Torches, torches, come with torches,
All the way to Bethlehem.
In January, in Southern California, you should come not with torches, but in order to see them. The aloes are blooming! Tall orange rods burst open from bottom to top with glorious flowers. I love them. I'll take a picture, but as usual probably can't put it on!
I wrote a poem once, Torches, inspired by the autumn trees of northern New York state, in one beautiful year when I was lucky enough to get there at just the right time. It was a resplendant year, best color ever---standing in a shower of gold leaves from the tall trees in the lane where my sister lived, I felt as if blessings of nature were falling down on me.
Our aloes will continue to bloom for a time. There's another slightly different strain that blooms later, so if one had enough of the right ones planted together one could have months of continuous bloom.
On a different note, and from a different ecosystem, the Cape Honeysuckle in front of the bathroom windows in the front driveway is blooming flowers of the same brilliant color as the aloes. We had it trimmed back this year, but it has quickly filled out and is always filled with bees and hummingbirds. One time we drove into the drive, the whole bush suddenly trembled all over, and lots of little birds suddenly stuck their heads out from the clumps of leaves and flowers. I don't know what they were, and why they were there (hiding from us!) but it was such a pleasant surprise to see them pop out.
When I was a child I gave that color (prosaicly named in the Crayola box: red-orange) the name "Linda Red." I chose it because there was an olive-green and I was jealous of my sister. Linda Red was my color of choice, charged with vibrant energy and beauty....now, along with the bush and the aloes....a reminder of the joy and curiousity I always felt on earth. YAZZYBEL
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
Remembering Sadly, and Affirming
Good morning. It's early and it's pouring rain outside.
I have been sad this week because this week marks the eleventh anniversary of the beginning of my son's long paralysis. What a terrible time it was. So many hopes absolutely smashed to the ground, such a valuable life crippled, and then taken eventually.
The rain made me remember something though. That few weeks after Greg's injury, it just rained and rained. It rained as if to keep with the great grief the family were going through as he lay there unconscious and half dead.
But in a month or so, something happened. Gregory came to, and began the great travail that marked the rest of his life. I started playing music for him on tapes. First I got "morning Bach," but then I got a great tape of the Holberg Suite or Concerto by Grieg. A great piece of music, buoyant and optimistic. He "woke up" to that music, and since he was such a musician I know it meant a lot to him. He was unable to speak for a long time due to that awful tube they put down your throat, but I'll never forget the moment that he got his voice back and spoke to all the wonderful nurses who'd been caring for him at the hospital. It makes all the difference to be attending to a mute uncommunicative blob, and to be hearing next in a deep young man's voice, "Jeannine, you are absolutely beautiful!"
That same month I noticed a great rarity. The rains which had come in profusion had also done something wonderful for a lot of our dozing plants. Great lilies which had been gleaming their green leaves for years with nary a flower began to put out huge crimson bouquets of bloom. We had a profusion of flowers from everything from those lilies, to cacti, to the last thing Greg planted before he went into the hospital: wonderful variegated nasturtiums.
Those nasturtiums are still with us, transferred from the big house we lived in next door to this little house here. They bloom and thrive in pots and in the ground, and they are still coming up in the grass all the time. I prick them out with a paring knife and plant them in pots. "Here's Gregory," I say to all who would listen. And he continues to bloom and thrive through eleven years' worth of growing.
That is an affirmation, is it not? We affirm life, and growth, and we praise God, even through our tears. YAZZYBEL
I have been sad this week because this week marks the eleventh anniversary of the beginning of my son's long paralysis. What a terrible time it was. So many hopes absolutely smashed to the ground, such a valuable life crippled, and then taken eventually.
The rain made me remember something though. That few weeks after Greg's injury, it just rained and rained. It rained as if to keep with the great grief the family were going through as he lay there unconscious and half dead.
But in a month or so, something happened. Gregory came to, and began the great travail that marked the rest of his life. I started playing music for him on tapes. First I got "morning Bach," but then I got a great tape of the Holberg Suite or Concerto by Grieg. A great piece of music, buoyant and optimistic. He "woke up" to that music, and since he was such a musician I know it meant a lot to him. He was unable to speak for a long time due to that awful tube they put down your throat, but I'll never forget the moment that he got his voice back and spoke to all the wonderful nurses who'd been caring for him at the hospital. It makes all the difference to be attending to a mute uncommunicative blob, and to be hearing next in a deep young man's voice, "Jeannine, you are absolutely beautiful!"
