I am up before the dawn.  I hear the transition from crickets to cicadas, and now silence, except for the birds at the feeder.  I realize suddenly why the cicadas are quiet.  After about forty five minutes of trying to forget a dream that for once did not leave me crying, but definitely woke me for good, I get up and look outside.  The day is so humid that there is a fine mist in the air.  It isn’t rain, it is something only people in a truly humid clime can fathom.  The air is wet.  As wet as  a blanket and the air is hot.  And everything feels hot and wet.  Cat hair and dog hair adhere to absolutely every surface including your nose, your lips, your feet.

I am corresponding with a local woman who sells fiber at craft fairs in the Northeast.  She lives a mile or so from my house.  I bought some gorgeous banana soy wool from her and now I need something to ply my green yarn with.  It was the most beautiful shining bat of fiber I have ever seen.  A stark contrast to my rough white Navajo Sheep yarn that is so thick with lanolin that my hands get greasy.

Despite the heat I am drinking hot coffee and munching on my homemade zucchini bread.  The dog, is sitting right next to me hoping for a few bites too.  I tell him I will bite his butt and he turns his backside to me looking back at me and smiling his dog smile.  I give him a piece of the bread.  I have been known to bite his jiggly backside and run around chasing him with my pinchers out (the same ones that got me the name cheekzilla at school, and from my favorite cousin)  I am gonna pinch your butt, said of course in a crazy madhouse voice, my silly voice.

I have an idea for some gift for my daughter a ghost (boo) keychain doll.  I have an idea for a doll that looks like a seated buddha with a pearl in its hara.  I should embroider a lotus on it’s forehead, one pointed awareness right smack between the eyes.  I want to sew before I head to the farmers market.  Fresh cheese and veggies and fruit for a vegetarian meal I am serving to my two gays, and my friend Michelle.

I realize I cannot even hear the hum of cars on the highway.  It is a quiet morning.

What to do with a large fresh Zucchini? Bread

Ubiquitous.  Zucchini.

People cannot give enough of it away.  Today I came home and asked my daughter how she felt about zucchini bread.  Yep she said.  I feel good about it.  Considering it is a very damp and rainy summer day, I don’t mind baking.

I can smell it wafting up the stairs.  So far the only productive thing I have managed today.

Two Loaves of Zucchini Bread
3 eggs
3/4 cup of oil
3 cups grated zucchini
2 cups of sugar (half white half brown if you like)
3 cups of flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup of coconut
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp cloves
dash of salt
3/4 cup of nuts (or raisins if you are allergic)
2 tsp vanilla

spray or lightly oil two loaf pans
bake at 325 degrees for one hour.

And as I mix it, I think of how much my former husband loved my baked goods.

I think I will make an afternoon pot of coffee.

Wishing I had someone to share it with.  My daughter puts her arm over my shoulder and says Thanks Momma.

Reducing energy use

A couple weekends ago while I was mowing my backyard, Angelo stepped out on his back porch and asked if I wanted to borrow his mower.  I heard him ask it because I use a push mower, leg powered.  He of course has a gas mower.  Nope I said, I am good.  I do have a weed whacker that runs on a gas oil mixture, but I only use about a gallon of gas every two to three years.

Although I cannot convince my daughter to use the clothesline for her laundry,  I do use it for almost every load of laundry once it is above freezing outside, depending on the weather in the winter I do put sheets and some other items on the line, and I have air dry hangers too, but I do use the dryer much more.

I just cut the cable in hopes of reducing TV watching time and saving money.  And I have florescent bulbs in most of my light fixtures (dimmer switches still don’t work with florescent, and I have to have my blues buster light bulbs for seasonal affective disorder, that andVitamin D3).  Today I bought a dusting broom so I don’t have to run the vacuum too.  I know the last is a small thing, but well, it is something.

Last thing is I applied for a job within walking distance of my house.  I had the interview today.  Lets see what happens.

Sun Salutation

I timed it this morning.  It takes exactly seven minutes to do a sun salutation.  I should do it every morning but I do not.  Immerse yourself in it.  Totally.  At the end hands together in prayer position.  Thank you God for this day.  I drink very strong coffee from the coffee guru guy on a scary street in the deep west side.  It is not great, but I want to go back, it is locally owned and the coffee was a latin american variety, we all know how that goes.   It is so strong I am shaking when I get home.  I make Italian tofu pizza on a spinach garlic pesto tortilla oddly it tastes like McDonalds.  I spend alot of my day knitting and by now my hands are aching, all life is suffering and in this pain I find joy.  I haven’t knit this much in a long long time.

