Books, books and more books

I devoured books when I was little. I was shy even though my party-circuit parents wanted me to be little miss sociable I was not. Eventually I learned to force myself to be charming, laugh at just the right moment, time my responses. I still didn’t like it. Well, I didn’t like having to conform to certain behaviors because circumstances required it. Don’t get me wrong, I had friends I enjoyed doing things with, and we laughed at the same things, we made each other laugh, we comforted each other’s hurts threatening all sorts of torment on the tormenter, and unless a secret was betrayed we were friends for life. I was (am still) a very loyal friend.

But I loved to read. I went so many places, ate incredible foods, encountered dangers that thoroughly terrified me, survived them gratefully. Books become part of us and change us in imperceptible ways. Once my mother said or did something that made me angry. I guess I was about 8 or 9 and I slammed my book on the floor. Profound silence. Mom looked very hard at me and said, “Books are your friends”. I have never forgotten this. And they are. They do not judge. Without expecting a thing in return they offer a virtual banquet of opportunity, ideas, adventure, and run the gamut of emotion in us from hope to despair to fury to indignance to elation to joy. We fall in love in some, realize why we should not in others. Our hearts get broken, we cry for others. We earn respect and are humbled beyond all imaginable. They give us depth, add to our experience even if we never leave the house.

I have lately realized I am becoming a bit over zealous about these books and my shyness threatens to consume me. I will read a review or see a great book sale. Before I realize what I have done I am collecting packages at the front door. I have no more shelf space. I really don’t have wall space to put more shelves. I need to read the books I have before I buy another one!

If no one hears from me I likely can be found beneath a massive pile of books.

At least I am among friends.

Chameleon capers

Probably more something like gecko gambols or skink skaters. Whatever these little lizards are they fascinate my rescue husky mix Lily.

They first started showing up late spring when I put meal worms out for the nesting blue birds. There were 2 mainly, a smaller one and the larger one who was molting. Anyway, anytime I went out into the backyard or even on the sun porch which I have to go through to get to the backyard Lily is pushing her way out the door to dash into the yard scouting for these little guys.

They aren’t afraid, either. She can be 2-3 inches away, they are camouflaging themselves in the bright green cardinal vine while Lily pokes between the flower pots on the patio. When I realized they were hoping for a meal worm or two I began putting a few on the porch stairs and posts. Shortly after Lily and I return to the house one or both of them will slowly creep out from under the steps, checking to see the coast is clear, then clamber up to where these little roasted worms are and begin chowing down.

Then can really put them away, too. No matter how many of those worms I put they eat them. Every so often if I haven’t put any out I will see one of the little creatures hanging out on the railing waiting for the meal.

These are good guys to have around. They also eat ants, flies, spiders and other annoying bugs. After they have had their fill of whatever it is they eat besides these worms they do their little calisthenics– push-ups, and ballooning the pink skin under their chins with happy thoughts.

I hope some bird doesn’t make a meal of these nicely fattened little guys.

Trellis trauma

So I went to Lowe’s for some bags of mulch, 2 plants and a small trellis. The problem started when I was loading the mulch in my car.

I had just got the last of 4 very large, cumbersome, heavy bags in the trunk when a tall, thin, elderly black man walked up, carrying a grocery bag and wearing a UNC jersey. He asked if he could help me (now that the heavy bags were put away), and my cell phone rang. It was my dog’s vet calling about some tests she’d had done so I could not deal with this homeless man.

I pulled the rest of my things (I thought) off the cart and tried to talk to the veterinarian. This man kept hovering. I was parked some distance from the store and no other cars were around. I tried to gesture to this man that I was ok, he did not need to help, and listen to this important call at the same time. Normally this is not difficult for me but it is 101 degrees today. Hard to focus.

So the homeless guy starts dragging the cart to put it in the rack which I thought was nice so I gave him a $5 bill, not noticing what he had in his hands. He left, I got in my car, finished the call and drove home.

Unloading the car I noticed it– no trellis. Oh! I must have left it on the cart, so I got back in the car to get it thinking I was so remote nobody would see it before I got there. Along the way I recalled I did take the trellis off the cart and lean it against my car, but didn’t remember seeing it as I left.

