Highlights

Okay, I've been busy and things have been hectic, but I guess it's time to write something, even if it's only highlights of the past few days.

Work has been scarce during the normal daylight hours so I've been putting in a lot of nights and weekends to make sure I have a paycheck. Chasing after a paycheck is a sorry business, but at least it means that for about 24 hours on payday I have enough money to pay my bills and buy a second hand glass or three. Not much else at this point.

I got my probation review and they mentioned that they are dissatisfied with the amount of work I turn in on any given day because it is inconsistent. It couldn't be that when I first started and was blasting away with anywhere from 50-60 pages a day they told me to slow down or that the doctors then went on strike and getting any work at all was iffy at best. Naw, it couldn't be that. But you can bet I mentioned it. For a whole two weeks we had loads of work and were behind about three days and now we're back to hitting the button to get work and getting nothing but nothing, which has forced me to switch my schedule to when everyone else in the company is sleeping and get my work then. Of course I am having a bit of trouble adjusting to nights, but I'll get there eventually and I have all the operative reports I can handle in 8 hours -- or more.

Besides work I have also been sleeping some and getting ensconced in my new digs. Yes, I have actually bought items that make this move more permanent and more difficult to get away from should I choose to go driveabout again any time soon. I am actually putting down roots -- and not just in the garden and yard. All the clothes are off the bed and on hangers in the closet, which for some things is pretty interesting since I do not have a dresser or bureau right now. I had extra space in the bathroom cabinet and I dare anyone to go looking into my cabinets because they will get a face full of lacy, silky and frilly underthings. In one of the huge vanity drawers I put my socks, stockings and garter belts (or suspender belts for the Brits among you). The rest of the clothes are hanging in the closet away from prying eyes, along with the feather bed on which I spent my first month of floor sleeping and which the landlady gave me to keep. I'll use it when and if the snow flies on this side of the Divide.

I cleaned, I polished and I washed dishes, especially now since I can't think of leaving dishes in the sink without remembering the landlady's story about her mother who didn't like dishes (I must have been channeling her since I moved away from home) and left them in the sink for a week at a time when the landlady and her sister had to wash them, spending hours up to their armpits in hot, soap water. I picture Cinderella and I'm sure she felt the same. I don't leave the dishes for a week and there aren't THAT many to do since I live alone and do not own pots, pans, dishes or silverware yet, outside of a couple bowls, some plastic silverware (two three forks, one spoon and a knife), three kitchen knives, three big Gladware containers, one sauce pan and a 9x11" sheet cake pan. So you see? I don't have that much to wash. I do wash the plastic TV dinner trays before I pack them up and taken them for recycling, but that's just good manners and keeps down the rats. Keeps them down here, too. Doesn't work for the spiders who happily spin their webs on every available surface, but not have a lot of available surface for them to web -- like furniture, knick knacks and, well, furniture, they are forced to keep their webs in corners and on window sills and blinds.

I have one more load of laundry to do and I'll do that today and get it put away so that the floor in front of the doorway between the living room and bedroom will be bare again. It will also show the little flecks of lint and feathers from the feather bed, but it's all good.

Last week I also got a call from Beanie to tell me Mom had her blood served to her on Friday (she goes for monthly fill-ups because of really nasty pernicious anemia but really it's just vampirism so she can go into the sun occasionally without the black tinted windows on the van/hearse) and Dad visited his doctor to have get his PSA results. There was a 1-point jump in three months and the doctor told Dad it was cancer, but not in the prostate this time. It has been six years since his radiation treatments and we won't talk about the pad he has to wear because of bleeding (no, not THAT kind of bleeding -- the other end -- he IS a GUY), but he still has four years to go on his supposed remission. Guess someone forgot to tell his manufacturer. Doc thinks it might be throat cancer because Dad has this tickle in the back of his throat and keeps coughing, which drives Mom batty and she yells at him to COUGH OR QUIT, but he believes it might be colon cancer. A PSA is prostatic specific antigen and is a blood test to test for the presence of cancer in the prostate. I'm still figuring out how that would tell if he has cancer in some other portion of his body. His prostate isn't enlarged so it is doubtful he has prostate cancer again. The radiation took care of that and ruptured nearly all the blood vessels in his rectum and colon. I think it's a false alarm and the doctor needs to redo the test and check the results, but instead the doctor has opted for two very expensive tests, both of which involve radioactive isotopes. One is a bone scan and the other is called propaising, but I haven't heard of it and can't find anything on it, so I think they got the test name wrong. We will see what we will see.

Of course Mom has another problem. She's forgetting time. Not like she always has so that we are late to every family and social function where she is involved, but fading out like having more TIAs or mini strokes. She's terrified because that is how Granny Goodwitch was before the multiple strokes that put her in the nursing home with half her brain solidified and nonfunctional and eventually led to her prolonged and protracted dying where she was cut open, tubed and kept alive without dignity or decency, but that's another story. So all is not well with Casa Cornwell in the wilds of southern Ohio.

This prompted my father to ask me two weeks ago when I was coming back. I asked him, "When are you dying?" He laughed and said not for a long time, not knowing what the next week held in store for him. I answered, "Well, then I won't be coming back for a long time." He laughed and liked the conversation so well he has repeated it to family, friends and strangers. Last week's news about more cancer and the possibility of chemotherapy and losing his hair prompted a similar exchange. I told him, "If you think this news will get me back there any sooner, nice try but it ain't gonna work. I'm still not coming back." He laughed and began telling the latest installment in our running joke.

You see, when I left Ohio nearly three years ago I swore I wouldn't come back until someone died. Looks like they're trying awfully hard, but it isn't going to work. I've been through these situations before. I go back and no one dies -- FOR YEARS. I'm happy where I am and if they really need to see me so badly (and I'm sure most of you will remember the week of horror that ensued when Mom visited last fall) they can come out here. If I won't consider moving to New Mexico for good money and a good friend, I certainly am not going to contemplate moving back to a place it's better to be FROM than living IN. Solly, Chahllie, you got no egg roll with this one.

All of this brings me up to Sunday night when a strange occurrence, well, occurred.

I was working in my office on the sun porch where there are lots of windows and no blinds, drapes or curtains of any kind to screen me from the rest of the world -- or the rest of the world from me -- and why I wear clothes most of the time now (at least when I'm actually in this room. Okay, so I just wear a T shirt and nothing else, except occasionally socks, but no one can see that I'm naked below the waist. Anyway, on this particular night I was fully dressed and wearing shoes (too lazy to take them off from my jaunt earlier in the day) and beginning another work day/night. I was working on a particularly technical operative report when something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. A car was sitting next to the curb across the street at the stop sign with its turn signal blinking away. It wasn't moving and there was no traffic. No one got in or out of the car. It just sat there, turn signal blinking and blinking and blinking. I watched it for a couple minutes, feeling somewhat unsettled, and finished the dictation. When I was done about 10 minutes later, the car was still sitting with the turn signal blinking and no traffic going up or down the street. It should be noted that it was after 11:00 PM. I watched for a few minutes and the car finally moved, but I got the sense that I was being watched. The only light was from the two computer monitors and a little lamp on the top of the CPU so the watcher probably only saw my silhouette, but it was obvious they were watching. There are no tree branches or trees in the way between the stop sign and my windowed perch. The car angled toward 24th going north and waited, turn signal blinking, not moving. About 90 seconds later a car drove south down 24th and when it passed the car pulled onto 24th going north. It was a little old silver Subaru station wagon. I should have thought to get the license plate number, but I wasn't thinking about the details, just watching the watcher watch me. The thing is that I've been told that particular car has watched this house and me on previous occasions and I believe I know who it is. Can't say for sure until I have proof, like the license plate number, but you can be sure I'll keep watching for the watcher.

That brings me up to yesterday. Since my paycheck posted yesterday instead of today, and since they delivered my brand new 27-inch color TV (that I have still not plugged in or hooked the DVD player to), I called and double checked the cable installation date on Saturday, got a cheaper monthly rate and paid the first month in advance. Like I said, it's getting harder and harder for me to pick up and move by packing my meager possessions in my car and hitting the road. Computers I will move, but not a TV. It's like sticking a bullseye on the roof of my car and saying BREAK IN - NEW TV IN BACK SEAT. I like to travel light and the TV and pictures and bed and feather bed and the table I have to buy today to put the TV on are not light in the least...unless of course I decide to leave this apartment furnished if I get the urge to go driveabout again.

The only other news of the past week is the package I received from Beanie on Saturday. I have a new Aztec amulet and wear it on a cheap silver chain that once contained a jeweled flip flop that I bought at the visitors center on the way to Pikes Peak when was here last month. So I asked my mother, who has more jewelry than Mr. T (pay attention to the reference), if she had a simple single chain in silver or gold (the amulet is raised gold tracery on silver) she could send. She gave Beanie five chains to send. When I opened the very heavy package and ripped off the covering paper Mr. T's jewelry stared back at me in ropes of gold, silver and black. The landlady said, "Your mother must not know you very well. They don't look like anything you would wear." She is right.

I called Mom to ask her if she had ever met me before and thanked her for the gaudy and unusable chains that I will be sending back when I can afford the freight on so much weight. She said that is what I asked her for. I replied, "When did simple single chain ever mean THIS?" She launched into a technical and very detailed discussion of the types of links that make up a chain ad infinitum and nearly ad nauseam. "But these are ROPES not chains," I protested. "They are chains. One of them should do. Or you can go to K-Mart and buy a simple chain for $4 or $5." I may just stick with my $2.99 jeweled flip flop-less chain and forget about jewelry for a while. It's like asking for food and being faced with a banquet of bat's brains, jellied monkey guts and big fat bugs and losing your appetite for the rest of your life. I'm cured. When she goes to the great furnace in the dells she can give her jewelry to the rest of the females and Mr. T wannabes in the family. I don't need any unless they can be easily and quickly converted into electronic equipment and travel vouchers for a closer association with the world.

