I went on a 5-mile walk/run this afternoon. I am getting more run and less walk in on these jaunts. I had an epiphany this afternoon: If I would not stop to pick up rocks and look for fossils, I would have a better walk/run time in my 5-mile. If I would not try to sing or whistle during my run parts, I would have a better walk/run time in my 5-mile. If deer would not jump out in the road right in front of me, my heart would not stop, and I would have a better walk/run time in my 5-mile.
As it was, I did stop several times to pick up a rock here and there, to see what I could see. Some had fossils, some had shell fragments. And I had three songs stuck in my head this afternoon ("Just what makes that silly ol' ant, think he'll move the rubber tree plant, anyone knows that ant...can't... move a rubber tree plant!") and two Latin songs (In te, Domine speravi, non confun darin aeternum... - hey, I can sing in Latin, but I am not sure I can spell Latin - and Laudate Dominum,
omnes gentes, laudate eum...)
And finally, on my last-mile homestretch, I was walking and not paying attention to anything, and all of a sudden this big deer jumped out of the woods onto the road, and wheeled right around and jumped right back into the woods. I could have spanked him on his flank! He's probably at home right now telling this same story to his kids.
My epiphany today is that I, and many like me, do not wrestle with attention deficit so much as attention overflow. How can one attend to one simple task when there are rocks and rills and clouds and winds and people waving and deer startling and birds twittering? It's hard to focus on Left-Right-Left-Right for 5 miles when all this other stuff is going on.
I have no idea how those Olympians do it.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Fragrance
We ate the last of our garden-fresh tomatoes from our summer garden this week. I guess that's appropriate, given that it's the last week of November. But, boy, I'm already missing that taste of summer, and the scent you get, just touching the vines.
Yesterday was something of a first for me: I made meatloaf for that Spouse o' Mine. I do not like meatloaf, and have sworn off ground beef anyway because of some mysterious allergy which began rearing its head about six years ago. But this week's giant loaf-in-a-pan was sort of a make-up for the BBQ roast beef I made earlier in the week. That Spouse o' Mine is not fond of BBQ. I rarely make it, but I think there are few things finer than coming home to a crockpot that's been simmering BBQ roast all afternoon. For some reason, that is always remindful of my grandmother's house. But here's the funny part - I don't recall her making BBQ for us. Gram was a china painter, and her house always smelled like turpentine. How I loved that smell! Somehow my senses have mistaken BBQ for turpentine. Oh, well, comforting smells, anyway, from her kitchen to mine.
Earlier this week I bought a bottle of perfume, kind of on a whim. I'm pretty much a Chanel and Burberry gal, but I saw a bottle of perfume this week - just the kind my Aunt Alpha used to wear. My Aunt Alpha was a fun lady to be around. She died a few years ago at the age of 104. She and I, years earlier, had discussed perfumes. She had remarked, "Oh, you just can't buy my perfume anymore." Aunt Alpha had lived most of her professional life in Manhattan (the other one: the BIG Apple), working for the Metropolitan Opera, and upon retirement had moved to Los Angeles. In her later years she moved to Oklahoma, nearer her kin, just as a chicken comes home to roost. And this was where she lamented the lack of her French perfume.
What Aunt Alpha did not realize was that I took frequent trips to Paris. The next time I found myself in one of the Galeries Lafayette, I purchased a bottle of Cabochard for her and surprised her the next time I visited Oklahoma. She was amazed. (I would like to point out here that "cabochard" means "headstrong" in French. That was Aunt Alpha, all right.)
Well, I dabbed on some Cabochard this morning, and all day I smelled my wrists: yes, yes: Auntie Alpha.
Funny how fragrance stays in one's memory.
“A good fragrance is really a powerful cocktail of memories and emotion.” ~Jeff Stepakoff
Yesterday was something of a first for me: I made meatloaf for that Spouse o' Mine. I do not like meatloaf, and have sworn off ground beef anyway because of some mysterious allergy which began rearing its head about six years ago. But this week's giant loaf-in-a-pan was sort of a make-up for the BBQ roast beef I made earlier in the week. That Spouse o' Mine is not fond of BBQ. I rarely make it, but I think there are few things finer than coming home to a crockpot that's been simmering BBQ roast all afternoon. For some reason, that is always remindful of my grandmother's house. But here's the funny part - I don't recall her making BBQ for us. Gram was a china painter, and her house always smelled like turpentine. How I loved that smell! Somehow my senses have mistaken BBQ for turpentine. Oh, well, comforting smells, anyway, from her kitchen to mine.
