Heat

I will NOT be one of those who complain that it's too hot.  Actually, I don't know if I ever have been one of those, but after this past winter (during which I DID complain about being cold), there's no way I will complain about warmth.  Today reached the mid-80s, and the next two days should be in the 90s.  Bring it on!

And in case you're thinking, "Sure, she'll just stay inside in the air-conditioning," stop right there.  I do not have air-conditioning.  Wiring a log home for AC post-construction would be a nightmare.  But that's okay; I like not having it.  My windows are open.  The cool night air seeps in and is maintained through most of the day.  Granted, if we have a legitimate heat-wave, lasting several days, it can get a little stuffy in here.  But my basement stays pretty cool, and if worse comes to worst, I do have a portable AC unit that I can put to work.  (The second floor of the house can get pretty miserable in a heat wave, so the portable AC is for the occupant of the second floor bedroom.)

I took advantage of today's heat to spend time cleaning up the basement and organizing all the "stuff" that ends up there.  I was so busy, I don't even know if it was hot down there, although I did turn on the ceiling fans at one point.  I will be back down there tomorrow and the next day, too.  By the time we are out of this mini-heat-wave, my basement will be clean and organized.  It's a win.

The older I get, the less I like the cold and the more I love the warmth.  Call it the heat.  I am in love with not having to wear two pair of socks, thermal pants, and a couple of sweaters.

A Clean Deck

I fell on my butt, got stung by a bee, and ache like an old lady.  But my deck is clean.  It's a big deck:  36' X 14'.  It used to overlook the pool; now it overlooks my gardens.  And, man, was it sorry-looking!  It's not made of decking lumber; it's that fake stuff.  I have mixed feelings about that.  First of all, the color I chose when my friends installed it was a tan color, but after a couple of years, it faded to pink.  Nobody wants a pink deck.  So two years ago, I painted it.  Yes, you can paint fake decking.  It's not great, but it's better than pink.

The problem is that the shaded areas of the deck, the sections that hang onto the snow, tend to get a bit moldy.  Yuck.  Clorox to the rescue!  There's a concentrated Clorox product, Outdoor Bleach, which promises "pro results."  Well, close enough.

First order of business:  clear the deck.  That's when I fell on my butt, trying to move a bar-height table off the deck.  That's also when I got stung.  I have a storage bench on the deck, which I opened up to remove the junk that's in there before I moved it off the deck (hoping to avoid another fall).  Turns out the storage bench was storing some bees and their nest, snuggled into the center of a coil of rope.  Now, I am highly allergic to bees and have ended up in the ER on more than one occasion.  I carry an Epi-pen, a firm believer in the idea that if I carry one, I will never have to use it.  And I never have, mostly because I'm afraid to inject myself.  So I put my thinking cap on and came up with a great idea to get the bees' nest out of there.  I placed a round tupperware container over the coiled rope, then slid a manila folder underneath.  Upon lifting it, one little guy got out and he is the one who nailed me.  (This was several hours ago, and I am still alive, although my arm is hot and achy where he got me.)  I tossed the nest, rope and tupperware into the woods and returned to my deck. 

I guess there were a couple of little guys who were out sucking on the flowers when all this was going on, because they returned to where their home used to be, only to find it gone.  Seriously, they are still out there looking.  And I feel bad, I really do.  But I don't know how I can lead them to their new location without risking another shot in the arm.  I guess they will figure it out sooner or later.

Next:  hose off that deck!  No power-washing . . . I think that can destroy fake decking.  But the single stream on my hose nozzle did a pretty good job cleaning out the spaces between the boards.  This part was actually kind of fun!  Unlike the next step:

Spray the bleach solution on the deck, section by section, and then SCRUB!!  This is why my arms and back are aching.  But look!

Now that's a clean deck!  I love when a job is finished.

Mother Nature

This is one of those posts in which I am going to try to convince myself to fall in love with the title character.  Because, you know, you can't mess with Mother Nature. 

Here's my inspiration today:  Several weeks ago, I entered a "contest" run by a local magazine for exceptional kitchen gardens.  Those of you who know me know that I take some pride in my vegetable garden, although there are still some who think I was a fool to demo that inground pool.  The other day, I received an email from the magazine stating that my garden was "approved" for the contest and will I be available on September 7 when they want to come for a "tour."  Sure, why not?  I went to their website  (www.dirt-mag.com) to see my competition.  There are 23 gardens featured.  (Why is mine last, I wonder?)

But here's the thing.  In my submission, I included a couple of pics but directed the editors to one of my Facebook photo albums for more pictures.  Not recalling what pics were there, I took a look myself at an album I titled Summer Solstice Garden.  So I'm looking at the pictures, and I'm thinking, "Why did I title this album Summer Solstice Garden?  Clearly, these pictures were taken much later in the summer!"  And then I checked the date:  June 20, 2012.  WHAT???  Comparing the garden in those pictures to my garden today, June 28, 2014, and the difference is startling!  Mother Nature, WTF???

Oops.  Sorry, Mother.  Pretend I didn't say that.  But seriously, you really messed things up this year.  I don't grow corn, but I doubt if any corn in the county is going to be knee-high by the Fourth of July.  We must be at least two or three weeks behind where we should be this year!  How am I supposed to love you when you do these nasty things?

Because how can I not?  I have to believe.  I have to believe that I will be eating grape tomatoes in August, that I will have a gazillion green beans to freeze for the winter, that my basil will be abundant enough to make lots and lots of pesto, that there will be enough onions, carrots and potatoes to get me through the winter, and that  I will consume so much squash and broccoli and kale that I will be satisfied until next summer.  I have to believe that there will be Brussels sprouts aplenty after the first frost.

And if I win this contest, I will know that you believe in me, too!

Sand

Grains of sand.  Sands of time.  White sands.  Sandpaper.  Sandpiper.  Sand crabs.  Sand bar. 

All of the above.  And more.

The sand that inspired my love today is paver sand.  I spent the last two days patiently digging out the weeds and grass and moss that had grown between the pavers on my front walk.  Pete and I laid that walkway a couple of decades ago, and I am not about to dig it up and replace it with something more durable or fashionable.  I can recall us going to a local wholesaler of pavers, hiring the son of a friend (who had a trailer), and procuring the pavers that would become our front walk.  It was a do-it-yourself project (as were most of our projects at this house) and we did it together.  (My mother-in-law never got that memo, as she always talked about the walkway that Pete made.  As in everything else that Pete did that I had no part in, including giving birth to our three children.)  Nonetheless, the walkway has some sentimental value to me.