So this long and rambling post comes to an end with one more small hint at what is coming in the future. Chicken love has turned my father into a raving lunatic and Beanie is going down the mazy path with him.

Oh, and I am utterly smitten by a tall young man with a shy smile holding a diploma in a cap and gown. His picture is in the frame that came with the box of stationery a certain Kansas City, Missourian left here and who has been bugging me, despite being chastised and castigated by a prevaricating narcissistic drama queen obsessed with baseball an LJ denizen.

That is all. Disperse quietly and orderly to the exits.

WAAH!

My DSL has been wonky for the past week and a half and this past Saturday it went belly up. Needless to say that ruined some of my plans for work and fun. I finally had to give in, after a call to the phone company to see what they couldn't do unless they came out this morning, and plug in the modem for good old dial-up. Now you know why I didn't shut down my trusty old, slow and four-hour limited dial-up. It's just a pittance each month, but it will be there for me when I travel and when my speedy DSL isn't quite so trustworthy.

Anyway, I went across the hall to see my neighbor to give her a little fetish to help her get the job she wants at work and become a permanent employee after 15 months of being a temp. She gave me something in return. It was a hefty bit of information that will help friend and foe alike with everything from weight loss to high blood pressure, as well as arthritis, water retention, allergies, sinus problems and diabetes.

AMAZING SECRETS FOR HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Cure # 1: Water prevents and cures heartburn.

Heartburn is a signal of water shortage in the upper part of the gastrointestinal tract. It is a major thirst signal of the human body. The use of antacids or tablet medications in the treatment of this pain does not correct dehydration, and the body continues to suffer as a result of its water shortage.

Tragedy: Not recognizing heartburn as a sign of dehydration and treating it with antacids and pill medications will, in time, produce inflammation of the stomach and duodenum, hiatal hernia, ulceration, and eventually cancers in the gastrointestinal tract, including the liver and pancreas.

Cure # 2: Water prevents and cures arthritis.

Rheumatoid joint pain - arthritis - is a signal of water shortage in the painful joint. It can affect the young as well as the old. The use of pain-killers does not cure the problem, but exposes the person to further damage from pain medications. Intake of water and small amounts of salt will cure this problem.

Cure # 3: Water prevents and cures back pain.

Low back pain and ankylosing arthritis of the spine are signs of water shortage in the spinal column and discs - the water cushions that support the weight of the body. These conditions should be treated with increased water intake - not a commercial treatment, but a very effective one.

Tragedy: Not recognizing arthritis and low back pain as signs of dehydration in the joint cavities and treating them with pain-killers, manipulation, acupuncture, and eventually surgery will, in time, produce osteoarthritis when the cartilage cells in the joints have eventually all died. It will produce deformity of the spine. It will produce crippling deformities of the limbs. Pain medications have their own life-threatening complications.

Cure # 4: Water prevents and cures angina.

Heart pain - angina - is a sign of water shortage in the heart/lung axis. It should be treated with increased water intake until the patient is free of pain and independent of medications. Medical supervision is prudent. However, increased water intake is angina's cure.

Cure # 5: Water prevents and cures migraines.

Migraine headache is a sign of water need by the brain and the eyes. It will totally clear up if dehydration is prevented from establishing in the body. The type of dehydration that causes migraine might eventually cause inflammation of the back of the eye and possibly loss of eye sight.

Cure #6: Water prevents and cures colitis.

Colitis pain is a signal of water shortage in the large gut. It is associated with constipation because the large intestine constricts to squeeze the last drop of water from the excrements - thus the lack of water lubrication.

Tragedy: Not recognizing colitis pain as a sign of dehydration will cause persistent constipation. Later in life, it will cause fecal impacting: it can cause diverticulitis, hemorrhoids and polyps, and appreciably increases the possibility of developing cancer of the colon and rectum.

Cure # 7: Water and salt prevent and cure asthma.

Asthma, which also affects 14 million children and kills several thousand of them every year, is a complication of dehydration in the body. It is caused by the drought management programs of the body. In asthma free passage of air is obstructed so that water does not leave the body in the form of vapor - the winter steam. Increased water intake will prevent asthma attacks. Asthmatics need also to take more salt to break the mucus plugs in the lungs that obstruct the free flow of air in and out of the air sacs.

Tragedy: Not recognizing asthma as the indicator of dehydration in the body of a growing child not only will sentence many thousands of children to die every year, but will permit irreversible genetic damage to establish in the remaining 14 million asthmatic children.

Cure # 8: Water prevents and cures high blood pressure.

Hypertension is a state of adaptation of the body to a generalized drought, when there is not enough water to fill all the blood vessels that diffuse water into vital cells. As part of the mechanism of reverse osmosis, when water from the blood serum is filtered and injected into important cells through minute holes in their membranes, extra pressure is needed for the "injection process." Just as we inject I.V. "water" in hospitals, so the body injects water into tens of trillions of cells all at the same time. Water and some salt intake will bring blood pressure back to normal!

Tragedy: Not recognizing hypertension as one of the major indicators of dehydration in the human body, and treating it with diuretics that further dehydrate the body will, in time, cause blockage by cholesterol of the heart arteries and the arteries that go to the brain. It will cause heart attacks and small or massive strokes that paralyze. It will eventually cause kidney disease. It will cause brain damage and neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease.

Cure # 9: Water prevents and cures early adult-onset diabetes.

Adult-onset diabetes is another adaptive state to severe dehydration of the human body. To have adequate water in circulation and for the brain's priority water needs, the release of insulin is inhibited to prevent insulin from pushing water into all body cells. In diabetes, only some cells get survival rations of water. Water and some salt will reverse adult-onset diabetes in its early stages.

Tragedy: Not recognizing adult-onset diabetes as a complication of dehydration will, in time, cause massive damage to the blood vessels all over the body. It will cause eventual loss of the toes, feet and legs from gangrene. It will cause eye damage, even blindness.

Cure # 10: Water lowers blood cholesterol.

High cholesterol levels are an indicator of early drought management by the body. Cholesterol is a clay-like material that is poured in the gaps of some cell membranes to safeguard them against losing their vital water content to the osmotically more powerful blood circulating in their vicinity. Cholesterol, apart from being used to manufacture nerve cell membranes and hormones, is also used as a "shield" against water taxation of other vital cells that would normally exchange water through their cell membranes.

Cure # 11: Water cures depression, loss of libido, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy.

These conditions are caused by prolonged chronic dehydration. They will clear up once the body becomes well and regularly hydrated. In these conditions, exercising one's muscles should be part of the treatment program.

Wasn't that worth the look?

It's not just about water. It's about the body's ability to use water properly and Celtic sea salt is the answer. The way to use it is to put 1/4 teaspoon on your tongue and let it dissolve for every 32 ounces of water. You can also add it to your food or put it in your water and drink the water that way. Change your way of life and you will change your life. It's time to put the medical and drug establishments out to pasture and take care of ourselves the way it was meant we should. Who knows? Maybe Celtic sea salt is the answer to longevity as well as the answer to a better quality of life and an end to suffering, pain and the ills of civilized life. Sometimes a step backward is the only way to catch the right road.

For those of you living in Colorado Springs, check out Mountain Mama's on Uintah. They have Celtic Sea Salt -- the real thing -- for about $7 a pound, although I was told the price had gone down somewhat. Make sure to store your salt in wood or glass to keep it fresh and don't worry if it clumps. That's what real natural healthy salt is supposed to do. Oh, and it is gray and looks and smells odd to those of you used to the iodized, sterilized and civilized version that pours from a shaker. Go gray and you will never go back. It is the magic bullet medicine has been looking for and there are oceans of it. Don't settle for anything less than CELTIC sea salt.

That is all. Disperse.

When in doubt -- pick another one

I didn't get to see Fantastic Four because it isn't actually scheduled at the theater until 11:59 tonight. They forgot the AM or PM and I figured it was a preview showing before tomorrow. WRONG!

Oh, well. Onward and upward. I still saw Bewitched and it was fun. Shirley MacLaine looks like her face is pulled a little too tight from all the face lifts, but she does an interesting turn as Endora with a witchy turn that rings true. On a hot summer day Bewitched is a cute diversion -- even if it's only for the twist on an old story and a gander at all the Bewitched memorabilia Isabel receives when she signs on to be Samantha. Michael Caine turns up as Isabel's witch father and gets turned on his aging and lecherous head by the intriguing Iris who plays Endora. Not a great movie, but definitely fun and funny. Nicole Kidman is too cute with her soft musical voice the prancing that have become her trademark.

Since I didn't get to see FF, decided to take a look at War of the Worlds. I missed a few minutes of the beginning of the movie but came in when Tom Cruise had just told Dakota Fanning that lightning didn't strike in the same place twice. It strikes more like eleven times in the same place in front of them and 26x down the street where Robby was illegally driving his father's car when the lights and powered everything went on the blink. Cruise is predictably adequate in the role of Ray. Dakota Fanning is by turns irritating and frightened but it works. Spielberg's special effects do not outweigh the characters like a certain recent Lucas film I refuse to mention, but provide a good back drop for the acting, and there is good acting. Tim Robbins turns in a memorable performance as an ambulance driver determined to live to become the underground that will defeat the invading aliens. He certainly steals the show from Cruise and Fanning and the special effects, but he has had considerable practice. Jacob's Ladder comes to mind.

This is not the first time Cruise and Robbins have shared screen time, but this time Robbins comes away with center stage. The first time was with the classic Top Gun, one of the few movies I really enjoyed Cruise.

Guess that means I will be going to the movies this weekend or some time next week to see FF. I don't want to miss it. Then there's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Dark Water and... Well, you get the idea.

That is all. Go to a movie and get some of that chilly A/C. Disperse.

Too pretty...

...to stay inside today unless it's watching a movie or two. So I'm opting for a movie. I'll see Fantastic Four and Bewitched. But you should click on the above link and watch the trailers. That's the real reason for me not being able to stay inside this morning. The only showing today is at 11:59 and I plan to be there early.

