Do you ever see faces in rocks? The alphabet in landscapes? Spaces that look like they could be portals into another dimension? Me too. Merry Xmas! Happy Holidays! Be Happy! I'm happily linking up with ABC Wednesday. Please click here to check out the other participants and/or to join in.  Thank you, ABCW Team !

The Husband and I wandered about the country roads yesterday afternoon for my birthday treat. Our first stop was at the small old church in Tres Pinos, California, population nearly 500. (These links will lead you to my posts about the church and town , if you're interested in know about them.) We happened to be in luck. The church doors were open.  I'm not a churchgoer, but I find comfort sitting inside this church every so often. Maybe it's because I was baptized there. As always, I enjoyed contemplating over the stained glass windows. They are eloquent in their simplicity. They are poetry. It's the letter W at ABC Wednesday. Click here to join in, or to check out other participants. Thank you, ABCW team!

This morning I thought today was the letter W on ABC Wednesday . What shall I do? I wondered. Then it dawned on me that today is December 7 -- Pearl Harbor Day. I can repost the War! piece I wrote several years ago about my parents's experiences on that day in 1941. Yes, that's what I would do later when I had a chance. An hour ago was my opportunity to do my post. Whoops. It's actually the letter V. I thought vice, viceroy, vicious, villain, vile and all kinds of v words that had me thinking of our new President-elect and his , shudder , proposed advisors and cabinet secretaries. Vleahhh. I decided you would prefer to see something pretty. So, here you go—the Mama's flowers in the front of the house. They are in bloom this moment. I don't know how long they'll last. It's starting to get quite chilly. To check out other participants in ABCW, please click here . Thank you, ABCW team!

"We can't store the persimmons in the garage," I said to the Mama and the Husband at the lunch table one day. "There's an uh-toot ." The Mama laughed. "What's that?" the Husband asked. "A mouse," I said. Most likely I shuddered. Rodents give me the creeps.  " Uh-toot in Ilocano means mouse. Right, Mama?" " Uh-taut ," said Mama. "You have a funny pronunciation." " Uh-toot ," I said. " Uh-taut ." " Uh-toot ," said the Husband. "She's saying the same thing." The Mama smiled. " Uh-toot ," I said. "Be careful. If you say Ah-toot , you're talking about a fart." That conversation happened a few years back. Recently, I learned that the Ilocano word for mouse is bau , which I never heard the Mama or the Daddy use. I also found out that the spelling for fart is o-t-o-t.  The Mama considered mice as farts. Giggle. Toda

Trieste is the name of the street I live on. The Husband pronounces Trieste as Tree-est . The Mama used to say Trees-tay. I like to say Tree-es-tay . Molly the Cat simply says Mwrr. Today, I found out that I was wrong about what trieste means. I thought it meant sad. In Italian, which is the word's origin, trieste means market place. (Italians pronouce the word as tree-es-tay .) According to Wiktionary.org, trieste is from the Latin word tergeste , which comes from Venetic, a once-upon-a-time language in the long-time-ago region of Veneto. I love the idea that we live on Trieste, a market place. I shall now imagine myself selling, trading, and giving away the creations of my heart. They may be words, images, and things out of stuff. Hmmmm. When I was a young thing living in San Francisco I wanted to be a street artist when I grew up, but I had no idea what I could sell as I had no artistry of any kind. That's what I thought then. Things are different now. I have the t

Wowza! I planned on writing something serious today about current events, but then I received wonderful news this morning that I want to share. It was the first email message I saw when I opened my mailbox.  Giggle, giggle. First some background.  Are you familiar with the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie R. King? This is one of the few series that I keep up with. In a nutshell, in case you're not, Mary, the wife of Sherlock, is the main character in the series. Mary goes from being Sherlock's apprentice to his equal partner in marriage and detection.  Together, they resolve situations for clients and Sherlock's brother who is in the deepest of deep English intelligence, as well as for themselves. The time frame for their adventures is the late 1910s and 1920s. For more about the series, click here . So, what's my news?  Last month I entered that drawing above of Mary and Sherlock on a hillside in Laurie R. King recent fan art contest. It

Once upon a time when I was young, I needed to have a car insurance adjuster give me an estimate on the damage done to the car I was driving at the time. I no longer recall what the damage was and how the car got damaged, which makes me think that some one thumped or scraped the car in a parking lot and drove away. Or, something similar that made a big enough of a dent for the Daddy to tell me to take it into an insurance office so that I can get it fixed. Immediately. Got it.  At the time I was a big girl working and living in San Francisco. Whoo-hooo! Very responsible I was, this big girl that I was. I even knew where to take the car, without looking it up in the phone book. Remember that book? Early one Saturday morning, a friend and I drove over to the State Farm Insurance Office near a mall south of the City. Easy peasy. I went into the office and told a guy what I needed. He picked up a clipboard, and, leading me back outside, asked, "Do you have your insurance ca

