Catching Up...Again

I finally made it to Mendocino



on a clear day so here is the "money shot" of the little village of 824 souls, taken from across the bay or inlet or whatever. (I've discovered that you can only enlarge these photos if I put them into the post in the "medium" size rather than "large," so that's what I will do from now on. Click to enlarge.)

And then there's the Point Cabrillo Light Station that I also mentioned last time. I stopped by on my way out of town. It is a lovely little spot but the half-mile walk from the parking lot was a bit trying (I wasn't wearing the right shoes), especially on the uphill return trip.


There are so many more photos to share that I will put them into a slide show in the right sidebar for your leisurely perusal. Stop the slide show (click on any picture) to read the captions if you want to know what you're seeing.

Besides my overnight stop at Salt Point State Park, I also made a side trip to Point Reyes National Seashore. There's another lighthouse there but it was closed, so I took a one-mile hike to see the Tule Elk. It's mating season and the bucks are gathering their harems. I could hear them calling somewhere off in the fog. Yes, of course it was foggy way out on Point Tomales, but it lent an air of mystery to my sighting of a dozen does with their lord and master.

Today I am recuperating from the l-o-n-g (in hours) 186-mile journey from Fort Bragg and Point Cabrillo up in the redwood country, south on Hwy. 1 with its twists and turns, and on into Oakland, known far and wide as the Bay Area, arriving after dark last night (after missing my exit on the Nimitz Freeway--sheesh!).

I'm parked on the street, near the home of two wonderful women friends of my new Seattle friend, Fai. I'm not hooked up but they have really fast wireless internet, so I am currently ensconced on their sofa with two dogs and several cats for company. And they serve great desserts so I am happy as a new puppy in fresh-cut grass.

Plans are to head for Sacramento on Sept. 3 to get that souvenir capitol city postcard, then push on the same day to Lake Tahoe, where I have actually reserved a campsite! Can you believe it? Two days in the "wilderness." I spent one night in a state park on the way here and will include some bird photos in the slide show. The western equivalent of the eastern Bluejay, the Steller's Jay, is a lovely large bird. Bird fact: there are no Cardinals in this part of the country. I miss them!

It's already nearing 5 pm, so I'm going to post those photos, which it took most of the day to organize, and you may be able to see them tomorrow.

Here's a short traveling poem for you.

The Longest Mile

When next I travel the Shoreline Highway
I'm going to hire a chaffeur.
'Twas lovely to wander that beautiful byway
But I really needed a go-fer.

August 27, 2009
Oakland, California

TTFN...

My Special Day

Well, I didn't make it to Mendocino. I had all the hatches battened down, so to speak, and was ready to drive off when I remembered that Marilou had said she was leaving for San Francisco around 5 p.m. Since it was already 3 p.m. and we still hadn't gone over the pet feeding instructions, I hung around. When she left I turned on the TV and hunkered down for the rest of the evening.

Fortunately, there are only 65 stations to choose from (how did we ever survive with just NBC, CBS, ABC and sometimes PBS?), and TCM is not one of them, so it was pretty easy to run through the channels and decide that there wasn't anything worth watching. I can take just so much MSNBC or CNN before the ills of the nation and the world become too much to bear. In the past, I would have soldiered through (no pun intended) so that I could say I was up to date on current events. Now I don't care. The thing that I do to make the world a better place is to be conscious as much as possible, and I don't need Rachel Maddow for that (although I can think of a couple things she could help me with).

Yesterday I made the Pillsbury Bake-Off chicken recipe but I have to say I was underwhelmed. It needed something: salt for starters, and maybe red wine. I think I'll try it with breasts instead of thighs, and more almonds--more of everything, in fact.

Today is my birthday, did I tell you? It's Mae West's, too. My favorite MW quote: "Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before." My brother Steve video-called me a while ago from Flagstaff with his impersonation of Elvis singing Happy Birthday (always a hit), right after my State Farm Insurance agent's assistant called to wish me happy birthday and remind me that I might need to renew my driver's license (I don't). I got an e-card from the woman I've been emailing through Compatible Partners (e-Harmony's LGBT off-shoot) and with whom I will have a first phone conversation at 1 pm today (some anxiety about that).

Here's a naughty birthday limerick for you (you need to be a TV-watcher of a certain age in order to "get it").

Lila’s Birthday

The day Lila turned sixty-two
She said, “What the heck should I do?
Like that Timex, I'm tickin’
But where is the lickin’?
I’ll find a new lover! But who?”

