Birthday Mandala

Twenty-two years ago today, just a few miles down the road from here, I gave birth to my beautiful baby girl. My partner was with me, in my face, breathing hard with me and never letting me go and he never has let me go, ever. I’m a little sad that I’m not home with them today in our little nest, eating cake and smiling and happy that we made it to this day because there were times…

I will celebrate from here, I will make another chocolate concoction and put a candle on it and give my deepest thanks for all of it and send my beautiful girl all the bestest wishes there are in the universe and thank her again and again for being my greatest teacher and for bringing that wild rascal into this world for us to love and hold.

I made this mandala today out of all the leaves and flowers I have been picking here and there…

I have no idea what most of these are. I believe the purple ones are plumbago, the most delicate ones. The one in the center is an impatiens blossom that was laying almost in front of the door and I walked right by it before I realized what it was and accepted it for the gift it was. One meaning I found for impatiens is motherly love.

Mother is doing better. Coming home next week if all goes as planned. We all know how that goes but I am keeping my fingers crossed, she’s about sick to death of The Romulan Rehab as am I.

Namaste Everyone.

The other day at the Romulan Rehab a frail looking woman in a walker stopped her long slow journey down the hallway and beckoned to me with her hand. She was mumbling and no one else was around so I took her hand and tried to decipher what she was saying but I realized quickly they weren’t words I could understand so I smiled at her and tried to take my hand back but she tightened her grip and the more I tried to take my hand back the harder she held on. She was remarkably strong for someone who could barely walk and it was with real effort on my part that I was able to pull my hand back. That’s usually the part in the movie where the shit starts getting really scary, cue the scary music…

That place is freaky man!

Meanwhile back at the apartment….

I painted this picture of my abuelita. It’s from a tiny photograph that my mom had enlarged and retouched. There was some damage to the lower left hand corner so someone painted some roses there. I’ve been picking flowers and leaves from around the neighborhood and pressing them so I just added some of those instead of painting the roses.

I’m not just eating and fighting off old women! Though I do have some salt cod soaking in the fridge for tomorrow, stay tuned, and I’ve already finished my, use what I have dessert from the other day so I made some more today.

Yes I did.

Ciao y’all

I have spent the last two weeks alone here in my mother’s apartment. She spent over a week in hospital and is now in rehab. I don’t know for how long. She seems to make progress for a day or two and then something else happens. The place she’s in is one of the saddest places I’ve ever been to. Yesterday while visiting I saw a woman with gray skin. It was surreal. She looked like something from central casting for a sci fi movie. Where the old and infirm Romulans go when the end is near.

I have been swimming and walking when it’s not storming and keeping myself occupied with various projects, cooking delicious food, reading and watching bad TV. I am especially fascinated by this one show on the food channel ( I know, I know!) where the contestants are given a basket of disparate ingredients like: soy sauce, chocolate, cantaloupe and marshmallows, and they have a set amount of time to make a dessert or appetizer etc. What amazes and inspires me is the creativity of these people. Each one comes up with something so completely different from the others and their dishes are wild and delectable. It was with this, make do with what one has in mind that I made my dessert yesterday. I threw some chia date squares, cocoa and walnuts into the food processor and flattened that into a crust. Then I melted a Lindt chocolate bar and added it to some coconut milk and honey and poured it over the crust and let it set in the fridge for a bit. Hallelujah. Scottie, you will love it. For dinner: a lentil, carrot and mushroom soup with a dollop of kale and walnut pesto drizzled with sriracha. OK.

Things I’ve been playing with…

I cut my own hair today. Oh my.

Go forth and make Lemoñade

TV is the devil. With my mom in the hospital there are no Novellas on and so I am left to my own devices. I like the old movies channel and the cooking channel mostly. The movie channel is awesome because there aren’t any commercials but on the cooking and every other channel, there are commercials and at night they’re all about food and lord, they make nasty meat look tasty. See what I mean? The devil. Today I found myself in the kitchen cooking along with the Barefoot Contessa. Why hasn’t someone arrested that woman? She made a grilled cheese sandwich that required 1 cup of mayonnaise along with the cheese and mustard. I had to stop watching to turn my roasting veggies so I don’t know what all else she put in there.
To offset the results of all this food related activity, I am swimming in the pool everyday. I love it. It’s the only time I’m outside for more than the time it takes to get in and out of the car.