See you at the movies. I'll be the one with the brand new top, drinking water and munching popcorn while my curly ponytail swings freely from my new hair clip.

Sunday in the park...

...and the bed. And at the computer and in the kitchen and all over.

My mind is full of sailing ships, but no sealing wax, while patriotic John Sousa music plays in the park two blocks away, battling admirably with a hot jazz/rock band at the BBQ place across the street from the park. It is a night of firecrackers and whistling roman candles and the quick pop of cherry bombs as darkness creeps slowly in and the raspberry dark sky hovers like a settling cloak. I know tomorrow is a holiday, but it feels more like a second Sunday waiting to be enjoyed lazily in a hammock rocking gently in a soft ocean breeze to the slap of fish falling back into a quiet lagoon where waves tickle the sandy beach.

I am in love again with the idea of the sea. I have had an on again-off again romance with the sea, one I have indulged on surf boards or in diving gear or wearing a snorkel. Jacques Cousteau was my idea of a romantic figure, but I always saw him as a pirate brandishing a slender stinger of Toledo steel. Probably why as a child I was captivated by Captain Blood, Scaramouche and the Prisoner of Zenda, among so many others. The time when life and death were judged on the point of a blade at the end of a dance of shining steel death.

So many idea swirling around in my mind right now as the Eagles burn a bright path through my mind with their music.

Jimmy Buffet, swords, sailing, flying and fly fishing

I spent most of the day on A Salty Piece of Land with Tully Mars, Solomon, Cleopatra and Ix-Nay, among others. All I ever knew about Jimmy Buffet was his Parrot Heads and Margaritaville music until the Evil One entered my life and suggested another of his favorites. I suppose it's only fair since I have introduced him to literary novels of many stripes and types. It took a while because, like a tarpon or bonefish struggling with a fly lure and diving into the deeps trailing a nearly unbreakable line, I didn't want to like his writing. He was no weaver of prose poems or author of magical realism -- and yet he is. His simple words magically placed me in the islands on both sides of Panama's isthmus and in the Pacific Islands where ex-cannibals still believe the world was created from the volcanoes on their little island, flying a PBY, landing in a pink jet and driving a jeep through the misty jungles of Belize with a three-legged ocelot looking for the soul of the light to repair a Bahamanian lighthouse so masted schooners can navigate the coral atolls in the darkness toward safe harbor to watch a simple man with a gift for hurling the horsehide in shut out after shut out for Cuban fans.

Tall ships always remind me of pirates and swashbuckling adventurers on land and at sea with four or five feet of supple steel in practiced fists. That makes me want to take out Excalibur and learn the dance of death with a broad sword or Toledo Salamanca or Japanese Samurai sword. For some reason the idea has planted itself in the midst of my mind that it is possible to mold and shape a body with a sword while learning the tango of Toledo steel. It's another book whispering in my mind before I have finished with the rest of my list. And it is so far from what I did yesterday.

Yesterday I drove up to Woodland Park to work as VE again with the MARC (Mountain Amateur Radio Club) where I had the privilege of telling a 77-year-old gentleman, who took his Technician exam during my VE baptism by fire last month at the Monument hamfest and failed, that he passed. I admit I made the announcement as dramatic as possible, coming out of the testing room with a straight face devoid of emotion, catching the eyes of him and his family and shaking his hand to tell him he passed. Okay, so I was accused of being mean and his son said he needed a new battery for his pacemaker, but it is a moment I will never forget and one I doubt they will either. And the day kept getting better.

I will be on the communications team next year for the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, a car race to the top of Pikes Peak and I'll also be involved with the ARES group to provide emergency communications during forest fires and the like. I'm a little long in the tooth to fight forest fires, but I can still keep them connected and dispatch smoke jumpers. And I've been invited to come back to Woodland Park every other month to help with exams.

Living here is very different from the solitude and silence of my mountain cabin, but when life comes with musical accompaniment, new challenges and adventures and a new world to explore, it brings nothing but joy. I definitely live in exciting times and this is ground zero.

Virtual birds and bees

Little boy goes to his father and asks, "Daddy, how was I born?"

The father answers: "Well, son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway! Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us
had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a blessed little Pop-Up appeared and said: You've Got Male!"

That is all. Disperse.

Karma is a big, ugly and very nasty bitch...

...and it looks like Supreme Court Justice David Souter is about to find out how fast she works.

Now that's what I call swift judgment.

The adventure begins

...where we last left off -- with visitors from out of state arriving two hours early and finding the grinning pair camped on my front porch.

They fooled me. They did. They arrived empty-handed, except for the requisite purse and laptop case and made their way slowly up the narrow Victorian stairs to the second floor. My apartment is #1 but it's on the second floor. Don't ask me why. Even the landlady doesn't know. It's something to do with how they wired the utility meters. Anyway...

We tested each other's defenses, talked and ventured a laugh or a giggle here and there and then Lynn lowered the boom. She sent hubs, who was at that point checking his computer to see whose WiFi he could piggyback to check his email (a true pixellated, information highway geek of the first electron), downstairs to bring up the bags they brought. My apartment is rather small and I knew my friend had brought me a blanket for my brand new bed, but I didn't expect what arrived in two separate trips: bags and a box. My first thought was Chinese, but the greasy smell of pork fried rice and MSG and jasmine tea did not permeate the breeze wafting through my windows. There was no discernible scent, but the mischievous gleam in Lynn's eyes foretold shock, amazement and surprises to come.

And come they did.

Bags full of Kansas City, MO BBQ rubs and sauces (I knew about those), a huge jar of sugar free apple butter (grandma would have smacked her lips in anticipation) and a big jar of kosher dill pickles. And the loot did not stop there. The pine green open weave cotton blanket was tailor made for my queen size bed with some overhang to boot. Then Santa-ette dg into her seemingly bottomless box and came up with a scrap book with a shadow box on the front and beautiful textured paper inside, another shadow box with a hinged cover that contained note cards and envelopes and a picture frame and journal I didn't find until they left here Sunday night. There was also a beautiful unassembled, which Santa-ette assembled before my amazed and stunned eyes, Victorian rose Tiffany-style lamp with crystal beads in a delicate waterfall around the lamp shade with brass accents and pedestal base that came with its own little bulb. It was Xmas here at the old Victorian haunted casa and it outshone many of the Xmases past.

My guests wanted to get something to eat and I suggested The Mason Jar on Colorado Blvd, so that is where we went. The food was good and the company delightfully funny and interesting. After eating we checked a couple of motels on Colorado Blvd. and found the Amarillo, which boasted collectibles, buy/sell/trade coins and antiques, guns, WW II armaments and a whole host of other cheese for the tourist trap. Luckily, the room rate was inexpensive and the lock was being changed as we waited for hubs to pay and collect the brand new freshly minted key. At least they got the blood out of the carpet before my guests moved in and cleaned the insects out of the clean and tidy kitchenette.

From there we wended our way to Manitou Springs to check out witch central and I showed them the cottage I considered before my landlady chose me. We found the cog train that goes up to Pikes Peak, turned around where we weren't supposed to turn around and headed back toward town with Margaret the Garman GPS with the irritating habit of reminding us that we goofed. She told us, "off course, recalculating," and I have never wanted to throw an electronic device into the side of a solid granite rock face before I met Margaret. We managed to find Garden of the Gods via a route I had never taken before and drove through and around the park among the tourists clambering on the red rocks and filming and clicking their way through the park.

We headed back toward my place, by way of the motel so someone could use the facilities and check out the lay of the land (make sure the lock had been changed), then back to my place to drop me off. They had been up since Oh My God o'clock and needed to get some rest before our marathon trip to the other side of the Divide in the morning and we fixed on 0700 (a more reasonable time) in the morning to summit Pikes Peak and travel a few points west.

I was just slipping into bed with Stephen King when the phone rang and Lynn was on the other end of the phone (she just couldn't get enough of me) promising not to arrive two hours early in the morning and to chit chat for a moment before dropping into bed and dying for the night.

None of us knew what the morning held for us.

Drive by...

...posting.

I just got off the phone with Tor Books about the biography on Andre Norton. They are interested and want first look. They called me because the word has gotten to them by way of several authors involved and the ball is rolling. The man who phoned edited Andre's books for 20 years and has his own line into the science fiction & fantasy halls by way of his own best selling wife.

Can you say stunned?

You say it. I'm still feeling it.

That is all. Disperse.

Can you tell time?

Friday I was expecting my LJ friends, Lynn and her husband Chuck, at 2 PM my time. I finished work a little before noon and was getting ready to douse the roots in color to get rid of that Pepe Le Pew look that was beginning and wash the body in something lavender and subtle when I get a phone call. I thought it was an update. It was THEM downstairs in front of my gate waving gaily up at me while I looked down at them with the phone plastered to my ear, keeping my naked bits below eye level behind my monitors in abject and utter horror. THEY WERE EARLY. I threw on some clothes, put on my shoes, scared the top layer of my hair with a brush and went downstairs to open the door on the grinning pair roosting on my doorstep.

And thus the weekend's adventure began...

For a bored friend

Since someone is in need of something to read, I will oblige. After all, she did it for me a few days ago when I was bored and in need of entertainment.

Batman Begins is a definite hit out of the park and beyond. This one left orbit. Welsh actor, Christian Bale is very believable as the young man conflicted about his parents' death and his own guilt in the matter, but even more so as the dark avenging bat out to protect Gotham from its worst instincts. With a cast like Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman and Tom Wilkinson, not to mention Michael Caine playing the every proper British butler Alfred with his own unmistakable Cockney accent, it would be hard to go wrong. Where this version of the comic book legend surpasses all other adaptations to the big and little screens is in the end product. Director, Christopher Nolan has taken the comic out of comic book characters and made them very real. Gotham retains its dark and crumbling atmosphere but falls far shy of Tim Burton's Gothic/Art Deco scenery, thus cutting the mean and shadowy streets from the cloth of any modern major city. Even the elevated train swooping and curving through the Gotham skyline looks less like fantasy and becomes believable reality.