August 17, 2009
Fort Bragg, California

What do you think of that, Carolita?

Go Pick Some Berries

Did I mention that my host, Marilou, lives in a redwood forest? I might have shown you a photo or two. I took more today. And I learned a bit from Marilou about these gigantic Sequoias. The specimens in her yard are not as big as the ones in the national forest, but they impress the heck out of little ol' me.



And it's berry-picking time! We've picked blackberries and thimbleberries and blueberries until I am about picked out. I'm ready for the cobbler.

This is Marilou, sister of my good friend Kali, in Asheville.

Picking Berries

What’s a thimbleberry, I ask?
There, she says, the bright red one.
I reach
Grab too hard
It disintegrates into a bloody pulp
Brighter
Sweeter than blood
But just as pleasing.
Tastes like Lik-M-Aid, she says,
That we used to eat as a kid?
Oh yeah…
But I don’t tell her how
My friend Betty and I
Used to steal it from the corner grocery,
Slip the little flat packets
Down the front of our shorts
And walk out.
Later up in my bedroom,
We took off our training bras
And took turns
Pretending to be the man,
Our bright pink Lik-M-Aid
Lips and tongues
Encircling each other’s
Thimbles.

August 9, 2009
Fort Bragg, California

This is view from my window. So lush. So green. So cool. So peaceful.

123456789

Today I got a Facebook message from my friend Corina in the UK who is proclaiming today as 12:34:56 7/8/9 Day. That's the way they see it across the pond. Unfortunately, for us Yanks it was last month, so I missed it. Shouldn't there have been a party or something? Oh well, we'll have another one next millenium. I hope I get a heads up next time. How about a poem to celebrate.

12:34:56 7/8/9 Day

Well
What can
You expect from
People who drive on
The wrong side of the
Road, and call the trunk the
Boot, and call the hood the bonnet?
Sour grapes really. I have always wanted a
Queen. Love the hats, love the name: Her Majesty

August 7, 2009
Fort Bragg, California

Happy 123456789 Day, Your Majesty!

Another Lazy Day

Oh dear, it's been two whole days without a word from me. However did you survive? This is what happens when I get off the road and settle in one place for a few days. It's not as if I were so busy that I didn't have time to write. I just get lazy.

Here are some items I saved for just such an occasion. Then perhaps I'll try a little poem. No more sonnets for a while. The last one gave me a headache.

July 24 was the birthday of Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott and a darn good writer herself. She ended up in a mental hospital in Asheville and was killed in a fire there at the age of 47. She said:

I just lump everything in a great heap which I have labeled "the past," and, having thus emptied this deep reservoir that was once myself, I am ready to continue.

(How very wise of her to empty her "past" reservoir.)

She also said:
We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising. I still believe that one can learn to play the piano by mail and that mud will give you a perfect complexion.

(It's advertising that's got us into the mess we're in. They're very clever at getting us to buy things we don't really need, so that we have to make more and more money in order to have more and more things. Someone said on public radio yesterday that the two main causes of the economic crisis were fear--because the people who saw what was happening feared for their security if they blew the whistle--and greed, obviously.)

July 29 was the birthday of the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, an astute observer of America and Americans, who had a lot to say about us back in 1835 in a book entitled Democracy in America. He said:
An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on; he will plant a garden and rent it just as the trees are coming into bearing … he will take up a profession and leave it, settle in one place and soon go off elsewhere.

(He got it right, don't you think? Funny, I thought everyone, everywhere did that. Maybe we're more special than I realized, at least we were in 1835.)

I'm going to take the dog for a walk and perhaps I'll get inspired to continue this drivel in a more interesting vein. TTFN...



The most inspiring thing I saw on my walk today was this statue of Quan Yin in a neighbor's yard. I had seen a Buddha of similar size in that yard on another day; this one was in such a lovely, shady spot I had to take her picture. Quan Yin is a female bodhisattva, one who is on the way to becoming a buddha.

The name Kuan Shih Yin, as she is often called, means literally the one who regards, looks on, or hears the sounds of the world. According to legend, Quan Yin was about to enter heaven when she paused on the threshold as the cries of the world reached her ears. Sacrificing her own ascension for the sake of her "children," Quan Yin stayed on earth, thereby exhibiting the same behavior of mothers everywhere who would sacrifice their very lives for their children.

Quan Yin's Statue

Crying all around
Suffering humanity
Little world at peace

August 3, 2009
Fort Bragg, California

PS: I keep forgetting to mention that I have removed the "register" requirement on the Comments box for those of you who have said you would leave a comment but don't want to register. It's always nice to find that someone is out there reading this stuff, even if you do it anonymously.

