chill, mitts, seed, car

 * The chill air at night pushes me to find my winter pajamas to wear. Smoke in the city has drifted away finally and the day temperature has a coolness to it. Ah! I have finally accomplished my high school speech teacher's forecast for me. A weather girl.

* I begin mitts for winter, figuring out a pattern as I proceed.

* I sit in my car watching chickadees prying seeds off of the dried sunflower heads which droop on the kapakahi stocks. The bird feeders (greatly missed  at sunset) got put away because they attract marauding raccoons. Last summer a peek out the window at one am would give me a display of raccoon families raiding the birdseed. "Come on, Pa, let's pause the movie and get a snack." So now the sunflowers offer dinnertime for chickadees as I sit in my car in the driveway watching them. My little car must think it queer I sit head back to gaze at chittering chickadees. Actually, I quite often stay in my car after I have navigated the driveway and switched off the motor. Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits. To escape the roving bands of beasts in the house I often eat fast food in my driveway parked car. They are curious that my hands quite often smell of grease. I read the other day that the use of 'quite' is a Britishism so I have begun incorporating its use into my writings. But for now I am quite tired so where did I put those winter pajamas.....

* A visiting son told me that he always knew when my husband and I were intensely discussing a topic of disagreement because we would be out in the car in the driveway together. I cannot recall what topics led us to go out there but now I wonder where couples went before cars were available. The barn? The root cellar? The south forty? Envisioning the possibilities for semi-clandestine disagreements will keep me up all night.

fun, pause, miners, pockets

* Underestimate me. That will be fun. 

* Hummingbirds in the penstemon. The tears drip down my cheeks.

* Miners live in this house...periodic crunching and chipping away at the ice in the freezer. No ice maker.

* Daily finding the pockets of coolness to do yardwork. Oh! Glory! I feel more me.

Tidied up the rings around trees yesterday, planted, dug a hole, transplanted. Life is normal and satisfying in the garden.

Eyams, friends, domino, lump

 * In Eyams, England, lived chroniclers of the Black Plague. Today there is a Plague museum but "Our present pandemic has prevented the annual Plague Parade and Well Dressing this year...". So in 100 years will they have a Pandemic Parade or will they just incorporate it into the Plague Parade? (I had to research 'well dressing'.)

* 'Friends of the Friendless Churches'

* I love the domino effect of researching one word which leads me to curiosity about other words (thus, more research). Ditto with people, which produces an even more convoluted web of inquiry.

* Influencing people to laugh and journey out of their miasma of discontent is lump-in-the-throat satisfying.

Gorky, Phil, safe, Olten, dog

* 'Without Gorky' Dates, times, evil, decimation all become more real when told through an individual's life. I sink into relief at the stark truth, long not admitted by a country whose name begins with a 'T', that, yes, yes, this happened.

* 'Somebody Feed Phil' The face timing with his parents at the end of each episode which incorporates them into what he is experiencing. Phil travels with good humor, without the edgy malice of Tony.

* Learning of trusted safe places, friends, extended family that women have retreated to.

* I am moving to Olten, Switzerland. Fine cocoa powder exhausted through the ventilation system of a chocolate factory, covering the town. I will stand outside with my open mouth tilted skyward as I did as a child in a snowfall.

* The black fluffy dog follows me to rooms: "How long will she stay here? Shall I get comfortable?"

 

opiate, awol, Jack, Julia

 * Somewhere in my periphery, conventions are doing. I cannot find the energy to care about those opiates of the masses.

* Golly! The illusive duster is AWOL. In order to combat the squalor I must seek the fluffy thing. Not today.

* Jack's father was a famous footie. Jack's father beat his wife. Everyone idolized Jack's father. Only Jack knew who his father beat. How can Jack live with the lie? All in Oz.

* An unnamed theme song floated  around in my head for weeks without I could put a name to it. The shadow of the name drifted through my days until ach! Being Julia.

rice, water, rain

 * The huge rice-to-be cooked storage bins, the enormous rice cookers in Japanese movies. Just cooked some basmati and the aroma!

* A deep pitcher of cold water. I do not bother about getting a glass, just glug from the pitcher.

* Finally, at last, rain comes in huge blobs. The wipers remember their job. 

Cranford, summer, bench

 * Nipping into Cranford again, always an enjoyable trip. I appreciate Gaskell much more than Austen.