Earlier this week I bought a bottle of perfume, kind of on a whim. I'm pretty much a Chanel and Burberry gal, but I saw a bottle of perfume this week - just the kind my Aunt Alpha used to wear. My Aunt Alpha was a fun lady to be around. She died a few years ago at the age of 104. She and I, years earlier, had discussed perfumes. She had remarked, "Oh, you just can't buy my perfume anymore." Aunt Alpha had lived most of her professional life in Manhattan (the other one: the BIG Apple), working for the Metropolitan Opera, and upon retirement had moved to Los Angeles. In her later years she moved to Oklahoma, nearer her kin, just as a chicken comes home to roost. And this was where she lamented the lack of her French perfume.
What Aunt Alpha did not realize was that I took frequent trips to Paris. The next time I found myself in one of the Galeries Lafayette, I purchased a bottle of Cabochard for her and surprised her the next time I visited Oklahoma. She was amazed. (I would like to point out here that "cabochard" means "headstrong" in French. That was Aunt Alpha, all right.)
Well, I dabbed on some Cabochard this morning, and all day I smelled my wrists: yes, yes: Auntie Alpha.
Funny how fragrance stays in one's memory.
“A good fragrance is really a powerful cocktail of memories and emotion.” ~Jeff Stepakoff
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Thursday, November 22, 2012
A Table for Three
We had Small Family Thanksgiving today. It's not the first time, and I know it won't be the last time. We had a delightful day!
The neighbor and I have been doing tag-team animal care the past week or so: she dealt with our beasts while we were in Virginia, and this week I am petting her cats and feeding her fowl. The chickens in my care are easy keepers. Although on Day Two I had to nudge a couple of them with a pole because I had not seen any movement from them in the past 36 hours. Since then I have noticed that they move around when I am not there. Whew! That's a relief!
Here's what the funny things look like:
Gillian and I planned our Thanksgiving menu this morning while that Spouse o' Mine took his 38-mile bike ride. Gillian headed out to the garden and harvested all the fennel root, for fennel & potatoes.
I thought Gillian should see the funny chooks across the road. We walked over, and gave the birds some lettuce from our garden, and then I spied: pears! Pears in the neighbors' yard! I took some back to our house (thanks, Melissa), and made Poached Poached Pears. (Get it?)
It was such a nice day, I set the Thanksgiving table outdoors. We enjoyed the turkey, the fennel, potatoes, cauliflower, and shortbread. Not a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but then, I have never been accused of traditional meals.
Gillian and her father are making a coffee table for her new apartment. 
And after Thanksgiving diner, they began bike repair and tune-ups.
Tonight, since I didn't have any kale to pick, I took my camera out to watch the flying geese. The temperature is supposed to drop 40º in the next few hours, and so I suspect all these geese were hunting for some warmer earth, on Thanksgiving night.
The neighbor and I have been doing tag-team animal care the past week or so: she dealt with our beasts while we were in Virginia, and this week I am petting her cats and feeding her fowl. The chickens in my care are easy keepers. Although on Day Two I had to nudge a couple of them with a pole because I had not seen any movement from them in the past 36 hours. Since then I have noticed that they move around when I am not there. Whew! That's a relief!
Here's what the funny things look like:
I thought Gillian should see the funny chooks across the road. We walked over, and gave the birds some lettuce from our garden, and then I spied: pears! Pears in the neighbors' yard! I took some back to our house (thanks, Melissa), and made Poached Poached Pears. (Get it?)
It was such a nice day, I set the Thanksgiving table outdoors. We enjoyed the turkey, the fennel, potatoes, cauliflower, and shortbread. Not a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but then, I have never been accused of traditional meals.
While we are on the subject of meals, I should say that tonight's "light" meal was to be a quinoa, navy bean and kale stew. I just went out to pick the kale in my garden. No kale! That Spouse o' Mine weeded this morning!!! (Why does he go into my garden?!)
And after Thanksgiving diner, they began bike repair and tune-ups.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Flashback
I was just reading something that reminded me of an experience I had back in my "younger motherhood" days.