But every few years, the weeds become too much, and I have to dig up an inch or so of soil and sand and essentially, start over.  And that is what I am in the process of doing.  I am halfway done, and I will complete the job tomorrow.

Am I in love with paver sand?  Not really.  But in many ways, sand is sand, and I can easily conjure up some good love for beach sand.  My favorite beach, by far, is a stretch of beach on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  This was the site of our two-week family vacation every August for a dozen or more years.  Another favorite beach is Pawleys Island, South Carolina, a great spring vacation site.  Sanibel Island on the gulf coast of Florida is a favorite spot, and I have discovered another great beach on the Atlantic coast in Delray Beach that suits me fine.  In truth, I don't think I have ever found a beach I didn't like, although the crowds at the Jersey shore kind of cramp my style.  I have been on beaches in Australia, Greece, Jamaica, Vieques, Oregon, and California.  I have loved them all.

But for now, it is paver sand that has my attention.  If I have done things correctly (tamping the pavers after sweeping the sand, solidifying things with a spray of water, etc.), the weeds will be kept at bay for awhile, and my front walkway will look as good as it is supposed to.  There will be time for beach sand once all of these spring and summer household chores are done, and I do intend to cash in on those opportunities.  Meanwhile, there is sand and work to be done, and I will love the results of my hard labor.  I've always imagined a border of perennials lining the walkway, so maybe I'll be inspired to tackle that job next.  Hmmmm . . . .


But speaking of sand crabs . . .

Two Buttons

Elizabeth Gilbert, most known for her book Eat, Pray, Love, has a shop (which is more like a warehouse) of treasures she has collected from around the world.  It is located in Frenchtown, New Jersey, a beautiful one-and-a-half hour drive from here.  Her shop is called Two Buttons. If you go to her website (www.twobuttons.com), you will discover how the store got its name:

We are Jose and Liz – a Brazilian and an American who met in Southeast Asia and fell in love. We are both lifetime travelers, both suckers for beauty, both easily captivated by a good story or an exotic location or the promise of a village just around the bend where the people are all master weavers. Together, we have more miles of travel behind us than your average astronaut, but our favorite place in the entire world is Frenchtown, New Jersey, which is why we’ve settled here for good.

We named our business “Two Buttons” because a priest in Laos told us that we had so much love for life that we needed nothing more than two buttons in our pockets to get by in this world.  Actually, sometimes we have gotten by on only one button.

I've read a few of Gilbert's books, and my favorite is The Last American Man, the true story of Eustace Conway, who "lives off the land" in the Appalachian Mountains.  I also loved Eat, Pray, Love and was mildly annoyed at the movie of the same name, which just did not cut the mustard, in my opinion.  I have been to Two Buttons a few times and find it a fascinating place to browse.  While I cannot afford to purchase much there, I always find some small treasure to take home with me.  Whether one buys or not, it's a comfortable place to look around, enjoy some popcorn, and chat with one's companion about the oddities and beauties that are for sale.

And today was such a day.  I met my old friend Cheryl there, mostly because Frenchtown is a halfway point between our two homes.  Cheryl and I taught together back in the 70s and early 80s, but during the years that we were raising our families, we weren't really in touch.  And yet, all these decades later, our hearts are still connected.  It's one of those "pick up where we left off" kind of friendships.

We left Two Buttons and strolled along the towpath into the charming village of Frenchtown.  Lunch at The National Hotel was lovely, but before we knew it, the afternoon was waning and we needed to drive in opposite directions to return to our homes.  I do believe that on parting, there was a button in my pocket and one in Cheryl's, even if they couldn't be felt or seen.

Childhood Windows

I ran out of bananas.  I need bananas in my cereal in the morning.  So last night, I drove to the A&P for bananas, and on impulse, I drove through my childhood neighborhood on the way home.  Except I didn't go directly home.  After passing the house I grew up in on Maple Avenue, I drove around the block, pulled over in front of #8, walked up the path and rang the doorbell.  (The doorbell?  We never had a doorbell!)

The family that lives there now was very gracious and invited me in to have a look around this house that my father built when I was two years old.  You could say it was bittersweet.  First of all, memory always saves things bigger than they actually were, so I was surprised at how small the house and its rooms are.  I was also surprised that the bathroom walls and floor have the same green and pink and black tiles that were laid in 1952.  Sixty-two years later, they are still in good shape.  Quite a retro look, very cool.  I looked out the bathroom window and recalled that night in 1959 (?) when my sister and I stared at the lit-up attic window of our neighbor, "Aunt" Margaret, who'd hanged herself there. 

In what used to be my bedroom, I again looked at the window and remembered when my father caught a young neighborhood boy peeking in at me, doing my homework.  (Forty years later, I ran into him and he apologized!)  In the kitchen, I saw my family of five seated at the table by the window having dinner.  I don't know how we even fit a table in there, let alone five people around it.  We stared at our neighbors having their dinner by their kitchen window.

On the back porch, I told the owners that the windows were jalousie windows, popular in the 50s and 60s.  A louvered window, they allowed for a breeze to flow through the room.  You'd be hard-pressed to find jalousie windows anywhere today, as most have been replaced by more energy efficient styles.  But they were cutting-edge when my dad installed them.

All these windows!  And for me, a peek into the window of my childhood which seemed, at the time, to last forever.  And now, several decades later, I am confronted with the sting of nostalgia, the wonderment that all these years have gone by so fast.

Today, I dug up the original plans for the house, a framed needlepoint rendition of the house that I made for my mother forty years ago, and several pictures of the construction of the house.  I will take these gifts to the "new" owners because they belong with the house.  And I will take with me the new knowledge that there is a sweet little family occupying my childhood home, making their own memories, looking into and out of their own windows.

Lotta love here.

Being Meatless

Disclaimer:  this post is in no way trying to change anyone's choices or lifestyle.  I do not judge.

I spent some time on the porch earlier, leafing through a magazine.  Yes, I still get one of those retro forms of media, Better Homes and Gardens, to be exact, mostly because it's so cheap to subscribe.  Of course, the fact that I can "leaf through" it in less than half an hour and then be ready to chuck it says something, I suppose.  I can easily recall a time when I cherished those magazines, tearing out recipes, articles, coupons.  I'm sure I "read" them several times before I was ready to get rid of them.

