April in Texas

Spring is nature’s way of saying, "Let’s party!"  

Robin Williams

April in Texas. Best time of the year for me. After the brown of December, January, February and most of March, I've escaped from winter's hold on the bleak. Perfect weather has arrived. I sit outside and I'm not hot. Nor am I cold. The sun on my skin provides much needed Vitamin D.

Everything sings green. My garden grows.

Best part? No bugs.

Doesn't get much better than that. Except for when you head out in the car for a Saturday adventure. Country roads. Beautiful vistas. Wildflowers.

In the 1960's First Lady Lady Bird Johnson began a beautification project throughout Washington DC and America. Since she lived in Austin and also in the nearby Hill Country, her efforts are seen in abundance here as she saw to the spreading of wildflower seeds to enhance the landscape. You can read more about it here.

The roads surrounding us in Spring are filled with camera toting families, oil painters, and flower lovers cruising the countryside to find the best fields of Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrush along with many other species of yellow, white, pink and purple persuasions.

On Saturday my husband and I joined the masses and headed out with our friends Mike and Bonnie. I planned to drive so I could go as slow as I wanted and stop whenever to get a better photo. However, that bad wife in me felt sorry for my husband as I know he likes to drive. I offered him my car keys and listed the parameters of his task ahead.

1. This isn't a race.

2. We will need to go slow.

3. You will have to listen for "What a great place to stop." or "Slow down." or "Go back, go back." and comply.

4. This isn't a race.

He agreed.

Off we went.

 Passed by the strawberry picking place and

 

headed onto the highway and then many country roads.

All of those merited a Stop the Car shout.

But this one, this one was just perfect. Took a turn onto a road that ended up a dead end, but, oh, my. Overwhelming find.

Let's see that again.

We came around this corner and found a perfect spot for a vista view.

Any time you guys are ready...

Shortly thereafter, my husband forgot the mission of the trip. I opened my window to take a photo and he sped up. Bonnie said, "Wow, what a perfect place to stop." He turned up the radio.

But gotta love the man for shortly thereafter he took a quick turn into a long drive that took us to this view

and a winery. Nothing like finishing out the drive with a wine tasting and a view.

After that, all we saw was just icing on the cake.

Ended up in the metropolis of Marble Falls for a big hamburger at Bill's.

 Cheers.

Thanks Bob, Mike, and Bonnie. Fun day.

Happy Spring Northern Hemisphere. 

Loving the Bluebonnets.

And the paintbrushes.

Vroom, Vroom

Let me silent be,

For silence is the speech of love,

The music of the spheres above.

Richard Henry Stoddard

Yesterday, while sitting on my bed with my books and journals, I heard the distant drone of a lawn mower. That sound has long been a favorite of mine. Growing up in the harsh winters of Minnesota, a lawn mower's music meant the long days of summer and I most likely had bare feet. I love when my feet are bare. Warmth.

My brain filled with memories of days with no school structure and adventures made where my mother often had no clue as to my whereabouts. Bike riding. Swimming. The county fair. Vacation at a lake. My toes in the grass. Library books read under the shade of a tree.

I closed my eyes, happy in my content recollections.

As my meditation approached peak nirvana, the pull of a rip cord and the blasting rev, rev, rev of a power blower eradicated the gentle din of the mower. My neighbor's lawn people had arrived.

Blowers unnerve me. The firing up of the machinery. The warming of the motor bypassing the sputter. Rev. Rev. Rev. The finger on the trigger testing the strength of the mower as it moves through the yard. The blower taking for-ev-er to complete its route.

Incessant pandemonium ensues as debris is pushed savagely into a new resting place. The flurry of activity continues as leaves and twigs and soil and grass clippings relocate in a cloud to the destination chosen by the invader powering the man-made wind.

The Beast

 Whatever became of the good-natured swish of a broom? The muted scrape of a rake gathering leaves and mowed grass into a pile?

This uproar of noise doesn't escape me at my home either. The neighbors and I know when my husband has arrived from work on Friday nights. First thing he does is open the shed door and fire up that beastly blower of disturbance. 