* Late summer has truly arrived. Gardens are crunchy with drought. I can taste the smoke filled air when I go outside. I like campfires so this is not a hardship for me and it seems the beginnings of the fire at higher elevation gave animal owners enough time to move their livestock. "To hell with the house! Let's get the horses and llamas out of here!" has been heard.

* I moved a lime green bench to another location in the back. Now it peeps out through the lilac bushes. At this time of year my organization of the back depends on how I think something will look in the snow.

warm spots, pool, sunflowers

 * However hot the air in the house (I decided to skip replacing the AC this year), the floor is always cool, almost cold. So when I walk into a room and onto a hot or warm patch =Yipes! what is going on here? and all sorts of catastrophes swirl around in my head. Minutes later I figure out that one of the dogs has been sleeping there, creating a warm spot. And I relax back into my 'thinking of other things' mindedness.

* I began to swim when young. I did not use the word 'learn' there because the scenario was:"Here's the pool. There is no lifeguard. Have fun. Come home when you want food." On the inevitable school days I made sure my gills were hidden from view. I was a solitary swimmer, solitary person. The reason I mention all this is that what too often is happening with me nowadays reminds me of that first time I thrust down to touch the bottom at the deep end of the pool, having  tossed a shiny stone to the depths as incentive. Thrusting down was the easy part. On the upward trek I fought the weight of the water, ear pressure, lung bursting possibilities, a knowledge that I was in this upward scramble alone. Nowadays it seems the same. I am alone in the pool of life (did I really write that?), a solitary person pushing aside the forces of an insane world, nagging tapes of the past, caught in a Stephen King scenario all to a discordant sound track. The gem of this paragraph (and truly there is one)is that the "Here's the pool..", "This is a bike, figure it out yourself", "These are roller skates + the metal key.", "A sewing machine!",  solo figuring out the contortions of using yarn and needles chalked up successes which enable me to persevere now, at this time, in this indescribably challenging, as one of my favorite movie titles says,'...Mad...World'. That is the gem, the shinning glimmer.

* Better to describe the changing days minutely rather than broadly label as summer, etc. This is the time of sunflowers. Majestic, sturdy, bee attracting, prickly stalked, drought resistant, proud, sunflowers.

visitor, bed, roses

* A visitor has gone and I wander the house and yard drained, unable to focus on any of the to-do's glaring at me. Giving up, I plop onto the bed to lie and watch the light flicker through the blue sheet curtains. A variety of blues.

* What's with this tidying and making up of beds in the morning? House Beautiful will not suddenly burst into my home for a photo op.

* The last roses of summer.

McCoy, storms, pockets

* Subtitle of a book ='the surreal McCoy'.

* If people are moored shallowly then storms wreck them.
   J Peterson

* The Pocket. Published in England, it does not discuss pockets in the Colonies. I am sure ladies wore pockets in the Colonies but to hear about it I call upon a local expert.Yes! The Pocket  informs me about what ladies, women, kept in their pockets  which is as fascinating as the pockets themselves.

brag, escaped, driving

* Not to brag or anything but I can forget what I am doing while I am doing it.

* I hope wherever my socks have gone they are happy. The bra ran away months ago.

* For me, driving is such a contemplative time (though not so much in horrid traffic) when I calm myself and iron out the major, big, cataclysmic offerings my present world is giving to me on a dented platter. Somedays I want to run away on a many week road trip so I can really set things straight. Today a jaunt to the post office had to suffice.  I have recently been analyzing why I still rent the post office box in another town ten miles away. The rent increases every year and now is due in September.  It has been mine since 1989. Many times under threat of closing, this small PO has plodded on, displaying the same inside decor, a yellow plastic 50's wall covering. Workers  wear thread bare plaid flannel shirts except when they know a big boss is coming at which time they hunt around for the official shirts kept wadded up under the front counter.  The exterior was caulked and repainted two years ago, three years after a big hail (tennis ball size) storm tore and gouged into it. Traffic flow is a nightmare in the parking lot so to visit during open business hours is iffy. I could have used the word 'problematic' there but that word dissolves me into the giggles for some reason. Are there words that do that to you? The wife of the parson down the street does the cleaning. The air is so quiet as I sit in the scary parking lot-- only the deep octave cattle sounds and the gentle swish of the dinosaur shaped field sprinkler exist. The canyon begins just west of the PO. I will keep the box. I will tell you how much the rent increases this year.