This and That

That is a banana slug.





This is a sonnet.


Sonnet for a Blog About Being Lila

Fourteen lines to rhapsodize about love,
Ten syllables in each line to move you,
Make you whimper, look to the stars above
For answers, and then sigh as lovers do.
Fiddle-dee-dee to all of that, and yet
Some find that love can be the sweetest thing
That humankind may know (and then forget),
If love’s object is right and true feeling
Takes away all doubt. I only know it’s
Hard to find my way through love’s bright meadow
Without stumbling and sometimes throwing fits.
I count to ten but still I stomp and bellow,
I am a happy single lesbian!
Oh dear, an ending rhyme now: thespian?


July 31, 2009
Fort Bragg, CA


This is better than that, don't you think?

America the Beautiful--and Canada, Too

Here's my Alaska poem.

State of Mind

Now I’ve been to Alaska
State of gold prospectors
(call them miners
but most mined only
stones and starvation)
State of claim jumpers who
Killed Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian
Carvers of the great totems—
Raven, Bear, Eagle, Frog, Beaver—
Signifying clan history
State of animal trappers
Hunting fur species to near extinction
To supply adornments
State of fishers
Taking from the mouths of natives
To feed their conquerors
State of mastodons and mammoths
Lying around making petroleum
Sucked out of the ground
Converted to disease, death and damnation
State of indescribable beauty
Humongous plots
Where no man
Will ever go
(thank God)
Where I feel like
A flea on the ear of a
Southbound hound
Hitching a ride
On a friendly whale
Don’t think
Just ride

July 17
Aboard the Norwegian Star

The chosen photos are in a slide show in the sidebar, including captions. They speak for themselves, and are best viewed at full size so, as a reminder, single click on the slide show to enlarge the photos. When the window opens click on the "full screen" button near the upper left corner, then move your cursor near the bottom of the screen to open the play menu and click on the "play" button (shaped like a sideways triangle). You can also choose the number of seconds for each shot to play, which you will want to do in order to read some of the longer captions. Or press the "pause" icon as needed. Press the X to stop, then the back button a couple times to return to this post. Good luck.

I'm still recuperating from my vacation (today I have a raging headache) so perhaps tomorrow I'll be able to give you the highlights of my trip. The short version: it was awesome!

Oh yeah, be sure the read the Peace Quote, also in the sidebar. It's better than my poem, and written by a 4th grader. Brilliant.

Big News

Here's that recipe I promised for Salsa Couscous Chicken, the Pillsbury Bake-Off Winner. If you like Mediterranean food--flavored with cumin, cinnamon, raisins and almonds--you'll love the way my friend Diane's friend Ellie made mexican salsa taste like it came from Morocco. In case you didn't know, the Pillsbury folks don't require that contestants use only traditional baking ingredients; in 1998, the year this recipe won the $1 million, Old El Paso Salsa was on the list of acceptable ingredients (I assume Pillsbury owns the company). It isn't on the 2009 list, but this year contestants can use certain Green Giant veggies, among other things. Bon appetit!

Now for the big news: I'm going on a cruise to Alaska! A woman on a local listserve put out a call for a stateroom-mate for a cruise leaving on July 11, a week from tomorrow. It's a cheap deal on a "family" cruise with Rosie O'Donnell: all inclusive for one week, $577. I couldn't drive up there for that! Now I can get a postcard of the Juneau capitol. Woo-hoo! Folks say being in Alaska is like being in a different country--or perhaps just a different time. I can't wait.

Closer to home, I've been organizing my photos and found a couple from Montana that are pretty special. See what you think.

This is the glacier for which the national park was named. There's a sign with pictures depicting how much it has shrunk.

These guys are the real deal, you just can't see the cows because I didn't get the shot in time.

I love the clouds in this photo, too.

Montana Song
Big sky country spring
Ice, earth, wind moving in time
In the car we sing

July 3, 2009
Seattle

First Yesterday, Then Today

As sometimes happens, yesterday I started writing a post that I didn't finish, so today I'll show you what I wrote yesterday, and then I'll write what I want to say today, which is actually based on something I read yesterday. Tomorrow I'll write something about tomorrow...maybe. Who's on first?