I recall finishing my work week with a place to rest my feet and a gallon of wine. But nowadays, from my most likely prone position in my hammock or from my chair inside where my quiet and silent life surrounds me, my peace is shattered. Noise has arrived.

Vroom Vroom Vroom

I understand it's not only that the walkway is now cleared of the weekly scraps that have fallen due to winds or the seasons of the Chinese Tallow trees. There is something to that Vroom. It's a guy thing.

It's why when a motorcycle passes us my husband rolls down every window in the car and says, "Listen to that."

Or when he fires up the boat and only puts the motor halfway into the water for a few moments and its blubble, blubble, blubble interrupts my content mind.

"Listen to that purr," he says.

I feign having hearing.

I've long known many men like motors more than women do. Hence all the TV shows my husband channels through on a nightly basis. The car fixer shops filled with guys (and an occasional woman in a tight t-shirt) rebuilding motors while the noise level makes the workers shout at one another.

Or the guy with the white hair and mustache who travels around the country buying expensive cars and then gets all tense while selling them at auction to guys with nothing better to do with their time and money. Collectors, my husband says.

Okay.

Noise and motors obviously do something for men that it just doesn't do for me. (I could possibly include speed here, but my mother drove a car and a boat like a bat out of hell, so I won't.)

This thing, whatever it does, must have some power or shot of testosterone that I only see as an invasion and will never, never understand. Since I don't have a wanger and all.

It's not the first time I've realized that not having a penis places me in a different world. (No shit, Sherlock, but I'm trying to keep this post light.) And, not only in regard to motors.

Last year my husband was hot to replace our old boat which bought used had served us well for nine years and almost 700 hours of family/friend fun. Translation: about 100,000 car miles and still perfectly serviceable. I also didn't have to worry about jarring it if I nudged the dock while creeping into the mooring on a windy day.

Since he thinks differently than me as to what our priorities are (again an appropriate placement for a no shit) he found a new/used one at a local boat shop. He asked me to come look at it. Although I had five thousand better things to do, I did appreciate that he wanted me to see it and met him there.

I found him with the salesman in a garage at the back of the showplace. The dealership had pulled the boat into this space for his inspection.

First words out of my mouth?

"Really? No way this will fit in our dock. Way too big. And look at the rack on it."

"Yeah," said my husband and the salesman in unison, their eyes glazing over as they viewed the rack.

"Measuring tape?" I inquired.

They both looked at me.

"Tape? Measure?"

The killjoy had arrived.

After much search, the salesman proffered up my requested ruler and with collected delight the two of them declared that the width would just make it into the slip.

"Providing you can just slide it in. And the water is calm," I said.

No reply.

"Can our lift accommodate the weight of this beast?"

Killjoy, again.

The salesman suggested we call the most expensive dock guys around to come and put in a hydraulic system to be placed on the bottom of the lake that would lower and lift our boat rather than the current pulley and cable raising system we have.

"Is that in our budget?"

My husband shifted back and forth on his feet.

"And the rack," I asked. "How does that fit in our covered slip."

"Oh," said the salesman. "You just put it up and down when you come in and out."

"With all our visitors, we go in and out sometimes ten times on a weekend."

He shuffled his feet.

"You can sell racks on Craigslist," he conceded.

I don't doubt that.

I glanced at the really nice and expensive boat parked next to this one and remarked how its rack is not nearly as big. I asked why this one is so large if it serves the same purpose.

The salesman shrugged. "Some guys just like a bigger rack."

The sky opened up and I couldn't resist.

"I get it. My rack's bigger than your rack."

I took my leave.

Suffice to say, a different boat found its way to our dock. It may not have a huge rack, but it does have a motor that goes Vroom, Vroom. I hear it when my husband revs it up and wants me to listen. I peak over my hammock's edge without moving my book and nod my head.

I haven't taken this boat out by myself yet as I'm waiting for my husband to put a big dent in it first.

Meanwhile, as I sit with windows open writing this incredibly substance-filled blogpost, I've taken a few minutes to listen to the quiet. I hear the twitter of a visiting bird calling, "Cheater, Cheater, Cheater." The gentle coo of a Mourning Dove and the settling of the falling Live Oak leaves as they land on the patio. I hear the pansies saying hello.