Some details are vague and sketchy, but the gist of the afternoon in question is that that Spouse o' Mine attempted to make an international phone call.
We have been married 28 years. For the better part of the first half of those years, he was unable or unwilling to learn how to make an international call. He made it sound like Australia had a direct-dial to anyone anywhere in the world: no 011, no Country Code, no nothing.
Back to the afternoon's experience: He attempted to make an international call to someone, and mistakenly dialed 911 - not 011, which is the "international calling code". He realized his error and promptly hung up. He announced that he was going to his office on campus to do some work. I announced that I was going to have a quick shower. The three kids, perhaps grade-school-aged? were left to their own entertainment.
Après shower, as I was just drying off with my towel, our older daughter knocked on the bathroom door. She said there was a policeman at the door.
OH MY GOSH!!!
I threw on a bathrobe and headed downstairs, soaking wet, dripping-wet hair and all.
A POLICEMAN AT OUR DOOR!!!
I arrived at the stairwell landing and the front door to see TWO police officers. The police woman was standing on our front porch. The police man was standing off the porch, two steps away.
The police woman introduced herself to me, the dripping-wet woman standing, dripping, in her bathrobe. She explained that the 911 people had received a call from our address, and, "Was everything all right?"
I stood there, stunned, dumbfounded, for a minute or so. Our three kids huddled behind me in my dripping wet bathrobe.
And then I burst out laughing. I remembered that that Spouse o' Mine had mistakenly called 911 and immediately hung up, irritated that the American phone system was so ridiculous. (REALLY?! My gosh.) I laughingly explained to the two officers what had transpired.
They stared into my eyes. They did not move.
I moved. I shuffled around nervously. I was not used to greeting guests in my bathrobe.
They continued their stance for an uncomfortable time, it seemed to me, who really just wanted to scamper upstairs to my bedroom and PUT SOME CLOTHES ON.
After an amazing amount of time (it probably was only seconds, maybe a minute or so..) they somehow sent each other a mental message that perhaps I was a young mother of three young kids, who had an Aussie husband who couldn't take time to learn how to make a international call (011) without mistakenly dialing 911 instead.
Have mercy. 28 years, and we are still married.
Some details are vague and sketchy, but the gist of the afternoon in question is that that Spouse o' Mine attempted to make an international phone call.
We have been married 28 years. For the better part of the first half of those years, he was unable or unwilling to learn how to make an international call. He made it sound like Australia had a direct-dial to anyone anywhere in the world: no 011, no Country Code, no nothing.
Back to the afternoon's experience: He attempted to make an international call to someone, and mistakenly dialed 911 - not 011, which is the "international calling code". He realized his error and promptly hung up. He announced that he was going to his office on campus to do some work. I announced that I was going to have a quick shower. The three kids, perhaps grade-school-aged? were left to their own entertainment.
Après shower, as I was just drying off with my towel, our older daughter knocked on the bathroom door. She said there was a policeman at the door.
OH MY GOSH!!!
I threw on a bathrobe and headed downstairs, soaking wet, dripping-wet hair and all.
A POLICEMAN AT OUR DOOR!!!
I arrived at the stairwell landing and the front door to see TWO police officers. The police woman was standing on our front porch. The police man was standing off the porch, two steps away.
The police woman introduced herself to me, the dripping-wet woman standing, dripping, in her bathrobe. She explained that the 911 people had received a call from our address, and, "Was everything all right?"
I stood there, stunned, dumbfounded, for a minute or so. Our three kids huddled behind me in my dripping wet bathrobe.
And then I burst out laughing. I remembered that that Spouse o' Mine had mistakenly called 911 and immediately hung up, irritated that the American phone system was so ridiculous. (REALLY?! My gosh.) I laughingly explained to the two officers what had transpired.
They stared into my eyes. They did not move.
I moved. I shuffled around nervously. I was not used to greeting guests in my bathrobe.
They continued their stance for an uncomfortable time, it seemed to me, who really just wanted to scamper upstairs to my bedroom and PUT SOME CLOTHES ON.
After an amazing amount of time (it probably was only seconds, maybe a minute or so..) they somehow sent each other a mental message that perhaps I was a young mother of three young kids, who had an Aussie husband who couldn't take time to learn how to make a international call (011) without mistakenly dialing 911 instead.
Have mercy. 28 years, and we are still married.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
