Tasmania?

     Okay I haven’t dated anyone since I first began writing this blog.  I have met someone on-line who positively rocks my world.  I rock his as well, and so between him and I trying to connect whenever we can we are both pretty exhausted.  I fear that I am living on Tassie Time.  I have been waiting for the day when he said at last, I think we should meet.  Meet?  Remember that scene in "You’ve Got Mail" where Meg Ryan shuts down her lap top.  This morning he told me that the price of an airline ticket was $2000 (Aussie dollars?) and that the flight is 20 hrs long from Melbourne.  It’s another hour flight from Tasmania to Melbourne.  I’m starting to panic at this point, wondering when he is coming and can I lose 25 lbs before he gets here.  But I asked if he had made the reservation.  No, he says, and just as I begin to relax thinking to type, well maybe next year (hell I can lose 50 lbs by then) but my stupid fingers typed, "Well we only really need a one way ticket (to paradise?)."  What was I thinking?  I’ve gone mad!  And then there was a long pause from him.  Don’t you hate those?

 

     Do you know how long a minute is when you’re chatting with your beloved bf?  It’s like a 10 minute pause in normal converstaion.  By the time it’s over you’ve forgotten nearly what was being said.  He was thinking that I meant that he should give up everything in Tasmania to move to the States.  Ah, my darling boy.  We both know that I can only get a three month visa, but what I haven’t told him is that there is no way I can risk going there if he isn’t going to make an honest woman of me and let me stay forever.  Tasmania, it just sounds so cool.  "Well I’m off to the wilds of Tasmania to bag me a husband."  Hah!  Still he does rock my world.

 

Blessed Be

Yosemite & Bass Lake

     I am currently writing from a condo in Bass Lake, CA.  It is so beautiful here that this will just be a short blog.  We have been exploring the park and I have to say no photos can really do justice to the sights enjoyed by the visitors.  Ansel Adams perhaps helped to make us aware that there is something here worth seeing, and in no way will the camera in my hands capture the kinds of images that Mr. Adams gave us.  On the way we were priveledged to behold the splendors of the coastal redwoods.  What can I say that Steinbeck and other great writers haven’t said already.  One really is humbled and awed by the majesty of these great trees.  I first encountered them on a winding treacherous stretch of road between the Calif-Or boarder and the coastal town of Crescent City after dark, where glimpses in the high beams of our SUV were hauntingly beautiful. 

     We spent the night in Crescent City, and the next morning pushed on to San Francisco.  The day was spent exploring the Grand Victorian mansions of Eureka, the Avenue of the Giants, where Sis drove her car through one of the giant redwoods, as seems obligatory of tourists.  On through the vinyards of Sonoma which we really enjoyed.  Unfortunately Sis doesn’t imbibe so I didn’t get the chance to stop at the wineries.  We entered San Francisco over the Golden Gate which is now a toll bridge, but as tourists with no cash on us we were magnamously waved on by the friendly toll collector.  We stopped at a turn out prior to crossing the bridge where hopefully I managed to take several good pictures of the bridge and the city.  My reaction to San Francisco after not seeing it since 1969:  Seattle on Steroids!

     Tomorrow we attend a wedding in Yosemite.  I cannot think of a grander place for a couple to say their vows, but in the shadow of El Capitan.  I have crossed my fingers that the shots I have taken so far will be worth the cost of the camera, although I regret I left the instruction manual on my desk along with my credit card.  Oops! 

Blessed Be!

Happy Mother’s Day

      My present arrived early.  For Mother’s Day I purchased for myself a new Sony AX200 with zoom lens.  It is way cool, and I am way too ignorant to operate it yet.  It arrived Friday and so far I managed to set the date and time.  Hey I rock!  Not bad for an old Mom.  Dena, Ruthie and I are heading to Yosemite National Park in June for a week vacation and to attend our friend’s wedding.  I needed a new super-d-duper camera.  Now if I can just wade through the owner’s manual.  Forty years ago at the Nikon School of Photography I learned that a professional photographer was one who had read the owner’s manual for his own camera.  Is this like riding a bike?  Mmm, I don’t think I could do that either!

Blessed B

And a special blessing for Mothers Everywhere.

Gods and Goddesses

     My nephew made a most startling observation this morning as we sipped our coffee on the front porch.  His apology for such a sexist comment was drowned nearly by a burst of laughter from yours truly.  I had just asked where the beautiful sunshine and blue skies had disappeared to, having woken to a glorious day.  Now the roiling dark clouds in numerous shades of gray were heading in with just the hint of moisture with them on the cold wind.  "Auntie Debbie," he said, "this is Washington.  You know this area must have been created by a woman, no place else is quite as moody."

     As my laughter eased it seemed to me that it had never occurred to me that perhaps it had taken both sexes to create the world.  I supposed with his reasoning it was a male entity who created the tropics.  Best of all though, I happen to live in a "female" zone.  How appropriate for a Goddess worshipper like myself.  Paganism is so fundamentally human in my opinion. 

