Thursday, June 28, 2012

Blooms and Blinders

196 - the number of simultaneous blooms on my Easter lilies these past few weeks - a veritable platoon of white trumpets atop green stalks.

17 - the number of days those blooms lasted. And for those seventeen days, the backyard was rich with fragrant smells, each breeze carrying a fresh blast nearly sweet enough to make my teeth hurt.

348 - the number of days of forlorn I have to endure until the lilies bloom again.

It occurs to me it is all to easy to look at life in general as I have described the lily cycle. Weeks, even months, of routine punctuated by brief periods of special reward. That reward could be a vacation to a favorite place, a visit from a special relative, a day at a spa - or the blooming of a favorite flower.

So often we are so busy anticipating precious moments that we forget to bask in spontaneous gifts - a star-filled sky, a cooling evening breeze, a particularly well cooked meal.

In truth, if you think about it, life offers just as many precious moments as it does days of routine. The trick is to prevent routine from becoming a blinder.

With that in mind, I will move past the forlorn I feel at the falling of the lily blooms and turn my attention to the gladiolas that are just beginning to break out in flower.


Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Plant ESP

I know now the plant that used to hang in the window of my home office has ESP.

For weeks I had suspected the plant was at least sentinent.  Though I couldn't imagine what the source of distress could be, I would find tears dripping from the tips of the leaves on the plant.

It happened mostly in the morning.  I would turn on the light, find drops of moisture beading up on the table beneath the plant, then watch as the tears formed and dropped one after another.

I know now that the plant could see what the future held for it.

Last week Motivated Mom said it was time to move the plant outdoors for the summer.  I diligently followed her instruction.What the instructions didn't include was that the plant should be in partial shade.

I thoughtfully placed the plant on the back deck where it would receive gobs of sunlight - and did so on one of those days when the temperature soared to 98 degrees.

What remains of the once lustorous plant is now a series of dried vines.

....If only I had known why the plant had been crying.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Rousing Thunder

Lightning to the left of me, lightning to the right. Overhead thunder rolls across the sky. Beneath me the ground trembles.  All around me the rain swirls in.....oh, oh... circles.

It's happened not once or twice - but three times in as may days.  Mother nature has been flexing her muscles right and left - sending a tornado through a nearby community and spinning a waterspout out of the ocean.

Power has gone out, neighborhoods have been evacuated, and streets have flooded.  Any signs of the earlier near-drought conditions are now long gone with ponds and streams running over their banks.

Our property has fared reasonably well - though the screen room in our back yard definitely took a beating.  I'll be practicing my weaving and sewing skills for several days to come.

Still.... there's a something about a rousing good thunderstorm

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Beyond the Bend

I steered the kayak around the bend in the stream...and the world changed.

Gone were the waterfront homes with their private boat slips. Gone were the marinas managed by small communities.  Gone were the speed boats that navigated the wider sections of the body of water known as Herring Creek.

Here, where the creek began as a shallow and narrow stream, bulrush grew deep and thick on either side. Behind the rushes trees leaned precariously, their roots struggling to maintain purchase in the swampy ground.

Further upstream I ventured to where the creek narrowed still further. Here the water was shallow enough to see the murky bottom, a bottom littered with trees that had lost the battle with gravity. Weathered, bleached limbs broke the surface of the water - dead markers that suggested more death lay beyond.

From back in the thicker stands of trees ospreys screeched out warnings of intrusion, then took flight to circle and swoop overhead in an attempt to distract me from their nests. Stealthy creatures leapt into the water, leaving only ripples to show where they had been - and leaving me to imagine just what it was that might be approaching my small craft.

Then a bony fingered branch rising to just below the waters surface grabbed the bottom of my kayak, refusing me further entry into what was now little more than a dead and murky swamp. Something moved noisily through the rushes just an an oar's length away and I wondered if whatever it was meant to carry me to the silty bottom.

Pushing away from the submerged tree and turning back the way I had come, I refused to allow myself to paddle furiously. To do so would only invite further entanglement.  Instead I drifted with the current, using the paddle to steer between grayed stumps that seemed to have changed in position.

Gradually the creek widened and deepened. Gradually the sound of motor boats returned. Marinas and million dollar home came back into view. Yet I sensed that something watched me still from beyond the bend in the stream.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

2nd Most Wonderful Day

It's the second most wonderful day of the year - the start of summer.  And summer came in like, well....like summer.

With the mercury in thermometers nudging up against triple digits, classes of iced tea were sweating as profusely as the foreheads of the people who were guzzling the refreshment down.

