a jar (I said "three days, and if it's not a cocoon, we're letting it go"). In a day we had a cocoon. I kept it inside the house on the counter.
Waited. Went to Kansas. Came back. Still, a cocoon. Then, one morning, there it was, a speckled moth. The cocoon was so cool. It was as if that caterpillar had plucked all the fuzzy fur off it's own back and made the cocoon with it. I love nature. Of course, we were hoping for a Monarch butterfly. But the miracle's the same anyway, I guess.

Today is my dad's birthday. He would have been 91. I met some old guys (I say that with the greatest affection possible) in Kansas and a couple of them were in their nineties. On one hand, it could have been a sad thing, missing my dad, feeling that whole, "it's just not fair that he's not here" thing. But it was actually pretty cool seeing some men in their nineties that were still hanging out, sipping coffee at the drug store and telling stories. Some of them I met going into stores where they worked! Yes, working and smiling at ninety-one. I'm happy some of them made it. I like that there are those guys out there telling me the stories that my dad would be telling me. I like to imagine him there. That's why I made the zucchini bread. For him on his birthday. Happy birthday dad.

On being a mom. The deal is, I love my son. The deal is, also, I cannot wait for school to start. I do not get those mothers who want to spend actual TIME with their kids DOING CRAFTS. I will gladly spend time with Jay while we drive around town doing errands and even gardening together out in the yard. But PLAYING?! He can play during recess. I'm counting down the days (18) until he starts fifth grade.

I really love this next quote. I try to do these things, and sometimes I'm not successful. But I think if I just remember this quote, I'll improve.


How far you go in life depends on your being tender with
the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with
the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because
someday in life you will have been all of these.
--George Washington Carver

I Love To Dance (Metaphoricly)

I have ALL new music, girlfriend! It's taken me forever to pick it all out (note my blog time). So I amused myself by checking out stranger's myspace pages and found this excellent "Who I'd like to meet" which continues...."People who have aspirations and convictions, ethics and thoughtfulness, but aren't afraid to fuck up." I'd like to meet those people too. And, I cannot seem to spell metaphoric-ly and I'm too darn tired to look it up. Plus, I just love to dance; metaphoric-ly, physically, in the living room, in my mind, in the car. Every way possible. It just seemed like an appropriate title, what with the new music and all. Okay, I'm going to bed now.

Messages

Well, I have a couple stories. The first one, as happens quite frequently, is about my mother. Jay and I were in an antique store in Hutchinson, Kansas. We had browsed for a bit and Jay found a mini (1"x2") licence plate from the fifties that he wanted to spend his money on (Don't ask me). As he was making his purchase, I looked down to my left and saw this beautiful spinach-leaf-green yearbook. I thumbed through it, passing time and looking at people whose lives were just beginning. I was thinking about how between then and now, they had had families, or not, fallen in love, or not, been sick, recovered or not, gone from teenagers to adults to the elderly, and then, I saw my mom. There she was, 10th grade, a picture I'd never seen before but most definitely my mom. I found her name. I knew she had not ever owned that yearbook. I think she got the one where she's a Senior but her family would have been too poor, and her dad too stingy, to have bought a yearbook when she was in 10th grade. Her father didn't believe girls should even go to high school. There she was. I thought I was going to weep. I've been so evolved and together through the memorials and the dying, and then when I saw her 16 year old self, I was so giddy-happy and heartbroken at the same time. I showed everyone in the store. "Look, this is my mom. She's here in this book" Yeah, I bought the book.

Then, we headed to another antique store. We were in the business of looking for a tractor seat. Not the heavy, cast iron variety but the light, pressed steel version. Jay and my friend, Barry, built a go cart that needs a solid seat and we thought a tractor seat would be perfect. So, we mosey into this place and ask the old fella behind the counter if he has any tractor seats laying around. Well, no sir, he does not, BUT he calls most of the other antique stores in Hutch trying to find us one (THAT is Kansas). As we're getting ready to walk out the door and head to the next place (one with a tractor seat!) he calls over to Jay, "Son, see this penny? If you keep it till you're as old as I am, It'll be worth something" and he hands Jay a wheat back penny. The thing is, my dad and I used to collect wheat back pennies. When I find one, I always think it's my dad saying hi (I've found two in four years...each one in a parking lot right outside my car door).