Christian Bale retains a certain dignity even as he trawls the depths of the international underworld seeking to understand the criminal mind, but never sinks to melodrama. He definitely works hard for his craft while making it feel and play as stark reality, deftly and gracefully walking the fine line between overdone intensity and parody.

Where Batman Begins forges new territory and resets the bar is in translating a comic book hero onto the screen sans the comic book feel. Even the Scarecrow, Dr. Crane of Arkham Asylum, fails to be anything but believable. Nolan's Gotham is just around the corner in every major American city waiting for panic and hysteria to give way to justice as meted out by Batman.

It is, however, amazing that a British director and British actors have a better feel for Americana than the American directors who preceded them. Comic book heroes have never been so true to life.

As for The Longest Yard, you are in for a treat. Especially if you enjoyed it the first time around with Burt Reynolds in the key role of Paul Crewe.

Adam Sandler is not my favorite comic actor, although I have enjoyed some of his movies. He will always be the SNL comedian who sings the dreidel song for Chanukah. He was endearing as The Wedding Singer and usually creative humorous, but this time he deserves to be recognized as a creative force. The wry Sandler is still in evidence throughout and Chris Rock is great as Caretaker. The only unfortunate part of the movie is Burt Reynolds. He really needs to hold back on getting his next few face lifts. He's beginning to look like he's perpetually in a wind tunnel and that is not a good look, even with the new DaVinci porcelain overlays on his false teeth. The cons are predictably convict-like. They are also funny, interesting and surprising.

The only visible tune-up is in the dialogue, which was updated with more timely social references, and it still works. The convict can-can she/he cheerleading line is hilarious and provocative and the whole ensemble cast engages the audience completely.

If you find yourself rooting for the Mean Machine, don't say you haven't been warned. You won't be alone.

I missed it

When I played hooky and went to the movies the other day, it rained. Not a piddly little spatter or spitting here and there from racing clouds, but a true several-hour downpour, complete with hail, flooding, thunder, lightning and rocks. Yes, rocks.

After the movie I went to the east side of town. In the long seemingly endless drive up Academy there were rocks in the road: swaths, curls, loops, swirls, eddies and clumps of rocks of all sizes and types. The rain continued, spatterings interspersed with windshield flooding torrents, as I drove around and through the rocks. At first I thought a gravel truck dropped its load because of a dangling tail gate, but there were too many rocks and they seemed to go on forever. Must have been a fleet of gravel trucks from the quarries, I reasoned.

I was wrong.

I went shopping for some new clothes (haven't done that in ages) and when I paid for my choices the cashier told me she was surprised anyone was out in the rain. "It flooded here in the store, right through the back door," she told me. "It was pouring down. On the TV some guy was standing in water up to his waist." I told her about the rocks and she said it was from the storm.

"It rained rocks?" I asked more than a little incredulously.

"No," she said, laughing. "I've got to remember that one: raining rocks. It flooded and washed all the rocks into the roads."

People should really be more specific when they talk, clearer, less ambiguous.

Anyway, I took my purchases, finished my errands (I really have to get back up there to the gigantic book sale in the warehouse) and drove home in the rain, stopping at the grocery store to pick up the makings for chicken salad for the following day's picnic in the park. On the last leg of the journey, I looked up into the dirty gray lowering sky to see a beautiful rainbow shining bright against the leaden background, a promise of brighter days ahead.

The rain sang me to sleep that night and the clean green smell of rain-washed pine drifted in through the windows on fresh, crisp, cool moist air. Dawn broke in a dazzling display of gold and rose and shimmering white on a lavender screen of sky that slowly blued. Even through bleary, sleep misted eyes, the view was dazzling.

I worked and fidgeted and worked a little more, stopping just before noon to assemble the chicken salad, wash the fruit and pack everything away. The landlady called and said she had something for me, and brought up a big container of pasta salad she made the day before, suggesting I take it with me on the picnic. I did and my companion said it was very good.

While taking a shower, the bath mat slipped and I pitched through the shower curtain onto the floor, banging my head on the toilet seat and the rest of me on various porcelain barriers that found most of the soft tissue on my body, from shoulder blades to right big toe. Wrapping a towel around me, I hobbled into the sun porch to email my friend and ask for a 15-minute delay; he granted it. I was more upset by the curse that slipped my lips and thudded down on the deck where Psycho sat waiting for the landlady than I was about my ignominious tumble to the floor, but I soldiered on, finished dressing, gathered my bags and limped down the stairs, outside and into my car. When I got to the park I limped to the shelter, explained my accident and proceeded to enjoy a most pleasant hour. I brought him food and he brought me napkins, water and Firesign Theatre CDs. He is such a generous fella and he has good taste, too.

After lunch and a couple of errands, I got home in time to chat with Psycho and Landlady for a few minutes, leaving them with Mountain Mama's best gingerbread with baked apples and coconut custard pie just as the truck drove up to deliver...

...wait for it...

...you guessed it: my brand new bed. No more sleeping on a feather bed on the floor.

I pinged my picnic friend to wake him from his training module-induced stupor to tell him the good news, chatted for a moment and then called when he pinged me to tell me he was finished with the last of the training module. While we talked, the idea of a pillow top firm mattress high off the floor taunted me, so I asked him, "Would you like to go to bed with me?"

"What did you say?"

"Would you like to go to bed with me?"

"Well..."

"I'm going to take the phone into the bedroom and lay down on my brand new bed. Want to come with me?"

"Sure."

Was that relief I heard in his agreement? Naw.

The bed is firm and comfy and after I got off the phone I fell blissfully asleep, drifting down into a dream-filled universe of rest and nirvana.

Now I just have to figure out how to put up some guard rails so I don't fall off the bed and find I can't get up like a certain Lynn I know.

Hook me

Well, guys and gals and everyone in between. It's a beautiful day with a few puffy clouds serenely sailing across a perfect blue sky. the leaves are glistening in the sun and the air is full of buzzing bees, singing birds and the perfume of summer while the squirrels play tag in the streets with trucks. Fast little devils. I guess squirrel porn is out today and I don't want to wait for squirrel pancakes, so I'm going to get a cool shower and take myself to a double feature at the movies: Batman Begins and The Longest Yard. While I'm not a big Adam Sandler fan, he has done some interesting work and the trailers have been pretty good. I am, however, a big Christian Bale and Batman fan, so I'm off to see the big black bat and his big black penis batmobile.

Does it seem to you like Michael Caine is a bit over exposed and maybe the nut job in that college movie was right and you will find a movie with Michael Caine in it at every hour of the day all over the world? Nice work for a character actor.

I'm off to see the gizzard, the wonderful gizzard of non-blahs.

Okay, so it was a lame joke, but at least I put it out there.

Go play hooky today wherever you are. It's good for your soul.

No stars in this war

I finally saw SWIII a couple weeks ago and I was not impressed. Oh, the light saber battles were good, especially when Yoda battled Palpatine and Ewan McGregor was wonderful, but I do not get the hype about Hayden Christensen. He has two emotions: anger and not as much anger. He scowls, supposedly an indicator of intensity but it looks like he is having a big problem moving his bowels. He does rage really good but Lucas really fell down the well on this one. Maybe he phoned it in from his jet or wrote it in his sleep. He was certainly asleep at the wheel because Christensen needed direction and got none. Oh, and Padme's gown must have been very uncomfortable to sleep in, what with the huge pearls loops from the bodice and hanging down her arms. Sort of like sleeping with a ring of rocks digging into your arms and back. Reminds me of the Princess and the Pea. Guess Padme wasn't really royalty after all. She was tough as nails on the skin, but not where it counted.

The whole movie suffered from a lack of direction. It did tromp forcefully forward on Stormtrooper jack boots through some pretty spectacular special effects, but the real effect, other than lamely tying up all the loose ends to explain Darth Vader's hermetically sealed black garb and ventilator-dependent wheezing, should have been a real understanding of why Anakin turned to the dark side. Sorry folks, but Palpatine wouldn't have seduced me to do anything but laugh at his feeble attempts to show the power of the dark side. The only thing Palpatine showed me was the power of disgust and the slightly gray side. Anakin was a real pushover. Too bad he wasn't a female. He could have serviced the clones and had more fun. Might have helped with his emotional constipation, too.

That is all. Disperse.

Salem, Massachusetts...

..home of witch trials, atrocities and now...

this.

End of a long road

I am not going to win any friends or influence any people, but there are things that need to be said -- and written. Here seems to be the only safe place any more.

It isn't that I'm hiding anything, but there are times when I need to say what's on my mind without worrying about having it turned against me. My mother did that to me as a teenager and I quit writing to protect myself and my thoughts from punishment and retribution. A near calamity gave my writing back to me. And now a friend, knowing my history and that particular story, is turning my words against me again. This time I am no teenager easily cowed by anyone and I will not go into the woodwork and deny myself the outlet and joy of writing. It's not going to happen.

After nearly two weeks of peace and quiet from her flame-filled emails and recriminations, she called this afternoon to climb back down my throat about a comment I left on a mutual friend's journal. I wrote about how difficult it is for some people to separate their alliances with people who are involved when they dislike or have an issue with one person of the couple. There is a mutual friend whose friendship I was certain was gone. He IM-ed me yesterday and we chatted for a while. It was great talking to him about everything and nothing in particular, just chatting like we used to do for hours on end. Her name wasn't brought up. It didn't need to come up. I had nothing to say and I didn't want to start any trouble with him. His relationship with her is separate from my friendship with him.