Anyway, there's always a section on food in these magazines, and although there's a token vegetarian recipe here and there, most of the focus is still on meat.  In America, the focus is still on meat, right?

I grew up, like most everyone else, in a house in which dinner revolved around meat.  I recall that as a kid, I didn't even know the names for chicken or beef or pork.  It was all meat.  In my house, that was usually ground beef, cooked on top of the stove, and served with boiled potatoes and some mushy canned vegetable.  I can't tell you how many times I was made to sit at the table until I finished my dinner, chewing the same piece of meat over and over again until I finally took a chance on swallowing.  And I did so only so that I could get back outside to play with my best friend who lived next door.  I had another friend at school who always talked about having steak for dinner.  I had no idea what steak was.

And most of my life was lived with meat as the main feature of any meal.  I could not imagine a meal not based on meat.  Even eggs and home fries had bacon on the side.

Several years ago, I decided to try an experiment.  I was going to not eat meat and see if I missed it.  For the first couple of years, there was one day that I found myself missing meat.  I know, I know, everyone thinks it's Thanksgiving.  It's not.  It's St. Patrick's Day.  I missed that once-a-year treat, corned beef.  But now, all these years later, I don't even miss that.  I am no longer a meat-eater.

It's not a big deal, really.  There're a lot of food choices out there.  Unless I find myself at a Cracker Barrel or Bob Evans, I never have a problem finding something to eat.  Regionally, some places are easier than others.  But in my own house, no problem.

So today, I leafed through that magazine, past the glossy pictures of pulled pork and grilled chicken, and I thought how grateful  I am that I am not a slave to meat.  In the supermarket, I sail right past the meat counters.  In restaurants, I zoom straight to the vegetarian section of the menu (small as it may be).  At a buffet, I fill my plate with meatless wonders.  At home, I consider how many vegetables I can fit into a saute pan.  Life is so much simpler when there's no meat to dominate the conversation.

Again, to each his own.  For me, I am in love with being meatless.

Lettuce

Let us praise the lettuce:

Speckled Buttercrunch:

Plain Buttercrunch:

Spinach:

 

What else is there to say?  Lettuce proceed to the kitchen to prepare a salad.  And tomorrow, lettuce remember to plant more.

Summer Sunday Afternoon

In some ways, weekends are no different than weekdays when one is retired.  But there is always a sense of these two days being different from the other five.  Generally, I prefer the routine of the weekdays; it is hard for me to switch gears just because it's "the weekend."  Am I alone in this?  If nothing else, I have learned to forgive myself on the weekends.  If I don't accomplish what I set out to do, I remind myself, "Hey, it's the weekend.  Relax."  Interesting that a friend posted a Facebook meme today that said, "Relax.  Nothing is under control."  Oh, I want to tattoo that on my forehead!  No, wait.  Then I'd never see it.  And it would be backwards in the mirror.  Let me tattoo it on my forearm instead.

But let's face it: I'm not going to tattoo anything anywhere.

Back to the love here.  I spent several hours this morning on household chores, then treated myself to a top-down drive over the mountain on this beautiful first day of summer.  (Or is it the second?)  It was still mid-afternoon when I got home, so I settled myself on the front porch with a book I've been in love with (an old Alice Hoffman; she never disappoints).  At one point, I looked up from the book to observe my surroundings . . . and I fell in love.  What is missing from the photo I am about to post is the sound of the birds.  So please try to imagine them when you look at the photo.  (Just ignore the noise of the dirt bikes in the woods.)

As you can see, I am nearing the end of the novel.  You will have to forgive the brevity of this post, as I am compelled to return to my front porch to finish both the novel and the glass of wine.  Love is demanding in that way.

Happy Summer!

Summer Solstice

It would be easy to not love the summer solstice, if one was a natural pessimist.  The idea that from today on, the days get shorter could be a real downer.  If you wanted to think of it that way.  And I admit, there's a part of me that does.  The glass-half-empty part of me.  But the point of this blog (remember, there was a point?) is to fall in love every day, so I am going to fall in love with the longest day and not think about the fact that tomorrow will be a few seconds shorter.  (Actually, I just checked the weather for the next ten days, and apparently, the sun will set at the same time every night, 8:35 to be exact.  So I can postpone my depression for at least another ten days.)  Daylight today is 15 hours and nine minutes long.  (Compare that to the winter solstice, when the day is only 9 hours and 19 minutes long.  Check back on December 21 and we will discuss this further.)

In ancient times, summer solstice was an important day in the year and was celebrated with bonfires and watching the sun rise.  In more recent times, Pete and I celebrated summer solstice with our dear friends Jim and Lois for many years.  Pete and I were in charge of summer solstice; Jim and Lois were in charge of winter solstice.  "The long and the short of it," Jim would quip.  Although our celebrations began as just dinner at a restaurant, the stakes got higher as the years went by, involving B&Bs in Pennsylvania and Vermont, the Paul Winter Consort at St. John's Cathedral in NYC, and limo rides.  It is now among the many traditions that I miss since Pete died, but solstice will always hold a special place in my heart.  I suspect that if Pete were still alive, we'd be heading to Alaska or somewhere for our summer solstice celebration.

I spent most of today in the garden, weeding, corralling the tomato plants into cages, picking the last of the strawberries, and bemoaning the lack of blueberries this year.  This evening, I will be on the front porch swing, watching the sun set at 8:35 and thinking about Pete.

Volunteers

Of course volunteering is good.  I'm embarrassed to say that I don't really do any volunteering, officially anyway.  I'm of the Woody Allen/Groucho Marx/Sigmund Freud Philosophy:  I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.  So I don't belong to any clubs or organizations that would request my volunteering capabilities.  I am happy to volunteer my services to anyone who asks, however, although my talents are pretty much limited to writing, proofreading and editing. 

But the volunteers I am in love with today are not members of any organization.  They're not even people.  They're tomatoes.

I have three garden beds devoted to tomatoes.  This one, by far the most productive, is made up entirely of volunteers.  In other words, I did not plant any of these; they all sprouted up from the seeds of last year's crop.  Which is kind of interesting.

