That sunset above happened on Friday the thirteenth. I'd readied the camera for sightings of the full moon. Laura had told me the last time the full moon happened on a Friday the thirteenth was seventeen years ago. Well, after grabbing the sunset, I got rather lazy, and took no more pictures.

I did not know, on that gray and rainy day, I would never see him again. But six years later, he died of lung cancer. I can no longer communicate with him. But this picture now reveals formerly hidden details about my Dad. I gasped with shock when I saw how sad he looks. Was he filled with regret for the past? He'd let his wife Nancy throw me out of the house when I was twenty two, just before I finished college. Nancy had blamed me for their marital difficulties, so one day she called home and told me to get out. Dad knew I wasn't to blame, but was rather helpless to do anything about it.

Ever after that, there was a bit of strain in our relationship. We just didn't talk as freely as we'd used to. But on that rainy day, when I hugged him goodbye, he told me he wished he could do what I was doing. He would have liked to leave the situation in which he'd felt trapped. He hadn't even wanted to marry Nancy. He'd told me, on the day of his wedding to Nancy, that it felt more like a funeral. This woman pushed him into it, by using fear and guilt inducing tactics. For instance, she'd often threaten suicide to get her way. Why did Dad LET this woman have so much power? Why didn't he just stand up to her? That is one thing we'll never know. But now, thanks to this picture, I understand just how unhappy he was. The agonies of regret must have ate at him constantly. Understanding this now allows me to forgive him more deeply for those things he couldn't do.

Could he have had a feminine side, which caused him to seek out strong women? My Mother has always said she felt stronger than him, but she is not a controlling woman. When Dad wasn't happy, he freely left her. Nancy, however, was the epitome of controlling women. Dad couldn't take two steps without her telling him how and when.

But that is all over now. There only remains this deeper understanding. It's as if a bit of him had been caught in that picture, waiting to tell me at a later date. I forgive you, Daddy, I do. I know how hard it was for you. I forgive you.

Before the light went out, I did get to hear most of a new double album set I'd bought earlier, Song Of The Green Linnet, and create the above mandala doodle. I'm not one to believe in the mystical effects of mandala creation, as I've had to have any enlightenment while doing one. But they are fun to do and they do relax me. That's enough.

I've had need of relaxation lately. I've been a bit under the weather emotionally of late, and those rainy skies match my interior weather. I try to tell myself the troubling things are temporary. Either things will work out, or they won't. If they work out, then the mood will of course be temporary. If they don't, then I can get busy with putting it all behind me.

But weathering the storm isn't easy. I'm hanging in there, though, and know such times are really growth periods. It takes a bit of rain to make the flowers grow, I know.

The lady behind me was very chatty. By listening to the conversation she had with the man who accompanied her, I learned she'd spent twenty years in the newspaper business and now worked part time for a retirement community. She had previously attended a Southern Baptist church (couldn't she have found somewhere better?), but now was searching. The chaplain in her retirement community also didn't return. Her children live in Alaska. But apparently life in the tundra isn't all cold and nastiness. All residents of that region get sizeable yearly checks as payment for the oil line that streaks through that territory. She was a fount of information, she was, for all that chattiness. Let's see, what else did I learn about her? Oh, yes, this was the first year she'd stayed in Arizona year round, and spoke of the different perspective it gave her, than when she had returned each year in October to Arizona. In another topic of conversation, she advised vitamin B1 to protect against insect bites. I may try that, as bugs of unknown origin have been having a feast on my legs.

Well, it was a long wait, so she had a long time to chat! More surprising was an older man ahead of us. Whether as a protest against the wait or not, he'd lifted his polo shirt up above his head briefly. A scattering of tattooes decorated his back, the most prominent of which was the words OH SHIT in large capital letters. Laura was bold enough to inquire about it, and he said he'd spent some rough years in Vietnam with some tough compadres. Tough they were, for they survived the hell of war.

After we'd filled out our forms and finally inched up to the table where the nurse with gloved hands stood, I was surprised to have hardly felt the needle prick. They must be using skinnier needles these days. All that deep breathing and relaxing thoughts just before it hit me was almost unnecessary.

After we were done, we found Serena and Richard in the line behind us and said hello. Many people were far behind them, as the line snaked up and down all through the aisles. Glad to have it done for another year, we exited out into the cool, but sun brightened exterior.