She read my comment on K's journal and my journal about chatting with him, although she took me off her friend's list, and said I could have him, that she is tired of me trashing her all over the place. She told me she is going to have to leave Colorado Springs because of my slander. Ever the smart aleck, I told her it was libel because it was written. Probably not the best move, but it was accurate. She got even more belligerant and ruder. I kept asking her what I had done but she wouldn't answer, going back to an earlier disagreement that she blames on someone else, although she told me in no uncertain terms that she never expected me of all her friends to be jealous of her success. I'm not. I'm glad for her success. Lord knows I patched her together emotionally enough times while she was agonizing over the book being accepted. I believed. She didn't. That is another situation for another time.

Anyway, she accused me of trashing her on K's journal by my comment about understanding her point about people taking sides when they didn't need to and that all they really needed to do was come to her to talk about their problems with her instead of involving her fella. I didn't mention any names. I certainly didn't name my attacker. It's just something that has happened to me over the years and it sad. I wanted to show a friend some understanding and support and let her know I agreed with her. I left out a lot of things I could have put in there, but I didn't want to cause any more problems than there are between she and I because of the mutual friend. She has already kept me out of a project on a web site I have been part of and I understand her reasoning on that. She doesn't need or want the drama either. But now it looks like I'll have to stop commenting on K's journal just to keep the once mutual friend from using it as a means to cause more drama and more problems for K.

I told her in the midst of her tirade that I didn't think it was productive and it was a waste of both our times and I ended the call, wishing her well. She called back. I picked up and hung up. She called again. I just let it ring. I neither need nor want her drama back in my life. My headaches are gone and my life is good. Why would I want the headaches and drama back?

I couldn't figure out what she meant about me trashing her so badly she would have to move from Colorado Springs or that I had trashed her with her fella. I'm believe she has gone over the edge and I can't help her. She has to figure this out for herself. It's not my problem. She sees me as the enemy and has for a long time. But yet I couldn't figure out why she felt the need to stir up another hornet's nest when we hadn't spoken or communicated for two weeks. Then it dawned on me -- she either needs my help or she missed the drama. Again, it's not my problem. All I can say at this point is that I pity her. She unfriended me on her journal and made a big tearful deal about it on her journal because she said what she wrote was being used against her, stolen and used to hurt her. The truth is that she keeps reading my journal, stalking me on my other journals (not here yet) and when I make friends only posts she has someone copying them and pasting them into emails to her, causing more trouble, even more drama, so she can attack me again.

What can I do?

Not much. She is stalking me. My thoughts and views are my own from my point of view. It is my truth. I don't care if anyone believes me or not. This is my life as I see it. Friends only posts end up being distributed to her. I know I'm a good writer, but not that good. I ignore her and go on with my life and she calls me on the phone because I delete her emails unread. Next, she'll show up on my doorstep. My address is public information and it wouldn't take much to find me. I'm not running. I'm not going to fend off any more attacks. If anyone feels the need to send her my restricted posts, they are welcome to do so. All they are doing is giving her more ammunition and more excuses to blame me for her problems.

She said our conversation today would probably end up on my journal. I think that's what she wants so she can play the martyred and reviled friend who is willing to forgive and forget while I, the evil ex-friend with poison on my blade and mischief in my mind, continue to paint myself as all sweetness and light, the wolf in sheep's clothing. It's her stage. She can do what she wants. As for me, I wish she'd understand that she doesn't enter my thoughts, my writing or my conversation for days and days on end and that's the way I like it. She needs to find a life and someone else to blame now that her ex-best friend has moved out of state and I refuse to be her latest target.

This is the long walk off the short pier, the end of the road for our friendship. Maybe when she grows up that will change, but for the foreseeable future. . . not going to happen.

An ye do no harm...

The secret is out. I'm evil.

In a long, drawn out, ranting email I am once again lambasted by my 'friend'. It seems there is no refuge for my thoughts, my venting or my privacy even when I lock my posts and keep her out. Some well meaning person has sent a locked post to my 'friend' and she has responded in her usually overly verbose way. I think suffering through her eternal whining, digs and zingers is worst punishment than having my eyeballs drawn out through my left nipple with a burning wire.

My mother used to punish me for what I wrote in my diaries, never realizing that once I had purged the anger onto the paper it was gone. I realize that posting in a semi public journal is not as safe as my paper journals, but the paper journals aren't all that safe either. I like to get things out where I can see them and not sitting around in some dark shadowy pocket of my mind or heart where they will fester and become fodder for some passive-aggressive snark fest. I guess I should learn that there is no such thing as a secret and my thoughts, even with limited exposure, are targets for more venomous attacks.

It isn't as if I haven't been notified in the past that my 'friend' was bashing me in her journal and in conversations with mutual acquaintances, but I always figured it goes with the territory. You get mad. You vent. It's over.

Guess not.

One of the precepts of my beliefs is that when you intend no harm to anyone you may do as you will. My thoughts are my own. My anger and passions are my own. I just happen to put them out for public and semi-public display. Probably not a good idea. I do understand the need for a shoulder now and then and someone who understands what I'm going through to help me over the worst of the anger, betrayal and lies and I don't do well with secrets. I seldom even remember what I write once it's on the page. I never remember my own poetry and only the basic story lines of the books and tales I write, let alone a blog entry. Like I said, once it's on the page -- virtual or otherwise -- it's gone. Now I understand how a good friend felt when her private matters were taken from her journal by someone who had access and spread all over the place to people she didn't want to know her private business. It's the equivalent of telling a friend a secret and having them tell everyone. Telephone, telegraph, tell a friend. Someone once told me that you keep a secret by yourself but when you tell one other person you tell the world. Looks like he was right.

What gets me the most is her accusation that now she understands why people distance themselves from me -- because I'm evil and manipulative and out to stick a dagger in every unprotected back. I'm not the one who has friends who stop talking, calling and communicating for years on end. I am in contact with all my real friends. Acquaintances come and they go -- looks like she was just another acquaintance.

Oh, well, c'est la vie. I refuse to allow her vituperative vexations to change my habits or me. I will not run. I will not hide. I will not worry about what she can or cannot do. I have protection she doesn't even dream of.

Guess she forgot what the precept, An ye do no harm... , really means.

The protection racket

During the 1920s and 1930s the protection racket was pretty hot business. It was the main cash cow for gangsters. The gangsters' muscle man would come in with some slick operator dressed in an expensive shark skin suit. The muscle man would get a little out of control and break a few things, scowl and maybe even growl a bit. The slick operator would shake his head with a rueful expression and tut-tut about his backward associate's tactics, all the while letting the business owner know that he could keep such distasteful actions from happening to him, his family or his business if he paid for protection. Most business owners paid. The few who stood up to the gangsters watched all they worked for go up in flames while they fingered the black band on their casted broken arm leaning on their crutches while they mourned their dead families.

It was nothing personal. It was business as usual.

Fast forward to the Internet connected world of the 21st century where you can download music, movies, data and anything else you want at all hours of the day and night. Instead of stereos, some people play music on their computers. Enter the protection racket.

If you want to customize your music station to listen your favorite songs and skip the ones you don't like, it will cost you. It's such a small amount, less than the cost of a grande latte from a designer coffee shop. Such a small price to pay to pick and choose what you listen to on your computer and avoid the inevitable commercials that pad the music station's pockets. Of course there is National Public Radio and PBS stations. They aren't immune to the protection racket either.

Twice a year PBS stations put on pledge breaks, showing you the good stuff you'd have to pay big money to see, while they hold out their hands and remind you that public broadcasting belongs to you, the people who pay to keep it commercial free.

That was once upon a time. Pledge breaks now come every six weeks and commercials fill in during the non-pledge break weeks of interminable begging while they cut the good stuff to pieces with their outstretched hands and erudite guilt trip. Even if you pay them money, you don't avoid the pledge breaks, but at least you feel good about contributing to keep commercials out of your programming -- except not so much any more.

It's the repackaged protection racket.

Now Internet radio stations want you to pay them to leave you alone with your commercial free music. Something tells me it's time to go back to records and CDs, 45s and 78s where you choose what you want to listen to without commercials or paying to get rid of the commercials.

Yes, computers are convenient, but you can program your music onto your computer without commercials and it's a whole lot cheaper. it's free. No more pledge breaks. No more advertisements telling you to pay to get rid of the advertisements.

See that violin case open on the chair? It's empty because the slick operators are waiting for their muscle men to use the Thompson submachine gun that was in there a moment ago to talk you into paying them to leave you alone.

Aah, the simple life.

This is the test

I have been promising you a test. Here it is. Answer these two questions honestly and completely. You will be graded on grammar -- and neatness DOES count.

1) What do you consider Internet stalking? Include all examples.

2) Who is your journal about?

That is all. Disperse.

One of the best things about being a writer...

...is when your writing touches other people's lives and changes them or their situation.

Since I have mostly settled into my new apartment, I resumed working on the writing biography of Andre Norton. My ad in Gila Queen Guide to the Markets came out last week and people are bellying up to the virtual bar to share their stories and their correspondence with Andre. Reading such glowing tributes from writers who have gone on to publish their own books and stories, writers who owe their success and the belief in their writing to Andre is a wonderful way to spend any day. I knew her personally. Many of these people never met her in person, but she was the strong stalwart support standing behind them with her hand on their shoulders, someone who was as real to them as she was to me.

If there is any epitaph I would like to leave, that would be it: She made a difference.

Blame it on Wang...

...because it is his fault.

In reading through my F-list he mentioned seeing The Phantom of the Opera on DVD last night. I recommended he get the book a certain friend loaned to me: Phantom by Susan Kay. So I check out Amazon.com for a link and found out that my friend's pristine paperback book is worth more than 10x what he paid for it. The book has become a collector's item. No wonder. The story is riveting and the writing flawless, which is saying a lot coming from a hard-nosed and not easily tempted book reviewer.

Wang, what does it say about me that every time I thought I had it in my bag to give it back to him it wasn't there when I gave him back the rest of his books? I found it when I packed up my books and things to move to the Springs. From a psychological standpoint, of course.

