I enjoy raking autumn leaves. Love it, to be precise. I like the rustle of the leaves, the scraping of the rake, the scrunching beneath my feet, and the crinkling as I shove them into a box or bag. I don’t rake up all the leaves. I’m not Mama, I tell the Husband. She had raked and picked up leaves nearly every day that she lived in her house, about 28 years. I’ve seen her pull drying leaves off the fruit trees. Be ahead of the game, I suppose. She would definitely shudder if she saw how unkempt both the front and back yards are.  Leaves, leaves, hello, leaves. Yep, I was that kid who loved to stomp through leaves.  P.S. Here are a couple of stories about Mama and l-e-a-v-e-s. Mama and the Leaves   Don’t Take My Picture  

Happy Birthday to meeeee!  I’ve written this post on Sunday. (How strange it is to write this post, which I’ll publish in the future, in past tense rather than present tense.) And now I lost my thread of thought because that parenthetical thought took a while to get the words in order. Only thing I can do then is to sing it again and sing it louder. Happy Birthday to meeee!  Seventy years ago, Big Baby me was born . Whoot! Whoot! Whoot!

Here are some of the highlights of my 69th adventure around Apo Init, aka El Sol, aka The Sun. For the wanna-knows, the first language in that sentence is Ilocano, the second, in Spanish, and the last, English, the  three languages with which I’m familiar (Spanish, a little bit, and Ilocano in memory). Without further distractions. . . . 1. Knee-haw! Sing, my left knee joint, was renewed with titanium and plastic parts. The 14th of December will mark the prosthesis’ first anniversary. The first step I took after surgery told me I made the right decision to trust Dr. G to open up my leg, saw off the bad parts, insert a new prosthesis, and close up the incision. Did I have to get so graphic?  2. For sale. Good friend L and I held two yard sales to sell our mothers’ collections of stuff. I’m already thinking about what to do differently for our next yard sale. This last one, which was on Saturday, for example, I got artsy-fartsy with the signs, one of which someone either stole or destr

Lately, I’ve been wandering around the house looking for my prescription reading glasses. I have two pairs, the red ones still yet to be found. Until 2020, I had worn eyeglasses, or contacts, for 50-some years to correct my nearsightedness. That year, the first year of the Covid pandemic, I had cataract surgery in both eyes. The clarity, sharpness, and colors of nature, as well as being able to see words, things, and views far away that I could suddenly see after each surgery was delightfully amazing. The downside was I could no longer see the finer things like tiny letters up close. I can live with that.   Blurriness began in third grade for me. I thought it was normal to see wiggling letters on the blackboard. In fifth grade, the annual school eye exam showed I wasn’t seeing normally, so off to Daddy’s eye doctor Daddy took me. Dr. Green was his name. A nice old man with white hair, smelling crisp and sharp like his white medical top. His examination room was interestingly odd with

Like being 70 is any different than being 69. Of course it is! A new adventure around El Sol! A revolution in the making, yes sireee.  Isn’t that a darling angel in the photo? She used to be all beige. And, check out her green sparkly friend. It’s fun to do something new and different. In this case, it was playing with glitter and not making too much of a mess. Simple things. The Husband and I have a rating system for driving mountain roads. Gulp, double gulp, sweaty palms, and, the worse, double gulp and sweaty palms. If this past year was a mountain road, I’d rate the drive so far as a bunch of gulps and an occasional double gulp. Fortunate, am I. 

It felt like Christmas in our garage today. Good friend L was putting up fiber optic trees and Christmas sculptures that she’ll be selling at our yard sale tomorrow. Sparkle, sparkle. She also made sure a bear and small reindeer were twinkling brightly. That was cool to see.  I generally don’t pay attention to the wintery holiday season until after my birthday, wouldn’t you? I’d rather have a birthday two weeks before Christmas than share the same day with a sibling. Or, maybe not. There could be joy in that, but more likely in another dimension for my brother and me. Nobody explained Christmas to me when I was a kid—why you put up a tree, give presents, and go to church at night, and so on. And, what was with that old man with the beard in the funny red suit prowling the five and dime store. Whenever I saw him coming my way, I quickly ducked away.  In first grade, I was assigned the role of Mrs. Santa Claus. How can you tell your teacher that you do not want to be Mrs. Santa Clau

Ugh! On this fifth day towards becoming 70, I woke up with another glaring owie. This time, it was my right knee shouting, “You overdid it, Palsy!”  A month ago, I joined a weekly yoga class that focuses oldsters on stretching, loosening up our joints, and building up our balance.  Probably all that bending I did at class on Tuesday would’ve been okay if I hadn’t done a bunch of bending yesterday clearing out the geraniums. Ouchy growl! Until this morning, I forgot that my poor swollen right knee, called Song, is still the bad knee. She  has done quite well keeping up with Sing, the left joint that was totally replaced last year, which was my gift for turning 69. Poor Song. Hopefully, I can find another compatible, trustworthy surgeon to fix her in 2024. Sing’s surgeon retired. He was amazing, even straightening my leg when he said he couldn’t.  The poor Husband. He kept running over to see why I was suddenly groaning, moaning, cursing, or growling so very loudly. Song did not like