That same month I noticed a great rarity. The rains which had come in profusion had also done something wonderful for a lot of our dozing plants. Great lilies which had been gleaming their green leaves for years with nary a flower began to put out huge crimson bouquets of bloom. We had a profusion of flowers from everything from those lilies, to cacti, to the last thing Greg planted before he went into the hospital: wonderful variegated nasturtiums.
Those nasturtiums are still with us, transferred from the big house we lived in next door to this little house here. They bloom and thrive in pots and in the ground, and they are still coming up in the grass all the time. I prick them out with a paring knife and plant them in pots. "Here's Gregory," I say to all who would listen. And he continues to bloom and thrive through eleven years' worth of growing.
That is an affirmation, is it not? We affirm life, and growth, and we praise God, even through our tears. YAZZYBEL
Monday, January 21, 2013
Hargrove's
Good morning.
I am inspired to write today thanks to a friend of my baby sister no. 5, who blogged about purchasing her first cookbook when she was in high school, in 1963 or so, at Hargrove's in Brownsville, Texas.
I too am a cookbook collector and I too bought my first cookbook at Hargrove's. It was in circa 1947 and I didnt start really cooking from it until 1949. But I remember the first meal I cooked. I was in high school, and I threw a tantrum and wouldn't come down to dinner. When hunger pangs finally calmed my seething brain, I came down to a clean quiet kitchen, and my mother said that if I wanted something to eat I could cook it myself. The ingredients were right there, simple hamburger meat, and vegetables, and all I had to do was cook and clean up. So I did. What a revelation it was to find my results nearly inedible to my discriminating tongue, raised as it was to my mother's delicious meals. So--at some point later on I bought a cookbook. My first cookbook was Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cookbook and I was very fond of it. I read it continually, like a novel. "Breslin Baked Bluefish," "Cigarettes a la Prince Henry," and that modern-day staple in its pristine form: Spaghetti Alfredo which was then not the disgusting commercial white-sauce and fat concoction it now is, but a fabulous mixture of butter and cream.
There weren't many cultural amenities in Brownsville in those days, that I was aware of. The library was in a state of morbidity. But in the back of Hargrove's Stationery store, there were some shelves...and the Hargrove's had books there. New, beautiful books, lots of them (to my eyes) and they were all for sale and they were wonderful.
The cookbook was the first book I bought at Hargrove's, but it was the first of several. I bought many children's books there when I was teaching because there were no classroom libraries in our impoverished schools. I bought my first ghost story book and just scared myself to pieces reading those incredibly well written classics by M.R.James, Walter de la Mare, and others.
Thank God for Hargrove's. It was a little jewel of culture in a cultureless wasteland. I'm not saying that Brownsville had no culture. It had more than that, it had a treasure which the new generation of citizens seems to have found out. But then, things were just rocking along in the wake of the Second World War, and the Mexicans were the Mexicans, and the Americans were the Americans, and civic responsibility seemed to have gotten lost somewhere in the mix. Things seem to be better now, but what do I know? I haven't been there for some time. YAZZYBEL
I am inspired to write today thanks to a friend of my baby sister no. 5, who blogged about purchasing her first cookbook when she was in high school, in 1963 or so, at Hargrove's in Brownsville, Texas.
I too am a cookbook collector and I too bought my first cookbook at Hargrove's. It was in circa 1947 and I didnt start really cooking from it until 1949. But I remember the first meal I cooked. I was in high school, and I threw a tantrum and wouldn't come down to dinner. When hunger pangs finally calmed my seething brain, I came down to a clean quiet kitchen, and my mother said that if I wanted something to eat I could cook it myself. The ingredients were right there, simple hamburger meat, and vegetables, and all I had to do was cook and clean up. So I did. What a revelation it was to find my results nearly inedible to my discriminating tongue, raised as it was to my mother's delicious meals. So--at some point later on I bought a cookbook. My first cookbook was Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cookbook and I was very fond of it. I read it continually, like a novel. "Breslin Baked Bluefish," "Cigarettes a la Prince Henry," and that modern-day staple in its pristine form: Spaghetti Alfredo which was then not the disgusting commercial white-sauce and fat concoction it now is, but a fabulous mixture of butter and cream.
There weren't many cultural amenities in Brownsville in those days, that I was aware of. The library was in a state of morbidity. But in the back of Hargrove's Stationery store, there were some shelves...and the Hargrove's had books there. New, beautiful books, lots of them (to my eyes) and they were all for sale and they were wonderful.