It's just past 8:30 and cars are cruising the blocks looking for a parking spot while brightly summer clad people carrying canvas and shopping bags with fanny packs about their waists are headed south to the Farmer's Market. Some of the eye-searing colors are even brighter on this clear, cloudness Rocky Mountain morning and the trees are shifting restlessly in the light breeze. The dogs next door keep up a constant tirade at the Market-minded pedestrians behind the high palisade fence on the east side of the house. This morning is bright and beautiful and cool, just waiting to be enjoyed after a night of tossing and turning and sweating even with all the windows open. It's on a morning like this I truly wonder if George Malley in Phenomenon was right and the trees really do talk to each other in rustling leaves and swaying limbs.

My friend, by the way, got a clean as a whistle bill of health from his lizard with the long lighted tongue. He was, however, having trouble formulating coherent thought after the narcotic cocktail that kept him quiescent and relaxed while they delved the back forty, but he is otherwise his usual punny self. That is a very good thing.

Another friend tagged me while I was playing endless games of Mah Jong on Yahoo yesterday, surprising me. I haven't heard anything from him since he started his post Army retirement job as a tech writer. He had some ulterior motives evidently. told me I need to move to New Mexico and ply my technial writing skills because companies there are going begging. I might consider it but only for a heartbeat. I told him there was no way I'd leave my paradise to move to the desert heat. Nice try, but no cigar.

So then he suggested taking a closer look at Manitou Springs and see if I could find all the springs that give Manitou its last name. According to him, there are/were seven springs. Makes me curious for sure and that will be a trip to take with my visitors from KCMO next week who are bringing KCMO BBQ sauces and rubs with them. I smell BBQ wafting on the summer breeze already and I can hardly wait. Six days and counting.

The visit also brings with it a first time meeting with LJ friends. That is also a first because I have not met any of my LJ friends to date. I'm looking forward to it and to them. They have this strange habit of looking up Buena Vista in any state they visit to see if they are alike in any way to the first Buena Vista they visited among the Blue Ridge Mountains back east. Virginia, I think it was. Since I am acquainted with two transplanted residents, I'd say the chances are good, but now I want to see for myself, and to visit Winslow Pass which is said to have a spectacular view of the Collegiate Peaks. I have seen the view from a much different perspective, atop Ute Lookout in the Collegiates, and I can well imagine how beautiful the view will be. I might even take them over to Hartsell Springs and see if I can finagle a peek at the huge roaming herd of buffalo in that area.

A couple of years ago, on my birthday no less, when I was still working for the TV show that brought me here, I spent a few days at Hartsell Springs Ranch and drove a Ford 250 4x4 up and down the muddy slopes and valleys into the midst of a huge herd of buffalo. I then proceeded to get out of the metal behemoth where I was safe and walk right smack dab into the middle of the milling herd. You cannot imagine how big full grown buffalo bull and cows (not to mention the yearling bulls and cows) really are until you're standing nose to horns with them. It was thrilling and exciting for me, but less so for the people cringing and hiding in the back seat of the truck. The only thing I missed was the buffalo chase and hunt (that never happened) the next day. I was heartbroken until I heard how the rogue buffalo bulls played the erstwhile hunters armed with bow, black powder rifle and state of the art hunting rifles of staggering firepower. Anyone who is opposed to hunting because it pits superior man against Bambi, should see and hear how a real hunt progresses. You'd finally see that the animals are much smarter than people think and it's the people who need the protection, not the animals.

Buffaloes are especially wily. The Native American tribes knew that, which is why they would get together and drive entire herds off cliffs and pick them off at the bottom, leaving whatever they couldn't dress and carry for the carrion eaters. They knew buffaloes learn at a staggering rate and wouldn't be caught twice by the same trick. The tribes didn't know how to change their hunting tactics, so instead they left no survivors.

Buffalo look stupid, but they are far from it. Never underestimate the wily buffalo -- the even wilier roadrunner. Wile E. Coyote figured that one out. Mother Nature didn't raise no stupid children -- except for maybe humans -- mostly the males.

That is all. Disperse.

Sick call

A friend sent me this email this morning:

SUBJECT: Off to see the lizard...

...and have him stick his long tongue somewhere dark and deep. The
drano went fine yesterday - no vomiting or issues. Updates later.

I didn't expect an update this morning, but I'm glad he sent it. He took the day off to have a group of people light up the inside of his bum and videotape it. Fun, fun, as he would say.

And then last night...

The landlady called me (it's the easiest way to reach me when I'm working and plugged into the headphones) and asked if I'd like some polenta and marinara sauce. I said yes. Then she suggested I come down for dinner and I said yes again -- with a big smile on my face. I had been smelling the herbed polenta and marinara for a while and it was making me hungry for more than whole wheat crackers and fresh avocado. So we had dinner together and talked about my friend's pending procedure this morning. She came up with lighting up his a**hole, which I thought was funny, but not for prime time viewing. In some ways it makes me think of methane and lighters and the funny look on someone's face when it singes the hair off their rear exit like some of the boys in high school did to another hairy high school boy just before they were suspended. Horrible thing to have happen to the popular athletic elite. Broke a lot of cheerleading hearts that day who then went to protest in Mr. Huckaba's office. Didn't work. Their hero boyfriends still got two weeks free unpaid and unsung vacation at home.

Back to dinner.

The landlady surprised me with an addition to the sauce -- SHRIMP! Herbed polenta with cheese melted through it and a lovely thick and rich marinara sauce with shrimp. Now that's eating.

After dinner we drifted outside to the deck after Pastor stood still for me to pet and hug him. He's such an attention hog. (I love it) Out on the deck wailing saxes and smoky brass played low and dirty serenaded us. Birds dipped and swirled on rising warm air currents and squirrels played tag and hump in the trees, slender branches dipping and flailing as they leapt from perch to perch. As the music ended we went inside because landlady had something she wanted to show -- and give -- me: art. She dug into the heavy Spanish blanket chest muttering about getting rid of it because it's so heavy (me, me, me!) and pulled out three simly framed drawings of plants: cattails, tulips and some kind of blue daisy. The drawings were done in ink and colored, the heavily accented and shaded lines brightened by primary colors on a yellow-brown sketch pad sheet. She said she has had them for over 40 years. The framer's label is in German and it didn't take me long to figure out buchbinderei is book binder.

So, with a Gladware container of polenta, sauce and shrimp, several packets of flower seeds so I have an excuse to dig in the dirt today and the three prints, I said good night, thanked her for the lovely dinner and the conversation AND the food and prints (she really worries because I have so few things in the apartment or on the walls) and walked upstairs.

Every single day I live here, whether I see the landlady or not, is pure joy. Listening to the music on the deck last night made me feel (and say) it was like living in a movie about simpler times. I'm a character in the universe's movie about simpler times with live music accompaniment. Who says life isn't like that has never spent any time in my neck of the woods. They're missing a lot: generous and friendly landladies, dogs who bask in attention, soft rich earth to plant and weed, music in the air, and friends with weird and wonderful senses of humor about proctological examinations involving metal poles with lights. It doesn't get much better than this.

AWOL no more

Okay, so I've only posted a couple of memes over the past few days and I haven't updated anything about my date Monday night or the picnic on Tuesday, but I figured no one really wants to know about my boring days and nights.

Then again...

I really shouldn't call Monday night a date. I had given a close friend a ticket for the Michael Johnson concert for his birthday last month and Monday night was the night. I also got a ticket for me because I missed him in March due to the nasty flu that nearly turned into going through death's door, but I finally got to see and hear the man.

Well, my friend came over after work, tired and worn out, and went directly into my bedroom where I'm still sleeping on a feather bed on the floor. (A bed really isn't high on my priority list and it is his fault since he said I should get used to sleeping on the ground for when we go hiking overnight.) So he sat down on the love seat in the front room, my other piece of furniture, leaned back and snoozed a little while I finished getting ready. When I was ready we talked for a while and then left since we didn't want to have to stand in a long line. Instead we just stood at the head of the line for a while. (what is the difference again?) Jimbo's is an intimate little setting with the front of a real house as the backdrop for the stage. Normally there are couches and lots of antiques and a few tables and chairs, but Monday night there were nothing but a few small round tables (outdoor cafe sort of tables)and chairs in front of the small stage.

While we waited outside, we heard Michael Johnson tuning and warming up his vocal cords. I must say it was really good.

Back inside, an older woman (very pretty) and her daughter (a roofing contractor) asked us if we were from Ohio. We told them we were. They were from Ohio, too, and from the west side of Columbus where we are both from and where we grew up. The daughter went to Hilltonia and Franklin Heights and West High. My friend went to Hilltonia and West and I went to Westmoor Jr. High and West. It was like old home week. We talked a little longer about things back in cowtown, Ohio and then Jimbo got on stage and warmed up the crowd with some rockin' blues and a few silly tunes thrown in. Then the big moment...

Michael Johnson took the stage, talked a little about how people sometimes confuse him with the other Michael who sings and jumped right into the music. He played one of my favorites, Bristlecone Pine. I have to admit his rendition isn't as good as Hugh Prestwood, but it was good Monday night. He played a lot of my friend's and my favorite songs and a few we had never heard, like Emilio, which is a new song for MJ. The crowd was friendly and attentive and the venue intimate, but nothing could match MJ's artistry on the guitar. He plays guitar with a Spanish classical rhythm and fingering and it is beyond good.

Like I silly fan (something I have never been accused of in my life up to this point), I asked MJ to autograph a couple of my CD inserts -- the ones my friend has given me. I have interviewed and spoken with presidents, governors, politicians, criminals, movie stars and foreign dignitaries, but meeting MJ for the first time made me feel shy all of a sudden. And he's a lot shorter than I figured. I'm about an inch or so taller than he is.

Anyway, MJ took a break, we talked with the mother and daughter from Cowtown (Mother is 77 and her BF is 49 and she's known him since he was 13 and her daughter is married to a man 12 years younger -- it runs in the family). The mother is very pretty and could well pass for much younger -- not so the daughter, although they were both very charming.

