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Showing posts with the label nonsequitur rambling

Morning

Need I say more.  Cheers to one and all! I'm linking up with the monthly photography meme Wandering Camera hosted by Soma Acharya of Whims and Fancies . Click here to learn more about the meme and to check out other participants.

Cheers on a Monday

This afternoon, the Husband and I were walking in town when I made eye contact with a man walking onto the sidewalk. He smiled. I said, "Hello." "Hello," said he. "Do we know you?" I asked. He looked familiar. "No." "Oh, well happy Tuesday." "Happy Tuesday to you." "It's Monday," said the Husband. "It's Tuesday," I said. "Monday, I think," said the man opening the locked gate to a bank parking lot. "You're starting to confuse me." "Oh, yeah, I was at the museum this morning," I said to the Husband. Lately, I've been volunteering on Monday mornings at our local historical museum. Helping catalog donated items, I am. "Yes you were," said the Husband. "Ah, it's Monday." I looked back at the man who we didn't know him even though he looked so familiar. "Have a good one." "You, too," he said t

Friday.

I've been grumpy today. I'm trying not to be. I'm also trying to reel in sadness and disgust about the thieves in the White House and the soulless in Congress. These so-called leaders of ours, their crew, and the greedy rich behind them are destroying our country, along with taunting our morals, actions, and beliefs in all that is good.  Tomorrow morning,  there will be protests in various cities throughout the United States to let the current White House administration know of our discontent with their cruel and unjust immigration policies. The Husband and I will join like-minded in our county on a street corner down town.  The IRS sent us a refund check of $51 and some cents a couple weeks ago. We didn't cash it, but a letter from the IRS was forthcoming, so an accompanying note stated. The letter came yesterday. IRS wrote that I made an error transferring an amount from a form. Yes, I was the culprit, although IRS does not know it. I do the taxes, while t

Lellow

When the Youngest Niece was quite young, she pronounced her y's as l's. Yellow was Lellow, for instance. It was darling. Today, I share with you the two lellow things I saw this morning. The photo above was of some owners and their antique speedsters driving to their start-up line in downtown this morning. The Husband and I actually got up in time (7:00 a.m. which is early for us) to check out various antique Ford speedsters and touring cars before they took off on their annual countryside tour.  The speedsters were doing a 200-mile loop, while the touring cars, 80 miles. Then when we got home, these sunflowers posed prettily for the camera. Click. It's time for All Seasons , a weekly meme hosted by Jesh at Artworks from Jesh St.G . Click here to check out Jesh. For the participants list, click here . Thank you, Jesh!

Our Mountain View

Yesterday morning I discovered the mountain view from the side yard. Well, okay, I've probably seen the view a hundred thousand times before, but yesterday, I finally took note that by golly I can see the mountain between the houses across the street. That's the Santa Ana Mountain, part of the southern end of the Diablo Range that runs from the Carquinez Strait, just northeast of the San Francisco Bay, to a bunch of miles south of the Pinnacles National Park, which is about 30 or so miles from us. The park, that is. We have a fuller view of the mountains over the rooftops from upstairs, but I like this view better. For some unknown reason, having a peek of the mountain, which I've seen since a child, is rather assuring. Today I'm hanging out at Skywatch Friday . Come join me by clicking here . Thanks, Skywatch Friday hosts!

Sounds of a Sunday Afternoon.

I can hear the roar of the motorcycles in the near distance. Many of them are more than likely tourists and friends of local bikers who have come for the annual bikers' blessing held at the Catholic church earlier this afternoon.  Unless things have changed, the bikers take turns riding a short path on the church's parking lot. Either at the beginning or the end of the path (I can't recall), a priest sprinkles holy water on them as they pass by him. Competing with the motorcycles' engines and the whistling of the Spring wind is the every-so-often sound of children shouting and screaming. There are probably Little League baseball games happening at the nearby park. And while you're imagining it all, throw in the call from an occasional dog and crow. Bwark, bwark. Roooooooar. Cawwww, cawwwwwww. Yaaaaay! Wwwwwwwwwwwwind. Listen, an airplane—a single-engine craft, I believe—is flying over the house. That silenced everything else, for now. I'm linking

Click.

