I don’t know answers
I have a high class problem, living in two places. Poor me. Our kids grew up and moved out, we have property in Calaveras County and in Bel Aire, our Marin County subdivision. Each month, I drive three hours down the Sierra foothills and stay for a week to pick up our mail and handle appointments. My husband stays on Bald Mountain Road and runs our ranch. He doesn’t seem to miss the Bay Area like I do. I love both places. Continue reading “poor me” »
reaching into cobwebs can be creepy
I dreamt I was cleaning out two old houses where I once lived. In real life, I did not live in either of the two houses, but that’s how it goes in the dream world. The primary image of this dream is finding a wall with pushpins of special jewelry, a silver cross, a couple of turquoise pendant necklaces hanging down. I reach for the cross, under thick blobs of stingy cobwebs, and they get onto my face. “EWWW!” I woke with a gasp, feeling gross and icky. Continue reading “webs and faith” »
first crop 2015
Last night I dreamt I was in a rehab, no particular type. I’m sitting in a straight back chair with a binder full of notes on my lap, deciding what to keep and toss. A surfer type of middle-age man enters the room, complaining how he struggles with his girlfriend, how their relationship is different because he is in rehab.
I said, “Since you’ve made your statement in a public place, I feel ok giving my opinion. It seems to me you need to change your behavior in order to change your thinking.”
Then I woke up. Continue reading “behaving like an adult” »
writing on palm leaf
Memoirs come from someplace deep inside us, private travel to an unknown land. I wrote a memoir when I became outraged concerning treatment of my best friend, who spent her life in mental institutions. My story grew into a lengthy saga. Continue reading “deep memoir” »
Oh my God, I’m not perfect!
Yesterday on the phone, a friend confronted me about something I said to her in a recent conversation, and I’m glad she did. I previously made a flippant remark about something, and she didn’t like or understand where I was coming from. She had self-esteem, and checked out why I said it. Continue reading “callous indifference” »
in less than a month they fly away
My twenty four year-old son sent me a text photograph with a nest full of robin’s eggs. Then he sent a shot of the hatched robins in their nest. Ten days later, he watched the birds fly away. He watched the last bird fall from the nest and fly away, and observed that the nest was truly empty. Continue reading “eggs to flight” »
this is the plant that rules my county
Last year’s Butte fire changed more than the Calaveras landscape. Mountain Ranch was destroyed by fire, and commercial medical marijuana growers bought up burnt land for their billion dollar crops. Billion dollar crops in a county that can’t get out of the red. The new ordinances don’t look very promising for increasing revenue. It’s a trip to watch drastic changes occur in a matter of weeks.
Continue reading “Medical Marijuana rules Calaveras County” »
being with someone
Lindy’s house felt like vacation every seventh grade weekend, and kept me away from my family. She and I wore paisley print dresses and mock turtlenecks with semi-short skirts to our knees, hooked sandal toe nylons onto garterbelts, wore straight hair, imitated Cher, with thick “I got you Babe” bangs that squared off our faces, striving to look like that perfect blonde girl on Breck shampoo bottles. Continue reading “wack” »
I dreamed instead of learning math
Mrs. Fagg was my junior high home economics teacher and got me serious about sewing. I loved making gingham aprons for my mom and my grandma, and embroidered little designs on the pockets.
Our school chorus took a trip to Sacramento in a yellow bus and sang at a state level singing competition. I sang a solo opening of “Do Re Mi.” and we won a gold lapel pin with a design of the state. Continue reading “defining early priorities” »
doorknob kiss
Summer came and I sang nonstop because grass was so green and sky was so blue. My seventh grade best friend Lindy and I hung around Tiburon’s Angel Island ferry dock, at Main Street’s Penny Arcade behind Bird and Hound Clothing. Continue reading “kissing a doorknob” »