After the break, more music and amazing guitar playing, an encore and it was time to go home. Unfortunately, Jimbo's is closing their door at the end of the month, so if you like live jazz and blues in an intimate and small club atmosphere, check them out before they close their doors.

My friend drove me home and we talked about the concert. He came up for a couple minutes to pick up something and I walked him back downstairs. Neither of us wanted the evening to end, but we both had to be up early for work. Besides, we had a picnic in the park planned come rain or come shine. When it rains and thunders and lightning forks through the sky we get fireworks with our picnic.

He IM-ed me the next morning and said he was in the mood for Cobb Salad for lunch, so I picked up the ingredients, came home, made the salad, cut up some fresh watermelon, tossed it all in a canvas bag with some bowls and plastic utensils and met him at the park for our picnic. He was there ahead of me. I think he was hungry.

Spending time together is difficult and wonderful -- wonderful because the time flies by and difficult because the time just flies by.

Anyway, after he ate some of the watermelon he tells me he is allergic. Just a little allergic he says. I wanted to smack him, but those dimples, that sparkle in his green eyes and the laughter kept me from hitting him. Besides, he buys and eats watermelon, too. It's a summer tradition. Some things are definitely worth risking a little swelling in the throat.

There is more, but I'll save it for later.

I'll shut up now.

No Farmer's Market for me

the first day of the summer Farmer's Market in Old Colorado City but I was in my car and on the road headed for Monument, Colorado for my first experience as a Volunteer Examiner (VE) for a hamfest (Ham Radio Amateur Swap Meet). I remember the first time (who never updates his journal) told me he was going to a hamfest near me and wanted to come to the cabin to visit. "Hamfest?" I asked. "At 8:00 in the morning? I thought actors didn't get up until after noon." He laughed and explained it was for amateur radio -- hams. Okay, I get it, but the only other thing that came to mind before he explained was a celebration of pigs. I know differently now.

A hamfest is a gathering of geeks, nerds and technophiles devoted to buying, selling, trading and talking about radios, computers and everything that goes with it. It was interesting and fun.

We wandered around together and separately, caught in the tides and eddies and whirlpools of people and equipment and talk until we both needed to sit down and just talk to each other for a while. When it was nearly time to get set up for the examinees, we made our way back into the building and to the room to set it up for testing. The rest of the morning and the first part of the afternoon were a blur of activity, explanations, instructions and people as we handed out, took back, graded and informed people of their scores. The whole examination process is fairly simple, but the grading, checking, rechecking and formalizing of the paperwork is a bit of work, work that I thoroughly enjoyed. He called it my baptism by fire and said I did very well for my first exam. I caught a few mistakes (his) and clarified some rules and regulations and it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

We had a long walk back to our cars and the rest of the afternoon was taken up with lunch at Bear Creek (where they have the most decadent and scrumptious raspberry cheesecake and Reubens and an okay, but limp, Caesar salad) and the dollar movie theater where Sahara with Matthew McConnaughey, Penelope Cruz, William H. Macy and Steve Zahn was playing. The movie is based on Clive Cussler's Sahara, which is the only one of Cussler's books I was ever able to get all the way through, and it is a funny, adventurous and wry tale that is a whopping good tale. However, at the end the playful romance between Dirk and Eva is contrived and heavily staged and Ms. Cruz is definitely not up to the task. She was a lot more convincing as a dedicated WHO doctor than as a woman who has fallen in lust/like with Dirk Pitt. It didn't play well at all. The movie is still a good time for a Saturday afternoon or any evening when you need to laugh and sit on the edge of your seat.

After the movie it was home for me where my pale moss green sweater was folded neatly atop the newel post at the top of the landing outside my door. The landlady found it between the wall and the dryer where it had fallen and was invisibly camouflaged with the bags.

Once inside, I unpacked my bags, kicked off my shoes, made a bowl of granola and milk and settled in with Dorothy Parker until I dozed off on the love seat in the living room. All in all, it was a really good day.

This morning I'm a little sore and my left heel cord is tight, but I'm happy and looking forward to finally getting a call through to the friend whose call I missed by one ring and whose phone was busy for quite some time afterward. I did go to bed early with Stephen King and a bottle of Colorado Spring's finest water to the sound of a long soaking rain storm that sang me to sleep with its gentle lullaby.

Acceptance

Yesterday is the first time in weeks I have seen and spent lots of time with John. It was wonderful. I was a little worried that he might bring his daughter, but I needn't have worried. He was alone...with me...in the midst of hundreds of other ham radio operators and geek toys and frills. It was a good day.

When he saw me standing beside the line his eyes lit up and he smiled like a kid who just got what he wanted for Xmas. He waved and came over to me. I told him he needed to get into the shorter line to pay and he came back with his raffle ticket and ubiquitous canvas bag. I took the bag while he filled out the raffle ticket and we chatted. He kept smiling down at me and clenching the handle of his bag when I handed it back, clenching it like he needed to keep his hands occupied because they wanted to do something else, something they can't do in public, especially around people who have known him for so many years and know he's married -- and not to me. Soon the line started moving and we moved with it down the hall, through the door and into the gymnasium, doubling as an exhibit hall. We circled and talked, looked and touched, asked and answered questions, riding the tides of people along the aisles, separated at times and close together at others. We saw some people we know and he introduced me to some people he knows and we drifted and floated with the tides until both of us had seen all there was to see and we needed to find sunlight and a place to sit.

Outside we bumped into more people we and he knew and he introduced me again. Footsore, I wandered over to the shade and sat on a bench while he chatted with his friends. Then he came up to me and asked if I'd like to sit in the sunshine, so we did. I sat and he stood until I told him he could sit next to me. He did. We sat on the edge of the cement pylon, close but not touching, keeping a careful distance between us, chatting and talking and teasing each other with smiles and laughter. Then an older woman came and sat down across from us. She talked about her husband and his call sign (ending with UOH which she turned into Ugly Old Ham) and their travels as missionaries. She kept looking at us and smiling as we jibed and teased each other as we talked with her. Just before she left she said something unimportant, but her last words were to us as a couple. I suddenly understood her looks and smiles. They were the same smiles a person who is part of a happy couple, a couple who is comfortable with themselves and each other, gives another happy couple.

Before the missionary came to sit by us there had been a white-haired old guy who leaned heavily on his cane sitting beside us and caught part of our conversation on antennas. He jumped in with suggestions of what antennas to use and we talked about antennas for a while before he smiled at us and said he'd leave us to enjoy the sunshine together.

Together.

Even though most of the people in John's radio amateur club know he's married, there is the sense of them looking at us and treating us as a couple. Maybe they think I'm his wife. They haven't ever seen her. She never comes to the ham functions. Some of them know I'm an old friend, but I still get the impression that they see and think of us as a couple because that is how they treat us.

Such was the case with Mike Anderson.

Mike even asked us if we were married when we were teasing each other sitting in the testing room before the examinees got there. John looked at me and smiled but then he said that we were just old friends. I said we had known each other since sixth grade and John amended that we had a big gap in our friendship of 30 years. Mike said the gap didn't show.

More and more I notice that people do treat and see us as a couple, a harmonious pair who have rubbed along happily together for years. In some ways we have but in another sense we are just getting to know each other's history and lives, getting to know who we are as opposed to who we were as children and teens. Still, there is a sense of easy familiarity that strangers and friends see and recognize even though we tell them we are not married.

It is only a matter of time before what people recognize in us becomes reality for us. We live for that day. But for now what we have and what we share is acceptance of us as a couple.

The Quality of Light

As the light fades and colors deepen, I look out my window at my tree. The squirrels are settling in for the night, climb into their warm nests, and the sky is gray, but the horizon is a luminous white. The edges of the vista blur and the mountains dim and darken, growing larger, a backdrop of rock and trees and stability. The view softens with the coming of night but the tree outside my window is solid and clear and the details are sharply defined. The rain today settles into the cracks in the bark. The tree breathes in the moisture, forcing the alligator skin bark into painstaking relief.

The horizon glows with the sun's descent and the wind picks up rattling loose branches from their connections, twigs and leaves dipping and ripping from their moors and floating to the ground. Darkness closes in and everything right outside the window is delineated and defined.

There is a quality to dusk that blurs the edges of the view as it creeps closer, settling in like a lover's arms in an intimate embrace. Color flees and silhouettes take solid form out of the riot of daylight.

Dusk.

And soon night...

...when the stars flare and fly across the vault of heaven, and the moon's pale silver face lightly blues the darkness.

Fast and dirty

If you're interested in biographies and people, check out The Story of My Life about Farah Ahmedi, a survivor of the Afghan wars.

That is all. Disperse.

Dinner dates

I finished work early today because I had a date tonight. I needed clean clothes (underwear) and it was time to do the laundry. I was running out of everything and didn't feel like taking the tags off my 10-year-old formal gown. Dinner was not a formal affair tonight.

Downstairs the Psycho was talking to the landlady on the deck in the sunshine. He said hello and I said hi. We're such conversationalists. Then unlocked the door and disappeared into the laundry room. The landlady came through from her massage room to check her towels in the dryer. She told me I didn't have to go back upstairs around the outside of the house; I could go through her apartment. When I came back outside Psycho (the landlady's name for her psychic friend) was working on the cement block retaining wall, the one I had planned to work on Sunday. We talked while he worked, getting to know one another, swapping esoteric views. He's a very intelligent and interesting guy, and he didn't hit me upside the head with the shovel when I offered help and suggestions on fitting the cement blocks together. I'd say that's tolerant.

Psycho and I are about the same height, but I'd say he's probably a tad older. I'd also bet he was a redhead at one point in his life. There are a few cinnamon strands in his beard but the dead giveaway is his green eyes and freckles. Add jeans, blue chambray shirt and a ball cap and you begin to get the picture. There is humor sparkling in his eyes and clearly evident in the crinkles around his eyes and the aura of joy around him.