Yet I prepare. For as the day closes in and my quiet world escapes me, I hear in the distance a small plane passing overhead as it approaches the grass landing strip across the lake. A weekend fisherman roars by in pursuit of the perfect fishing hole, before anyone else finds it. A lawn crew fires up its motors a few houses down.

Vroom Vroom

Blubble, Blubble, Blubble

Cheers to my male readers. Please note I said 'many men' not all of them.

Hang Another Hook on the Mantle

Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river. 

Malagasy Proverb

The night before the night before Christmas, I stayed up until 3am. Not because of cards to address, food to prepare, or presents in need of a bow.  No, nothing as easy as that kept me up two hours past my bedtime. Something much bigger. I had a Christmas stocking to finish and time was running out.

Granted, I have procrastination tendencies and time does fly away while I'm listening to the birds sing. But I hate when I'm time crunched and finishing this stocking was important.

Years ago when my husband and I married, he had the Christmas stocking his aunt had knit for him and his siblings. His brother's wife, Cathy, and I decided we each wanted a knitted one also. We found a store where we could purchase a stocking kit and we learned how to knit.

We often swore while searching for lost stitches and comparing progress.

Where Cathy was more prone to the detail work, like sewing on sequins and outlining, I seemed to be the more apt knitter. Hard to believe, I know. When her daughter was born, we discussed the stocking tradition. After inquiring as to how many kids she planned to have (I had no intention of ever having any) it was decided that I would do the knitting and she would do the adorning.

Five more stockings and many years later, my oldest son brought his bride to our fold. I ordered a kit and found my knitting needles. Not having knitted one in 19 years, I wasn't quite in sync. I didn't know for certain if my daughter-in-law, always most kind, indeed didn't mind that her stocking ended up ten inches longer than everyone else's. Or much wider. Note to self: Read the directions on needle size.

Will full intention to redo that stocking one day, I asked my husband to spread the hooks out on the fireplace. With his precise engineering head, he got out his measuring tape, his sticky note pad, pencil, and all his swear words.

Looking at this photo seems I've had a consistency problem more than once. What can I say.

Early last year we received the delightful news that the middle son wanted to add a stocking to that fireplace.  He had fallen in love and a lovely woman had accepted his offer of marriage.

Elation on my part. After three brothers and three sons, my woman numbers were increasing once again.

For an exciting engagement gift, I gave his fiancee a Christmas stocking kit, then immediately took the gift out of her hands. She, a beautiful knitter herself, could certainly have done much better work than me, the cursing needle fumbler. But getting a stocking on the mantle had become a right of passage in our clan. I would do the honors once again.

I began at once, impressed with my early start. Somewhere along the line, the project got buried under several New York Times Book Reviews, a few unread books, a blanket and a box of Kleenex and all the other goodies that are stockpiled beside that chair I live in.

When stuffing the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers into my mouth brought the realization that it was time to decorate for Christmas, panic struck me.  Ten months had passed since I last knitted a stitch on that stocking.

I rummaged around in the basket to find the project. I feverishly poured my soul into the knitting. Twenty, twenty-five hours or more I knitted through a massive color change mess to make my future daughter-in-law her own special stocking.

When I began the toe section, it dawned on me that something was amiss. I held it up to the others. Where the other six had the foot going to the left, this one went to the right.

I cried. My husband said it was okay. Just to finish it. That no one would notice.

Yes. No one will notice that six stockings point one direction and one points to the other. No one.

A frantic search for the same kit ensued. A week and a half before Christmas (when no one has anything to do) I received it by mail, reversed the pattern, and worked at a pace that had I been running I'd now be skinny.

My ultimate goal? That on Christmas Eve when the family gathered there would be seven stockings hanging on the mantle -- all facing the same direction. In unity.

Back to 3am on the night before the night before Christmas. I finished the toe and off came the stocking from the knitting needles.  By 7am I was up and sitting in bed double stitching the name

L E I G H

onto the cusp. I mattress-stitched the sides together and yelled at my husband to get the hooks rearranged.