This bed, last year, was originally planted with peppers.  And then most of the pepper plants started falling over dead.  A little digging revealed the dreaded grubs.  This was the only bed infested with the little devils last year.  I saved whatever pepper plants I could, treated the bed with diatomaceous earth and neem oil, and left it alone.  A couple of weeks later, I had some leftover tomato plants, so I popped them in that bed to see if the grubs were still there.  Either I'd rid the garden of the grubs or they'd just moved on to their next incarnation, but the leftover tomato plants remained intact and produced some fruit despite not having any tomato cages to support them.

Earlier this spring, before I'd planted anything at all in the garden, I noticed the little tomato plant volunteers in this bed. I let them be.  And there they are, happy and healthy, uncaged and free-range.  At this rate, I expect them to be the first to produce that best of all summer fruits:  the Jersey tomato!

Volunteers will surprise you with their resilience, their determination, their generosity. And I'm not just talking about tomatoes here.  I love the spirit of volunteering, be it plant or human.

Books

Love 'em or hate 'em.  In my house, it's always been a love thing.  Of course, I didn't just fall in love with books today; I've loved books all my life.  But my work today inspired this post.  In two weeks, my daughter Jenna will return from almost a year working in Australia, so I have been deep-cleaning her bedroom in preparation.  Basically, I am taking the room down and building it back up.  Some of that is easy.  I mean, moving furniture is a bitch, but I use those sliders under the legs which makes it doable.  But the books!  Moving them, dusting them, alphabetizing them!  I've put a lot of hours into this chore, but I am seeing a light now.  I do believe that by tomorrow evening, my work will be done.

This is mostly the literature/poetry section of Jenna's little library.  Yep, all the literature is alphabetized.  How else would you find anything?  I could not help but notice as I organized this shelf that many of the books Jenna stole from me.  Oh, well, they're still in the same house.

But we're not done yet:

These makeshift shelves house a collection of environmental books.  (Don't be fooled by the old Funk & Wagnells volumes on the ends.  They're just holding up the shelves.)  I did not alphabetize these books.  Height was all that mattered.  And these are not the only environmental books!  I had to introduce another bookshelf into the room to accommodate all the nature books!

And here they are.  Some little critters took a liking to this bookshelf, as you can see.  So there you are . . . Jenna's books.  If she ever buys a house, she will need a truck just for her books.  And a gazillion cardboard boxes.  Right now, I am wondering if she is bringing any books home from Australia!  There is no more room on these shelves and no more room in her bedroom for more bookshelves!

But, hey, she could be collecting worse things, right?  I saw a quote by Anna Quindlen the other day:  I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.  And that about says it all.  I am grateful that Jenna loves books, and I am in love with her love of them.

Garlic Scapes

Until the other day, I had no friggin' idea what garlic scapes are.  This is the first year that I planted garlic, only seven plants.  I was enchanted by what I saw a couple of days ago:

Look at those cute little curlicues!  Some appeared to be tying themselves in knots.  I smiled at how decorative this part of my garden was and walked away.

A day later, a Facebook friend posted a picture of garlic "scapes" she'd harvested from her garden and posted that they would be part of her lunch that day.  What?  I messaged her immediately for the scoop.  She sent me some recipes, told me that scapes are kind of like asparagus, and wished me well.

So this evening, I snipped off my seven scapes.

Now what?  Flying by the seat of my pants, I snipped off the flower bulb and cut the scapes into manageable pieces.  I sauteed them in EVOO (and a little butter) and added some mushrooms, sun-dried tomato slices, and garden spinach.  While this was sauteing, I cooked some orzo and popped some wild-caught Alaskan salmon in the oven.  And this is what I got:

And how was it, you ask?  As good as it looks!  Perhaps my being in love with garlic scapes is partly due to the fact that this was a one-shot deal.  I have no more scapes.  But you know what?  That's okay.  The easiest analogy is to say, "What would it be like if every day was Christmas?"  I will look forward to my garlic scapes next spring.  (Full disclosure:  I have leftovers for tomorrow.)

Today, I am in love with my new-found garlic scapes!

Primrose

I mistakenly thought my Oenothera were evening primrose.  But (duh) they bloom in the daytime.  I have plain old primroses, also known as sundrops.  But, you know, a primrose by any other name . . .  My primroses are so cheerful!  Here, take a look:

These plants are inside my garden fence, but I did not plant them there.  They are supposed to stay on the other side where they co-habitate with the black-eyed Susans, but just try to tell a primrose to stay in its place.  They go wherever they want!  My perennial gardens are being taken over by primrose, but I am unwilling to uproot them now when they are in almost-full bloom.  The intruders will be easy enough to yank out after their bloom is over.  And then they will still come back.  There could be worse things to deal with.  As my friend Matthew said, "We must forgive the primrose. The brilliant yellow is all smiles."

Whereas evening primrose denotes infidelity, primrose simply means "I can't live without you."  As I googled primrose today to discover this meaning, I could not help but recall a very vivid dream I had just before dawn.  In it, Pete was alive and with me, but at one point, I looked at him and cried and said, "You're going to leave me again, aren't you?"  His reply was "Forever."  And then he immediately corrected himself and said, "Not forever."  And while I was dreaming this, the primroses were opening up right outside my bedroom window. 

Primroses are also said to imply bashfulness, inconstancy, young love and neglected merit.  Do with that what you will.  And they are not without superstition!  If you bring them inside, you must gather them in groups of thirteen!  If you violate this rule, you will have bad luck!

Apparently, primroses have medicinal benefits, too.  Primrose oil can treat insomnia, headaches, PMS, migraine, congestion, cough, and promote weight loss.  I do hope all of this will occur during the night while emanations drift through my open window.

 

Here's to  the sunny promise the primrose brings!  Here's to bright yellow love!

House Wren Houses

There have been a lot of birdhouse kits under the Christmas tree in our home.  And some have survived their tenure out in the elements.  A couple of years ago, I gathered together a couple that became interior decorations, found one that had never been put together, and purchased one more.  Once all were assembled and painted, I set them on the corner logs of the house, one on top of the other, and waited.

Sure enough, the house wrens took up residence in the condo and amused me for several weeks with their comings and goings as they awaited the arrival of their little ones.  Last year, they must have found better accommodations somewhere, but this year, I am happy to report that they are back.  Well, two of them, anyway.  Wrens are occupying the second and fourth floors this spring.

After the first year of renting out the condo, I painstakingly cleaned out the old bedding after the birds had flown.  It is amazing how much one little wren can shove into that little place!  And without taking the houses apart, it's not that easy to get access to all the twigs to remove them.  It was, indeed, a labor of love.

