"Changes in the Home Are Likely", "We Are All So Proud of Her"

May 14, 1999

"Sifting Through the Memories"

memories from 1965

The above image is of one of my pieces from the past. Laura, Shayna and I took to the shed to clean it out early this morning. We went through all the boxs of things we'd accumulated through out the years and made four piles: stuff to throw out, stuff to give to James, stuff to set aside for a garage sale, and stuff to keep. We have many things that were either given to us or we'd bought. Some of them are still good, even lovely, but we have no room for them. Someone else will be able to make use of them. But plenty of the items conjure cherished memories and were carefully brought back into the house. The little girl with the load of tulips is one of those items. I was around seven years old and I acquired it on one of my first excursions ever. Dad loved flowers and he wanted to see the tulip festival in Holland, Michigan that year. Mother didn't want to go, but I was eager. So Dad and I set off in an old rickety car for an adventure. I remember huge fields of tulips in every color possible. They were selling souvenirs and I liked this little girl, because then I could remember all those tulips when I looked at it.

Why, you may wonder, are we getting so industrious? We've just carried this stuff with us, move to move, around with us. We aren't moving, thank goodness! We've done Enough of that! But there are certainly domestic changes on the horizon. Shayna is joining our family, and the shed will be converted into a shelter for her cats! We aren't able to have even a portion of them inside with us, but this way she will be able to have them near and tend to them. We will create a fenced in cat run so they have roaming room, as well. The astrology forecast amused me. On the very day we all came to this decision it read "Changes in the home are likely--anything from different people coming and going, to rearranging the furniture, altering hours for meals, bedtimes for kids, etc." Change is one of life's constants.

All gone the disappearing fog over the wide expanse of mind. A little now do you realize just how wider still remains. These regions await your tender feet, fresh grassy areas beckon. The dawn comes soon, of an even clearer day. JAL, 5-14-99

May 15, 1999

"I'm just multi-'lingual'!"

6:30am - sliced banana with milk and sugar, piece flatbread with honey, iced tea

A wee bit of crowing in the morning! I had a happy surprise to find a mention in Al Schroeder's Nova Note of May 13th! He called Weighty Matters 'delightful'! Purr!!! Hmm-m, purring is what a contented cat does! I'm just multi-'lingual'!

Work on the shed continues a pace. We got the rest of the actual objects out this morning. Next we must clean floors and walls. The project isn't going to take long at this rate.

6:30pm - rice pilaf, bowtie noodle and cucumber salad, smaller bowtie pasta salad with feta cheese, pickled beets, hamburger on bun with trimmings, large piece of cherry turnover, tiny piece of carrot cake, chocolate brownie - potluck at the arboretum! Sky watching afterwards.

May 16, 1999

"That Didn't Stop Me From Trying"

Oh, wee, am I tired! We did a lot of work on the shed. After a bath, I crashed. I almost didn't go to the sky watching potluck. But I hated the thought of missing out on something fun.

It was kind of dark to be taking pictures, but that didn't stop me from trying.

~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~

John Bailey, one of my favorite on line journallers and poets, is taking some time off to pursue a book contract about his "time in Wales living with two cats, a bottomless cake-tin and a never-empty coffee-pot. " I'll miss his daily offerings, but congratulate him on this great success, so well deserved.

May 17, 1999

"The Fragrance of Good Works"

I got up early to do some more scraping of flaky paint off the shed walls. I did about maybe an hour and a half of it, if even that much, and I feel exhausted. It's so frustrating. I spent all day yesterday recovering from Saturday's labor. It makes me feel OLD and I don't like it.

Learning patience with myself isn't always easy. But I'm working on it. Still at 9:59am, I've done a load of wash, the wall scraping, one load of towels is in the dryer, and one is in the washer. That's not too bad for this time of day.

While surfing the web this morning, I found this Thought of the Day. It has a pleasing 'perfume' to my soul.

~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~

The scent of sandalwood, lilies and jasmine cannot travel against the wind, but the fragrance of good works travels in all directions, even to the ends of the earth.

The Dhammapada

There are so many things that can be called 'good works'. Just the daily doings help the world to be a better place. Even if it's just keeping your small section of it from being inundated in filth, that's one small section of the world that's better for your actions. Every thing counts.

When we get this shed and cat run finished, we'll have cats, the number of which is too embarrassingly high to mention, that will be grateful. Shayna would have found new owners for some of them, but unfortunately a certain number of the cats have been infected with a disease to which only cats are vulnerable. The prognosis is 1/3 of this group of cats will get it and die, 1/3 will not contract this disease but be carriers for it, and 1/3 will remain healthy, being neither infected nor carriers. Only expensive tests can determine which cat has it. Thus, none of these cats are adoptable. The humane society would just put down any such cat brought into them. So this way they'll live out their days as long as each is able to do with reasonable comfort.

May 18, 1999

"Adventures in Tucson"

Laura has a doctor's appointment, so Laura and I are headed to Tucson today. Tucson's still my favorite town, with so many memories of our early days there, first Laura and I for seven years, and then later when Julia joined us in 1994. It always will feel like 'home'. I'll take the camera, just in case something catches my eye.

Talk to you all later. . .

~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~ I had a novel snack en route. A Ben & Jerry's 'Phish Stick' - all in the form of a fish - is chocolate ice cream mixed with marshmellow and caramel with a dark chocolate coating. Both of us were so sleepy travelling, we stopped for some 'junk food' to wake us up. As 'junk food' goes, this was pretty tasty.

