Troubled dreams...

I had one last night...you know, not a nightmare, but definitely not a fun time.  I was out shopping with someone.  She looked like no one I know, perhaps a conglomeration of all the females in my life, perhaps not...maybe a younger version of me...who knows. 

She was trying on bras, in the middle of the aisle (you know how a dream can go where ever it wants), and she had an older male clerk's full attention in answering all her NUMEROUS self-centered questions.  She asked me nothing, she could care less if I had input on the subject or an opinion of my own, or if it would be more reliable than her straight faced perfection of a clerk.

I could have been a naked Madonna, and I would still have been oblivious to them both.  If I had been a moth on the floor he would have pressed his polished Italian leather shoe onto me grinding every speck of my existence into a smudge on the tile.

The store seemed to be void of everyone but us three.  I was in a shopping mood myself, I had questions to be answered and was in need of someone to ring up a sale, I could solicit no one's attention, and I tried everything to get my friend or this clerk to pay attention to me.  I was being ignored BIG TIME.

I left with nothing.  My friend left with her bras.

I woke up to the alarm pounding home the fact that I had to drag myself out of bed to welcome another day of THE JOB.  As the faint reminiscent of that dream lingered on, I thought if there was even a smidgen of redemption in all of mankind, I would have miraculously morphed into a tacky moist wad of chewing gum just as his Italian leather pressed hard against me.

A previous occurrence here and there in my lifetime, changing scenarios and players, this dream manifests itself when person or persons insist on invalidating my feelings, thoughts, knowledge, wisdom, or existence...those all-about-me ones who can only think of themselves when I need empathy, sympathy, or support.

Those ones who flip what I just said and expect me to empathize, sympathize, or support them...those ones who make my all-about-me all-about-them before I have even finished uttering my last word.

I NEED JUSTICE!

I need people turning purple for a day when they can't get beyond themselves.  I need the purple to get more and more vivid each time a selfish invalidation is uttered from their lips.  A few would be neon, shout-out-loud, blast ones eyeballs to the moon, radiation blinding PURPLE, announcing to the hemisphere, troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere and beyond what buggers or boogers they are.  Just saying... 

Every once in a million years

...or so it seems, an event occurs that makes ones common ordinary life magically extraordinary.  I happen to see these events as little miracles, in that I just happen to be in the right place, at the right time, under the right circumstances...a reward that keeps hope right up front in my life.

My nine month younger brother and I would take turns sleeping outside on the patio during the summer months, when I was around first or second grade age.  A made up bed waited for me, and you can guess by this that rain seldom was an issue we worried about in the middle of the desert at certain months of the year.  This was a regular single bed with a cheap mattress sitting on heavy wire mesh, you know, poor folk entertainment.

I waited until darkness before leaving the house in my pajamas to climb into that wonderful bed.  At that time the yard was still in its infancy, and being in a bed on the patio with a four foot high fence bordering the alleyway and baby trees and shrubs bordering the wide span of lawn on the other side by the street, well...I was like one postage stamp all by itself on an album page.  A grape vine covered trellis bordering the patio by the street side was the only camouflage available between me and the world.  The bed stuck out like a sore thumb, and I didn't care to be on display for whoever ventured down the alley or street.

Waking up late meant keeping my head covered up to escape detection, then making a mad dash across what seemed like a football field size patio...of course it wasn't; but when one doesn't want to be discovered in their jammies in the middle of the yard in broad daylight, one ejects herself out of that bed in two seconds flat and runs like crazy up the porch steps and through the back door...whew!

One night before climbing into that cozy bed, surrounded by that dry desert air that can turn quite chilly before morning, my gaze went across the street, over the top of the Brown's house, up the tall rounded peak of Mount Grant, and into that wonderful sky of a zillion stars, a sky that no city person has ever seen.

A huge bright red ball sliced through the darkness above the Brown's house and disappeared behind the homes at that edge of town before my running feet could get me to our front gate.  I looked down the street, but of course saw nothing; the meteor's decent took all of one second before becoming past tense.  No mention in the local weekly town paper...it was my very own brief light show...just for me.

Mom's love of the cosmos became my love of the cosmos.  She woke us little ones up at two in the morning once to trek outside in our sleepwear with flashlights in hand, then flashlights off as we viewed in silence a full eclipse of the moon.

Another time, in what was probably the only moment in recorded history for Nevada, we stood outside after dark and watched the faint edge of the northern lights over the top of Mount Grant.