Before I go any further, I need to set the record straight (so to speak). I didn't provide a lot of details about my short stay in Edmonds because, as you may recall, I've taken a vow not to whine/complain/gossip, etc. But if I gave the impression that I was staying with Rick Steves, I need to disabuse you of that notion. I just dropped his name because Greg told me Mr. Steves lives in Edmonds, that's all. Now that we've cleared that up...

Last night (which was actually night before last, are you with me?) I had dinner with my charming new host, Diane, of the lovely garden. I brought to the feast a baking potato and fresh cherries, which are all the rage in Washington this time of year (cherries, that is, not potatoes). Diane provided leftover chicken thighs that she baked using the Pillsbury Bake-Off-million-dollar-prize-winning recipe, invented by a woman she knows! Here's the recipe:

(This is where I stopped yesterday because Diane wasn't home and I couldn't get the recipe. I just called the house to see if I could come in and get it now but the machine picked up so I still don't have it. But it's a good one and it's coming, I promise.)


So here's what I just wrote today:

Wednesday, July 1, 2009
What I want to share today is inspired, once again, by The Writer's Almanac by Garrison Keillor, for June 30, 2009, who writes:

"On this day in 1936 Margaret Mitchell's (books by this author) novel Gone With the Wind was first published.

"In 1920, Mitchell fell off a horse and suffered terrible injuries. She sort of recovered from the fall, but she kept reinjuring herself in different ways, and a few years later she had to quit her job as a reporter with The Atlanta Journal and stay in bed. Her husband, a newspaper editor, would go to the Atlanta library and bring her back piles of books to read so she could occupy herself while bedridden. One day, he came home and said, 'I have brought you all of the books that I think you can handle from the library. I wish you would write one yourself.'

"He then went out and got a Remington typewriter. When he presented it to his wife, Margaret, he said, 'Madam, I greet you on the beginning of a new career.' She asked him what she should write about, and her editor-husband gave her the famous 'Write what you know' line.

"So she wrote about Southern belles, and she expanded upon family stories and the stories she'd heard from Civil War veterans while she was growing up in Georgia. The one-bedroom apartment that she and her husband lived in was cramped, and she called it "The Dump." She would sit and write in every nook and corner of the tiny place, working in the bedroom or the kitchen or the hallway.

"She told almost no one except her husband that she was writing a novel. When friends came over to their place, which happened often, she'd hide the manuscript under the bed or the couch.
But one of her Atlanta friends, Lois Cole, had found chunks of the manuscript lying around that cramped apartment. Cole was now living in New York City and working in the publishing industry. Cole told her boss at Macmillan, Harold Latham, that her witty Southern friend 'might be concealing a literary treasure.'

"Latham went down to Atlanta to pay Margaret Mitchell a visit and ask her about the novel. Mitchell denied its existence. He spent the day with her, following along on outings with her friends, and asked about the novel again in a car full of her girlfriends. Mitchell changed the subject. But when Latham got out of the car, all of her friends in the car kept up the questioning. One friend was adamant that Mitchell was working on a novel, and asked why she hadn't shown it to Latham. Mitchell said that it was 'lousy' and that she was 'ashamed of it.' The friend goaded, 'Well, I dare say. Really, I wouldn't take you for the type to write a successful book. You don't take your life seriously enough to be a novelist.'

"That did it — Margaret Mitchell was furious and galvanized. She hurried back to her cramped apartment, grabbed the assorted piles of manuscript and shoved them into a suitcase, and drove it over to the hotel where Latham was staying. When stacked up vertically in one pile, the manuscript was 5 feet high. She delivered it to him in the lobby, saying, 'Take it before I change my mind.'

"It was published on this day in 1936, and immediately it was a sensation. Reports abound of people in Atlanta staying up all night to read Mitchell's novel that summer of 1936. It revitalized the publishing industry (italics mine). The next year, Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize. Her book was made into a movie starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, and when it had its premiere in Atlanta in 1939, Margaret Mitchell was there at the Loew's Grand Theater with the movie stars.

"The cramped apartment in which Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind is now the centerpiece of the Margaret Mitchell House in midtown Atlanta, which reopens this weekend after a long period of renovation. There are tours of the apartment, historical performances, and a museum devoted to her life and work."

Now that is a story about a writer who wasn't a writer until she wrote a Pulizer Prize-winner that, for some reason, does not intimidate me, probably because although I never read the book, I didn't particularly like the movie. It makes me think, geewhiz, if Gone With the Wind can be a prize winner surely I can write something as good as that. Well...I could if I wanted to! And if I did, I wouldn't tell you!

Here's a pithy little poem for you while you're waiting for my epic novel.