Just let me say he didn't quite understand my vigor. For the middle son and wife-to-be were not even coming for Christmas Eve. They were in New York City spending the holiday with that youngest son, the Bama Chef Boy. But, dammit, her stocking was gonna be hanging on Christmas Eve.

It brought me great pleasure to send Leigh a text photo of said stocking hanging with the others to let her know just how much we welcome her to our family.

Yup, wedding coming up in June. Which also means I need to enlist that gaggle of friends to drag me to do my favorite thing -- shopping for a dress.

Long-time readers of this blog may recall my enthusiastic attempts at choosing a dress for that oldest son's wedding. You can recall it here and here. And, yes, I have the same problem -- I still ain't got no tits.

More overwhelming than the thought of shopping is the reflection of how could this beautiful child that was just born yesterday be 27 and getting married?

Even more overwhelming is that such an incredible young woman will share his life.

Nope. That's not the dress.

Welcome to the family, Leigh. We love you.

Tales of shopping to come.

Compass Lost -- Finding a Solution to our Gun Situation

Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.  

Raymond Lindquist

Finding your way in unfamiliar territory requires an excellent map. For if you want to know where you're headed, you might want to know the general direction to undertake your journey.

In elementary school my classes did a great deal of map work including not only the geography of the world, but our own neighborhoods. We mapped our routes to and from school with landmarks and street signs. Since I always walked to school, it didn't seem such a difficult task. I'm a saunterer so I tend to notice things while I walk. The detail is what counted in our maps. The detail is what made it workable.

Each map required a compass placed in a prominent place on the page or a failing grade was guaranteed. A compass provided the measure to which one might first locate themselves. To get their bearings. To know which way to take the first step.

Since I lived in a small town divided into quadrants in regard to the numbered street address (NW, SW, NE, SE) direction was an easy issue for me. I lived in NW. My grandparents lived in SW.  The Hormel plant was in NE. The bowling alley in SE.

When I moved to Denver at 13,  I only had to look around and find the mountains. That gave me West. Easy from there. Same thing in Salt Lake City. Wasatch Front. East.  Connecticut - Long Island Sound at the end of the road. South. And then, of course, there is where the sun rises and sets.

Seemed when I knew one direction, I could easily figure out the rest. 

I recently traveled to Ireland. I had prepared. I made a guidebook with maps, hotel reservations and transportation info. I had a general knowledge of things I wanted to see and had printed out the directions from each stop in the country to the next stop. However, I didn't do that for Dublin. I knew places I wanted to see, but I hadn't studied the map. I shouldn't say that. I did study the map. But the map that had fixed itself in my brain couldn't comprehend the lay of the land when I walked it.  I felt like someone had swirled me around in a circle while I wore a blindfold and then sent me out. I had my north and south confused. My east and my west not even in my mind.

My traveling companion had a grasp of the area much better than me.  Also, the city was not that large so aimless walking still provided many a wondrous experience. But losing one's way can be most unsettling. Especially when it has been a strong point in the past.

When I arrived home, I pasted the brochures and mementos from the trip into my homemade book to accompany the journal entries made while there. I came across the Dublin map I'd used. Studying it and recalling my disorientation, I noticed the city was not a perfect grid of north/south/east/west. And the map did not have a compass.

Failing grade in my elementary school. No directional assistance for the walker. For the disoriented.

I share this long tale of direction as I struggle with the current state of my country. I'm more than troubled by the mass shootings aka terrorism (it's terrorism to me no matter how you paint it) involving guns that take place each day in this country. Where more than four people are shot or killed in a single incident by a perpetrator -- each day.

I'm even more troubled when the solution heard most loudly is spoken by those who want to put more guns out there. Who say after tragic loss of life that if the people had been armed, the loss of life would have been less.

Isn't the problem that there was any loss of life at all?

I have to ask how many of those touting that stout opinion of more guns have been in a situation where someone enters their domain and catches them off guard. If all their "gun training" calms their being and immediately sends them into SWAT team mode.