But when the wrens didn't return last year, I wondered if I'd done wrong by cleaning out the contents of the houses?  My plan is to not clean them out this fall and see what happens next spring.

When I was outside earlier to take a couple of pictures of the houses, the beige one was occupied by a wren.  I could see her little beak and eyes staring at me through the little "door."  I tried very hard to be quiet and still and not frighten her, but just as I was trying to zoom in, she also decided to zoom . . . right past my head.  And, boy, did she put up a racket!  I felt terrible that I had disturbed her!  She's back now.  Well, I think she is . . . but she's hanging out on the fourth floor porch, so maybe I've got my tenants confused.

It is my hope that this post will make up for yesterday's, in which I took some joy in the killing of a chipmunk by my cat.  It is clearly stated in my cat's contract that she can kill all the mice and chipmunks she wants, but she is not allowed to kill any birds.  (Fat chance she could ever catch one of these wrens anyway.)

So I am in love not only with the cheerful little wrens, but also with my role as landlady, providing attractive housing for them.  And I am in love with those Christmas gifts so many years ago that are still bringing joy today.

Chip and Dale

So damn cute!  Who didn't love them?  (Well, maybe Mickey, when they messed up his Christmas tree decorating.)  And speaking of Mickey, how is it that he was so much larger than Chip and Dale?  Disney got away with an awful lot.  We won't even talk about how Goofy was a dog/man, but poor Pluto was just a dog.

So I don't know if Disney is responsible for the reality that most of us think that chipmunks are cute while every other rodent is . . . a rodent.  For years, I watched adorable little chipmunks scamper around the stone wall at the base of my driveway.  I was so careful not to run over one of them when I left the house in the car.  (Whoa!  Grammar nerd moment here:  did I really leave a house in the car?  How did it fit?)  I thought the little darlings were harmless.  And who doesn't appreciate a little cuteness in their everyday?  Yay, chipmunks!  Propagate and prosper!  Keep the Cuteness coming!

And then they found my garden.

First, it was just annoying, how they would scamper through the garden beds, scratching up a little dirt here, a little dirt there.  No real harm done.  Then, I began to notice the death of some of my plantings.  A sunflower down here, a pepper plant dug up there.  My neighbor and I discussed setting a trap, but I said, "Let's give it a day or two."  And sure enough, the next couple of days showed less damage. 

And then one day, when it was time for breakfast, I went to the garden to gather up some strawberries.  Only to find that someone or something had already feasted on my precious little berries.  At first I thought it was bugs and I got out the neem oil.  But today, I saw the perpetrator in the garden!  It was Chip!  I called an emergency meeting with my cat and directed her to take the rodent down.

And she did!

Now, a cat is a cat.  And a cat is not influenced by Walt Disney or the Cuteness Factor.  Cassie nailed that sucker and proceeded to play with it (a kind of cat foreplay) before making the final kill.  In fact, part of the play was taking it into the house!  I am happy to say that I predicted this move and beat her to the door before she brought her prey in through the cat door in the screen.  She retreated to a corner of the deck and dined on her catch, leaving some bloody remains for me to clean up.  (I retreated inside so I didn't have to watch.)

So it's done.  Well, Chip is done.  I think Cassie is out there stalking Dale as I compose this.  I am seriously rethinking that cat door in the screen.

So what am I in love with today?  Chip and Dale!  The Disney version, of course!  Reality bites, remember?  I think I'll venture over to youtube now and amuse myself with some chipmunk antics.  Maybe I'll even look for Alvin.

The Father in All of Us

Maybe you saw that one coming, as Mother's Day Eve got a similar post.  Yes, tomorrow is a day that many will celebrate and enjoy, but I will not be among them.  As I did with Mother's Day, I will be out in the garden, pretending it's just another Sunday.

I never had a grandfather; they both died before I was born.  My own father, with whom I had a less-than-close relationship, died when I was 22.  My husband, the father of my children, died of cancer when they were 17, 14, and 10.   So you can see why Father's Day is not a celebration for me, or for my kids.

You might be thinking that it could be a day for reflective thought about what a loving father Pete was.  But that, you see, would make it like any other day.  I would guess that not a day goes by that my kids don't think about their father.  I know that not a day goes by that I don't think about him.

I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I think it's probably true that there are more fatherless children than motherless children out there.  Statistics will show that women tend to live longer than men, for one thing, and I think statistics will also bear out the fact that more children who live in single-parent households live with a mother than with a father.

So.  All that said, what do I do with this day, this post, this fatherless world?  I guess I will look for the father in all of us.

If one ascribes to stereotypes, mothers are the nurturers. Fathers are the practical ones, the ones that teach their children how to change the oil, mow the lawn, build a birdhouse, spread the mulch, shovel the driveway, take out the garbage, balance the checkbook, fire up the grill, fill out a bracket, repair a leaky sink, paint a room, put air in the tires, drive long distances for vacation.  I've done quite a few of those things and taught my kids how to do them, but when it comes to filling out a bracket, I fall short.  And changing the oil means a trip to Jiffy Lube, easy enough.  But can I take the place of their father?  No way in hell.

So be gentle tomorrow.  Celebrate your fathers, your grandfathers, your husbands.  But be mindful of those of us who no longer have any of those.  And then be grateful for what the Universe has allowed you to have.

Happy Father's Day.  To whomever that applies.  And for the rest of us, love the memories.

Strawberry Moon

In Native American folklore, the full moons are given names.  The full moon in June is called Strawberry Moon, and it isn't hard to figure out why.  Of course, June is the month of the strawberry harvest!  I learned about these names about three decades ago when I discovered Mary Oliver's book of poetry called Twelve Moons.  I still love that collection and return to it often.

In the poem titled Strawberry Moon, Oliver tells the story of Elizabeth Fortune, who became pregnant by a young man with whom she was in love . . . and who was in love with her, or so she believed. 

My great aunt Elizabeth Fortune
stood under the honey locust trees,
the white moon over her and a young man near.
The blossoms fell down like white feathers,
the grass was warm as a bed, and the young man
full of promises, and the face of the moon
a white fire.