I love those old fellas. They still call women, "gals", and they can sit at a table at Frase Drug Store and drink coffee, and gab all day. They're very respectful and kind and friendly, and as we'd leave wherever we were,(after chatting them up for half an hour) they would say the same thing to Jay. Either, "Nice to meet you, son" or "Now take care of your mother."

One more thing. See this bag? It's dried banana chips, no added sugar.
They do not even taste like cardboard, they taste like rubbing alcohol. I am trying very hard to be healthy. I have started taking vitamins again. I do not always drive up and down the parking lot at the grocery store until I find a close parking space, I actually walk from 12 cars down (sometimes). But I cannot eat these strange banana things. I obviously want healthy, high fiber, vitamin filled food that tastes like chocolate. Damn.

Kansas Redux

I never blog anymore. I will again someday. It's just a phase. Oh yeah, and I'm on vacation and HAVE NO INTERNET ACCESS. It's weird. I had no idea I was so infatuated by being on-line. I like surfing the Internet. It makes me laugh to watch "trampoline accidents" on youtube. I want to e-mail people and sit for an hour writing my blog. Too bad for me! Since I've been back in Kansas (one week today) I get 30 minute bits of time, in book stores and coffee shops, to check in. So, since my half hour is almost up I'm going to put on a few pictures, make a few more inane comments and then go fishing.
The train ride was wonderful. If you have never taken a train trip, get on it!! We slept good (in coach seats) and played games and read and ate. It's cheaper than air and took us way less time than driving.


I have a bit of garden grief.
My brother in Salina has a beautiful garden. But, get this...it's a community garden. It's in the country and for fifteen dollars (FIFTEEN DOLLARS. TOTAL) he gets a pretty big garden plot, free water, and they till it up for him at the beginning of the year. It's made me miss having a garden and watching all the shoots poke up out of the ground, the flowers turn into melons or squash. Next year.


This year, with the move, the Kansas deal, the late start, it just made more sense to take a year off. But I miss it.

Everything is so green here. Jay and I are headed out to East Lake near Newton to cast out for fish for a few hours after this. Today we already painted the pink bedroom and had someone come out for an estimate on the guttering. I'm getting things done.


My high school reunion was Saturday night. It was really fun. I don't keep in touch with many people who I've known since kindergarten but I saw a few there on Saturday. It's funny, I haven't seen them since the last reunion but it seemed so comfortable and familiar. I really like those people....and some of them were in totally different cliques than I was, but when we became adults, a lot of that separation just melted away. We laughed and talked and caught up and I was really glad I went.

This last photo is me driving a tractor pulling a load of kids. Okay, it's a mower, not a tractor. But I could drive a tractor if I had to. It's a requirement of the State of Kansas that if you own a home, you must know how to drive a tractor. Just in case.

Numbers

Getting ready to head back to Kansas (yeah, already) in a week. We're taking the train. Whoo-who! Here are the top 10 reasons why I like Kansas (in random order)...
1. My house there is very old and the floors tilt.
2. Scads of really nice people.
3. There is this heartbreaking feeling of loneliness when you look out
on those wheat fields going on forever.
4. The smell of the thunderstorms.
5. I have family there.
6. Rivers and streams and ponds and lakes....and green everywhere.
7. I have stories in my head from that place, and when I'm there,
I can see them so much more clearly.
8. Brick streets
9. Chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes.
10.The memories of my mom are all ones when she didn't have Alzheimer's yet. I see
her as she was in Kansas. When I think about her in Flagstaff, I have trouble
seeing her healthy, when I'm in Kansas, I ONLY see her as healthy.

Then, after a bit, we'll be coming back to Flagstaff. On the train again, where we'll play farkle and dominoes and eat snacks and watch the scenery. And here's the top 10 reasons why we're going to come back.....
1. No tornadoes, no mosquitoes, no humidity.
2. Scads of really nice people.
3. My house here is pretty new, it's perfect for parties, and it's pretty darn clean (most, okay, SOME of the time).
4. My friends are cool.
5. Stanley.
6. This is where I'm registered to vote.
7. The smell of the monsoons.
8. What a stellar place to raise a child.
9. When I think about my parents, this is the last house they were physically in with me...my dad sat on this couch in this room, relaxed on this back porch, and raked this front yard. It's a good set of memories.
10.There are so many things here filled with hope.



The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to
count our blessings.
--Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer & philosopher