J. calls me and I share with him about Alistair and the actor.  He is thrilled, it takes three trys to get him to understand.  I feel like a crock pot with something icky rotting in it on the back porch.  It is not a back burner.  It is a lost cause.  He thinks my metaphor is awful.  But that is how I feel.  I also tell him my mind is like cicadas it won’t stop buzzing and I wish I could remove my head.

Bill texts me around four.  How are you honey?  Okay I say.  Existential angst.  Caught between obsessive thoughts and not wanting to care anymore. But in the end what does this all mean?  He tells me that I need to talk about it, when really I am begging my higher power to help me forget.  I am starting to measure the moments when it isn’t in my head.  I am hopeful, was that all morning?  Or was it just an hour.  Not listening la la not listening.   I stand in the parking lot of the yarn store holding my phone in my hand his message of vitriol for the ex on the screen of my cell phone.  How could anyone hurt you honey.  You have to love yourself as much as I do.  No one who loves you this much could ever hurt you.  I think of all the birthdays I spent with Bill and his spouse John while the ex did God knows what.   I look at the cummulo nimbus in the sky and start to write a poem.   A Haiku.

this is Emptiness
this overwhelming fullness
splendid shallow self

I am seeking a rock to skip across the water.  But all the rocks here are round and heavy, have sharp edges and lumpy parts.  I try to skip them, one two.  No nothing.  If I just had the right shallow smooth splendid rock it would soar across the lake.  It would skip twenty times and I would cheer.  And someone would be there beside me to cheer too.  Good one.  That was freaking awesome.

I am going to do a moon salutation before bed.  An honorary gift to the Moon Goddess.   Make me whole, help me sleep. help me find a rock skipping partner.  Or maybe someone who will scramble up a stream soaked  mountainside , who will enjoy the sounds of crickets chirping in the cool summer night.  Or the sound our feet make on the leaves in autumn, someone who knows the answer to the age old question of if you fart in the cold winter air does it make a cloud.  Hands together in prayer position Thank you Goddess for this night.

Delicious Black Bean and Avocado Salad

Salad

My first attempt to get back to eating properly.  I made this lovely summer salad using fresh tomatoes, chopped scallions and green pepper, a can of black beans drained and rinsed, and small cubed cheddar cheese from the farmer’s market.   Cilantro and Lime and a touch of salt for flavor.  My daughter’s boyfriend isn’t fond of avocado so I just cut up one into slices and we had that on the side.  I am satisfied with just this but the boyfriend needed tortilla shells to make it more substantial.

After we all went to Clark Reservation State Park.  My toe is quite broken so I wanted to do a small easy walk, but B. convinced me otherwise.  We did a pretty long hike, longer than my toe liked but not as long as B. wanted.  Was pretty strenuous in the heat we all were sweating.

Roshi said if you want to walk the spiritual path you have to immerse yourself in it.  I am still just dipping in a broken toe. Maybe wading a bit.  Not sure I want to take the plunge.  It is hard work.  I want it to be worth it.

Perennials and Wholesome Eating or NOT!

Go ahead and ask  me two years ago what I would be eating, it would have been something local, fresh, perhaps organic if the cost was not too prohibitive, maybe something canned, maybe something being produced by a local farm, like goat cheese, or eggs.

Now ask me today.  Pop tarts (okay the ones in the natural food section), a bowl of cereal, a handful of green beans from the back porch, a glass of soymilk.  I am not eating right at all, and it is showing, not in my figure, I have actually lost enough weight that people are remarking, and I have toned up considerably from regular yoga and strenuous walks at my favorite park.