     David has moved back in with his Mom for the time being.  She graciously gave him her bedroom, and we have moved the dining table to the front porch, after just having purchased it a couple of months back.  Now her princess bed adorns the dining room along with her TV and office furniture.  She hung delicate lace curtains at the window to the porch and strung ornamental flower lights at the valance which are quite pretty.  We are quite happy with the effect, and both enjoy the presence of a man in our feminine nest.  I suspect David also enjoys being here. 

     His nights off are during the work week for Sis and I, and as a professional chef we are looking forward to having him cook for us.  That reminds me I need to get his recipe for chicken marsala.  We now have someone to play cards with although we are still looking for a fourth for pinochle.  Ruthieroo, adores her cousins so she is happy that David will be around during her visits.

     When I finish writing this it is back to working in the garden.  We planted three rose bushes after work Friday when the sun was shining, along with the lilac we have been hauling from one apartment to the next.  As I finished patting the soil over it Sis said that now we could never move again, because she couldn’t leave the lilac!  Crazy Sister of mine, she forgets that as much as we love this house we are at the whim of landlords.  I now have anemones, foxglove and lilies to plant.  Hope everyone has a wonderful Mother’s Day next Sunday. 

Blessed Be

Technorati Tags: family,weather,cooking,gardening

The Boys Of Winter

Okay, so the sun came out for the Mariners yesterday, and they won!  So why am I continuing to gripe about the weather?  Because today it’s crap so far.  Cloudy, cold; definitely not reminiscent of mid-April.  It’s rumored that it will be in the seventies this weekend.  I hope so.  I am so busy being a cry-baby that I am afraid I may of flown right over the important thing.  They won, people!  Hooray for the Mariners!  It’s nice having Ken Griffey, Jr. back.   Somehow it just feels right.  Okay, so what that we are in first place this early.  Can they manage to stick around until September.  A feeling in my gut says yes!!!

    The above paragraph was written a couple of days ago, and finally I am getting around to catching this blog up.  The weather has been better I admit, but last night it rained after I went to bed.  I didn’t know that when I got up after 2 AM to glance out the kitchen window to notice that the running lights were on for my car!  Damn, I grabbed the keys and without stopping to put on shoes I ran out to turn them off.  As I ran off the end of the porch to land in a miry slop, I discovered that it had rained.  I turned out the lights but as I turned to step back on the porch, there on top of the garbage can sat a rat!   Now, I hadn’t bothered shutting the door and the rat was now between me and the entry to the kitchen (beside the also open pantry door).  I froze, he didn’t (notice how rats always get the masculine pronoun applied).  I tossed and turned the rest of the night wondering where he had run. 

     Today is beautiful!  Warm, blue sky, fluffy clouds.  It is supposed to be nice all weekend, and my plans have changed.  No Ruthieroo to amuse me, I will be doing laundry and curling up with Kathryn Magendie’s newly released book Tender Graces.  The cover says it is a gentle yet unflinching look at how we find our way home.  I had to laugh at Kat’s eagerness as she waited for Bell Bridge Books to send it out, that she was anxious to hold, and smell it.  As a writer (yet to be published) I can relate with her joy.  I wrote to her and told her I thought it smelled pretty good.

Blessed Be

First Home Game: The Boys of “Winter”?

    

Where is Spring?

       

     Okay, I know that officially it won’t be Spring for six more days, but still I can’t remember ever seeing snow this late in the year in Seattle.  Tuesday is St. Patrick’s Day, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be marching in any parades with the temperatures we are having.  Today for example was one of those wonderful March days that provide a sampling of weather enough to please anyone.  Usually I like to snuggle up on the couch with a blanky, hot cocoa and the remote.  However, I also went to Costco yesterday and bought bulb to plant around the property, and to Lowe’s to buy a chain saw.  I have cabin fever and couldn’t get outdoors soon enough.  Sis and I did put up a supply of firewood which is stack and drying on the porch as I write this, but it was cold!  I have stayed dressed in sweats and gloves most of the day running back and forth to the basement between drops of rain or sleet to do the laundry.  I’m not really sure if it was the weather or the fact that I never did get my cocoa that bothered me most.

     Maybe because this is our first spring and summer coming up in this house, I am eager to be about the property seeing what I have to work with.  I want to keep a natural look to the landscape, planting just the right perennials where I think they will suit best.  Sis bought roses yesterday and now I have to find a way to incorporate them in what was supposed to be a more wild landscape.  Sis loves roses though and usually plants them everywhere we move.  I am leaning to beside the front steps.  That appears to be the sunniest part of the property, and the most refined.  At Lowe’s yesterday we say many outdoor fireplaces that will be suitable for putting up on the porch, although I will have to figure out a way to vent the smoke off the porch.

     I spoke on the phone with Ruthieroo just moments before beginning this blog, and she told me that it snowed in Federal Way today.  Out my bedroom window where I now sit, there is blue sky over the city skyline, and white clouds on top of the hillside directly in front of the window.  When I last ran to the laundry it was black sky and big globby (which I know is not a word)except to describe rain in Seattle)) raindrops.  There really aren’t enough words in English to describe the rain in Seattle.  So again I ask, where is Spring.  On the 21st will the weather magically improve.  Or can I count on that happening on St. Paddy’s Day. 

Blessed Be