The cookbook was the first book I bought at Hargrove's, but it was the first of several. I bought many children's books there when I was teaching because there were no classroom libraries in our impoverished schools. I bought my first ghost story book and just scared myself to pieces reading those incredibly well written classics by M.R.James, Walter de la Mare, and others.
Thank God for Hargrove's. It was a little jewel of culture in a cultureless wasteland. I'm not saying that Brownsville had no culture. It had more than that, it had a treasure which the new generation of citizens seems to have found out. But then, things were just rocking along in the wake of the Second World War, and the Mexicans were the Mexicans, and the Americans were the Americans, and civic responsibility seemed to have gotten lost somewhere in the mix. Things seem to be better now, but what do I know? I haven't been there for some time. YAZZYBEL
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Cleveland Sage
Good morning!
This morning as I walked into church, I plucked a little piece of Cleveland sage from a bush that I was passing. The whole landscaping around St Paul's has been changed, in the past year, from old fashioned conventional hedging made of cultivars, into a more natural landscape made of California native plants.
Of all the natives, I love Cleveland sage the most. It has the most beautiful, curative fragrance of any herb or flower that I've ever known. And there are varieties within the race. Varieties of fragrance and form of the plant. St Paul's, I am happy to report, has the best.
Going inside, I introduced Mary, who was at the door, to the beauty of Cleveland sage. I myself didnt know much about it until a few years ago when I used regularly to go and get treatments from a women whose front yard was hugely planted with it. I'll always associate the fragrance with her, and her with the plant, and thank both of them for each other.
Church was interesting because it wasnt bitterly cold today (being warm outside.) And we got to meet the new interim Dean, Rebecca, who preached a fine sermon. I wished I could stay for the forum today as it sounded interesting, a theater piece about soldiers returning from war. But I had to hurry on, and left apace.
Before returning home, I went to Sprouts and bought many good (and expensive) items of ordinary fare...all ordinary except for the almond meal and coconut flour, on which two items I hope to base a new phase of more healthful cookery. The prices of bread, chocolate, dried figs and such were high. As I wrote to a son, I hope to recoup the steady inflation of prices and de-valuing of the USD by purchasing some silver in the hope that it will rise along with the waves, giving me something to cash in when a ten dollar loaf of bread is the norm. I am sure he yawned gently and went back to his customary thoughts. I wish I'd talked about this kind of thing when my kids were little and tended a little more to listen, less to deprecate old Mom's lessons. Ah well, it's a beautiful day outside, and I am spending the afternoon at the Onstage Playhouse seeing Charley's Aunt...I'll have the lingering perfume of Cleveland sage on my fingertips and lots of laughs, I hope, in my bones for you and you and you. YAZZYBEL
This morning as I walked into church, I plucked a little piece of Cleveland sage from a bush that I was passing. The whole landscaping around St Paul's has been changed, in the past year, from old fashioned conventional hedging made of cultivars, into a more natural landscape made of California native plants.
Of all the natives, I love Cleveland sage the most. It has the most beautiful, curative fragrance of any herb or flower that I've ever known. And there are varieties within the race. Varieties of fragrance and form of the plant. St Paul's, I am happy to report, has the best.
Going inside, I introduced Mary, who was at the door, to the beauty of Cleveland sage. I myself didnt know much about it until a few years ago when I used regularly to go and get treatments from a women whose front yard was hugely planted with it. I'll always associate the fragrance with her, and her with the plant, and thank both of them for each other.
Church was interesting because it wasnt bitterly cold today (being warm outside.) And we got to meet the new interim Dean, Rebecca, who preached a fine sermon. I wished I could stay for the forum today as it sounded interesting, a theater piece about soldiers returning from war. But I had to hurry on, and left apace.
Before returning home, I went to Sprouts and bought many good (and expensive) items of ordinary fare...all ordinary except for the almond meal and coconut flour, on which two items I hope to base a new phase of more healthful cookery. The prices of bread, chocolate, dried figs and such were high. As I wrote to a son, I hope to recoup the steady inflation of prices and de-valuing of the USD by purchasing some silver in the hope that it will rise along with the waves, giving me something to cash in when a ten dollar loaf of bread is the norm. I am sure he yawned gently and went back to his customary thoughts. I wish I'd talked about this kind of thing when my kids were little and tended a little more to listen, less to deprecate old Mom's lessons. Ah well, it's a beautiful day outside, and I am spending the afternoon at the Onstage Playhouse seeing Charley's Aunt...I'll have the lingering perfume of Cleveland sage on my fingertips and lots of laughs, I hope, in my bones for you and you and you. YAZZYBEL
Friday, January 18, 2013
Picky, picky
Good morning!!
