An Invincible Summer - A Woman's Journey

Been busy.  I've painted two full rooms, including closets (ugh), cleared a slow moving drain with a hand auger, mounted a TV to the wall in the living room, emptied boxes galore and organized and tidied till my body yelled surrender at the end of each day. The Boy Scout worked just as hard but out in the garage and yard. The best thing we did was host a guest. My youngest came to visit and it was fantastic. I loved being with her and just having her near. This little peanut of a girl takes up so much of my heart. Can't wait to see the rest of the family.  Had dinner with some new friends that I am quickly falling in love with. Married 64 years and still kind to each other, Winnie and Andrew are just lovely people, and just by coincidence, they spent 20 years in Ojai before retiring as a superintendent of schools and a teacher. Ojai is one city over from the home we just left. The Boy Scout worked up there the last couple of years and we frequented the local public golf course...

To say I was a picky eater as a child would be a momentous understatement. Lucky for me I was 5th out of 6 and mom was tired for more reasons than just having a big pack of kids. I spent many a night in front of a plate of uneaten food before she would let me go and, finally, she gave up. Subsiding off of mostly boxed cereal, I started a lifelong love affair with a few specific brands. As a younger girl Fruit Loops, Rice Crispies (coated in sugar) and Captain Crunch were often on the menu but it was Lucky Charms that held my heart. I ate them well into adulthood. Once I had kids I knew I had to tone down that part of me. Wanting them to be healthy and good eaters, I knew I had to do better. I limited their cereals to a certain amount of sugar grams per serving. So little that all the best cereals were only on the menu when we went camping. To my delight, as much as theirs, when camping Lucky Charms were abundant, as were many other sickly sweet bowls of yumminess.  Truthfully, many...

The other day I was walking from my car to the mall. As I walked, a parked car's reverse lights lit. The gal starts backing up WITHOUT LOOKING and as her bumper reached my knee I hit her trunk and jumped out of the way. She looked at me like I had a problem and kept right on going. I'm shaking my head and walking across the main thoroughfare, thinking dark thoughts about stupid drivers, and approaching the Macy's door when a car that had stopped at the crosswalk started forward....towards me. She was looking straight ahead. I was right in front of her. I literally had to run to not be hit! Reaching the sidewalk, I exclaim to two shoppers that had witnessed this, "People are trying to fricken KILL me today!" They stood their with their mouths open, apparently shocked by what they saw. Had I had gone invisible? My presence never registered on her zombie face. I'm starting to wonder if everyone is just stoned out of their gourds. 

Baptism by fire or should I say ice.  Gas Company came out because my sniffer detected a leak. I was pishawed by all but the nose knows. They came in and their detector detected and I felt vindicated.....for awhile. He then went on to check this and that until he got to the meter. The meter was fairly new. Actually looks brand spanking new. The pipe leading from the meter to the house, NOT SO MUCH. He started picking at it to show me the problem and pieces started to fall away. He shook his head. He felt bad as he wrapped the meter with red tape. Yep, we got red taped!  Now, in Southern California red taped means one thing. But here, when the peaky high in 52° and the low are in the low 40's, it's a bit of a problem for this high desert gal. I am sitting here with layers and layers that don't really seem to be helping much. Boy Scout is asleep as he had his Booster and Flu vaccines and is feeling lousy. I called around and around and around. Do you know that plumbers seem...

She waits patiently for the door to be opened. She nonchalantly steps outside and walks to the left of the patio. Slowly, she lowers her body to a semi-crouch and takes deliberate and halting steps. She reaches the 20 yard line and then, like a gazelle, she bolts forward and runs like her life is on the line. Her goal? Either Chesters or Chickens, which ever one shows its face first. This gets repeated everytime we let her out. She's so stealthy. This is dog heaven here and Scruffy has already lost weight from the sheer non stop exercise built in to a yard with loads of Chesters (squirrels) and a neighbor with chickens (afterall, she is a bird dog). Once she gets out there, she proceeds to run, for the joy of running, in crazy eight patterns until she spots something, tires out or gets call back to the house. This is one happy dog.

Our challenge each day  is not to get dressed to face the world But to unglove ourselves So that the doorknob feels cold and the car handle feels wet And the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being, Soft and unrepeatable  Mark Nepo If only my gloves didn’t feel like they were chained on with tiny locks that take way to long to remove.