A slight cool spell swept into the area and dropped the morning temperature back into the middle 60's. It made the daily walk, with the ever so entertaining Runtly, the Jack Russell Terrier, even better. Runtly likes cool morning walks.
We skirt the outside edges of our little community and now that school is out, there is very little traffic in the mornings. The many grey squirrels provide endless entertainment for the Runt, although he probably would not know what to do with it, if he ever caught one.
The geese are molting, as they do every year, and the ground is littered with feathers of all shapes and sizes. Some days, Runtly proudly carries a long wing feather in his mouth, as if he has won a trophy of the highest award. The goslings are in various stages of growth. The older ones are beginning to resemble their parents in a fuzzy sort of way. The middle stage of the goslings' growth makes them appear like small velociraptors, as they try to keep up with the rest of the flock. A funny thing about geese is that when they molt, they are all rendered flightless at the same time. Perhaps a perk of nature, to keep the adults from taking flight when the kids are driving them crazy. One more thing about geese, before we round the corner to pass the tiny village, they live a really long time, over 30 years.
The tiny village lays to our right. Runtly has never taken notice of this place. There is a fence that runs along the border of the property. On the other side of the fence is the back side of a small strip mall, but it sits several feet higher than our path. The backside of the fence has many years of leaves and pine needles compacted against it. It gives the fence the appearance of being one of those ant farms, in the clear container so the viewer can watch all the comings and goings of the ants. It is not ants that make this area interesting, although there are surely hundreds of them in there, this is where the chipmunks live. Their tunnels and paths are visible against our side of the fence and on occasion, they can be seen darting through them.
The path between the ponds is covered in a canopy of pine boughs and brings to the walk, a true feeling of the closeness of nature. The tall pines are home to many feathered creatures and there is usually an ongoing chorus of chirps and tweets, if one takes the time to really listen. A red shouldered hawk banks sideways through the trees and crosses our path, the chorus becomes suddenly silent. No one wants to be called dinner.
A distant siren greets us at the end of the path, giving Runtly a perfect reason to cut short his part of the walk. He does not like sirens and is more than ready to go inside. Walking dogless means no more stops. No more stops to do his business, stops to smell some new scent, or stops to find something to roll in. Finishing the walk alone helps to keep a constant pace and the path begins its descent to the lake. The walk back up the hill takes a lot longer.
Looking down on this place from above, we could see what might resemble the Matryoshkas, the Russian nesting dolls. This small place, lies within another slightly larger place, that lies within another slightly larger place and on and on. Each one of those places touches the other, so, we are never too far from where we started our journey.
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Will We Ever Learn?
"What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9
Rewind to a time around the early 1960's. We are in a small town restaurant, possibly on a Friday evening. Dad, Mother and myself. I'm quite young, but neither of my older sisters are with us, so I must have been around the age of seven or eight. Quite an impressionable age.
We are sitting in a booth. Behind the booth in the corner is a pinball machine. Something I do not believe I had ever seen before. At the end of the machine was a young man who seemed hellbent on a mission of some sort, but I was not sure exactly what kind of mission it was. The pinball machine fascinated me. It had bells and buzzers and lots of flashing lights. The young man would lunge against the machine with all his might, while pressing buttons on each side that made the paddles under the glass top swat wildly at a small steel ball. I was totally immersed in this display of man vs. machine. I do not recall what the man looked like, but I do remember one particular thing about him. He had tattoos on his arms.
There were two parental "truths" I learned that evening. Pinball machines were only for young men who roamed the streets with no supervision or plan for their life and tattoos just confirmed that in writing, no pun intended. In other words, I was to avoid both, forever.
Fast-forward to present day. I'm sitting in a local restaurant. It is a Tuesday evening and therefore it is taco Tuesday. My young friend, Jazzy and I are seated in a booth. Jazzy has a tattoo of Beetlejuice that runs from the top of her shoulder to her elbow. If you do not know who Beetlejuice is, please google it, there is not space here to explain. It is a dark work of art, but, that is just my opinion and it is not the only visible tattoo she has. While we are sitting in the booth, waiting the arrival of our tacos, two young girls stop and tell Jazzy how much they love her tattoo. This is not the first time this has happened. Actually, it happens every time we are together in a public place. Later that evening, my husband and I were discussing how, in the not too distant future, it will be an oddity if one does not have a tattoo.