Sometimes we would sit outside for hours on the patio and see how many shooting stars we could count if luck was with us that evening.  We learned to identify all of the constellations in the night sky above us for all of the seasons, and at one time the family even had a telescope, a Christmas present for all to view the planets, moon, and stars.

In my twenties, living the city life in Reno, I talked my husband at the time into driving me out into the country to see what was promised to be a fantastic meteor shower that evening.  The sky was half filled with clouds after the rain...we laid out on the top of the hood of our car...watched large white meteors playing hide and seek with the clouds, maybe a dozen per minute, arching clear across the sky with light trails illuminating behind the clouds.  I was in seventh heaven watching the heavens put on a heavenly light show.

In my late thirties living with present husband in Colorado Springs, the flight path to Paterson Air Force Base sometimes took jets quite low right over the top of our house when coming in for a landing.  One afternoon as I was trying to sneak up on a singing meadow lark perched on our side yard fence, I looked up to see a plane fly right over the top of me with the space shuttle attached to it piggy back.  That aircraft wasn't much larger than the space shuttle it carried...awesome...just awesome!  It was so close to the house top that I felt like I could have just reached out and touched it.

During my forties and my four year life in the tropics with husband, I hitched a ride with friends, to a small town up the Atlantic coast of Panama, the epicenter so to speak of the best viewing area of a total eclipse of the sun.  Husband worked...who in the hell works when there's a total eclipse of the sun to see???  I played hooky...how could I possibly miss maybe my only chance in this lifetime of such an event!  From the horse's mouth so to speak, first of all, it does not get DARK.  The skies darkened, but I could still see everything.  The amazing part was all the thousands of birds flying in to roost in the trees around us for the night...fooled by the darkening skies.  As the skies began to lighten, all those confused birds flew out again to continue their day.

During my fifties, one of my favorite memories was the year of a great meteor shower.  We grabbed hats, gloves, scarves, coats, blankets, and pillows; and drove to the planetarium area of the Chabot Space and Science Center in the Oakland hills.  It was COLD!  We froze our butts off!  No matter how many thicknesses of blankets one lays on cold hard concrete your backside is freezing and your body is stiffening.  We laid there most of the night with a bunch of fellow idiots, and watched a continuous light show of dozens of meteors a minute until around four in the morning, doing quite a bit of talking and shivering in between.  I think I got perhaps two hours sleep before heading out to the airport.  I know I definitely need people in my life that love all this craziness.

Most treasured occurrence of all, though, seeming so trivial in a way, but making the most impact in my life, has been my collection of letters and cards from dad brought about from his concern and love for me during my years in Panama.  I am the only one who possesses a group of his letters like this.  If I had stayed in the states, played it boring and safe, I wouldn't have all those letters to re-open and re-read during the quiet hours when I miss him most.  Every time I open one of his letters, he's with me once again...my little miracle. 

Welcome to the Summer Sweet Diner

It's half past four, the offerings are a week past their prime; but the tables are still crowded, guests swarming around the flowery delights in the high ninety degree heavy warmth, tantalized by the thick heady fragrance of sweet liquorice lingering on the soft breezy air with a promise of yummy nectar to sip into the evening hours.  Stay too late and one may become dinner to another of the visitors that silently drifts through the hot night air on threads of silk looking for delectable delights fattened by sweet nectar from the Summer Sweet Diner.

Mason Wasp on Summer Sweet Bush

Empty shell of the larger annual cicadas that are out now. 

Metallic Green Bee

(Inferior photo - such is life)

Green Bottle Fly

Great Black Wasp

Ragged winged insect (about 1/4 inch long) with Carpenter Bee

The End

...next please.

Rushing into the local post office, just barely missing the locking of the customer wait forever section doors, the ones that bar those who can only do things a minute too late; I fidget with my too long of a strap purse, pass my car keys from thumb to thumb, wince too many times at the pain my arm is experiencing from a clumsily held package, try not to drop the five copy customs slip, how would I ever pick it up off the floor, eye the post it note reminder precariously dangling from my purse top of the money order I'm to purchase for husband, and balance on my package three stamped letters to mail that I haven't mailed yet, because I'm one of those who can only do things almost a minute too late when it has anything to do with the postal service.  Whew...I think that is the longest sentence I have ever written in this lifetime!