When I’m not looking at food on TV or eating it, I’m looking on craigslist for my next vehicle. Pickings are slim but I did find this. A little over priced, but you do get your money back so…

I don’t know what this is but I want to eat it.

Bon Appetit!

I don’t know exactly what this photo has to do with this post. I just know that I love him. Everything about him. The expression on his face most especially.

Mum dearest is in the hospital once again, this time a late night through the roof blood pressure freak out. There were firemen, very nice firemen, and ambulance and emergency room complete with crazy go nuts emergency room characters. Best one: old sun burnt leather skin guy wearing what was left of a pair of camo pants, in shreds bleeding, shirtless and checking himself out whether anyone wanted him to or not.

There have been tests after test after horrible test. A brand spanking new hospital wing, with free Internet access (!) but I have to say, the whole thing is so…automated, it feels like you’re on a conveyor belt headed (eventually) toward the edge of a raging waterfall. Best case scenario.

My heart aches for my mom. She is shrinking right before my eyes.

into the machine.

There is nothing for it. We’re all headed for the bone yard and we do well to keep that in mind. And not in a bad way. Isn’t that part of why we are here? We are born, stuff happens, we do stuff, and then we die.

There, don’t you all feel better now?

Namaste

Would it be wrong to tie her to the chair? My brother told me he found her on a step stool the day after she came home from the hospital. Day before yesterday I walked into the kitchen to find her bent over with whisk and dustpan sweeping the mat in front of her kitchen sink. Today she’s lifting a large heavy plastic bin searching for 6 tiny screws she knows are “somewhere around here”. Though she is walking with a walker very slowly and eating pain pills and muscle relaxers like candy, the extent of her injury has not yet penetrated her brain. I prefer not to go over the obvious once I’ve mentioned it a time or two, letting reality do the talking, it’s much more convincing than I could ever be.

The day after her little sweeping frenzy she was in such pain she swore she would not bend down to pick up a thousand dollar bill. Now I look over and tell her she probably shouldn’t pick up and move that bin and she says it’s not heavy and I say, oh, OK and she says, oh alright, I’ll leave it.

I’m a terrible nurse/caretaker. I am impatient and my compassion is a small country with well defined borders.

Her friends came over yesterday. One woman from Nicaragua, the other from Ecuador. They brought a plate of the most delectable looking (and tasting) home made Indian sweet pastries! Wish I knew what they were. I know this, they were scrumptious and odd. Sesame seeds, sweet potato, pistachios, walnuts, honey and who knows what else.

They sat and watched Coming to America with Eddie Murphy and the Nicaraguan woman’s laughter was the best thing I’ve heard in a long time. Before they left they stood around my mom and she called for me to join them we all held hands and they prayed with their eyes closed while I watched their faces and listened. Though I am not a stranger to this landscape, I do not frequent the territory, I run from it as if my life depended on it. I always feel a perverse impulse to do something untoward.

hakuna matata

89degrees

RealFeel 98

big white puffy clouds

humidity 65%

another beautiful day here on the other central coast.

i think i can feel gills forming.

My mother’s immediate neighbors are an older couple that have a sweet little garden

that the husband lovingly tends. Yesterday when I came home he was gently removing tiny dead leaves from a potted plant on the window ledge. I’ve never seen such a tidy little garden. I see him sweeping the walkway that runs around the entire first floor here, at least twice a day. His outside shoes are cleaned and left to air on the bench outside their door. I imagine the inside of their little apartment is immaculate and orderly. Every dish, spoon, towel, pot and pan in it’s perfect place. Every stitch of clothing hung or folded into perfect rectangles in a high polished Regency dresser. Their days as orderly and clean as their apt and garden. I find myself entranced by them and have tried to strike up a conversation but he resists my overtures. Maybe he’s just slow to warm and open.

