The Messenger's Arrival

I was all awash in a warmth-filled cold, and the arms around me seemed to melt along with the steady drumming pain that coursed through my bones these long months... The voices tapered... and...

The light was bright but not uncomfortable to look at, and for the first time in years, not hazy to my cataract covered blue and brown eyes.

A warm, sweet breeze wafted my way and grew more enticing, drawing me in. Somewhere in it I could smell a lake.

With paws that no longer sent waves of misery through my legs, I felt myself work up to full speed, springing through a webby portal. Spilling out into a great, green field, I saw a menagerie of lounging dogs, cats, rabbits, ferrets.. and all makes of animals. They seemed to be waiting.

Several dogs saw me and started to walk slowly over. Cats converged as well, hanging back to plop down again and lick themselves. A rabbit, rat and several hamsters scampered into the group.



A heeler stepped forward, her tailessness forcing her wags to wiggle through her barrel shaped body.

A black dog stood next to her. "Come with us,"
she said.
It was time to deliver my message.

A Basil Blog

At the close of summer I round up all the basil, leaving some to drop seeds for next year. Basil doesn't like temps under 60 degrees, so I got to it just in time.


Then it's time to make the winter supply of fresh pesto.


It doesn't look very appetizing , but it's summer in a bag.
However, no measure of romanticizing it will persuade the kids to eat any of it.


But I'm still getting basil from the farm I get veggies from weekly. This bunch had a stowaway... a spider mama. Now I guess I'll have to clip around her and her egg sac until the babies erupt.
Let's hope we don't wake up wound in web-thread soon.

Snout it out

Since yesterday masses of snout butterfies have been flitting about town. I see in the write-up that drought is hard on their main predator, so they must be footloose and fancy free after the long, hot summer.

These guys are as thick as the tourists in our tiny town, and I really hate driving through them. I can't bare to check my front grill for their broken wings.

Exemplifying the term Flying $%^&



If you look closely, you can see me waving

This is the first time I've seen them this thick in a few years. And while this definitely isn't as dynamic as a monarch invasion, it's noteworthy. (I have witnessed a monarch swarm, migrating through the back yard of the old homestead in Fredericksburg-- and it was amazing.)

I can't seem to pin these guys down for a picture, but as you can see by the description of their lifestyle, that's not surprising. And upon checking youtube, someone uploaded this video today, taken in Austin-- it gives you the general idea. Imagine driving through it.

Get your Folk on

When Mary Travers died last month... the nostalgia drove me to download Peter, Paul and Mommy for the kids.

Acoustic is where it's at for kids. A perfect album for a car ride.

The album won a Grammy in 1969 (before this Mommy was even born), and holds faves like 'Boa Constrictor', 'Marvelous Toy', 'Leatherwing Bat,' and lots more.

The kids love it and I added a few more Peter, Paul & Mary staples, including 'I Dig Rock-n-Roll Music', which the Girl-Child demands to hear over and over.

It warms this Mommy's heart to hear the kids sing 'If I had a Hammer' and 'This Land.'

This collection was made for kids, kids, kids.



And it goes well with this Pete Seeger album that we've had for many months now:

This CD squirms, hops and gallops with great with tunes about frogs, mules, and women with a taste for spiders.

Birds, Beasts, Bugs.... is required listening on our daily walks-- quelling any techno-guilt I might harbor with its back-to-nature subject matter. (We always seem to hit 'My little little kitty" when we visit the neighborhood cat)

And if you get the chance, watch the Foolish Frog video on Scholastic DVD:

Let 'em eat cake

This blog turned one last week... but lately my postings are sporadic, so I'm just now celebrating.

With a monitor like this, the blog looks aged beyond its years.

I've sanitized it. But for the light-weights who are offended, or worse yet, bored... there's always Facebook or Twitter updates. (But there are some of those that I wouldn't take home to Mama either.)

Or you should try the blogs listed on the right of this page. (if you're the delicate type, avoid Binkie) There are tons of people in the world much more fascinating than me, and we should all feel lucky blogs exist. It's like back in the day when we all had pen pals. Pen pals who would scribble and send unevenly trimmed school pictures. Pen pals from far away lands like Wisconsin.

Sometimes people roll their eyes when you mention the word blog. However, blogging in some form or fashion has always existed.


Wall post

I recently read about pioneer families that wrote letters, passed the letter on to the next relative who added to it and continued to pass it on. That's a blog. So we didn't invent it.





I have never been able to resist the urge to write. No matter how innane. Actually, I used to get paid to write.

So, have some cake. Jump in the bouncy castle. If you get woozy or pee your pants, I'll call your Mom to come get you.

Time out

I am entertained by this video about a man who claims to have met-- AND recorded-- a meeting with his future self:



As you can see, theoretically, this is possible... stumbling upon a wormhole that is. As for the possibility of that wormhole tunneling straight into your future-self, hmmmm, I'm not so sure. (And I was pretty sure these guys were going to kiss in the end of their video.)

When I was about 12 the science series 'Cosmos' hit PBS, forever changing the way people say the word billions, and and buoying the turtleneck industry... but one thing that stuck with me was Carl Sagan's illustration of the possibility of time travel. It involves the speed of light slowing down time itself, illustrated by an Italian boy on a Vespa. In the end, the boy pulls up to his younger brother, who is now an old man. It's an analogy that has stuck with me all my life. If we could just move fast enough, we could slow time itself.



And in a fiction book I read called Einstein's Dreams, which toys his with time travel theories, I was fascinated by the segment where one can visit any point in time at any time. Go to the past in the afternoon, be back in time for supper. (ya, bring back a gallon of milk, 'K? 'cause it was much cheaper then) What a way to live... but it would not be fun to have to pass through junior high in order to revisit a 1978 trip to Nova Scotia.


Make time to read this book. It broadens the mind.

But it's all theory... all in fun.

And if mankind mastered the feat of time travel, what horrors would occur? Well, again I reference a hard-hitting story I read when I was 10-ish: Ray Bradbury's 'A Sound of Thunder'... where people travel back to the dinosaur age on safari. The consequences are dire.

I think for now I'll enjoy today.