There is an ancient Hindu text called the Mahabharata. Within that text is a story that happened over 5000 years ago. It is a story of a war among two civilizations. It goes on to tell about a weapon that had never been used before and describes what happened when the weapon was used. This particular story came from a part of the text known as the Bhagavad Gita. No one understood the meaning of the description because there was nothing to compare it to. Then, in the mid 1940's, a man by the name of Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, stated, after watching the detonation of the first atomic bomb, a line from the Bhagavad Gita, "I am become death. The destroyer of worlds." He was later asked how it felt to be the person to make the first atomic bomb and his answer was, "Well, not the first atomic bomb."
According to the old scripture, there is nothing new under the sun. What has happened will happen again. Things come and things go.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could learn to not be so judgmental, be told some of the real truths of our past and learn that we do not need to repeat it?
Rewind to a time around the early 1960's. We are in a small town restaurant, possibly on a Friday evening. Dad, Mother and myself. I'm quite young, but neither of my older sisters are with us, so I must have been around the age of seven or eight. Quite an impressionable age.
We are sitting in a booth. Behind the booth in the corner is a pinball machine. Something I do not believe I had ever seen before. At the end of the machine was a young man who seemed hellbent on a mission of some sort, but I was not sure exactly what kind of mission it was. The pinball machine fascinated me. It had bells and buzzers and lots of flashing lights. The young man would lunge against the machine with all his might, while pressing buttons on each side that made the paddles under the glass top swat wildly at a small steel ball. I was totally immersed in this display of man vs. machine. I do not recall what the man looked like, but I do remember one particular thing about him. He had tattoos on his arms.
There were two parental "truths" I learned that evening. Pinball machines were only for young men who roamed the streets with no supervision or plan for their life and tattoos just confirmed that in writing, no pun intended. In other words, I was to avoid both, forever.
Fast-forward to present day. I'm sitting in a local restaurant. It is a Tuesday evening and therefore it is taco Tuesday. My young friend, Jazzy and I are seated in a booth. Jazzy has a tattoo of Beetlejuice that runs from the top of her shoulder to her elbow. If you do not know who Beetlejuice is, please google it, there is not space here to explain. It is a dark work of art, but, that is just my opinion and it is not the only visible tattoo she has. While we are sitting in the booth, waiting the arrival of our tacos, two young girls stop and tell Jazzy how much they love her tattoo. This is not the first time this has happened. Actually, it happens every time we are together in a public place. Later that evening, my husband and I were discussing how, in the not too distant future, it will be an oddity if one does not have a tattoo.
There is an ancient Hindu text called the Mahabharata. Within that text is a story that happened over 5000 years ago. It is a story of a war among two civilizations. It goes on to tell about a weapon that had never been used before and describes what happened when the weapon was used. This particular story came from a part of the text known as the Bhagavad Gita. No one understood the meaning of the description because there was nothing to compare it to. Then, in the mid 1940's, a man by the name of Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, stated, after watching the detonation of the first atomic bomb, a line from the Bhagavad Gita, "I am become death. The destroyer of worlds." He was later asked how it felt to be the person to make the first atomic bomb and his answer was, "Well, not the first atomic bomb."
According to the old scripture, there is nothing new under the sun. What has happened will happen again. Things come and things go.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could learn to not be so judgmental, be told some of the real truths of our past and learn that we do not need to repeat it?
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Making A Left
She stared into the pantry cabinet. It was getting pretty bare. She pulled open the refrigerator door, same scenario in there too. It was Saturday, her husband was working, again. She let out a long sigh and instantly thought of her mother and how when her mother sighed, just like that, it always drove her crazy. She sighed again.
The truck roared to life at the turn of the key. She guided it through the quiet, winding streets. Saturdays were always quiet and now with school being out of session for the summer, the children could sleep in on a Saturday, after all, they had the entire summer ahead of them. She turned onto a busy thoroughfare and drove to the first stoplight. For groceries, she needed to turn right. The light turned green, she gripped the steering wheel, took a deep breath and turned left.