I got to Lowe’s, no trellis. I asked the gardening service managers if anyone brought one in they’d found. No. I told them about my encounter. OH, they said. This guy and another man works the parking lot, they live in some woods nearby. Their racket is to try to help customers, sneak whatever they can off the cart and bring it to the store for a refund!

I felt awful, like I’ve been part of a scam. They said to not worry but be careful.

After 30 years of living on my own I thought I WAS careful!

Apparently not.

So I bought another $5 trellis and came home. Five seems significant for me for some reason today.

Technowaiting

So first it was a train whistle, then a souped-up engine revving. A few bells, a gong, wolf whistle… even though the hi-def, plasma television screen was black there was plenty of noise.

I was in the waiting room at my Honda dealer having routine service on my little civic. I counted 11 people in there, 7 of whom all had their personal electronic devices, thumbs and fingers flying over the virtual keyboards. Three men, four women. One guy a walking new age-jazz player. I never could figure out where the music was on him. Others coming and going as their cars were ready. Can people not sit and wait anymore without being entertained? Can we not be happy unless we have constant, instant access to news, emails, phone calls, messaging, alerts??

There were complimentary USA Today papers, so I read one glad I did not bring an iPad and do not have a smart phone, which likely would be too smart for me to understand how to use it anyway.

Only one young woman smiled at the lady sitting next to her. That lady had a pre-toddler in her arms and a daughter probably 9 or 10. Mom’s eyes darted frequently to roving daughter from her iPad screen. The baby squirmed and strained against his mother’s very strong encircling arm.

And no one spoke!

Ok, so one guy was sleeping in his comfy chair. There were maybe two or three couples who silently murmured to each other. God forbid anyone might hear their conversation. What, are they plotting something? Some dreadful thing no one must hear? Here we all live on this planet and have no or little interaction. People blame all this electronic stuff. Me? I don’t see why we can’t at least communicate– smile, nod, even dare to speak –to a stranger.

After all, how strange are we?

What’s in a name…

Old Glory, Stars and Bars, Stars and Stripes… these present days some individuals seem inclined to take their hatred against whites, rich people, laws, parents, truth, grace, hope, faith or whatever they are currently hating out on the flag. The flag that represents everything this country fought to establish for itself in its short-lived history: 239 years ago today.

The 13 stripes represent the original 13 colonies. The stars each represents one state. The color red stands for valor and hardiness. White, innocence and purity. The blue: justice, insistence, alertness.

Justice for all, the last words in the pledge of allegiance to the flag, used to mean just that. We each looked out for the other, not only ourselves. When circumstances got out of balance we called in someone with wisdom to help restore equilibrium. Nowadays that wise person is usually found in teams of maybe not-so-wise lawyers, thrashing it out because 2 people could not or would not work things out between themselves and perhaps thought to do a bit of gouging of the other in the process. Who can appear the more beleaguered?

Our fighting within our own borders has escalated to epic proportion. Most of the fighting is simple destructiveness. Once chaos occurs demons run amok, let’s see how much looting and terrorizing and burning and destroying we can do before the police/powers-that-be get hold of the situation.

Yet that flag still flies from its standard. It is inanimate. Its destruction, desecration now permitted by a Supreme Court ruling only shreds fabric. Mere thread, dye, nothing more. But what it represents will always exist. Maybe not in the United States of America, maybe nowhere on this planet. But those principles, truths, standards, values– whatever you might call them. They will exist forever. They existed before we were around to give them names. They will remain long after we are gone.

I hope we can get them back.

(Information on the American flag from http://www.mapsofworld.com/flags/united-states-flag.html)

Summer days, shark attacks, sea turtles

So now there have been some serious shark attacks off these southern shores. Two young teens lost parts of limbs, a man just today was bit as he walked in out of the surf. Scientists are saying this is because we are having record numbers of sea turtles nesting this year. Well, maybe, but a couple of years ago we had way more than this year and not so many shark attacks.

You know what? it’s their world out there. We’re the intruders. If I go out to a forest I can’t be surprised to find a bear there, it’s his home, not mine.

Same with the ocean. Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish are washing up in odd places. Here, New Jersey. Those things burn like fire. They’ve been known to kill a person. Well guess what. It’s their home, too. That they are washing up to warn us instead of lurking out in the waves is a kindness if you ask me. At least we can see them. At least we know they’re out there.