While we were at the doctor's office, I took advantage of the many National Geographic magazines supplied to help keep patients 'patiently' waiting. This magazine features fantastic photographs. One of a bug eyed fish intrigued me, and I wondered how my camera would do taking a photo of a photo. After bringing up the brightness of the midtones and highlights, it seems to do better than our ancient scanner. About the time I finished reading an article about Denmark, written by Garrison Keillor, Laura emerged from the doctor visit, armed with a couple packages of pills to ease her rib troubles. Her recent fall injured a muscle, and thus it's gotten sorer with her labors. The muscle relaxant should help.

 

A Boston Market is quite near the doctor's office. Fortunately they have other things than chicken for entrées, so I had ham, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, cornbread, and iced tea/lemonade mix.

 
Next we went on to the Food Co-op, where they sell various mostly organic items in bulk. Fill your baggies with as much as you want, write the number of the item on the twisty tag, and fill your shopping cart.

We bought raw pecans, dark chocolate covered peanuts (they were out of chocolate covered almonds), some pumpkin seeds for Shayna, black bean lentil soup mix, polenta mix, trail mix with carob chips, tabouli mix, hummus mix, falafel mix and some granola with pumpkin seeds.

These colorful, fresh veggies also tempted, but we declined this time. I'm wishing we hadn't. I can eat a good tomato whole.

 

I'm a bit shy to say where we shopped next. The store's title "Adult Expectations" may give you some idea. I must say I was a little more sophisticated than my last visit there, many years ago, however. The vast array of 'pleasure devices' in every color of the rainbow made me blush beet red back then. Now I was mostly amused. Although I did express skepticism that one particular tool, a full two feet (60cm) in length, could have been used for anything other than a joke. Laura, who is more knowledgeable in such matters, assured me it could and would.

There wasn't much we could do to top this exciting stop, so we headed on back home. Other adventures may await nearer to home!

May 19, 1999

"I'm Cheap and I Like the Challenge"

I'd tried something different for yesterday's picture and text coding. It turns out some people with ancient monitors haven't been able to see the text when I combine it with a picture side by side, for part of the text gets obscured by the picture. Their monitors are set to less than 800 pixels wide. So I had to try another method. I was so proud of plan number one, for I'd conceived of the whole thing myself. Plan number two involved looking at someone else's page and their source code and doing likewise. The latter method works with ancient monitors. I suppose I could buy hundred of dollars worth of expensive books on web page design, and avoid all these pitfalls. But I'm cheap and I like the challenge.

Shayna's still all sacked out. That's nothing odd for Shayna. But at 8:25am, so is Laura. This is highly irregular for Laura. She told me before she headed back to bed this morning, she's swearing off booze again. It loosens her tongue too much. She WAS going to go to bed at 9:00pm. At a little after nine, I had made my way towards bed readiness. Laura, who was into the second glass of wine, said, oh, she'd be to bed at ten o'clock. I'm not sure what time she finally made it to bed. For the original glass of wine led to another and another, with ever increasingly verbosity as a result. Laura and Shayna yakked a good portion of the night. Which is really hard on Laura's health. So now Laura's off the sauce. This is, of course, until she forgets how she is on the sauce, and goes back at it again.

It's just another average morning here at the 'odd quad's house 'o fun'. Talk to you all later.

P.S. You might the tales and quotes at Mitch -- The Cat Who Makes Me Stupid amusing.

May 20, 1999

"Just How Wider"

I began the day hunting through clip art CDs hoping to illustrate a new poem that isn't yet up on the web. Broderbund has a program with sixteen CDs filled with 'Click Art'. I'm not yet certain how I'll illustrate the new poem, but I did find a copyright free image I played with for the poem I wrote earlier this week. It's now called Just How Wider. I had a small doubt about the image I used, for the first line of the poem says "All gone now the disappearing fog . . .", yet the fog in the illustration is NOT all gone. But that serves the poem's point. What seems "all gone" compared to an earlier state of haze isn't REALLY "all gone".

May 21, 1999

"We are all so proud of her"

What a busy morning I've had! One load of wash all done, except for ironing a few items, trash is out. I picked up the back yard trash as well. They are going through bags of concrete like crasy, in the construction of the cat area, and all those bags littered the yard terribly. I straightened up the living room some. In this time of transistion, things are messier than usual, and it was getting to me. But all this is boring, boring, BORING, isn't it?

And I do have more interesting things to talk about! Last night Shayna received her GED certificate. They held a nice ceremony for the thirty two graduates at Central Arizona College, the local college that has this program. I learned some interesting facts about the high school Graduation Equivalency Diploma. Over fifty percent of those who graduate from high school the ordinary way could not pass the tests the GED requires. Many renowned people dropped out of high school and later got the GED. One notable person who I can recall this morning, after the various speeches, is Dave Thomas, the CEO of Wendy's fast food restaurants. That's a very successful restaurant because the well chosen variety of food they serve. So, besides being there to give Shayna support, I learned a few things.

All who were there last night came away more knowledgeable. Three of the graduates had been invited to give a short speech, and we learned what this program has meant to them, in their life struggles. Shayna was one of the three, and her speech was especially revealing. I'm sharing it with you all, for the insights it gives into life, and the things she's had to deal with. We are all so proud of her, for she's truly come a long way.

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