I am jealous of my friend M.  she and her boyfriend have container gardening down to an art.  Lush rich tomatoes, more basil than you can imagine, blueberries.  I am not motivated.  I am lazy really.  Why cook just for one.  Why grow a bunch of veggies just for me to eat, why can four dozen quart jars of tomatoes just for myself.  Do I really love chili and spaghetti that much (the answer is well yes but…)

But then I have my perennials.  My clothesline, my raspberries that my sister and niece had to be pulled off of earlier this month.  Hey save some for me and the dog!  My push mower.  I lament that we cannot have chickens in the city.  I wish I had a goat.  She could easily mow my lawn and give me lots of milk.  I think.  I think I have to get back to this/ I say to my daughter, why am I still struggling with this?  It has been two freaking years already, lets move on.  Mom, she answers you WERE married for ELEVEN years.

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Yoga Teacher Angst

I wonder sometimes about my yoga teacher.  I think I may need to move on to a new teacher actually.  Sometimes he says things that are completely – not sure how to say it really – like something a teenage boy would say.  I am not sure he is truly enlightened.  More really super intelligent, opinionated, but not always spot on.

For example he doesn’t understand how women might have flesh in certain parts of their bodies that might interfere with doing certain poses.  He also seems completely and I mean completely unaware that belly fat may limit the ability to twist while sitting upright with your knee or knees drawn in close to your belly.  He also doesn’t really do any poses which stretch the side body.

There is this statement he oft repeats in yoga that the pose you dislike the most is the one you need to do the most.  But I don’t think that is universally true.  I don’t like doing partner poses.  I worry about body odor, strangers touching me particularly men, and men having their faces that close to my ass or my breasts, men are men after all.  Some poses I don’t like because they are just annoying.  I used to love to do the plough but all the fussing with the blankets which I learned you have to have your head hanging off the edge of a blanket to do it properly, all that fussing folding them just right and placing them just so and the whole damn production is irritating, so now I just do a modified version.

Today he said the most unempathetic thing that when doing the chair pose, if you just relax it is an easy pose?  I know muscle is involved and it is a stain to hold this pose if you do not have strong thigh muscles.  It is not about relaxing it is about building strength in your legs.

I guess these are my questions and my doubts.  To whom do I address them?  When you bring it up to him he scoffs and does not answer.  So.  What next?

Large Orange Beetle – Grapevine Beetle

I was sitting on my front steps in the warm summer air, my friend from high school – R.T. –  and I were talking, him trying to convince me to go to the reunion and otherwise just shooting the breeze.  I heard this loud buzzing and noticed a huge beetle flying, but I was relatively sure it wasn’t a cicada.  I tried to take a picture but it disappeared.  I went inside and after about ten minutes felt a painful stinging on my shoulder and viola there was this beetle.

Grapevine Beetle

It is funny because I pictured him as being as big as a fifty cent piece but when I put the penny down I literally laughed out loud.  The mind is funny sometimes.

So I thought, this looks like a scarab beetle.  I was obsessed with ancient Egypt for many, many years and it in part fueled my minor in anthropology.  Eventually primatology took over my interest at least in college, but the ancient Egypt thing still fascinates me.  This reminded me of the quintessential scarab objects from the artifacts of Egypt.  When I looked for the name of this guy online of course it was in the scarab family.  Beetle Image and Info

Enter the trees

“May each of us find our true path and learn from our mistakes and accept each other’s evolutionary pathway and not feel, show, or express disapproval with the choices the other makes.

May we feel compassion instead of hatred, love instead of anger, and an acceptance not only of others but of ourselves as well. May each of us do all of the above in a mindful way.”

“May we know that it is the journey that is important. May we find our own truths and the divine within ourselves and in doing so help our fellow travelers to find their own. May we see each other through spirit and not through worldly eyes. Namaste”

NO, no no no no no no no no no no no no NO!

You know when you realize something is so wrong for you that you just start saying NO and shaking your head and then you just find yourself shuddering and saying no repeatedly, you even wake in the middle of the night saying no no no no no no no.

Are there any men out there who are not obsessed with porn, drugs, alcohol, fucking lots of women?  Are there any remaining men who like a natural woman, no hair dye, little make up and unshaven unmentionables?  Are there any men out there who are not exhibitionists, voyeurs and into threesomes, strip clubs and just dropping their drawers in public.

Men who can actually not snicker into their hands and carry on and on and on about how you are being a man cause you are driving and you don’t drive well enough for him.  O no no really no no no.

I sat on a bench thinking o God it is so quiet here I love it, so peaceful and he opened his mouth and said, oh man I would hate to live here it is just too quiet.

No.  O no. no no no no no no no………no.