I was thinking about a common grammatical error in speech that irks me very much, so thought I'd write about it though I may have written about it before.
Everyone's heard (though not everyone has said,)
"The message was for Mary and I."
Oh chagrin !
My mother would have gathered her ducklings closer and told us,
"That's terrible grammar! Would anyone say, 'The message was for I' ?"
And we'd have smiled smugly and gathered closer as we shook our heads for the poor ignoramuses who didn't know any better.
Of course, what the poor ignoramus had been taught, by a poor ignoramus 1980's-on grammar teacher, is that the plural changes the me to I.
Oh, how wrong. We Americans educated in 1940 or before as to grammar know that pronouns have CASE. And the case has to do with the giver or receiver of the action. And following a preposition, the noun or pronoun is the receiver, therefore going into what I was taught is the objective case, i.e., ME. Whether singular or plural has nothing to do with it.
The trouble is that some coo coo English teacher back in the halcyon days of free love and free will had never gathered at my mother's knee, and knew no better. She (I'll blame it on a woman) just made up a law.
So that is why everyone born after W.W.2 knows no better. Well, not everyone. Some folks. They listened to the wrong person.
As long as I am being picky today, I'm here to tell you that there's about 5 seconds' difference between crispy bacon and slightly burnt bacon. Look to it! It makes the difference between harmony and disharmony in the home. It is wrong to set a slightly burnt dish of bacon before your lord and master. So don't do it, even if he is kind and eats it anyway. YAZZYBEL
I was thinking about a common grammatical error in speech that irks me very much, so thought I'd write about it though I may have written about it before.
Everyone's heard (though not everyone has said,)
"The message was for Mary and I."
Oh chagrin !
My mother would have gathered her ducklings closer and told us,
"That's terrible grammar! Would anyone say, 'The message was for I' ?"
And we'd have smiled smugly and gathered closer as we shook our heads for the poor ignoramuses who didn't know any better.
Of course, what the poor ignoramus had been taught, by a poor ignoramus 1980's-on grammar teacher, is that the plural changes the me to I.
Oh, how wrong. We Americans educated in 1940 or before as to grammar know that pronouns have CASE. And the case has to do with the giver or receiver of the action. And following a preposition, the noun or pronoun is the receiver, therefore going into what I was taught is the objective case, i.e., ME. Whether singular or plural has nothing to do with it.
The trouble is that some coo coo English teacher back in the halcyon days of free love and free will had never gathered at my mother's knee, and knew no better. She (I'll blame it on a woman) just made up a law.
So that is why everyone born after W.W.2 knows no better. Well, not everyone. Some folks. They listened to the wrong person.
As long as I am being picky today, I'm here to tell you that there's about 5 seconds' difference between crispy bacon and slightly burnt bacon. Look to it! It makes the difference between harmony and disharmony in the home. It is wrong to set a slightly burnt dish of bacon before your lord and master. So don't do it, even if he is kind and eats it anyway. YAZZYBEL
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
What to Do Whle Cooking Breakfast
Good morning! (for once)
This morning as I prepared to cook my husband's breakfast, I sliced and consumed the insides of a delicious large navel orange. The way I prepare oranges for quick and easy consumption is: to slice the orange horizontally and then cut the slices in half. The pulp comes out easily as you eat each one, and you have a holder ready made in your hand.
Then you are left with a number of semicircles of orange peel. If you are doing a proper job, you'll toss these into a pan of boiling water three times, like a charm, to take away the bitterness. But I decided to live with the bitterness and just start the real process. As the bacon was a-frying in the pan, I got a saucepan and put in a couple of handfuls of white sugar and a dash of water, and put this on to boil. Which it shortly did, and produced a clear syrup. The orange peel bits, and the trimmings thereof, went into the syrup and boiled away for a bit as I slowly turned the bacon over and over to brown it perfectly. I also ran over with a platter and put some more sugar on the platter and when I thought the orange peels had boiled enough I took them out with a spatula and put them onto the sugar, turning them over and over as they cooled.