Everything has some potential danger to it. Take the recent change in human laws. You can see same-sex marriage as some sort of progressive move forward. Or you can see it as opening opportunities for more people to be persecuted or prosecuted for standing firm in their faith.

It’s all a matter of preference folks. If somebody won’t bake you a cake, find another bakery.

Answers

For the most part I don’t have any. I do know we are not the only nation with crime, or horrific abuses or people or things to be ashamed of. I see and hear of such things all over the world. My immediate thought is never to condemn, or judge, or hang out to dry. It is sorrow. I do not think my or anyone else’s sorrow or compassion or empathy is hypocrisy. No, I never knew the persons involved, but I am also a part of humanity therefore can feel, can imagine even though it is not I to whom the thing occurred.

It isn’t my place to sneer or deride or scorn anyone or any country for anything that happens there. I have no idea of where they are, why it might have happened or any other circumstance, extenuating or otherwise, therefore am in no place to pontificate from some sort of imagined imperious throne. I do know evil exists, as well as I know good does.

I may not have known those people in Charleston but I know Charleston. It is a gracious city and though like so many places in the southern United States there are racial issues, it is not as severe as most. Because they want to resolve it. No one wants to destroy or negate anyone’s place. People there are more genuine, more reasonable than most.

But in the face of this most unreasonable, unfathomable, senseless, hardened unbelievable crime it is impossible not to cry over it. If for nothing else than the senselessness of it. The stupidity. That this child passed a background check for a gun is odd considering he had a pending charge against him. Again, I don’t know specific circumstances. I do know that the gun, though in the wrong hands, is not the culprit here. Taking guns out of the hands of good people will not save us from any bad people with guns. They will always find a way to get a gun. Or a knife. Or some weapon. Any place with more than 300 million persons is going to have some on extreme ends of the psychosis spectrum. I guess in the greater scheme of things we ought to take some solace in that there are not over 300 million such crimes every day.

But right now the families and friends of those 9 people in Charleston are only finding solace in this: each other and their beloved Jesus.

So please, before you condemn America and all Americans as being blood-thirsty rude rednecks if you pray to God at all, pray for us.

Hot

It’s been a mere 10 years since I lived in what I then thought was the hottest place on the east coast: Miami, Florida. Ducking in and out of air conditioning, never going without it in the car, wondering if the sun is just that hot because I’m closer to the equator or the reflective concrete/asphalt creates amplification. Even with cross breezes, trade winds, sea breezes.

Didn’t matter. A temperature there were no words for.

And now I am barely into the summer. A small North Carolina coastal town but hotter?? How is this possible? I can’t get away from the heat. I have to go outside to see how incredibly hot it is by coming back inside to the air conditioning. Nights are even worse, even with ceiling fans. Air movement, conditioned air, still oppressive.

Have not been in the ocean yet but it is 81 degrees! How is that cooler? And there was a shark attack just down shore last week. Well, that I have to discount because after all it’s their home initially, not ours. Thankfully only the boogie board got hurt.

It is also Flag Day tomorrow. The day America has set aside to reflect on what our flag represents. So in these days of people who have no idea what they are doing, what they truly are stomping on stomping on the flag, screaming pseudo-power words, they are actually saying, all these things I am saying I do not have because of unfair oppression, all these things I want and need but cannot obtain because of somebody else (never their fault, is it), I am going to make myself feel better by demeaning and disrespecting the representation of all that I claim to not have and want: freedom, prosperity, opportunity, discovery, maturity, victory, strength, empowerment.

Yes beset-upon persons claiming to have never had an opportunity to have or achieve or even try for that which you claim to want, you are grinding into the dirt the representation of all those things.

The American flag. A flag that has been bled for by more millions of gallons of blood than all of your bodies will ever produce in your lifetimes. A flag that, when seen on a bloody battlefield spurred on those who fought for the privilege of freedom because it represented all that was good and worth fighting for, even dying for.

Everything America was founded for– freedom. The rights each and every one of us has of life and happiness.

Read the Constitution. Or have someone read it to you. Then maybe you will get it.

So hot or cold, in any season or place, this flag, waving in a breeze, snapping in a wind, still brings tears to my eyes. Cool, healing tears.

Inspired by Zonation Alfonzo Rachel
http://alfonzorachel.com/2328/stomp-the-u-s-flag-challenge-is-for-sissies

Nature

Nature’s cruelty or nature’s blessings we often speak of. In the final analysis nature is neither cruel nor beneficent. Nature simply exists, in and of whatever myriad combination of cosmic collusions create its beautiful or horrible effects.