It was not long before she was sailing along on interstate 40 headed due east. She smiled to herself and wondered if all the people who were going the same direction, were all going to the same place. She marveled at the pine trees, something she could never quite wrap her head around, that the south eastern part of the USA was covered in pine trees, zillions of them.
The terrain began to flatten and the sky, it seemed to grow wider and was beginning to fill with huge flat bottomed cumulus clouds. She wasn't sure if that was a real phenomenon, but she sensed it every time she got close. Every so often, the trees gave way to a few acres of farmland, reminding her of home.
She drove into a small city and laughed to herself that everyone must have had the same idea because now the traffic was bumper to bumper. She didn't mind, it gave her time to take in the scenery. The road turned into a cause way that began to climb higher and higher. As the truck reached the crest, she looked out the driver's side window. She saw what had taken precedence over a trip to the grocery store. The majesty of it never failed to take her breath away. The ocean, in all of its glory was in her sight, patiently waiting, just for her. She glanced quickly, as the road began its decent into the chaos of human structures, knowing that the view she had just witnessed would be obstructed, at least until she could find a place to park.
Parking turned out to be a challenge and she continued to drive, catching quick glimpses of the Atlantic between the brightly colored seaside houses. Finding no empty parking lots, she continued to drive south. If nothing else, she could just drive until she could go no further and then simply turn around. As soon as the truck left the city limits of the small seafaring town, the wall to wall houses disappeared and the view began to open. She drove on. As she rounded a curve, what she had been looking for came into view. The beach. No buildings, high rise hotels or brightly colored beach homes, just the beach for as far as the eye could see. The waves of the Atlantic Ocean were rising and falling, making sure that there would never be a shortage of sand as it pummeled the shore, again and again.
She parked and began to plod her way through the sand. There was no other way to walk through deep sand but to plod. She stepped upon a hard surface, what was left of a paved road sticking out of the sand. A reminder of who was actually in charge when it came to building structures on the shoreline, thinking they could stand the test of time against the sea. She walked towards the water, to where the sand was firm. There were several concrete piers in the distance, that was her destination.
She sat down on one of the piers and faced the sea. This was much better than grocery shopping, even if it meant there would still not be anything for supper.
The truck roared to life at the turn of the key. She guided it through the quiet, winding streets. Saturdays were always quiet and now with school being out of session for the summer, the children could sleep in on a Saturday, after all, they had the entire summer ahead of them. She turned onto a busy thoroughfare and drove to the first stoplight. For groceries, she needed to turn right. The light turned green, she gripped the steering wheel, took a deep breath and turned left.
It was not long before she was sailing along on interstate 40 headed due east. She smiled to herself and wondered if all the people who were going the same direction, were all going to the same place. She marveled at the pine trees, something she could never quite wrap her head around, that the south eastern part of the USA was covered in pine trees, zillions of them.
The terrain began to flatten and the sky, it seemed to grow wider and was beginning to fill with huge flat bottomed cumulus clouds. She wasn't sure if that was a real phenomenon, but she sensed it every time she got close. Every so often, the trees gave way to a few acres of farmland, reminding her of home.
She drove into a small city and laughed to herself that everyone must have had the same idea because now the traffic was bumper to bumper. She didn't mind, it gave her time to take in the scenery. The road turned into a cause way that began to climb higher and higher. As the truck reached the crest, she looked out the driver's side window. She saw what had taken precedence over a trip to the grocery store. The majesty of it never failed to take her breath away. The ocean, in all of its glory was in her sight, patiently waiting, just for her. She glanced quickly, as the road began its decent into the chaos of human structures, knowing that the view she had just witnessed would be obstructed, at least until she could find a place to park.
Parking turned out to be a challenge and she continued to drive, catching quick glimpses of the Atlantic between the brightly colored seaside houses. Finding no empty parking lots, she continued to drive south. If nothing else, she could just drive until she could go no further and then simply turn around. As soon as the truck left the city limits of the small seafaring town, the wall to wall houses disappeared and the view began to open. She drove on. As she rounded a curve, what she had been looking for came into view. The beach. No buildings, high rise hotels or brightly colored beach homes, just the beach for as far as the eye could see. The waves of the Atlantic Ocean were rising and falling, making sure that there would never be a shortage of sand as it pummeled the shore, again and again.