Tara Revisited

Margaret Mitchell stole a pickle
All on a summer’s day
When Margaret Mitchell ate the pickle
Here’s what she had to say:
As God is my witness,
I’ll never be hungry again!

July 1, 2009
Seattle

(And I suppose she wasn't, damn her eyes.)

Oh Those Lazy Days of Summer

I'm back in Seattle, in a neighborhood known as Columbia City, an older part of town than Madison Park, with little ethnic businesses and people who don't all look alike. I'm staying with my new friend Diane on top of a hill (but flat parking--woo-hoo) with a great view of the city and the Cascade Mountains. It's not a good day for a photo--kinda hazy--so I'll try tomorrow, although the temperature is predicted to be in the high 70s to low 80s so it is likely to be hazy again. I certainly can't complain about the weather. It's been glorious!

Today I took a walk through Diane's garden, which is indescribably delicious so you'll just have to look at the slideshow (sidebar). Then I walked down a really big hill (and back up--ugh) to scout out the local availability of a grocery store, etc. What luck: Safeway, Starbucks (and even better, Tully's Coffee Cafe, which has FREE WiFi), Walgreens, Hollywood Video, Taco Bell...everything a girl could want, including several ethnic restaurants and a tiny grocery store run by a beautiful dark-eyed, caramel-colored woman who would let me take her picture but wouldn't look at the camera.

Here's perhaps my favorite photo of Diane's garden (I love all the little tiny plants growing from cracks and crevices) and a poem that doesn't do it justice either.

Diane’s Garden: Act Two

Walk gently in June
In Diane’s later garden
Tip-toe along the path where
Perhaps
Tulips had bowed fresher cups
In homage to faded Daffodils in the pit
Great golden horns that trumpeted
A silent score
To herald the Awakening
And blasted sunbeams soon lilac-scented
Into spectrum shards that glaze the greens
(Act I following the Crocus Overture).
I arrive late due to a previous engagement
Feel my way between the rows
Excuse myself for stepping on toes
(Oh the Baby Tears they flow)
A tiny orb-weaving usher holds me
Behind a silken rope
While a hummingbird scolds me
From the box seats.
Sans playbill I can only guess
Names of players
The script I know
Characters great and small
Nodding pointing climbing creeping
Across an igneous stage
Wardrobe bright or fading
Buttons and bows
Flounces and frills
Everyone on cue now
Take a bow
Bravo!

June 29, 2009
Seattle

Dykes for Days

I attended the Seattle Dyke March in honor of Gay Pride yesterday. Woo-hoo! The weather was perfect and I met more great Seattle women through my connection with the Over 40s Lesbians group that meets every Tuesday evening. I'm not going to put up the pictures of naked breasts but there was plenty of T&A on full view. There were walkers of all ages and colors.


The nips were all covered with paint or pasties so it was all in fun and very "tasteful."


The Clothesline Project had a display that was very moving, as always. It's a program started on Cape Cod, MA, in 1990 as a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a shirt. They then hang the shirt on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence against women.




These women did a great Kung Fu demonstration wherein they tossed each other around and pretended to be kicking in knees and poking out eyes--all in self-defense, of course.

Nice banner, huh? I made it myself. A few of our group, including an 80-year-old and a 12-year-old on crutches (and me and my new friend Fai), walked about 8 blocks and then cut out to enjoy some great Mexican food. Now that's what I call marchin' smart. It reminded me of that Stella Artois ad they're playing during movie previews these days where the two Italian brothers in the bike race have a flat tire in front of the little restaurant and never finish the race, just like Papa.

And here's my poem to commemorate the day:

Dyke March

We made the signs
We joined the throng
Amazons
With bare breasts
In the Broadway wilderness
A too brief mingling
Joy
Laughter
Singing
Power
Women together
We told our stories
In the dark
An inner glow
Lighting my way
Home.

June 28, 2009
Seattle

Go To The Laundromat

I started this yesterday and ran out of time...

Sunday, June 21, 2009

According to one website, the Summer Solstice arrived at 10:45 p.m. last night for those of us living in the Pacific Daylight Time zone. But most folks will say it is today, and who's counting anyway? According to Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac, "One of the biggest destinations for the summer solstice is Stonehenge in England; today it is the place for New Agers such as neo-druids, neo-pagans, and Wiccans to gather, along with college-age revelers, wholesome families, romantic couples, and shoestring backpackers. And it's the only day of the year the park service offers free parking, free admission, and the opportunity to stay at the monument overnight."

