grown up

At daybreak I swing my legs over the side of the bed, the first parts of me to acknowledge these soft morning colors.  Cool air slips under sleepy bedclothes, I'm grown up the first thought.

Fresh aroma of dark pressed coffee pulls me to sitting upright.  I am wound tightly in sheet and summer quilt.  I am grown up.  My legs dangle over the handwoven rag rug on the floor.

Last night the hoot-owl's soft call was the last sound I recognised.  I recall hoping to hear it again as I had the night before.  Wriggling between cats and husband, I was the last one to cash in after making the rounds to secure the zoo, sleep quickly enveloped me. 

I'm grown up.

I'm grown up.

I wonder where I went in that deep sleep.  Hoot owl beckoned:  Enter the Old Forest, dripping with fog, dew drops trickling down furry Redwood trunks.  The soft aroma of wild ginger blossoms, exotic purple cups under heart-shaped leaves, recall peat and sword fern.  I'm grown up.  The summer river is slow and cool where it gathers and circles deep green.

xoxoLC

the photo is from  Robert Potts@California Academy of Sciences

green eggs and ham

I am Sam

I am Sam

Sam I am

...do you like

green eggs and ham?

You do not like them.

So you say.

Try them!  Try them!

And you may.

Try them and you may, I say.

Dr. Seuss

**********

Just looked at the copyright, to Theodor S. Geisel, Dr. Seuss [pseud.], 1960! Mercy, how time flies!  And here is the funny part:  by 1960 I was the chief, I mean Chieftess, Reader in our family.  Nightly I read out loud to my little sister. Over and over and over and over, I read Green Eggs and Ham.  Sometimes I had to read it to her 25 times in one night.  Sorry, that was an exaggeration.  Her other favorite was all about Cowboy Sam and Shorty.  Some might say these are still her favorites.

Reading Green Eggs and Ham, to myself this evening, since there are no little ones around and Luna is asleep in the chair I sat in back when, then 1960; I notice that I like this little book.  I love it, in fact:  Sam has a little sign, and he sits on the back of his doggish-cattish, and circles past the grumpy guy three times... the little sign says "I am Sam."  Sam is persistent.  Sam is cheerful.  Sam remains persistent and cheerful, through rejection, grumpiness, flat-out "...I do not like that Sam-I-Am!"  Horrors!  Nope, doesn't bother Sam, in fact he goes on a creative bent like no other in history.

Would you?  Could you?

In a car?

Eat them!  Eat them!

Here they are.

...on a boat.

...with a goat.

...in the rain.

...on a train.

...in a tree!

...in a box.

...with a fox.

...in a house.

...with a mouse.

And it isn't until the grumpy guy is under water in the sea, under deep, blue water having been tortured with possibility, when Sam says,

 

You do not like them.

So you say.

Try them!  Try them!

And you may.

Try them and you may, I say...

This is definitely an annoying way to go about things.  I do not recommend employing this tactic to get what you want, you know, as a grown-up.  And I am noticing something:  cheerful persistence is a quality that I can use.  I like that.  I love that. I want that.

A new idea cannot come to fruition without letting go of the old idea (or ideas). This has come to my attention several times this week.  My mother said to me often, "You cannot put a square peg in a round hole."  Oh Goddess!  Mom, what were you thinking?  Of course, she most likely witnessed said daughter, from a very young age, pounding said square peg with a frightening and determined fervor to get it into the round hole, with persistance and then fury.

Well.  I am liking the obvious and calmness of gently, kindly, and great relief... just putting aside the habitual thoughts that do not serve me, and pick up the idea, the concept of my opening completely to Infinite Possibility!  Let me Try them!  Try them!

I can always pick the old stuff back up, right?

xoxoxLC

God's Bucket

If this world

Was not held in God's bucket

How could an ocean stand upside down

On its head and never lose a drop?

Hafiz

******

All last year's garden time, I would take my camera out for my morning walk & admiration time.  And I may have taken, oh maybe 4,853 shots of the Morning Glories.  I just love them. HOW do they do that 'glow from within' thing?  Perfectly, every single morning, whether it is foggy, hot, suffocating, or what EVER!  Oh, if I could just wake up like that!  All purple and stripey, with Spirit glowing gorgeous from the center of my Being.

This year I have 'volunteers' all over the place.  I have pulled some of them, so I could plant things, or so that they don't choke out the serious vegetables, and I left scads of them.  Even to the point of putting their own play structure in... so I have columns of them!  Well.  They are beautiful.  And that is that.

Tonight is Friday.  I have purchased 3 square inches of wild salmon for $24.99.  I have fresh garden cabbage & tomatoes & purple onion for a coleslaw.  I have little yellow squashes to  swim in butter.  I have some fresh beans to pick and steam.  Oh heaven is at hand.  I just am praying that this isn't the last 3 square inches of wild salmon.  Yes, I also purchased six Lost Coast Brewery's India.  Friday is the best.  Yes.

Happy Day, I mean, Evening.

xoxoLC

Lola B!