A rainbow after a stormy tornado… bright green sprigs and tiny leaves after an abominably icy winter… the devotion of two osprey after a nest failure.

This osprey pair I have watched for several years by a Cornell University bird cam located at University of Montana, Missoula College. They had a clutch of 3 perfect eggs, which within a few days recently would begin to pip and hatch. Unexpectedly just before the new babies’ advent the skies opened to a barrage of stones — a hailstorm. “Iris” was on the nest, “Stanley” immediately joined her. Together the pair fiercely and indomitably faced that storm, shielding their precious brood-to-be as closely as they could.

Sadly, not to be.

One by one, the damaged eggs’ cracks brought on by that impromptu storm caused the eggs’ viability to fail, ending in what I now understand is called “nest failure”. So now I am learning a new set of vocabulary for something I never thought would happen and certainly unwanted… eggs days away from becoming a brood of healthy chicks raised by two of the most attentive and loyal parent osprey, dying.

What do osprey do when they can no longer do what it is they normally do?

For a few days after, Iris sat on the nest as though brooding. Stanley touchingly would bring her a fish, even tearing bits off and delicately feeding her. Her cries (dare I imagine this) sounded plaintive, softly sad… yet she and her faithful mate remain.

An ornithologist at the university there and collaborator with Cornell hosted a skype session on the cam site to help those of us unfamiliar with such a tragedy understand. No, it was unlikely they would try for a new clutch, it is too late in the season, Montana has a quick and harsh onset of winter and a new brood likely would not be raised to fledge. Female osprey, once begun brooding undergo physiological changes that make new egg laying unlikely. The pair possibly will migrate early but may stay close to this nest as to protect it from interloping bird pairs looking for a good place to nest (and it is such a lovely nest– fortified with strong limbs on its outer rim, layered with soft mosses and grasses for the nest bowl). The question of whether birds “divorce” was discussed with some possibility, would one or both seek out another mate this season to raise a brood? So far this does not appear to be.

As I watch the pair now, they are less frequently on the nest. They still come to the nest occasionally, either alone or together.

But this year they will not raise a family.

I hope so for next year.

Tutus and Tiaras

So there is a ladies walking group I meet up with on Mondays and Thursdays. We walk a loop that’s about 2-1/4 miles at varying paces. Some of us got together for this year’s Wilma Dash. This benefits the Pretty in Pink Foundation which helps women in their battles against breast cancer. The slogan for the 5-K is “It’s not always about who crosses the finish line first, but crossing it with style!”

Literally.

Most runners/walkers were in groups representing their companies, churches, neighborhoods, or just friendships. There were pink frilly tutus, yellow frothy tutus, gaudy 5″ high sequined tiaras, more tasteful rhinestone-studded ones, t-shirts emblazoned with quotes, slogans and catchy phrases (S.W.A.T.T.– Sprinters, Walkers and Trash-talkers), stetsons, floppy beach hats and gilded visors. There was even a funky chicken. I cannot imagine how hot it must have been in that suit. A field of over 800 runners and walkers, all crammed on Water Street beneath a billowy starting gate.

At the sound of the fog horn this human mosaic began moving as one, then separating, then emerging individually up the first challenging hill. Women who successfully battled cancer and won. Women who ran for those who could not. Women who ran for those who ran for them when they could not. Women with strollers, moms for fitness with children and without them, any age imaginable, everyone in the bright hot sun enjoying every moment. Cheering along the street sides were husbands, boyfriends, families, bystanders, and one guy with a mobile set of drums making up happy lyrics as each wave of women passed.

I usually run or walk with my rescue dog Lily every morning before sunrise for a couple of miles. A 5-K is only about 3.1 miles, how much harder could it be?

In the blazing hot sun, up and down gently rolling hills, along cobbled streets it turns out, a lot harder. Well, harder than I thought. Some women sheepishly taking shortcuts across city blocks, I pressed on, breaking stride now and then to walk 20-30-40 feet and catch my breath. then running, more sweat than I imagined I could ever lose pouring down under my baseball-capped face. Feeling better noticing other women with the same results.

38:52, final time. Probably shameful but I am very proud of that time….

I can’t wait till next year!