 As she is referred to as a "great-aunt" in the poem, one can assume this happened many, many years ago.  The poem reveals that the young man later came home with a bride.  After Elizabeth had the baby, it was taken from her, and she moved up to live in the attic, a "solution" to the unpleasantness of her sin.  And she stayed in the attic for 40 years.  The persona of the poem, a young girl, inquires as to what happened to the young man?  Well, he and his wife had three kids, and he worked in the boat yard.  While Elizabeth lived in the attic.

Oliver returns to the moon at the end of the poem:

And should anyone be surprised
if sometimes, when the white moon rises,
women want to lash out
with a cutting edge?

I love the use of color in the poem. White, the color of purity, virginity, cleanliness, is predominant.  But strawberry?  Oh, the red rage!

Anyway, tonight is a full moon.  It also happens to be Friday the 13th.  Everything I've read debunks all the superstition that the confluence of these two things means anything at all.  Having been born on the 13th, I rather like the number.  When I turned 26 (2 x 13) and when I turned 31 (13 backwards), my birthday was on a Friday.  Nothing bad happened and I am still here to tell you about it.  I feel pretty confident that tonight will be uneventful.

I just hope the skies clear so that I can go outside for a moondance later on.  I will love it!

Foxglove

Let's start with a picture:

And there they are, my pale yellow foxglove.  As you can see, they are nearing full bloom.  Foxglove is one of those flowers that makes me stop in my tracks and consider, if indeed there is a "creator," how absolutely clever and aesthetic he/she/it is!  Little bells climbing up a stalk?  Ingenious!

The name for foxglove is digitalis.  Sounds like a heart medication, doesn't it?  Well, yes, the foxglove leaves contain digitalis, a potent heart medicine, and therefore, foxglove is considered poisonous.  But the name means finger-like and refers to the ease with which the flower can be fitted over a human fingertip.  So, yes, you can go try one on to see if it fits . . . but don't stick your fingers in your mouth!

According to the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension, "The name foxglove is from the old English name "foxes glofa." It comes from an old myth that foxes must have used the flowers to magically sheath their paws as they stealthily made their nocturnal raids into the poultry yards of rural folk. The association is natural for the foxgloves grew on the wooded hillside slopes that foxes chose for their dens." 

Okay.  But foxglove has other names, too:  Witches' Gloves, Dead Man's Bells, Fairy's Glove, Gloves of Our Lady, Bloody Fingers, Virgin's Glove, Fairy Caps, Folk's Glove, and Fairy Thimble.  (Amazing that the same plant can be called both Gloves of Our Lady and Bloody Fingers. Talk about Good and Evil . . . )

Whatever you call them, foxglove is just another joy in the spring/summer garden.  By this time, there's something new nearly every day.  It's been a rainy week, so I haven't been spending as much time in the gardens.  In fact, the foxglove caught me by surprise.  But what a surprise!  The forecast for the weekend is a good one, so you will find me sitting amid the foxglove, maybe trying them on my fingertips . . . but I promise you, I will wash my hands thereafter!  Such a small price to pay for being in glove.  I mean love.

Ceiling Fans

There's probably a group of people who are committed fans of ceilings, but I am not in love with them.  I am, however, in love with ceiling fans.  This realization quite nearly hit me over the head this afternoon.  Literally.

Today I continued the busy day philosophy, as it worked so well yesterday.  No painting today, but my work did involve a ladder, a vacuum, and vinegar.  Cleaning my son's room involves vacuuming and washing the log wall that makes up 1/4 of his wall space.  His room is on the second floor, and the ceiling is the roof, so it's a peaked ceiling.  To reach the logs at the peak, a ladder is required, so there I was, up on the ladder with the vacuum in hand, when all of a sudden, a whirring noise sounded awfully close to my head.  Ah, yes!  The ceiling fan that I forgot I'd turned on!  It didn't take me long to realize how close I'd come to being hit in the head with the rotating blades and what an ouch! that would have been.  I mean, I don't think decapitation was a possibility, but nonetheless, I felt pretty certain that I'd dodged a bullet . . . or a ceiling fan blade anyway.

It was in that moment that I fell in love.  For one thing, I felt it was appropriate to pay homage to the ceiling fan that didn't kill me, and for another, the near-miss made me think about ceiling fans and what they do for me.

There is no air conditioning in my log home.  (Installing it would be a wiring nightmare.  Plus, it's not that necessary, as a log home stays cool enough on warm days.)  So I have ceiling fans throughout the house.  Ten of them, to be exact.  The bedrooms all have them, of course, and I think there is nothing as lovely as sleeping with the fans on.  Their noise is gentle, the breezes they generate are gentle, and the way they can lull me to sleep is gentle.  As the nights are starting to become warmer, I am more inclined to turn on the fans these days.  Before long, that will become routine.  Summer nights, windows opened wide, and the cooling breeze of the ceiling fans!

What's not to love?  (Just be careful when on a ladder.)

Busy Days

There's nothing like a busy day to distract one from whatever sadness or worry might want to dominate.  So if, in one day, two of your cars are in need of repair and your house is screaming at you for repair, redecorating, or just plain cleaning, you need to rally . . . and you won't be sorry.

So today, one car was at my local mechanic's and I had to get the other one to a special mechanic (for a "special" problem).  As the latter was scheduled for later in the day, I somehow conjured up a burst of energy to tackle some cleaning jobs upstairs before I had to take the car over to the next town.  As I got involved in cleaning my son's bathroom, I found other things that needed to be done, primarily involving paint.  And once I'd painted the heat registers in his bathroom, it just made sense to paint the heat registers in his bedroom.  Of course, that involved moving his furniture around, vacuuming up the cat hair that had accumulated under his bed, and washing anything in that room made of fabric.  (I should add that I was quite happy to find, in a corner of the room, a sock I'd been missing for several months.  I guess it got trapped in his clean sheets when they were in the dryer or something and, when I was making his bed, it escaped to the nether corner of his room.)

By the time I'd finished painting the registers, it was time to shower and head to the next town to drop off my car.  And while I was waiting for my ride, the call came from my local mechanic, assuring me that nothing is wrong with my Jeep.  (Best news ever.)  So when Jeannine picked me up, we headed straight for the Jeep and then met up again at our favorite happy hour bar for a drink and a bite to eat.  Two hours of chatting away, wine and pizza, and life is good.  (The fact that we mistakenly tipped 100% was not a problem . . . I've known the bartender since she was four . . . ) 

So the day is done, and I never had a chance to whine or "reflect" or contemplate the Universe.  It was a good day.  I intend to repeat the "busyness" tomorrow, keep the Sad Gods at bay.