I don't know about you, but it's not in my nature to carry a firearm. Nor to undertake the extensive and continuous process of training to be not only a good marksman, but conscious of how to behave correctly in every shooting situation. How to assess. How to draw my weapon when caught off guard and under fire. How to not take out more innocents like, say, in a dark movie theater.

Nor am I interested in embracing a paranoia of living a life in fear. Not to say that I'm not aware of my surroundings. I do take precautions to ensure my safety. I do that whether in a foreign country or in the parking lot at the grocery store.

But let's be realistic. If something does happen to me, it will be when I least expect it. For isn't that the vulnerability an attacker depends upon?

And if attacked suddenly from behind or having a gun thrust at me while driving or finding myself in a safe environment now flying with bullets fired from an automatic weapon from I-don't-know-who, can I simply hold up my hands and say to the shooter "Can you hold on a minute while I get my gun out of my purse? Just a minute, I promise. It's here somewhere."

Then I have to remember how to use it while my hands shake for what kind of idiot walks around with a gun cocked and loaded. Safety and all, you know.

Many consider a solution to our gun woes is to improve our mental health system. Well, obviously. But how does that work in regard to the mass shooter? The loner with a stockpile of guns. Tables filled with literature of hate.  Do we (and who is we?) go house to house and give everyone a mental health evaluation?  What is the criteria?

I have long avoided taking this blog into any political or alienating place. I've used it to tell stories, share my humor and my family, road trips and my current state of life. I've practiced my writing skills and pushed my imagination to express itself through words and photography. I've talked about books and have most certainly bored you with my rambling thoughts in regard to many "safe" issues.

But today is a new day. I haven't been able to post anything for well more than a month because with all that is happening in my country and the world, my drivel seemed most unimportant.  
  
As much as I'd like to point out the complete stupidity of many presently taking up the airwaves, I won't. For that is quite obvious. What is missing are the intelligent voices of those who will stand up against it.

I suggest we need to draw a new map. We need to incorporate insightful, pragmatic, achievable solutions to our current out-of-control gun and ammunition debacle.

For we have most certainly misplaced our compass.

Thoughts?

Jacob, Jacob

We've had bad luck with our kids — they've all grown up. 

Christopher Morley

Thirty years ago this Sunday, I was terrified. Not only did the natural childbirth labor I thought such a wise choice loom before me, I had to raise a kid once I got it out. I knew nothing about that. I didn't even like kids.

Half of my fears dissipated shortly after those 64 stitches earned while ending that labor began to heal. Since I'm still here apparently raising that kid didn't do me in either.  Tested me a few thousand times, but as that kid, that boy his dad and I named Jacob, celebrates his 30th birthday, I celebrate him with this brief chronicle.

So you were what was in there.

After many attempts, finally took an  experienced and rather gruff nurse to come in, grab my breast, and shove it in your mouth for the two of us to figure out how to keep you in food.

For some reason, Grandma Bernie loved that photo so much she penciled it.

Wasn't long before you threw me over for a singing Care Bear.

Discovered pumpkins were okay companions.

Tried every activity we forced you into even if you were uncertain as to the outcome. "Mom?"

Took boat rides with strangers.

Adopted a steadfast dedication to your clothing and your artistic abilities.

Napped like your old man.

Smiled even if you didn't have any teeth.

Swam in whatever swimming hole I brought you to.

Collected Christmas presents while wearing a Green Bay Packer sweatshirt (before going to the dark side and cheering for the pseudo America's Team.)

Volunteered your time, costumed of course, with your brothers.

And the years went by and are chronicled in all those albums and boxes and more boxes not shown that had you a different mother might be more organized so she might know which ones held photos of just you. Alas...

...you fell in love in high school.

Graduated from college and got one of those rings you had to drink an entire pitcher of beer to get. 

A proud parent moment. First time alcohol ever passed those lips, I am certain.

Got a job, fell even more in love, and got a dog.

Married that lovely high school sweetheart.

Endured yet another costume I provide every Fourth of July.

Continue each day to create an incredible life.

Happy 30th Birthday, Jacob. Don't quite know how it went that fast.

Most proud of you.