I am a lover of routine. I find comfort in it even though I understand that it can lead to a dull sort of sleepwalking through life. After the chaos of the last few years I’ve clung in vain to some version of routine. It’s an illusion, it’s ill and it’s for losers. We have no real control, and yet I cling to it, because it makes me feel like I’m in charge and why that should soothe me remains a mystery. I know that what I should be doing is learning how to bob and weave and lean and dive into uncertainty and doubt. Abandon hope and embrace whatever comes. Surrender.

If I figure out how to do that I’ll let y’all know.

namaste.

It can all change in one hot second. One hot, sticky Florida second.
There I was… and here I am. In Florida with mum who took a tumble and needs some supervision. She’s ok but in pain, when she doesn’t take her pain meds. She hates pain meds and that’s how I know she’s in serious pain, because she’s actually taking them.
I’m at the library because internet and phone are both sketchy at her place and I like this library. I used to come here when I was pregnant with The Wild Woman. She was born here, not in the library, but in a Birthing Room across the street from the hospital, 22 years ago this very month.

Today’s temperature 87
RealFeel 98. No lie.

The image is of a quilt I made a few years ago.

Om Shanti

Holding fast as time washes around me…

This looks like a good idea….
I don’t have the oxen but Lu is pretty strong…

sure she doesn’t like doing much besides laying in the sun but dangle some chicken in front of her and she can move pretty fast.

So these are the options I’m considering. I have sold the White Dragon and am now on the hunt for my third Bug Out vehicle. I have one in my sights. Not the one shown above, tempting as it may be. The one I’m looking at has a mechanical engine and all the amenities of home. An actual home on wheels. I am positively ready to go! I am packed!

I read this on Writers Almanac this morning…

Still Life

by Carl Dennis

Now’s a good time, before the night comes on,
To praise the loyalty of the vase of flowers
Gracing the parlor table, and the bowl of oranges,
And the book with freckled pages resting on the tablecloth.
To remark how these items aren’t conspiring
To pack their bags and move to a place
Where stillness appears to more advantage.
No plan for a heaven above, beyond, or within,
Whose ever-blooming bushes are rustling
In a sea breeze at this very moment.
These things are focusing all their attention
On holding fast as time washes around them.
The flowers in the vase won’t come again.
The page of the book beside it, the edge turned down,
Will never be read again for the first time.
The light from the window’s angled.
The sun’s moving on. That’s why the people
Who live in the house are missing.
They’re all outside enjoying the light that’s left them.
Lucky for them to find when they return
These silent things just as they were.
Night’s coming on and they haven’t been frightened off.
They haven’t once dreamed of going anywhere.

It’ that time again. Time to fire up the Om Mobile and hit the road. Not sure exactly where yet. Stay tuned.

The plum harvest continues. The plum crumble was great but the plum cashew tart missed the mark. Today I’m thinking, plum chutney. I had a fig chutney and melted brie sandwich on foccacia bread here the other day that would have knocked my socks off had I been wearing any. I think the plums will make an excellent chutney and I can certainly pack away a jar or two for the road.

Take off is set for Monday.

namaste

The plums are here.
My neighbor gave me a box of tiny ones, the size of cherries and I picked about a dozen from our tree so it’s time to eat plums.

plum tarts
plum crumbles
plum cakes
plum pies
plum soups
plum fricassees
plum ice cream
plum stir fry
plum sandwiches
plum kabobs
plum risottos
plum salads
plum ala kings
plum kimchi
plum pasta
plums and chips

If I left anything out please let me know.

I have a plum tart with a walnut and date crust and cashew cream chilling in the fridge and a raw plum crumble setting in the freezer. I have high hopes even though I have abandoned hope in a general sense.

I found a dead cat yesterday and I’m feeling a bit loopy today though I don’t blame that on the cat. It’s just a floating kind of loopiness not attached to anything in particular.

You know.

I had lunch today with my songbird friend. On the way home I stopped into her house to hear a new song she wrote. It was beautiful, she has written some beautiful songs. In This House, Wounded Heart, Hearts in Armor, to name a few. I sat there listening, looking around marveling at the many years I’ve spent listening to songs in that house. The countless meals and all that wine and the girls in their fairy costumes and wings flitting in and around us. It didn’t break my heart like these things sometimes do.