It's a lesson I seem to have to learn over and over again.  But that's okay.  I am in love with whatever it is that keeps me balanced.

Jenna

Today is my daughter Jenna's 26th birthday, but she turned 26 yesterday.  Yes, that's true.  In New Zealand, where she is currently working, her birthday was yesterday.  Happy Birthday, Jenna, yesterday and today.

Jenna is my wanderer.  For the last ten months, she has been working in Australia, but this was her second stay in the Land Down Under, having been there on a study abroad while she was in college.  And that experience must have sparked something in her, because in between the two Australia visits, she has traveled to Panama and Costa Rica (twice), worked with sea turtles in Sarasota and Malaysia, traveled around Southeast Asia (Laos, Cambodia, Thailand) for three months, and spent time adventuring in England and Wales.  There may have been more that I'm not recalling.  During the last ten months, she has traveled extensively throughout Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand.

Where did she get this wanderlust from?  Our travels when she was young were primarily to the Carolina beaches or Disney World, although we did do a road trip to the Southwest when she was 12.  But when she was a junior in high school, Jenna wanted to be considered for the Environmental Science summer session offered through the Governor's School, a fantastic program which, of course, has now been decimated.  Well, Jenna did get nominated for Governor's School.  I remember well the afternoon I walked in the door to find her with the nomination letter in her hand, crying dramatically.  Turns out, she was nominated for the School for International Studies instead of the School for the Environment.

When we looked into the program to find that it included a trip to Quebec, Jenna's mood brightened.  And yes, she was selected for the program, went to Quebec with the others, and studied at Ramapo College where she learned a thing or two about the world out there.  She became particularly interested in the genocide in Darfur, and set about to raise money for the refugees of that horror.

And I think that's where it began.  I think her experience at Governor's School literally opened up a whole new world for Jenna, and she wants to see as much of it as she can.  Smart, organized, dependable, competent, humanitarian . . . these words describe my little Jenna as well as the woman she has become.  She will return home from Australia in a couple of weeks, and then who knows where her wanderlust will take her?  Not all those who wander are lost.  I hope she will unpack her bags here for at least a little while before she takes off again.

Happy Birthday, Jenna.  I will forever be in love with you.

Dobro

I went to Bethel Woods (site of the Woodstock Festival in 1969) tonight with friends to see Allison Krauss and Union Station.  Allison's voice just knocks me out.  If angels can sing, I'm sure they sound like Allison.  Turns out, not only is she beautiful and talented, she is also funny and clever, as her introductions of her band members showed.  She's been performing with the guys in Union Station for 17 - 24 years.  I'd say they've got a good thing going.

So the "newest" member of the band, at 17 years, is Jerry Douglas, famed musician, producer, and dobro player.  Aside from his solo work, Jerry Douglas has played on over 1600 albums.  Wow.  Seeing him live has been on my bucket list, so last night was a much-anticipated event.  (Interesting to note that Willie Nelson and Friends was the headliner, and clearly, most people were there to see Willie.  Now Willie is an endearing American icon, and I've seen him a few times, but his presentations these days leave much to be desired, in my opinion.  I mean, he's 81 and still getting out there!  Gotta love it!  But I was there last night for AK & US.)

A dobro is an acoustic guitar with a metal resonator built into its body. This resonator serves as an amplifier. In contrast to acoustic guitars, the placement of the resonator takes the place of the sound hole.

 Aside from its unique sound, one would be able to pick out the dobro player in the band from a distance due to the way the instrument is held.  Kind of sideways.  Flat.

Here, let me show you:


While I'm sure it is easier to play the dobro in a seated position, Douglas can play just as masterfully standing up.  During the set, he performed two solo songs, one of Chick Corea's, and the other, a version of Paul Simon's American Tune, which was breathtakingly beautiful.  Last year, a rendition of Paul Simon's The Boxer as performed by Mumford and Sons got a lot of attention, partly due to Jerry Douglas' dobro on the recording.

Tonight's show was wonderful.  I could listen to that dobro for hours, not to mention the rest of the performance.  True musicians on that stage.  Sweet.

Quotes

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.

So says Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.  And tonight, I thought about how great it would be if I could call Donna Tartt and tell her how much I enjoyed The Goldfinch.  Of course, I would probably freeze up or babble ridiculously, saying nothing original.  I would surely be intimidated by her talent, her confidence, her intelligence . . . the same qualities that made The Goldfinch such a brilliant work.

Not to argue with Holden, but what really knocks me out about a book is being happy and sad at the same time once I've finished reading it.  The same as with movies, books stay with me a long time, the characters having taken up residence in my head.  I am happy to have them come and stay awhile, but I am sad that their stories are over.  I'm not ready to say goodbye.  To Theo and Hobie and Pippa and even Boris.

Boris put me on edge throughout the entire novel.  And I could never decide if I liked him or not.  (A direct result of Tartt's brilliant writing.)  But on page 745, I found myself leaning more favorably toward him.  (It just took awhile, I guess.)

Well -- I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between 'good' and 'bad' as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can't exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing the best I know how. But you -- wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking 'what if,' 'what if.' 'Life is cruel.' I wish I had died instead of.' Well -- think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no -- hang on -- this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can't get there any other way?

That is a question worth struggling with.  I think I've been struggling with it ever since I was able to question god and religion and faith and destiny and all those unanswerable questions.  That Tartt so cleverly places the question near the end of her story assures that the reader is not finished.  I will still be contemplating this weeks from now.  Or forever.

I actually dog-eared some pages of this book, something I don't think I've done since my teaching days.  There are other pages and quotes I will revisit over the next few days as I try to digest this story.  I almost want to read it again, right now, but you know what they say:  So many books, so little time.  I will just have to find another story to love.

Valor

Today is D-Day.  And I am in love with valor, particularly the valor of my Uncle Bill.  Uncle Bill (2nd Ranger Battalion, Company A) died a few years ago, but today, I am going to turn over the writing of this blog to him.  He wrote a letter to his wife, my Aunt Olive, about what D-Day was like.  My mother typed out his letter, and I am thrilled to have a copy of it.  I revisit his letter every year on this day, and think about what he endured for love of country

How would you like to know what D-Day was really like? I know what little the radio says, so let me tell you the way I saw it. To save us both a lot of boredom, I’ll leave out the months and weeks of training and briefing.