I finally have just one person ahead of me, and I'm beginning to look around at my surroundings, AND THERE IT IS.  This individual ahead of me, so engrossed on her cell phone, is wearing white knit shorts on a body that is not light colored, and a three inch section of the back seam is gaping wide open announcing to all that she is either wearing a thong or no panties at all.  I think it is about three inches...I don't stare at it too long, because I'm seeing a part of her body that I don't care to see outside of the beach and maybe not even then; and for what seems like an eternity, but was probably only five seconds, I contemplate how I am going to tactfully approach the subject with her.

Right in the middle of my contemplation a voice calls out from the beyond..."next please" and my problem's solved, although I think hers was only beginning.  I cannot quite bring myself to look at her again as she approaches the counter, and I missed looking at the strangers behind me in line to see if anyone else caught the view.  I feel a little bad for about 30 seconds...until I hear a voice call from the beyond..."next please", and vow never ever to go pantyless in public in this lifetime. 

Dead Zone...

A peon working for environment and conservation...a peon environmentalist working for environment and conservation...in a roundabout way...one of the little people that in my own small way keeps the wheels of everyday management at this park well oiled and moving smoothly.

I'm one of those people who alters the environment, you know, A GARDENER.  I try to cram everything that grows around me into mini ecosystems, so I can enjoy it all in my one fourth acre suburban lot.  No one alters the environment more than loggers, builders, farmers and gardeners...no one.

I'm sensible in my approach.  I use only what is already here.   I'm a native lover through and through.  No herbicides, no pesticides, no fertilizers - nature's the overseer of my domain, the controller of the good and the evil, and I'm her assistant; but still...I'm a gardener, and I alter the environment.

In my office, staring out my window...yes...I actually do have a park office with windows on two sides...I'm watching the maintenance worker, or what this state calls a "conservation worker".  He's finished weed whacking around the pond area...the dead zone.  It's a dead zone because...well...it's void of all permanent life.

Higher powers thought nature looked trashy, and ordered the removal of every single pond plant and the butterfly garden surrounding the pond.  If you enjoy dreamily gazing at green tinted murky waters surrounded by nothing until your eyes glaze over, then you're in paradise.  If you would rather see blossoms, butterflies, dragonflies, and tadpoles then you're in hell.

I'm watching this worker pull out his three gallon pressurized sprayer, and proceed to empty the herbicidal suicidal contents on every green speck of life remaining in his surroundings, including the rocks that contain the pond.  He blankets it all, spraying in front of him, walking across the wet surface as he goes...dolt.

I'm pining away, anxiously waiting that magical moment I transport myself over the horizon towards real paradise...my gardens.

Daylily 'Green Eyes Wink'

Spider Daylily 'Fellow' 

Daylily 'Red Autumn'

Phlox paniculata 'Laura'

At base of American Hornbeam Tree

Daylily 'Orange Vols'

American Beautyberry

Giant Coneflower - Rudbeckia maxima

Wild Petuna Ruellia humilis

Lily speciosum 'Album'

Clematis glaucophylla

Daylily 'Yesterdays Memories'

Daylily 'Magic Dawn'

Clematis pitcheri

After the rains

Echinacea purpurea 'White Swan' with friend

Hot Diggitty Dog...it's that time of the year when all the noise deprived residents have an equal opportunity to blast off a few fork, knife, and spoon clasping digits; and reduce a few of the neighboring rooftops to cinders...wahooooo.  Tents popping up like weeds on corners of outer suburbia, encouraging the spending of money for noise.  Pets will be cringing, crawling under beds, whimpering and whining.  I will be spending the day after with a noggin slightly sleep deprived, those noise craving munchkins don't sleep; and collecting burned out debris from gardens and pond, because their junk never ever no way in any lifetime now or in the future ever ever ever breathes its last spark and gives up its ghost on their property...never.

All you sweethearts who have actually made it this far into my post, thank you.  I'm doing my happy dance, tippy toe tap tap!  I'll be escaping from blog land for the holiday to find out if there is actually a carpet still underneath all this clutter that has mysteriously appeared out of nowhere throughout the place I rush to when escaping THE JOB; and weed whacking my way through that jungle outside to see if the stone pathways are still somewhere underneath it all.

May you have magical skies bursting forth in endless shimmering colors twinkling softly towards the earth.  There's something truly awesome in those magnificent explosions coloring the sky.  Fireworks every 4th of each month sounds like a plan to me.

  HAPPY 4th!!!