I hope to visit Stonehenge some day, preferably on the summer solstice, for the free admission, free parking, and overnight stay with all those neo-whozits. It sounds like a great spiritual party. Today, I'm celebrating with a bunch of lesbians at, what else, a potluck.

Monday, June 22, 2009

At 10 a.m. yesterday, as I was writing that post, I got a call from my new friend Fai from the Over 40s Lesbians group to remind me that I had promised to help make a banner and signs for the Dyke March next Saturday in honor of Gay Pride; the big march is Sunday. The potluck was to be at Fai's house, too, so I spent a lovely day with new friends, being creative and getting to know Fai better. At 5 p.m. about 25 more wonderful women showed up with fabulous food. True to form, there was very little meat, just some bits of chicken mixed into a green salad and some shredded salmon tossed with another green salad. We grilled some tofu kabobs and gorged ourselves on a wide variety of vegetable dishes, including a classic potato salad just like Mom used to make. Why are so many lesbians vegetarians? I must research this phenomenon sometime. I'm sure it has something to do with patriarchy. Doesn't everything?

I probably had thought I would write a solstice poem yesterday but today I am uninspired by all that. It's laundry day and something a bit more mundane seems appropriate.

Laundry Day

My brother is moving to a house

Where he won't have to schlep his dirty duds

To a communal laundry room.

For years I lived in a tiny house

Sans hooksup even

Took my two weeks worth

Of underwear and such

To a nearby

Laundromat

Washateria

Launderette

Loaded the washer and practiced my Spanish

Eavesdropping on families of

Short

Brown-skinned immigrants

(In my head)

"Hola. Su nina es muy bonita."

Loaded the dryer and went for coffee

And a Cranberry Walnut muffin

Quarters for the machines

Twenty

Coffee and muffin

Fourteen

Hearing beautiful dark-eyed children

Speaking a foreign language

Just like they knew what they were saying

Priceless.

June 22, 2009

Seattle

(While searching for more synonyms for laundromat I stumbled across this very cool link. Check it out if you would like to know how to spell laundromat in American Sign Language, British Finger Spelling--with animation--Morse code, and semaphores, you know those signal flags.)

And here's an appropriate Laundry Day photo from the Seattle Summer Solstice Parade.

Finally, the Rain

I've been in Seattle rain before. It's not nearly as menacing as Houston rain, which comes down in buckets and fills the underpasses so your car becomes a boat while you're trying to get home through rush-hour traffic. In fact, the Seattle rain I've experienced is such a gentle misting rain that you hardly need an umbrella. It's a small price to pay for the luxuriant foliage that thrives in this climate.

Greg and I didn't make it to Whidbey Island but we went to Kubota Garden, which was started in 1927 by a Japanese immigrant and protected from development in 1981 when the core 4.5 acres were designated a historic landmark. What a lovely spot. I've always enjoyed Japanese gardens (if you go to this link, just press 'cancel' if it tells you to download Japanese language), and even though this one is a bit more...well... more...than I have seen other places, it's unique plantings soon filled up my camera's memory. I'll bore you with only a few photos.

You see what I mean about "more?"

In honor of my visit to the garden, and despite the fact that my sister says Haiku is "cheating," here's another:

Seattle Spring

In Seattle spring

Riotous color abounds

Green both king and queen

June 19, 2009

Seattle

And here's that photo from the living room window (actually the balcony) that I promised. Don't you love the little table and chairs at the end of the dock?

A Wish for Today

Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
- Georgia O'Keeffe




Where did yesterday go (or the last 62 years, for that matter)? Never mind. It's today and it's good.

My friend Greg and I are planning a little out-of-town trip up north to Whidbey Island, about which I know very little except that it was once inhabited by members of the Lower Skagit, Swinomish, Suquamish, Snohomish (gesundheit) and other Native American tribes but now hosts some 58,211 "Whidbey Islanders," most of whom I imagine are descendants of a somewhat paler race. It's supposed to be beautiful country but I can't imagine that it's more beautiful than where I am right this minute. If I'd remembered to bring my camera inside I'd take a picture for you of the view of Lake Washington from Greg's living room window.

Speaking of sight-seeing, it turns out I have come to Seattle at the right time, as even the national news is reporting that we have just broken the record for the number of days in a row without measureable rainfall: 29. I will enjoy every minute, rain or no rain.

Here's a poem for you...