What's left after that? Well, you'll have a little syrup left from the peels; can't waste that. I laid out some pecan pieces or halves earlier, and tossed those into the syrup with a tiny (pat-sized) piece of butter, boiled again, and turned them out into the sugar left over from the candied orange peels which were by now reposing on another plate...Toss the pecans and you have a fabulous batch of pecans and you have wasted NOTHING. Not a scrap of the orange was wasted (but the navel itself; it seemed indelicate to eat it.). Not a scrap of sugar or syrup or pecan. All good. All will be consumed in its own good time. I am convinced that the orange peels, even though candied, must have some nutrition in them. And some pectin. That's very good for us. So that the oranges and the pecans and the bacon all got done at the same time, and then I washed out the skillet and scrambled up the eggs and put the syrup saucepan into the sink to soak. Now to go and put up the orange peels and the nuts. (Separately.)
And I shaved my husband this morning, before preparing and giving him his food. It was fun, and he needed it as he's been skipping more and more whiskers lately. I can see why barbers are so happy: they get results every time!!! YAZZYBEL
This morning as I prepared to cook my husband's breakfast, I sliced and consumed the insides of a delicious large navel orange. The way I prepare oranges for quick and easy consumption is: to slice the orange horizontally and then cut the slices in half. The pulp comes out easily as you eat each one, and you have a holder ready made in your hand.
Then you are left with a number of semicircles of orange peel. If you are doing a proper job, you'll toss these into a pan of boiling water three times, like a charm, to take away the bitterness. But I decided to live with the bitterness and just start the real process. As the bacon was a-frying in the pan, I got a saucepan and put in a couple of handfuls of white sugar and a dash of water, and put this on to boil. Which it shortly did, and produced a clear syrup. The orange peel bits, and the trimmings thereof, went into the syrup and boiled away for a bit as I slowly turned the bacon over and over to brown it perfectly. I also ran over with a platter and put some more sugar on the platter and when I thought the orange peels had boiled enough I took them out with a spatula and put them onto the sugar, turning them over and over as they cooled.
What's left after that? Well, you'll have a little syrup left from the peels; can't waste that. I laid out some pecan pieces or halves earlier, and tossed those into the syrup with a tiny (pat-sized) piece of butter, boiled again, and turned them out into the sugar left over from the candied orange peels which were by now reposing on another plate...Toss the pecans and you have a fabulous batch of pecans and you have wasted NOTHING. Not a scrap of the orange was wasted (but the navel itself; it seemed indelicate to eat it.). Not a scrap of sugar or syrup or pecan. All good. All will be consumed in its own good time. I am convinced that the orange peels, even though candied, must have some nutrition in them. And some pectin. That's very good for us. So that the oranges and the pecans and the bacon all got done at the same time, and then I washed out the skillet and scrambled up the eggs and put the syrup saucepan into the sink to soak. Now to go and put up the orange peels and the nuts. (Separately.)
And I shaved my husband this morning, before preparing and giving him his food. It was fun, and he needed it as he's been skipping more and more whiskers lately. I can see why barbers are so happy: they get results every time!!! YAZZYBEL
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Slow Sunday
This is a Slow Sunday!
We had a quiet trip out at lunchtime, down to the water to look at the birds as we ate our sandwiches. A bright, quiet day. I got out the camera to take, did not take it, and was rewarded with the sight of many brown pelicans down at the Sweetwater River Estuary. They were right there in the clatch of ducks, coots, gulls and other shorebirds who always gather there and make a trip worth the effort. The tide was out, and there was a broad swathe of mostly muddy islands in very shallow water which was moving in and out. It was a delight to see the pelicans, because they are rarer than the others who frequent the spot.
So, no pictures of pelicans! What else is there to say? We sat happily in the car in the bright cold noontime, eating the Neff Family Lunch and talking about the birds. What's the Neff Family Lunch? I can hear my readers clamoring. Well, it's white bread and (mostly) cheese, sandwiches. Only now I cannot eat much cheese because of the fat content, and am eating fat free thin sliced ham or turkey instead. Even with diet mayo, there's hardly any fat in such a sandwich. We also had soda pops, apples, and some fat-free ladyfingers for dessert. If you eat that lunch you've ostensibly saved ten dollars which is the minimum for eating at the Jack in the Box or other purveyor of low class foods.