After that I went to the market and bought some vegetables and a woman in a wheelchair was whispering something to me. I recognized her from a few weeks ago when she was selling pens on the corner of Burton Drive. She needed a quarter to buy a couple of cucumbers for someone having their period because cucumbers are good for blood clots. That’s what she was whispering about. Indelicate female issues. I gave her what change I had and picked out some cucumbers for her. It broke my heart a little.

When I left the market there was a young man wearing a filthy toga sitting on the curb talking to himself. Or maybe he was on the phone. How does one tell anymore?

I drove home and I’m roasting the vegetables, soon I’ll go pick up Mr Chips Ahoy and bring him home and squeeze him and kiss the back of his neck and he might let me though sometimes he swats me away like a fly but sometimes he laughs.

See if this don’t break your heart a little…..

Bees, Biting, Broken Cups…..

Little Chips has a biting problem. or I should say, those of us within biting distance of chips, have a biting problem? He’s just feeling things. With his teeth.

I dropped my favorite coffee cup, the one with the bee on it, slammed it hard against the tile countertop but it didn’t break. Until I had it filled with hot delicious coffee and it was tilted to my lip, dangling over my beautiful bowl of Irish oatmeal topped with white peaches and walnuts and drizzled with organic blue agave syrup. That’s when the handle gave out and again it came slamming down, this time onto me, my oatmeal, the table and floor.

RIP Bee Cup from World Market July 2013

A few days ago Chips was out studying the lambs ear growing wild in the yard. The bees love it there and he spends a little time each day watching their shenanigans. He managed to catch one in his little hand and he stood stunned for a moment before the screaming began. Now he goes out and stands by the lambs ear with a stick and beats about the bush instead of trying to catch them.

Here he is eating the first ripe-ish plum from our tree and studying on the bees.

The continuous fabric of the mind, the firing patterns of billions of neurons, the irregular and natural movements of the respiratory diaphragm, drinking cider, losing what we hold dear, sending e-mails to friends, all flow seamlessly into one unique life. This is our life.
Let’s not miss it.

Michael Stone
Awake in the World

Om Shanti

I am home. Though I made a quick and dirty escape this morning. Ran some errands and then headed to Kreuzeberg’s coffee house in San Luis Obispo. My favorite secret hide out spot. Good coffee, delectable looking pastries, nice ambiance and upside down hanging lamps. Also great artwork and old comfy leather sofas.

Afterwards I picked up my sunny husband and went to lunch @ the Smiling Dog Cafe

A sweet little lunch spot and yoga studio.

My time in the woods of Arizona is over but not forgotten. I miss all the nomads I met and am happy to follow along via blogs and such. I’m so grateful for that opportunity to meet them all and learn from the masters how to live off the grid. It helped to refine my own take on the matter and I am already planning my next adventure. It will be a bit tamer and probably shorter.

Home and family are all well. Little man has turned feral, he’d probably do well out in the wilderness. He’s got this sort of Watch OUt World! sort of stance that is a little frightening. I pick him up in a couple of hours for the really scary part of the day where he not only shows his fangs but sometimes uses them.

Be afraid, but do it anyway.

More Notes From Camp

It’s gotten crazy hot here the last couple of days. Flagstaff is having record high temps. I drove into
town yesterday for stuff and coolness which I found in a place called Bookman’s Entertainment Exchange where I had an iced chai soy latte and some greek dolmas with a dill dipping sauce. Gross combination you might say, but au contraire mon frere, it was just the thing. Sweet and sour. I also bought a one cup drip coffee maker to make my dishwashing life a little easier. That makes 3 coffee making devices I now have on board.
New people arrive, others leave. The core group is leaving on Sunday and though I considered following along I think I may bust out on my own tomorrow. I spied some lovely creekside camping on the road to Sedona that may be just the thing and I think they have showers!!! I miss that. I also miss Mr Chips Ahoy! I’m having Chips Ahoy withdrawal!

Bookman’s…

love the bright red shelving and comfy reading chairs.

The Dragon/Ommobile

I’ve got it almost just right. The bed is surprisingly comfy and that bed table is one of my favorite things. As with all things, it is a process, a never ending adjusting and fine tuning and re-arranging of things.