I had planned to go back upstairs and bring down another load of clothes to wash when the first load was ready to go into the dryer. Didn't work out that way. We ended up sitting on the deck talking about spirituality, definitions of reality, Nostradamus, quantum physics and truth just for a beginning. We also talked about writing and history and people. It could have lasted for days at the rate we were going, but we scratched the surface. It's a beginning.

Psycho needed to discuss something with the landlady and I had to get ready for my date. I didn't want to be late and I still had to fold and put away the dry laundry, get a shower, do something with my hair and get dressed. That would take a good half hour and I didn't want to be late. My date was set for six.

I went back upstairs, laid out the laundry and headed for the shower. When I got out I couldn't find the top I laid out. I still can't find it. I ended up wearing something from the closet (no, not the gown). The phone rang while I was still naked and wet. It was my date wanting to know if I was almost ready. I was.

Downstairs I knocked on the landlady's door and she was ready to go. We were going to walk up to ront Range Barbecue. A light mist drifted through the cool air as we walked toward the restaurant past the park where yesterday groups of older couples were picnicking in the last warm rays of the sun. The carriage driver and Rusty were clip-clopping past us up 24th exchanging small talk and hellos. It was a beautiful evening, cool, soft and perfect.

At the restaurant we settled into a table, ordered drinks and talked until the busboy came up, red-faced, blushing and hesitant. "Would you mind if we moved you?" he asked tremulously.

The landlady and I looked at each other and smiled. "Not at all." We picked up our drinks, he picked up our condiments and led us to a booth with a window seat -- right where I wanted to sit when we got there, but it was already occupied. It was also quieter with no one shouting into their cell phone.

Dinner arrived: hamburger and a tomato, onion, cucumber salad for the landlady and BBQ ribs and brisket with green beans, corn muffins and the same salad for me. She had some kind of honey wheat beer and I had a margarita (no, not the sissy slushy kind) and water, lots of water.

Dinner was good, really good, but the conversation was the best part of the meal. I found out the landlady is a chocoholic -- but I already suspected as much.

After dinner we walked back home past the park in a light drizzle. There was music. A band was playing 40s and 50s music with a bit of swing and jazz and a little burlesque music for the novelty acts. Both of us were dancing to the music and would have stayed but SOMEONE had to go to the bathroom and couldn't hold it. Good thing we were close to home. I unlocked the door and the landlady raced for the bathroom. When she came back (a decidedly relieved look on her face and her eyes no longer swimming) we went out on the porch and listened to the music and talked while Pastor took a bio break.

The sun was hidden behind gray clouds and the light was fading slowly, the neighborhood wrapped in hot horns and brass, pulsing drums, and seductive woodwinds while the saxes wailed. The air was cool and laden with the scents of misty flowers, fresh cut grass and fertile earth. Good food, good company, great conversation and music.

This is living.

Denizens

Yesterday was a good day. I got money. I spent time with the landlady and Pastor. And I met someone new: Eddie.

Eddie lives in the old Victorian behind us. He has three trucks -- that are out of the garage anyway -- and he is a grizzled fella who always wears faded and worn overalls.

Yesterday he was cutting the grass on his lot when I was backing out of the driveway to go to the movies and see Star Wars. I needed a break. I stopped for a moment as he stood at the whitewashed corral fence that separates his side yard from the alley and introduced myself. He already knew me -- and quite a bit about me.

"I know everything that goes on," he said.

The way his eyes glinted with intelligence and mischief, I had no doubt he was being honest.

He told me he started working as a water meter reader in 1970 and had been in every home within a 30-mile radius not built in the last 11-12 years -- that's when he retired. He knows all the stories and the secrets, not to mention that he knows where all the bodies are buried and which closets have skeletons. He was born and raised just 10 blocks from his house, which he bought about 30 years ago. Eddie is definitely a good source of information if I need to know anything about anyone or the history of the area.

"I remember when [Colorado Springs] was just a cowtown."

I know about cow towns. I was born in Columbus, Ohio, and that's another cowtown -- no matter how many malls and fancy restaurants come and go.

Eddie's front porch is decorated with a trailing string of CDs hanging from the ceiling of the roof. They swing in the winds and cast rainbows everywhere.

"What CDs did you use for your decorations?" I asked him.

"AOL."

I had a feeling.

"I'd go down to the post office, grab a few of them free AOL packets, drill a hot nail thru them and string them together and hang them up," he explained.

"Why?"

"I kept having trouble with birds making nests in the porch light. Someone said as how if I'd hang somethin' shiny they'd stay away. I got me them CDs, hung 'em up and the birds stay away. Works real good." He grinned through the neat silver threads of his mustache and his green eyes glinted. "Probably some other kind of disks up there, but most of 'em's AOL."

The landlady was waiting to back out of the drive and I was blocking the way, so I said goodbye and headed down the alley to 24th.

Slowly but surely I'm getting to know the denizens of my little corner of the Springs. You can tell he knows something from that mischievous glint in his eye. The landlady told me if Eddie likes you you're in. Eddie likes me. I'm in.

So, wth one tree-hating orc wench on the east side, a house full of college age guys and their revolving door girlfriends on the west and Eddie across the alley, I'm beginning to find my footing here -- and it's getting more interesting every day.

Squirrel porn, disappearing woodpeckers,sky diving nuthatches and a Farmer's Market starting this weekend, I really lucked out.

Lifting weights

It's hard to see the trees when you're looking at the forest. It's even harder to let someone go when they've been a part of your life for a long time. Sometimes you have to let them go.

A heavy weight has been lifted from my life and it took me a while to understand what it was and why it was. After a long talk with two friends (one old and one new, but very wise), I realize that I was still collecting masks. Not mine. Others' masks.

A mask can be a weighty object, not just for the person who wears it to hide who and what they are, but for the people who care about them and fall into the trap of believing the mask is the truth. A mask can also hide an outer ugliness that obscures the truth of the inner beauty. Masks are distractions, a beautiful, and often flashy, sleight of hand that keeps us from seeing the truth.

To quote Ben from The Truth About Cats & Dogs, "You know how someone beautiful can become more and more ugly as you get to know them and someone you wouldn't even look at twice can become more and more beautiful?"

It is not about the beauty of the words or the face or the smile that appears so genuine, but about those little moments when little by little the adhesive fails and the mask slips to show a glimpse of such darkness and ugliness that you doubt what you have seen. You wrestle with what you think and what you saw, telling yourself it was a trick of the light, but eventually the truth wins out and the mask comes off. A very close friend saw the truth and tried to warn me, but I wasn't listening. He was right. I was wrong. The mask is gone and so is the heavy weight I've struggled with these past months.

Here's to lifting and losing the weight of the mask. I just lost a whole lot of it.

Monday afternoons are not for headaches

Have I mentioned how truly talented and wonderful my landlady is? She is -- in spades.

I went downstairs on my way to the grocery store to return the bowls from the strawberry dessert and stuffed peppers I took home Saturday night and stayed for a few minutes to talk and sit out on her deck in the glorious sunshine. My arms pinked up quickly and I will have color tonight -- no burn, just color. I tan very quickly.

Anywho, I was rubbing my right temple where lately I get these headaches besides and behind my right eye. She asked if I minded if she played with me. (No, I did not say the first thing that came into my mind.) I said, "Sure," and she started by pinching my right shoulder. She said since I work on the computer I might be tight there. I'm not. Muscular but definitely not tight. She asked if there was any more pain in my head when she pinched my shoulder and I assured her there wasn't. Then she went to work on my right temple and eye.

I felt nice, but nothing was happening -- at first. I closed my eyes and breathed and suddenly the dark red behind my eyes started lightening up and became blue and then lavender and the pain started to dissipate. she did a little energy work on me, telling me there was some brown crap in there and asked if I was angry at someone. Couldn't think of anyone right at first, but later I remembered I was ticked at a certain brother-in-law who is a jerk. She kept working on my head, put her hands on my forehead and the back of my neck, did some more energy work and the tension and pressure beside and behind my right eye started to go away. The light behind my eyelids got brighter and brighter and she said, "Ooh, a rainbow." I'm going to believe that was good news.

Then she got a call from her best friend in Germany and I petted Pastor for a few moments then decided I should sneak out and let her talk in private. By the time I got in the car and belted up, the headache was completely gone. Now, if I can just keep it that way.

I do think it's time I scheduled an appointment with her for a massage and some energy work. After all, what's the use of having a certified neuromuscular therapist in the house if I don't patronize her? Good thing I get paid tomorrow,huh?

And if you live in or near Colorado Springs, let me know and I'll pass your information along.

That is all. Disperse in an orderly fashion.

Sunshine glancing off leaves...

...and clouds swimming by overhead, there's nothing better than a brand new day.

The neighborhood is quiet right now. Once in a while kids pass in the street or cars slip quietly down the street between the tree-lined curbs, barely noticed. Cats criss cross the streets and squirrels play tag along the branches, daring even the slenderest twigs bending beneath their scanty weight before diving through the air. Birds and bees dart and dance in the sun dappled shadows and trees wave and nod in the breeze. It's a peaceful Sunday, the kind of day to sit and read with the windows open. I'm half tempted to put on some clothes and go for a walk down to the big park on Uintah, pick out a picnic bench and lean against the table reading my book, which has turned out to be very surprising. You can read about it at The Celebrity Cafe when the review is posted. I'm not going to give you so much as a hint yet.

Yesterday I got my hands dirty pulling dandelions and weeds and planted some nasturtiums and baby's breath. The squirrels got to the sunflowers, but I'm going to get them back. I'm sprinkling cayenne on the sunflowers I'm planting this week. Besides, it's time to put the Xmas ornaments back in their boxes and unearth my seeds from the African carry basket so I can have it ready when the Farmer's market starts next weekend. I usually carry canvas bags, but I thought that would be more fun.

Time for me to get back to the book if I expect to finish in time to post my review by tomorrow morning.

That is all. Disperse.