This week we got the news that the new neurologist, a beautiful, witty and funny young lady whom I liked very much, thinks that Theodore DOES have Parkinson's. Groan. We kept thinking that if we stayed in denial, it wouldn't be true. She is going to put the quietus on his driving rights, so guess who gets to take up the slack. Oh well, thank goodness I can still drive.
That being said, I'll just recount my dream of last night, really this morning early. Early morning dreams say Dante and I, and the most likely dreams to be predictive, so here's this one.
We, Theo and I were in "San Francisco" (as in real life we are thinking of moving to the East Bay.) We saw our friends Niki and Jeffrey, and had a pleasant chat with them in their flat. It was a huge place, not like any place I have been with them..then the scene changed, and I was looking for a place to live up there.
Then ensued in the dream a series of goings up and down the streets, viewings and even movings in and out of various apartments we might live in up there. The trouble is, there was never a single part of it all that was familiar or remembered. Just a lot of nice and un-nice places. Some of them seemed to share a lot of space with other people so could have been considered to represent the old folks' residences we're so anxious to avoid.
And there was a trick to "getting there" , to any place I wanted to go (I was doing this searching by myself mostly), that is: there was a pattern or route I had to trace, and if I made a mistake I would get off the track and lose my place, as if going from one place to another were some sort of game plan.
And SF itself was like a toy town, the city itself seemed only to encompass one or two main streets with high buildings, and to get to places I wanted to see I had to go away from that part and go on lonely unfamiliar streets. Odd.
The striking part was that, at one point, Theodore came hurrying in to inform us (someone else was there like maybe Gregory) that something had happened out there in the world and as a result, the value of GOLD and SILVER had skyrocketed overnight. "I TOLD you to buy as much of it as you could!", I was yelling at Theodore. Due to the hugeness of the calamity or whatever historical incident that had taken place, I knew the price would never go down again. The feeling that I had in this part of the dream was absolutely sure, like it had really happened; the time was March or April of this year. Keep an eye on it, folks. I don't like to make predictions, but have been know to be right......YAZZYBEL
We had a quiet trip out at lunchtime, down to the water to look at the birds as we ate our sandwiches. A bright, quiet day. I got out the camera to take, did not take it, and was rewarded with the sight of many brown pelicans down at the Sweetwater River Estuary. They were right there in the clatch of ducks, coots, gulls and other shorebirds who always gather there and make a trip worth the effort. The tide was out, and there was a broad swathe of mostly muddy islands in very shallow water which was moving in and out. It was a delight to see the pelicans, because they are rarer than the others who frequent the spot.
So, no pictures of pelicans! What else is there to say? We sat happily in the car in the bright cold noontime, eating the Neff Family Lunch and talking about the birds. What's the Neff Family Lunch? I can hear my readers clamoring. Well, it's white bread and (mostly) cheese, sandwiches. Only now I cannot eat much cheese because of the fat content, and am eating fat free thin sliced ham or turkey instead. Even with diet mayo, there's hardly any fat in such a sandwich. We also had soda pops, apples, and some fat-free ladyfingers for dessert. If you eat that lunch you've ostensibly saved ten dollars which is the minimum for eating at the Jack in the Box or other purveyor of low class foods.
This week we got the news that the new neurologist, a beautiful, witty and funny young lady whom I liked very much, thinks that Theodore DOES have Parkinson's. Groan. We kept thinking that if we stayed in denial, it wouldn't be true. She is going to put the quietus on his driving rights, so guess who gets to take up the slack. Oh well, thank goodness I can still drive.
That being said, I'll just recount my dream of last night, really this morning early. Early morning dreams say Dante and I, and the most likely dreams to be predictive, so here's this one.
We, Theo and I were in "San Francisco" (as in real life we are thinking of moving to the East Bay.) We saw our friends Niki and Jeffrey, and had a pleasant chat with them in their flat. It was a huge place, not like any place I have been with them..then the scene changed, and I was looking for a place to live up there.
Then ensued in the dream a series of goings up and down the streets, viewings and even movings in and out of various apartments we might live in up there. The trouble is, there was never a single part of it all that was familiar or remembered. Just a lot of nice and un-nice places. Some of them seemed to share a lot of space with other people so could have been considered to represent the old folks' residences we're so anxious to avoid.
And there was a trick to "getting there" , to any place I wanted to go (I was doing this searching by myself mostly), that is: there was a pattern or route I had to trace, and if I made a mistake I would get off the track and lose my place, as if going from one place to another were some sort of game plan.