Ride, Sally, Ride

On this day
In 1983 Sally Ride took the ride
Of her life
Aboard the Challenger
(The most fun she will ever have
In her life she says)
Why her and not
Christa McAuliffe
Whose time came
Three years later
For 73 seconds
But no more?
What’s it all about?
Planning ahead?
Already there are hundreds
Of millions
Of pieces
Of space trash floating
In our region of the galaxy.
If we’re looking for an upgrade
We’d better increase the fine
For littering.
Sally was my hero
The youngest
The first woman in space
I wish she’d been
The last.

June 18, 2009
Seattle

BTW, I've removed the "On This Day in History" thing from this site because it appears that whoever is "the decider" thinks most of the things that were worth remembering from history had to do with war. How sad.

Bloomsday Revisited

Ulysses
by James Joyce
"O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the fig trees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rose gardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

I have read Joyce, but not this Joyce. God knows I've tried (sort of) but it was too much for me. The reputation of Ulysses had preceded it, of course, most recently in a series of NPR interviews a year or so ago. People were asked what fluff they were reading over the summer, and at the end of the interview they were asked what serious book they would read if they had all the time in the world. More than one interviewee claimed it would be Ulysses. So when a free paperback copy presented itself to me I took up the tome and gave it a go. Either those people in the interviews were big fat liars or they didn't really know any more about the book than I did. And I thought Gertrude Stein was a challenge!

Anyway, today is Bloomsday after the hero of the book, Leopold Bloom, and it celebrates the single day in which the entire story takes place, in Dublin, in 1904. "Joyceans" all over the world are celebrating with staged readings and all manner of merry-making. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. Call me a Philistine.

But if you like Joyce, here's a poem for you.

Jimmy I Hardly Knew Ye

O and I am like a cloud kissed dew drop in Seattle all damp and smooth a stone lapped in the shallows of the lake where sun dappled bees dip their tiny feet in pools of cool liquid gold and fire upon a green and pleasant hill where I dreamed of a long ago popsicle banana or possibly grape and how the two halves broke across the middle instead of along the seam and I cried because my brother ran away with the sticks and left me only the melting top half sticky and sweet running down my fingers like watery blood as it was actually cherry not banana or grape and I said no and no again and ran after but he only laughed and I dropped the wet sticky mess on the sidewalk where it melted like like a popsicle on a hot sidewalk.

June 16, 2009

Seattle

This is my friend Greg's condo on Lake Washington, where I am temporarily parked. Not too shabby.

Everything is lush and colorful here. I can't possibly take pictures of all the beautiful flowers. I'd never have time for anything else.

Dig this purple daylily.

I believe this is St. John's Wort, the stuff I used to take in capsule form when I was going through menopause. If you're depressed and irritable you might try some. You'll need it after you read Joyce.

For All the Pilgrims

You have much more power when you are working for the right thing than when you are working against the wrong thing.
- Peace Pilgrim (1908-1981)

I wonder why I never heard of Peace Pilgrim until this Daily Peace Quote came into my inbox? It could be because she died in 1981, a busy year for me, what with a 4-year-old daughter to raise on my own while attending college. I wasn't really into the "peace movement" then. Other kinds of movements were capturing my attention: I came out that year.

I had been fairly active in the anti-war movement of the 60s and 70s, but that's not the same as working for peace. I had to discover that on my own, and not very long ago at that. Peace Pilgrim was a woman who knew it much sooner, and she set off on foot in 1953 to spread the word. What an incredible journey it must have been.

Today's poem honors Peace Pilgrim and also the birthday of Kobayashi Issa, born in Japan in 1763, a master of Haiku.

Toward Peace

To move toward Peace
Study the ways of Nature
The wisest teacher.

June 15, 2009
Seattle

Flag Day

Oh, my, it's 7:30 p.m. and I haven't written a poem. This is going to be harder than I thought. Well...
Flag Day

I am ambivalent about the flag.
When I see it protruding from the house
In the next block
Or, even more suspect,
Hanging on a specially-installed pole
In a circle of concrete
Surrounded by red geraniums,
Blue salvia,
And white flox,
I wonder if the owner is one of those
"Love It or Leave It" people,
And I bristle.
I am from the flag-burning generation,
The ones who marched
And fled to Canada
And stopped the war.
But what about Allegiance? you ask.
What about Liberty and Justice for All? I reply.


June 14, 2009
Seattle

Something For Everyone

My new blogging friend at Wander to the Wayside says she doesn't know how she'll take to the poem-a-day idea (what does it all mean?) but she likes pictures of scenery. Here's some of each.