Children were, for a change, lethargic - the only game worth playing being that of who can get to the swimming pool first.

Oldsters set folding chairs with basket weave seats under shade trees and reminisced on surviving past heat waves without the benefit of air conditioning.

Police were conspicuous in their absence from city street corners and construction workers worshiped the shade that even a single 2x4 provided.

Yes, it was a real scorcher - and the best part of all is that there's more summer to come.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Unfriendly Forest

The faded blue pickup truck had been sitting on the shoulder of the highway for over a week.  It sat on a stretch of road sided only by forest for miles in either direction.  And while the truck certainly wasn't showroom fresh,  neither was it a rust bucket that someone would want to simply walk away from.

All of which had me wondering about the owner of the truck.  Had be been accosted after his truck had broken down?  Had he stopped to respond to the call of nature and been skewered by the antlers of a deer? Had we wandered into the woods and gotten lost?

On one of my several trips past the truck I took the time to look into the forest.  The trees grew so closely together that the shadow of one merged with the shadows of a dozen others in the slanting afternoon sun. Though I was admittedly driving by at a pretty good clip, it seemed a person wouldn't have to go more than twenty paces deep before one section of forest looked just like any other.

Was the pickup truck's owner in those trees even now hollering for help with no one able to hear?  Or had something loosed itself from those many shadows and taken the owner off to a nightmare world he had never dreamed existed.

At that last thought the forest took on a decidedly unfriendly feel. I pushed the accelerator closer to the floorboard.


Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Redhead Pain

There I was in the dentist chair getting my second mega-dose of Novocaine before allowing the dentist to drill out an old filling when the dentist asked.... were you a redhead as a child?

My affirmative nod brought an Ahhhhhhh from the dentist.

Ahhhh? I asked as soon as the silver hypodermic had been pulled from my mouth.

My dentist proceeded to explain how studies have shown that redheads have 30 percent more pain receptors than any other part of the population and require more anesthetic to deaden those receptors.

On my drive home I considered how the whole pain receptor thing goes far beyond the dentist chair.

Redheads, mostly light complexioned, are far more prone to sunburn. Once beet red, those same redheads have an extra heaping helping of pain receptors to carry that sunburn pain to the brain.

Life just isn't fair sometimes.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Umbrella Approach

I had taken a book to the beach, but confess I ended up doing very little reading.  My attention was captured by the varied approaches to setting a beach umbrella.

There's the cocktail approach - where the designated umbrella handler stabs the point of the umbrella pole into the sand much as cubes of meat and cheese are poked by a toothpick.  I was fascinated that someone actually expected the umbrella to remain upright after being thrown into the sand like a dart.

Then I watched the mountain approach. Here the umbrella handler wiggles the pole a full five inches into the sand before piling an additional five inch mountain of sand around the pole in the hopes of creating stability.

As proven by Saturday's high winds, neither of the above methods are favorable when wind speeds top 15 mph.  I was privileged to witness some truly impressive acrobatic feats as beach goers leaped and pirouetted over neighboring beach chairs and blankets in an attempt to capture airborne umbrellas. Watching one slight woman struggle with an umbrella as wide as she was tall it occurred to me that Disney is about due for a remake of Mary Poppins.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Hypnotic Beginning

The bed of coals that pulsed beneath the flickering flames of the fire lured us into immobility as surely as a pocket watch swinging from the fingers of a hypnotist.

Motivated Mom and I sat side by side on the back patio, speaking no words yet saying everything as we watched the fire dance in the chiminea. 

When at last the wood had all burned to ash we stared up at the star-filled sky in a wonderment more commonly embraced by children who still hold magic in as much revere as science.

In this intimate moment I felt Saturday slip into Sunday and knew Father's Day could not have begun on a better note.


Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Fresh Breath

I think I understand where the phrase breath of fresh air originated.  It was spurred by the stiff breezes that ride in on the tails of a weather front changing hot and humid air to cool and dry. A relief as welcome as jumping into a pool on a hot summer day.

The fresh air rushes toward us on winds that bend saplings, drive tumbleweeds, and fill the sails of boats. The same winds that cause sheets on clotheslines to snap and Venetian blinds behind open windows to rattle.

It is an air that promises a clean slate and an energy born from the dropping of baggage.  Truly a fresh breath.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Morse Rain

A seagull flew out of an eyebrow of morning sunlight. The narrow band of light, an arched brow between the last the remnants of night and a rolling bank of clouds, was morning's brave attempt at a bright day.

A day that was quickly claimed by a drizzle that grew into a steady rain with the approach of evening.