And SF itself was like a toy town, the city itself seemed only to encompass one or two main streets with high buildings, and to get to places I wanted to see I had to go away from that part and go on lonely unfamiliar streets. Odd.
The striking part was that, at one point, Theodore came hurrying in to inform us (someone else was there like maybe Gregory) that something had happened out there in the world and as a result, the value of GOLD and SILVER had skyrocketed overnight. "I TOLD you to buy as much of it as you could!", I was yelling at Theodore. Due to the hugeness of the calamity or whatever historical incident that had taken place, I knew the price would never go down again. The feeling that I had in this part of the dream was absolutely sure, like it had really happened; the time was March or April of this year. Keep an eye on it, folks. I don't like to make predictions, but have been know to be right......YAZZYBEL
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Again, it's not Monday!!!
Well, the younger folk have all gone back to work, and us oldsters are left to sit around and wonder what day it is... Don't you find it confusing when Christmas and New Year's are so close to midweek? Every day thereafter is a Monday, for a long time...then you realize that it's not! I am disgusted by the fiscal cliff and the nonsense that went on around it. Whenever there 's a flustercluck like that going on in the media, I wonder what's REALLY going on that we may never hear about. No, I'm not paranoid; yes, I really believe that we are sheeple being herded around by the sheepdogs of the powerful. The Natural News Ranger says that Pres. Obama signed another secret law about detention without rightful cause, and so forth, during this time. It's possible. And then, though it's probably true that he did, the fact that it made the news at all may mean that there are other happenin's even more sinister that we didn't hear a word about. OOga Booga. Today we are going to un-ooga booga our living room as best we might, by putting all the Christmas lights and ornaments into the boxes that are open to receive them. Then we shall label everything clearly so that next year, (time out for titters of laughter), SO THAT NEXT YEAR we'll not be so confused on decorating day. YAZZYBEL
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
New Year's Day 2013
Good day.
Twice have I tried to complete a posting for this day, and twice have been cut off, losing what I'd written.
I am superstitious.
So I'll not give prophecies, nor prognostications, nor the I Ching results I got, nor summaries of the year, nor yet resolutions. Well, perhaps I'll try resolutions, as they are not as fraught with portents and changes (except as we don't do them!).
I have made two good resolutions so far, both needed and good.
One: I'll eat a green salad of raw stuff every day at lunch. I almost broke that when I made a sandwich to take down to the water, but I stuffed in a lot of varied leaves from a salad bag so that will do.
Two: I am going to go through all my writings and get them in order. I give myself Jan. and Feb. to get the basics of this done. And I'm going to go to a person who does skillful word processing and get it written up properly. After that I have more ideas but they aren't resolutions yet.
New Year's Day is a time for observances, too. We went to the water, as Greg always like to do on New Year's Day. We discovered how much we've missed going down there as we used to do when we had Birdy and Listy. The little ducks are out just the same, and the bigger shore and sea birds...it is a scene to behold. We ate our humble sandwiches (ham for him, turkey meatloaf for me) and observed the beautiful sky, and the beautiful water and those great birds.
I wish everyone who reads this a very happy new year of 2013!!! YAZZYBEL
Twice have I tried to complete a posting for this day, and twice have been cut off, losing what I'd written.
I am superstitious.
So I'll not give prophecies, nor prognostications, nor the I Ching results I got, nor summaries of the year, nor yet resolutions. Well, perhaps I'll try resolutions, as they are not as fraught with portents and changes (except as we don't do them!).
I have made two good resolutions so far, both needed and good.
One: I'll eat a green salad of raw stuff every day at lunch. I almost broke that when I made a sandwich to take down to the water, but I stuffed in a lot of varied leaves from a salad bag so that will do.
Two: I am going to go through all my writings and get them in order. I give myself Jan. and Feb. to get the basics of this done. And I'm going to go to a person who does skillful word processing and get it written up properly. After that I have more ideas but they aren't resolutions yet.
New Year's Day is a time for observances, too. We went to the water, as Greg always like to do on New Year's Day. We discovered how much we've missed going down there as we used to do when we had Birdy and Listy. The little ducks are out just the same, and the bigger shore and sea birds...it is a scene to behold. We ate our humble sandwiches (ham for him, turkey meatloaf for me) and observed the beautiful sky, and the beautiful water and those great birds.
I wish everyone who reads this a very happy new year of 2013!!! YAZZYBEL
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