We boarded our landing craft and left the mother ship in the wee hours of the morning and started our long cramped ride to the shore. On the way we could see in the darkness huge flashes and hear terrific reports from big naval guns and bombs. The Air Corps and Navy had been laying tons of explosives along the shore, but as it turned out for some of us it was not as effective as we had expected.

It became lighter. The Channel was very rough and we went in slow. Some of the boys were sick. I, for one, was so sick I thought I’d die. We were cheerful enough – this seemed like so many of the exercises we had run before in Florida and England.

We weaved among the underwater obstacles and were almost ready to touch down when machine gun bullets started to sign over our boat and into the sides. The ramp went down and men spilled out into water chest-high and headed for shore in a rain of lead. My sickness left me in a flash as I reached the bow and saw those deadly little geysers spurting all over the water. By the time I had hit the water, which was a matter of seconds, many of our boys were already dead and wounded. Some just sat where they were hit, and the dull, blank look on their faces is something I’ll never forget. I wanted to drag one boy up to shore, but he said, “No, go on, I’ll make it.” I didn’t think he would, but went my way. If everybody helped each other, nobody would have made it. Ten feet up the beach from that fellow was where I was knocked down. I felt a burn and shock in my left thigh and knew it was a bullet. There was nothing I could do now but crawl and pray and that’s what I did every inch of the way.

Up to now, I was not scared, but lying in the water with bullets smacking all around some inches away made me feel really lost. The first thing that came to my mind was how you folks back home would feel when you received that last telegram. I knew I had to live, so I clamped my teeth and kept going. The tide helped me a lot, but the bullets continued to rake the water and sand. I felt them tear through my pack and prayed harder. I was pretty weak and dazed from the water pouring down my mouth and nose, but my Lieutenant kept urging me on. My eyes wouldn’t focus, and I don’t remember very well what I was doing, when a sergeant pulled me the last few feet to the pebbles. He cut my equipment off and gave me a shot of morphine. A few minutes later, I was smoking a dry cigarette and feeling alive again. There were dead and wounded all over the beach and in the water. They were the boys I had lived and joked with and now they were like this. We still weren’t safe there, so after we rested, we crawled across a narrow road and sat against a stone wall. Snipers were still picking off anybody they could see, but we were safe from all but artillery.

Smitty’s name was carved on the stock of my rifle, which I had managed to keep with me somehow. I cleaned my rifle and one for another wounded sergeant who laid by me and waited. So few of our boys got through that I expected to see the Jerries come back over the ridge. We were prepared to sell out Hollywood style, but they never came.

We laid there till late in the afternoon, when we were driven to better cover by German 88s. Then is when I found out that one of my best friends had been lying dead only fifteen feet from me all that time. That night some of us were evacuated.

I’ve left out a lot, but I don’t feel like writing anymore. I wanted you to know a little better what these boys are doing for those at home. Strikers would work for nothing if they could see with their own eyes what war is really like. I don’t like to think of all those telegrams going home, but if some of the ring-leaders received one, they might come to their senses. I’m finished preaching – there doesn’t seem to be much point to it. Someday I’m coming home, and if I still feel like I do now, I’ll kill a few of those dodgers. Life is cheap, just the cost of a cartridge.

Valor:  boldness or determination in facing great danger, especially in battle; heroic courage; bravery.  My uncle had it in spades.  Love you, Uncle Bill.

Strawberries

Look closely . . . they're not that pretty, are they?  Not as red as you'd like, kind of small, and what's with those knobby little green bottoms?  Surely, you would not buy these berries in your supermarket, thinking them inferior and not worth the price.  But these are my strawberries, and I am in love with them.

I have a tiered 4' X 4' bed in my garden dedicated solely to strawberries.  Being perennial, my strawberries return every year, and they don't even mind if I never water them.  They ask very little of me, but they give me a month of summer sweetness.  About the only thing I have to do for my strawberries is to cover them with netting to keep the birds from feasting on them.

A couple of days ago, I bought some nectarines at my local supermarket.  They looked good.  Perfect, really.  When I ate one at lunch today, I was underwhelmed by the flavor.  Actually, I should be more specific . . . there was no flavor.  I could have been eating tofu and gotten more of a bang out of it.  I checked that annoying little oval sticker on the fruit:  Kingsburg Flavor Farmer 4036.  So my nectarines came from California, from a "family" company that has been in business since 1813 . . . but wait, that was in England.  Looks like they've been in California for 16 years and boast that they are the largest family owned and operated grower, packer, and shipper of stone fruit in California’s fertile San Joaquin Valley.

Well, that's all very nice . . . but your nectarines (at least once they reach New Jersey) have no flavor at all, Flavor Farmer.

My strawberries, as ugly as they are, are full of flavor!  No pesticides, no hormones, no genetically modified anything . . . just my little berries, doing their best to make my breakfast a happy occasion.  Every morning for the next month, I will gather a few strawberries, wash and dice them, and add them to my cereal.  Flavor?  You bet!  Love?  Abundant!

Dragonflies

There are 145 kinds of dragonflies in Sussex County, NJ, my home.  That's more than any other county in North America!  June is the best month to see them here, and I have been noticing them flitting around in my garden these last few days.  And when I say flitting, I mean flitting!  Dragonflies and damselflies (every time I look at that word, I see damn selfies!) can move in six directions.  For those of you who are directionally challenged, that means forward, backward, left, right, up and down.  Furthermore, they can see 360 degrees while doing this.  While a housefly flaps its wings 1000 times a minute, a dragonfly flaps its wings only 30 times a minute . . . and can go 45 miles an hour doing so!  Amazing!

How these harmless, delicate creatures could have been thought to have once been dragons is anybody's guess.  They don't bite, they don't sting . . . they do nothing but provide a glittering sideshow to summer's glory.  They've cornered the market on iridescence.  They live brightly, but not for long.  Their lifespan as adults is only a few months.  Hence, it is believed that they epitomize what it means to live in the moment.  While we sad humans insist on living in memory and anticipation, the dragonfly knows how to live in the moment, and it does so gloriously.

It is no surprise that the dragonfly has been a source of symbolism in literature and art.  Perhaps my favorite involves the dragonfly as a symbol of a person's rising from materialism in order to see beyond the mundane into the Universe as well as into his or her own mind.  I would like to think that I am on that particular flight as I am aging.

There are lessons to be learned from the dragonfly.  I will study them with love.