Now the rain drums on the roof - a Morse Code message calling occupants of the home to the warm comforts of bed and the bliss of drifting sleep.  It is to that sleep that I go now, to venture in worlds where the impossible is commonplace.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Little Gifts

A spur of the moment sleepover at a friends house...
That led to a sunrise drive up the coast...
That led to an early morning encounter with a bluebird...
A bird so rich in color that even the sky on a cloudless day will now seem less than blue.

These are the little gifts that give value to life.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Cacophony

The sounds, at first muffled and distant, grew in intensity as though a closed door had been opened granting access to commotion in an adjacent room.

Only the sounds intruding on my solitude would not have originated from any one room. Rhythmic pounding,  shrill whistles, pennants flapping, children shrieking, adults laughing, birds screeching - I struggled to make sense of what I was hearing.

The drone of an engine cut through all of the other sounds - growing in intensity until I feared I might be directly in the path of whatever was approaching.

It was a series of thundering booms that finally gave me the impetus to shrug off my lethargy, push myself upright....and realize I was waking from a nap on the beach.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

High Octane

The sign stood at the curbside - directly between two businesses - and read:  High Octane Gas.

To one side of the sign was an auto supply store, to the other was a restaurant.

Which had me wondering just what was on the restaurant's menu.  If the weekly specials included things like cabbage, baked beans, and the like... well that sign just might belong to the restaurant rather than the seemingly obvious auto supply place.

Or perhaps the same guy owns both businesses and is advertising one way or another customers can leave with a load of high octane.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Invasion Mobilization

I think we have it all wrong.  We should not be deploying our strategic defenses along the southern border...nor we should we be shipping troops overseas.  It's obvious to me the next attack on our country is coming from.... the golf courses along the east coast.

For the past few days tractor trailer after tractor trailer loaded with golf carts has been heading down the major thoroughfare in the state.  I'm not talking flat bed trailers either, but double-decker rigs similar to what new cars are transported on. Only instead of maybe a dozen cars, each tractor trailer carries twenty-plus golf carts.

Multiply twenty golf carts by dozens of tractor trailers and suddenly you have... an invasion force.

While our armed forces are becoming proficient with rifles, undercover foreign agents across the country are sharpening their skills to be able to drive a golf ball into the back of an unsuspecting person's head from three hundred yards away.

Go ahead and laugh if you will, but when you see a fleet of battery powered vehicles driven by golf-club wielding attackers coming down your street you'll wish you had heeded my warning and stocked up on tennis rackets to return those incoming balls.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Unexpected Shower

You may have seen them in your travels, the irrigation systems used by farmers - hundreds of feet of pipe supported by what looks like a series of rolling erector sets. From the hundreds of feet of pipe spews hundreds of gallons of water to nourish the crops when mother nature isn't cooperating.  And you may have noticed the occasion when, as the moving water work swings near a highway that the water jets out across the roadway.

I can assure you the man in the BMW convertible noticed the jetting water.  Hemmed in on all sides by traffic, the driver had no choice but to endure the unexpected shower that dampened both him and the interior of his car. Windshield wipers on and shoulders pulled up to his ears, the suited driver did his best to look nonchalant as his hair went from fluffy to plastered flat to his head.

Perhaps in the future he'll keep an umbrella within reach when indulging in top down driving.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Lost Light

The trees grew so close together that not the slightest hint of the gray afternoon sky was visible beyond the leaf canopy.  Oak, birch, spruce, and pine formed a wall that seemed impenetrable from the neighboring field.

Unlike the more sparsely populated sections of neighboring forest that admitted patches of light, this particular stretch seemed ominous and threatening.  I sensed that anyone who pushed their way through the edge growth and into the midst of towering trunks would be lost for eternity.

I imagined gnarled roots and crooked branches entwining explorers foolish enough to enter this particular realm. Perhaps in this foreboding wood, the modern day equivalent of a rabbit hole leading to another realm really did exist.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Ghost of Warmth

Lit from beneath by golden light, the leaves of the swaying trees might have been the embers of a dying fire. The heart of that fire was the lowering sun that flamed into view as it fell further beneath the leaf canopy and settled between tree trunks.  The round disk pulsed with energy, like a roaring furnace viewed through a cracked door.

Only the furnace, so far gone toward the horizon that it no longer offered heat sufficient to ward off the evening chill, left me glad for the sweatshirt that trapped my own body's heat. 

There in the early twilight I marveled that the sun which had just a few hours ago made bricks too hot to walk upon was now nothing more than the ghost of a promise of warmth.