"You're a sweet cat," the Husband said. "I am not," said Molly the Cat. "Yes, you are." "I am not." "A very sweet kitty cat." "I am not! I'm a lion!"     "I'm a tiger!" "I'm a panther!"   "M-m-m-o-w-w-w-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!" "So there, Mister the Husband." Missy Molly by Golly and I are performing the letter P for ABC Wednesday . Giggle. Purrrrrrr.  Click here to visit more ABCW participants. Thank you, ABCW team!

"Are you ready?" "Me?" "Susan?" "Yup. That's me." I pushed myself off the bench and grabbed the Mama's cane. "Take your time," the X-ray lady said. "No hurry." "I finally think of myself as old," I said, trying not to grimace as I stiffly walked into the inner room of the X-ray laboratory. "Is that why you gasped when I gave you the form to sign?" the office lady asked, as I walked behind her desk. "I wondered what it was on the form that made you hesitate." "Seeing my age, yes," I said. "I don't think of myself as being that old. 62!" "I don't think of myself as old either," said the office lady, who may have been a few years younger than me. The X-ray lady, who looked to be in her late 40s  agreed as well.  I felt like the three of us gave a invisible collective sigh. Since the beginning of August I've been hobbling alon

Harvesting crops is hard back-breaking work. Every time I pass by a field of workers, I'm very grateful to them. How can anyone not want to give them a living wage? It wasn't until 1978 that farmworkers on large farms were finally included under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which required their employers to pay them minimum wage. Still, in some states today, farmers can choose to give their workers a piece-rate wage rather than a minimum hourly rate. It's not a high piece rate either.  For instance, if a worker receives 50 cents for every bucket of tomatoes she picks, she would need to pick about 2.5 tons of tomatoes to earn an equivalent minimum hourly wage for a 10-hour day. I think all states ought to mandate hourly wages for farmworkers. I've got a Mama story for you. She always laughed when she told me about her first year working in the fields of America. It was either the first or second year that she was living here, so that was 1950 or 1951. She decided

Scuff marks, cat tracks, and stains. I no longer could ignore it. The kitchen floor needed mopping. Because I am hopping along on a cane, the Husband agreed to mop the floor. (My knees are alternating between being painful.) All I had to do was fetch the tools—the bucket and mop handle out of the shed and the mop head out of the closet. Problem was we had no mop head. Sigh . Snap! Light bulb. I had the answer in my hand. The cane! The Mama's cane, actually. She rarely used it to get around. What she did use the cane a lot for was shining the kitchen floor. She threw a rag on the floor and danced it around with her cane. Yup. Like mother, like daughter. I dipped a rag in a bucket of vinegar, threw it on the kitchen floor, and danced it around the worse parts with the cane. Ha! I'm quite late this week for ABC Wednesday . As the saying goes, better late, than never. Which the latter I thought it would be for the letter M. Seeing the doctor about my knees this morning got

London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down. My Fair Lady. In first grade, we sang this Mother Goose rhyme as we marched under an arch formed by the joined hands of two kids. The hands came down on "My Fair Lady" and the two kids would then rock the captured kid between their locked hands, as we sang a verse about taking the key and locking the kid up. When that verse was over, either the captured kid chose a side and stood behind that kid or took that kid's place, after which, we marched and sang the rhyme again. I don't remember what the point of the game was. For that matter, what the rhyme was all about. After three or four rounds, I would look longingly at the playground, even willing to climb up the jungle gym. And, that I disliked to do. I didn't become curious about the London Bridge until 1975 when I learned that a rich American had bought the bridge and reconstructed it brick by brick on Lake Havasu i

I entered 5 k's in the Google search box just now and this mathematical equation came up: k - k - k - k - k = -5.52259408 × 10 -23 m 2 kg s -2 K -1 Gulp.  I hope it refers to something full of kindliness. Best to think that way.  After all, an OK is a better thing than a KO (knock out). kind - kinder - kindest - kindly - kindness  = -5.52259408 × 10 -23 m 2 kg s -2 K -1 Giggle.  Keep on keeping on. Peace out. You got it. It's the letter K on ABC Wednesday . Click here to check out what bloggers around the world are writing about K.  Thanks, ABCW team!