...from her Mama: that pitcher, that tall, tough, red-headed girl threw like her Gramma always bragged about... pitched the whole game.  Went 3 for 3 at the plate...

Championship game tonight... and I am wondering what happened!   

Pretty cute, eh?  I was Dula at her birthing.  Record time, that one!

Well, I guess we will know tomorrow!  

xoxoLC

de-skunking my dog

We hear and read now and then that we are dumber by the minute because of Google.  Google is now a verb, even.  An action:  google it.

And I am here to say I am VERY GRATEFUL for that search-engine-become-institution! Google: deskunking my dog!  or  remedies for deskunking the dog!     or   HELP!  She's been sprayed!!!

A call to my dear dear dear friend, Pami:   "Hold on, while I look it up  (this is after 10:35 PM)..." after consulting our "Natural Pet Care" books, neither of which even had a "skunk spray" entry, we both went to the Internet.  Voila!  Oh, Wayne and I both said, "MILK!"  She needs a milk bath! And so Wayne went to the market (neither of us looked at the clock!).  And that would have been a disastrous remedy, since now that I know that the spray from a skunk has oil in it!

I settled on the remedy that was most represented, commented upon, and I even had the ingredients:  Hydrogen peroxide + baking soda + dish soap!  with an addition of cider vinegar for good measure. 

So now that we are all assured that she survived (she did!), I will tell the story.

I was out of the picture:  Back here in the "back room" reading and writing, when I hear Wayne shouting, "NO!   LUNA!    COME BACK HERE!     NO!        LUNA COME!!!"  I also hear the screen door crash (not in the summer evening clicking kind of way), so I (as per usual) jump straight up and land 6 feet from my chair at a dead run!  Just in time to arrive in the living room simultaneously with Luna.  "OH   GOD,  THERE'S A SKUNK OUT THERE!"  and I might add, "duh!" considering the state of the air in our house.  

Later Wayne told me that Luna had jumped out of her chair and quilt, since she was bedded down for the night, ran to the screen door, stopped, and then hit it the way she does when she wants to let herself outside, and took off.   

Oh disaster for the LunaDog.  She was beside herself!  She is a contortionist at times, and this was one of those times.  She somersaulted, dove under things, threw herself at the rug in front of the stove, foamed and drooled and dripped.  I called Pami.  "Rescue Remedy!  do you have any...."  "YES!  Hold on...."  and I put an elephantine dose in a handful of ground turkey.  I kid you not, she gulped it, and I closed her crate door, and she calmed down.  And that is when we started the googling operation.

I mixed up the potion, and had it on her by the time Wayne arrived with a gallon of Clover Whole Milk.  We held her, and talked to her while the stuff did its magic, and I drew a bath for her.  It was time for her flea bath anyways, so we did 2 day's worth of dog care all in one bath. Honestly, I attest to the miracle of this particular combination:  it works completely.  Even as I tucked her back into a clean quilt and gingerly smelled the top of her head, I found her skunk-free.

Yesterday morning I mopped up with the Dawn dish soap, and the house smells good, clean, & fresh.  Today a dear guest arrives, and I am putting a vase loaded with Rosemary in her room, since Luna threw herself on that bed as well.  The hedge out front still reeks, but hay, that's outside!

Which reminds me.  I was driving home Monday evening, after my writer's group, and a small, four-legged ran in front of me and stopped, confused in the headlights.  I slammed on the brakes, and was rewarded with the opportunity to watch a confused coyote pup make a mad dash for the side of the road.  It threw itself into the tall grass, and in its haste tripped and tangled in the weeds, reminding me of a certain young, spotted LunaDog.

All's Well.  All IS Well.  ALL is WELL.

And So It Is.

Here is the recipe for deskunking:

1 quart of hydrogen peroxide

1/4 cup baking soda

1 tsp of dish soap

mix together (add a qt of water for big dogs) and sponge (do not rub) onto the coat of the animal.  let sit for 5-7 minutes.  rinse off.  use rubber gloves when you apply this, as it can sting like crazy.  AVOID getting it in the eyes of the dog.  

Love and Hugs!

xoxoLC

Closer than Close

And now,

after all these words

what really matters

contentment?  happiness?  Love.  

Contentment, happiness, love:  Like in feeling calmly filled-up, like after a busy day of watching the dog watch the chicks peck and chirpy-chirpy in their box.

What really matters?  That I was true.  That I am True.  That I do not cover up one shred of my passion, or my desire to love you.  That I always, in some way or another, get a little closer to accepting all the colors in the crayon box, that when I inhale their scent, I inhale their essence without separating them.

What really matters?  Laughter, like when we discover a whole neighborhood and my dad, all safe in their drawers at Sunset Memorial.

And after all these words, I feel a little fragmented, a little sobered, to find that even these words have no ability to extend this experience of Now.

And the words still matter to me, like the leaves of the bean tightly packaged in the cotyledon waiting to sprout and climb the trellis that stretches above them.

After all these words what really matters are all of these words.

xoxoxoxLC