For the last two weeks I've been obsessed with doing jigsaw puzzles online. It simply happened. I entered a contest to win a copy of the upcoming Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes mystery by Laurie R. King  that involved completing a jigsaw puzzle at Jigsawplanet.com . I had no idea I liked doing jigsaw puzzles. Before I knew it, I found myself going back to the website every few hours to do 32-piece, 60-piece, 99-piece, and 120-piece puzzles of landscapes, flowers, and street scenes. I told the Husband about the website. He-he . He's doing them, too. We talk about doing real puzzles, only that would require either clearing the kitchen table or bringing in a folding table into the living room. Problem with the latter is that would mean moving stuff around to make space for the table. Not going to happen. We could probably clear the kitchen table but then where are we going to eat. Before I frittered away the hours on doing online jigsaw puzzles, I was consumed with play

A Monday Morning

Yesterday afternoon, and into the night, I essentially did something like a cramming session. As is my wont, I waited to the last minute to complete documents to bring to the self-help legal center at the courthouse this morning. Monday is the only day the center is open for five hours. I made sure that the Husband and I got out of the house in time to get there at 8:00 a.m. because I was told that people begin lining up minutes before the door opens. Half a block away I could see parking spaces right next to the building. We were so in luck! The courthouse doors were still locked at 8:01 a.m. Peeking through the glass door, we saw no guards manning the security screening machines. Odd, right? I walked a bit further up and noticed through the windows that the shades were drawn at the counter where the court clerks ought to be. Eerie! "Is this a holiday?" I asked the Husband. "Is this the 19th?" he answered. "President's Day is the 19th." "Tha

Joy in a Crayon Box

It was only yesterday morning that I organized the crayon box according to their hues. There above in the photo is my proof. By the way, isn't he a cutie patootie, the Huband? The crayon box is one of the few things I've organized in the past few weeks. Maybe the only thing indoors. Tsk, tsk. Last night, I put the opened box of crayons on the couch beside me and whaddayaknow many of them tumbled out of the box and between the cushions. I was able to find almost all of them. Yeah, the crayon box is already out of sorts. Such is to be expected, and that's okay. The cool thing about this box of crayons is it's from the 1980s, maybe earlier. We found it in one of the Husband's parents' boxes, which we're slowly opening after nearly 14 years in storage.  I doubt I would've gone out and bought crayons otherwise. It's a holiday of gifts whenever we look inside the boxes. Joy, joy, joy!

Onward and Upward!

The Husband is down with a virus so it was not a good rest for us last night. Cough, cough. Toss, turn. You know the drill. He'll be fine, we think positively. Leftover garlicky ginger chicken soup was turned into a pot of garlicky ginger tomato soup this morning, which shall be good for a couple of days before he tires of that kind of soup. He's already on his way to losing weight for the 20-pound loss goal we each set on Christmas day (our present to ourselves) by the end of May. So. Here we are, the end of the year. An outrageous year for our nation, leaderless. Executive actions and congressional duplicity turning us down the path of darkness rather than so-called greatness. I want to think that we've reached the bottom and it's only up now. A lot of us have no problem standing up against harassment, intimidation, lies, misconceptions, ignorance, and down-right bullying. The personal score: A hysterectomy took away the cancer no one was really sure was there. T

Flurried, not Flustered nor Fluttered

I have been randomly reading A Dictionary of Modern English Usage by H.W. Fowler that has been sitting on my reference bookshelf since 1994, when I purchased it new for a buck, but did not ever crack open until a few months ago. All these years I missed out on the amusing dry wit of Fowler, along with possibly learning when to use some words appropriately sooner. More than likely I bought this book because it was on a list of must-have reference books for writers. Who knows how many times I've thought about selling Fowler's book or donating it to a thrift shop.  I'm glad I didn't. This morning I read the entry for flurried , flustered , and fluttered . The word fluttered is usually used to describe a timid person who suddenly must deal with a crisis. Fowler did not seem to have much confidence with fluttered individuals. As for the word flustered , Fowler stated that a person so overwhelmed with multiple emotions she can't begin to express herself is best depic

Feeling Free at Sixty-Four!

Yesterday I celebrated my first day of being 64 years old. How did that happen? My body knows I'm old. Probably my brain does, too. I'm guessing all old people say that since I have no guidebook for getting older. Spiritually, I'm that five-year-old wandering in the fields surrounded by tall grass, wildflowers, butterflies, and sun bubbles. I'm also that young thing uncovering worlds and possibilities. I feel, again, a freedom to dream, to discover, and to do!

Little Old Lady

Viewing the Solar Eclipse

I woke up to a heavy fog cover this morning. If I didn't know better, I would've said no eclipse for us today. I kn e w better. About 15 minutes before the total eclipse, I put on my sunglasses, grabbed a stool, and went out to sit on the driveway. Molly the Cat followed me out the door but she swerved to the right to stare at the pine cone covered with spider web nudged in the fence. The Husband came out seconds later. "You aren't going to see anything." "Sure I will." He went back into the house only to return with a cup of coffee for me.  Such a guy! "Where are the cards?" I asked. He had pricked 3x5 cards for us to view the eclipse. "You're not going to see anything." "You don't know that." He sighed. Still, he went inside and fetched the cards. While he was gone, I looked up into the sky. It sure seemed like I could see the outline of the sun through the fog cover. For sure, the sky was ge