Just kidding around. Just feeling like a kid again. Just who do you think you're kidding? Just a punk kid. What's just that, kid? Just a new kid on the block. Just saying, "Hi, Kid!" The kid just said, "Bleeeet." Just handle with kid gloves. Handle just with kid gloves. Handle with just kid gloves. Handle with kid gloves—just. What are ya? Just some kind of whiz kid? Just kidding aside. Yup. I drew a picture of just how I recall my small barefoot kid self. J is this week's letter for ABC Wednesday . Click here to read other J-themed posts by blogger from around the world.  Thank you, ABCW team!! P. S. Uhm, I thought this week was the letter K. Like how I just barely put the post back on the right track? 

What do the I 's have? I don't know. The idiom just came to me. So, let me go look it up. . . . Oh, it's not the I 's, but rather the ayes.  Now, that makes sense.  The ayes have it.  In other words, the majority of people who voted in favor of something won. Okey-dokey. Pondering and writing about that idiom interrupted my original intention for this post. The thought started the other night.  What came first: Ink or inkling? Did someone have an inkling and needed ink for her pen to write about it? Or, perhaps, hmmm, she spilled ink on herself because someone surprised her by whispering in her ear. She stood up quickly, saying with much irritation to that person, "Inkling!" She was too polite to swear, you see. This morning, while the Husband and I sat not impatiently in the doctor's office (simply a routine visit for the Husband), I wondered what came first: Imp or impossible? And, Id or idiot? Intriguing, aye? The inspiration for

The other day I decided to keep a daily Have-Done list. For awhile, that is. Until I no longer need to let myself know that I have accomplished something each day. Every day, I add things to my To-Do list. As you can see in the photo, the items don't always get done right away. Sometimes, not for weeks after I put them on the list. The Have-Done things, so far, were not on my To-Do list. That's okay. They were usually stuff: •  I would've distracted myself to do so I wouldn't do anything on the To-Do list. For instance, dig up a narrow piece of the front lawn to create a new home for a bunch of jade plants that no longer fit in their pots. •  I would've discovered I needed to do before I could do a To-do item, such as clean the freezer in order to start it up again. •  I needed to do that moment because they needed to get done then and there. We needed to pay that water bill, you know. •  I would've eventually put on my To-do list. That would'

I had a few G thoughts to write about for ABC Wednesday this week. Alas, the day comes, and those ideas are lifeless. So, for today, I give you a photo of construction guys. They're working merely feet from the highway. Their job is one that requires a lot of guts. To check out this week's ABCW participants, please click here .  

On the afternoon that the Mama died, the Husband, Long-time Friend Kathy, Molly the Cat, and I sat on the patio and ate our lunch. The Mama's apple tree and her butterfly bush gave us shade from the warm Spring sun. The sky was blue. The Mama's roses, daisies, and other flowers were in bloom. The birds serenaded us. The Mama's bedroom window faced the backyard. I like to think that she could see, smell, and hear the day as we did and that she enjoyed listening to our relaxed cadences and tones. At one point I leaned back in my chair and gazed at the sky. A crow was lazily flying back and forth. It was like a photo, the crow framed by the foliage of the Mama's trees and bushes. As I watched the bird, I felt like I could see the Mama's spirit flying up towards the crow and dancing alongside it. When I finally looked away, I saw a white butterfly fly out of the Mama's garden by the  rose bushes. That was the first white butterfly I saw that day, which, eve

"Make an effort." This morning I read that line in Emma: A Modern Retelling by Alexander McCall Smith). I felt like the character, and the author, was talking to me.   Please make an effort, Susie.  The Mama said it another way about herself when she felt tired, which was every day for her last several years. Plain and simple, she used to say, "I push myself." After we buried the Mama this past April, the Only and Older Brother said to me, "Keep on living." I scoffed at what the Only and Older Brother said. Of course, I'd keep on living. Why would I not? Lately, though, honesty keeps trying to surface. Drat that honesty. For that matter, dang to introspection, rumination, and heart-searching that show up in my dreams. Sigh. So, this is my effort today for the letter E for this week's ABC Wednesday : a story that I shared three years ago (April 5, 2013) about an amazing thing that reminded me of the wonderful effortlessness of life.

  Snort. Hahahahaha. I doubt that I'll ever not laugh when I look at this photo. Two years ago, the Husband and I were doing a self-guided greenhouse tour. I'd barely parked the car and turned off the engine when the Husband jumped out, saying, "Take a photo of me." "Be sure to get the sign," he said.  Hahahahahahaha.   The Husband let me enter the photo in the humor photo category at our county fair that year.  My caption was: "Deranged— U pon arriving at yet another tour, the husband became deranged."  Yup. I won a blue ribbon for it. My first ever.  I love the Husband! Time to hook up with  ABC Wednesday . Today is all about the letter D. Click here to join in and/or to read what other bloggers from around the world are posting today.