She parked and began to plod her way through the sand. There was no other way to walk through deep sand but to plod. She stepped upon a hard surface, what was left of a paved road sticking out of the sand. A reminder of who was actually in charge when it came to building structures on the shoreline, thinking they could stand the test of time against the sea. She walked towards the water, to where the sand was firm. There were several concrete piers in the distance, that was her destination.
She sat down on one of the piers and faced the sea. This was much better than grocery shopping, even if it meant there would still not be anything for supper.
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
Symptoms Of WDS
In the beginning, metaphorically speaking, but more like back in 1928, Walt Disney breathed life, again, metaphorically speaking, into a large eared cartoon rodent and named him Mickey Mouse. From that time forward, many species of animals became beloved cartoon characters of whom have entertained us for nearly a century.
It also seems from that time, ordinary people began to think more in human terms when it comes to animals, especially pets. If you have a pet, or better now known as "fur babies" and have any of the following symptoms, you may have WDS (Walt Disney Syndrome)
1. Your pet has more toys that some children do.
2. Each of those toys has a name......and they all start with Mr. ;
Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Flat Squirrel, Mr. Fox, etc.
3. Your pet sleeps in your bed. This arrangement usually can be described as two full grown humans clinging to their own side of the bed while above said pet is stretched out in the middle.
4. Your pet has a special toy that they cannot leave home without. In case of the toy being left behind, you see no problem with spending whatever it costs to overnight it to wherever you are.
5. You talk to your pet as if they are as human as your next door neighbor. This behavior will undoubtedly lead to your pet possibly understanding just as many words as you do and also leads to odd looks from people you meet on the street, during walk time.
6. You purchase your pet a new toy each time you have to go restock the pantry......and the pet expects it when you walk in the door, arms loaded with plastic bags.
7. You find a pet hair, in a crockpot, that has been sitting inside of a cabinet, 3 feet off the floor, for at least a month....and you're OK with that.
8. Your pet has its own cup in the bathroom for those late night 'my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth' moments, even though their water dish is just a few steps past the bathroom door.
9. Your pet also has its own bath towel.
10. Your pet has its own Facebook page, with more likes than some people.
This is just a small listing of the symptoms of WDS. If you have more than three of the symptoms, it's a pretty good bet that you have WDS. It is also a pretty good bet that you can add to the list.
It also seems from that time, ordinary people began to think more in human terms when it comes to animals, especially pets. If you have a pet, or better now known as "fur babies" and have any of the following symptoms, you may have WDS (Walt Disney Syndrome)
1. Your pet has more toys that some children do.
2. Each of those toys has a name......and they all start with Mr. ;
Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Flat Squirrel, Mr. Fox, etc.
3. Your pet sleeps in your bed. This arrangement usually can be described as two full grown humans clinging to their own side of the bed while above said pet is stretched out in the middle.
4. Your pet has a special toy that they cannot leave home without. In case of the toy being left behind, you see no problem with spending whatever it costs to overnight it to wherever you are.
5. You talk to your pet as if they are as human as your next door neighbor. This behavior will undoubtedly lead to your pet possibly understanding just as many words as you do and also leads to odd looks from people you meet on the street, during walk time.
6. You purchase your pet a new toy each time you have to go restock the pantry......and the pet expects it when you walk in the door, arms loaded with plastic bags.
7. You find a pet hair, in a crockpot, that has been sitting inside of a cabinet, 3 feet off the floor, for at least a month....and you're OK with that.
8. Your pet has its own cup in the bathroom for those late night 'my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth' moments, even though their water dish is just a few steps past the bathroom door.
9. Your pet also has its own bath towel.
10. Your pet has its own Facebook page, with more likes than some people.
This is just a small listing of the symptoms of WDS. If you have more than three of the symptoms, it's a pretty good bet that you have WDS. It is also a pretty good bet that you can add to the list.
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