On This Date

According to The Writer’s Almanac,
On this date in history were born
Ban Ki-Moon
William Butler Yeats
Cristo
And Dorothy Sayers.

And Alexander the Great
Died, or so they believe.

What a cataclysm
Must have been arranged
In the heavens
To spawn
A great Korean statesman
A profound Irish poet
An innovative sculptor
And a first-class novelist.

And to reclaim
The 33-year-old world conqueror
Who slept with a copy of
The Iliad
Under his pillow.

June 13, 2009
Seattle

Ban Ki-Moon and Cristo references here.




I don't know which I like better: the wind turbines or the clouds.



The falls at Great Falls, Montana, are not the highest I've seen but they are pretty impressive, nonetheless.

These old grain elevators dot the landscape in farm country, most of which stand beside the newer round metal ones that are not nearly so aesthetically pleasing.

And for you, who don't care for either poems or pictures, better luck next time.

A Poem A Day...Yes!

Here's what Garrison Keillor had to offer in yesterday's The Writer's Almanac for June 11, 2009:

It's the birthday of poet David Lehman, (books by this author) born in New York City in 1948. One day in 1987, the day after he had moved into a new house, he was driving back to his old rental to get the last of his stuff, and he had a sudden inspiration: to create a yearly anthology that would feature the best poems that had been published that year, and each year a different poet would select the poems. He figured that since he had just moved into a new house, it was a good time to start a new project. Publishers were hesitant because they thought that poetry would automatically lose money. But Scribner finally agreed to publish it, and The Best American Poetry 1988, edited by John Ashbery, was a huge success. David Lehman has served as the series editor ever since, and the Best American Poetry books continue to come out every September and are very popular.

David Lehman was inspired by Robert Bly, who was in turn inspired by William Stafford, to wake up early in the morning and write a poem, one poem every morning. He did that on and off for years, and once he managed to write poems for 186 consecutive days. He published two books of his favorite daily poems: The Daily Mirror (2000) and The Evening Sun (2002).

Today I woke up early, as I do most days, but this time I decided not to try to go back to sleep (okay, I tried for about 15 minutes). The sun rose, officially, at 5:01 PDT in Walla Walla, Washington, where I stayed the night just because I've always loved the name Walla Walla ("W, my name is Wanda and my husband's name is Walter and we come from Walla Walla with a ship loaded down with wallets"). It took me nearly eight hours to drive there from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, yesterday and I was beat. But I was parked with Michelle's rear pointed toward the east (the head of my bed) and it was impossible to sleep, even with the mask on, which I usually wear at WalMart, their being fully lighted 24 hours a day.

It was already about 70 degrees outside at 6:30, which made it easier to get up, so I took a walk, had some cereal, and enjoyed the warm. I was on the road a lot earlier since I couldn't use my laptop, it being totally out of juice from having watched Meryl Streep in a movie called "Dark Matter" last night ($1 rental at WalMart: they got it all). My review: it was not bad until the end, which sucked.

So here I am in Sunnyside, WA, about 40 miles out of Yakima, at a little coffee shop with free WiFi, juicing up the laptop, checking email, and, while I'm at it, recording my thoughts. I like this poem-every-day idea. Maybe when I'm dead my heirs will find them and publish them posthumously and give them to friends and relatives to remember me by. Move over, Emily Dickinson...not.

I've been taking way too many pictures of stuff that won't translate very well to the blog, the kind of stuff I have always thought would not make a good picture (someone else's idea of beautiful scenery, ho-hum), which is why I didn't take many photos before I got the digital camera: the photo is never as good as what the eye sees, so what's the point? The point, of course, is to be reminded how beautiful or interesting the scenery was, but you, Dear Reader, have to suffer through them, too. Well, you can just skip that part. Tomorrow I'll wake up early and write a poem. You can skip that part, too.

The truck is for perspective. These were some serious hills.


No, this is not a golf course, although that's what it looks like from a distance. Sorry for the poor photo quality: it was taken through the dirty windshield at 60 mph.

I took several pictures of birches, but this one also has an orchard in the foreground so I chose it as representative of the trees (in the background) that Robert Frost immortalized in his poem, which is longer than I remembered it, so be prepared...

Birches

by Robert Frost
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Onward to Seattle! Hope your day is GRAND.

Lend a Hand

An actually existent fly is more important than a possibly existent angel.- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you've been reading this blog for a while you know of my high regard for my Asheville friend Patti Digh. Her blog post today tells you everything important that you need to know about Patti. I encourage you to subscribe to her feed so you don't miss a single word.