Succulents

I don't think I'm there yet—a succulent crazy mama. I did go to a succulent and cactus show a couple months of ago. It was something to do. It was free. And, yeah, okay I did buy $30 worth of plants, which I finally planted in that ceramic planter above.  The purchases were the orange and red moon cactuses, that spiny looking tree, the cactus with the tiny white flowers on the right that's blending with the white rocks, and the succulent in the metal planter on the left. Maybe that little succulent in the center of the bowl. I can't recall. I also can't remember if I kept their name tags. Yesterday, I dug out the Mama's spindly looking aloe vera plants in the back yard. They were nesting next to the apricot tree and geraniums,  getting too much water and not enough sun.  I thought I would plant them today in a sunnier part of the backyard, but I felt too tired. Maybe tomorrow morning, I'll at least stick the largest plants into the ground, and a few

See the Strange Thing!

Come See the Strange Thing! Posters called out to the Husband and me once upon a time at the county fair. Only a Dollar! How could we resist? We walked up to the counter, plunked down our two bucks, and entered the tent. Pictures and articles were plastered on the wall. I didn't want to read. I wanted instant gratification. Where is the Strange Thing! ? Then. . . . Eeeeeeeeeeeew! On display was a shriveled up something that looked like a dried up armadillo. Yuck . The Strange Thing! was said to be a blood-sucking creature called a chupacabra. Was it real? Qué sera, sera? The Internet mostly says the chupacabra is an urban legend, but that doesn't keep the curious from conducting field research. Years later the Husband and I crack up whenever one of us brings up The Strange Thing! Have we learned our lesson? Will we plunk down hard-earned cash to see the next Strange Thing! at a county fair? Qué sera, sera? By the way, we have our own little strange th

Zetabetical

Zetabetical. Cool word, huh? I learned it this morning in the novel I'm currently reading, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.  Zetabetical. Google coughed up 39 results of the word, its earliest use in 2003. In the novel, the protagonist, Eleanor,  organized the tins on her kitchen shelf in zetabetical oder. Tins? The novel is set in Glasgow. Zetabetical. From the statement, I take the word to mean alphabetical in reverse order. You know, starting with Z. It wasn't easy for me going backwards, as you can tell in my picture. Giggle. Today marks the last day for the current ABC Wednesday team. Thank you Roger, Leslie, Joyce, Gattina, Di, Melody, Pheno, and Troy! Next week, a new round begins under Melody, the new ABCW administer, and her team at a new address . For the next ABCW round, I shall go through the alphabet writing about movies I've seen. Yup. I've almost forgot. Click here to check out more Z themed posts.

Taking a Break for Writing

Note: I wrote this post yesterday from the iPad, then sent it to my computer by email. Perhaps one day I'll learn to cope and paste on iPad. Anyway, by evening, I was too pooped to get on the computer and publish this post. In the end, does it really matter if I had? :-) I'm taking a short writer's break from being a domestic goddess. Brief no doubt because I have been thinking about writing that first sentence for the last 10 minutes. Every so often that sentence repeated itself in my brain when I wasn't distracted by The Solid Gold Oldies music station on TV playing in the background and by the ambitious things I want to complete before dinner begging for mental attention. Sigh. I forgot. What was the intent of this post? Probably to brag about the things I have finally got to and then some. Should that be one word: then some, thensome? To my great surprise the Blenheim apricot tree gifted us—and the birdies—with many branches full of fruit. We can't eat the

Oh, Sweet Pea

Sweet peas. One of my favorite flowers. One of the first flowers I successfully grew as a kid. When I was a teenager, they let me grow sweet peas on the south side of the house. I can't recall though if I was a decent shepherd of sweet peas. You know, if I had watered them regularly without being told. I doubt they would've told me if I forgot. Knowing the parents, they would've given the sweet peas a drink if they were watering in the area. The parents were great. I like to think they were impressed that I actually took an interest  in growing stuff. I also planted Sweet Williams beneath a tree in the front yard, but they didn't do as well as the sweet peas. Sweet Peas. Sweet Williams. Yup. I was attracted to the names. This morning I collected sweet pea seed pods in the backyard. Their season went quickly. The sweetpeas in the picture are the last for this year. They're volunteers. I didn't even know there were sweet peas until I looked out the wind

Seeking Distraction

It's past noon and I haven't done what I said I would do today. But, I did make apple scones for breakfast and went out to the front yard with Molly the Cat to deadhead daisies and pull some weeds. Now I'm writing about it all. All distractions from filling out income tax forms. Doing the taxes should take less than two hours. I already did a first pass last month to get an idea of the damage to our checkbook. So, no big deal, right? I'm listening to the Full Sail album by Loggins & Messina in hopes that it will get me into the mood. Yes, right after I imagine myself snorkeling in Hawaii.  Ah, such pretty fishes.  I'm linking up with All Seasons , a meme hosted by Jesh of Artworks from JeshStG. Click here to check out other participants.