Last Day of August!

On the road again...

August 30

The current style of chunky necklace weighs A TON. It's difficult to imagine wearing one all day at work while typing on a keyboard. It's difficult to imagine working all day at a keyboard. It's difficult to imagine working all day, let alone carrying a load to do it.

Dave just shoveled 4,000 pounds of rock for a landscaping job. He wonders why his knees hurt. I wonder, was he wearing a necklace too?

Melinda has a partial view of an old bank building, the courthouse and city streets.
She directs the heavy lifters and wears a weighty necklace of a different kind.

August 29

Myra's flower garden is stunning. I especially liked this one, just past its prime.

Peaches from Palisade are on sale in the parking lot of the Cheyenne County Courthouse. Driving across country between Flagstaff and Albuquerque, the blasting next to the highway put the traffic at a standstill. I was behind a trucker hauling peaches. He graciously pulled out a wooden crate full of peaches and we sat out on the interstate highway while the dynamite blasted stone off the cliffs, eating peaches and throwing the pits to the side of the road. I suspect they were just as good as the peaches from Palisade.

August 28

As promised, here is "Tailing the mark"

Also known as following,

trailing,

keeping a safe distance,

keeping an eye on,

spying,

tailing the mark.

But what does it have to do with anything? I don't know, ask the deep, dark subconscious. At least it's not about autumn or winter. Or cake for that matter. Tailing the cake.

August 27

WOW, is it hot! Bank sign says 90, car says 93, phone says 94.

I am parked out on the hill next to Cabela's watching the trucks drive east and west on I-80, the wind is blowing them all over the road, but they keep moving on. This was going to be an entry about spies and spy novels, tailing the mark, but the hot wind has blown everything away. Maybe next time. Maybe I'm being tailed by an RV in the Cabela's campsite. I would not notice, it's too hot, and as Marcie says in Peanuts, "I'm too mature."

August 26

Not a rabbit hole, but probably a chipmunk lives here. Have you ever wondered what their home must look like up close and personal? Some guided meditations take you underground. It reminds me of Persephone who was kidnapped and taken to Hades where she was warned not to eat anything, but ate one pomegranate seed and was forced to stay for 6 months out of the year. Her mother, Demeter, mourned and so we have winter for 6 months.

August 25

It's an average season for grapes, a poor one for the pears and apples. Two years ago we severely cut back the vines so there was no production last year and no jam or juice. These will be harvested on my return from Denver and be made into sour grapes jelly. Unless, of course, it freezes while I'm gone. Merry Christmas in August!

August 24

These sentinels of Hiway 35 are over 10 feet tall.

The sunflower fields in North Dakota and Winnipeg were more impressive in size, but this has those fields beat in sheer height. Must be MiracleGro at work. A good state fair exhibit.

August 23

Trains, T's and Automobiles

Yesterday I parked the car at the train station, rode the train and then got on the subway to see a friend from Bangladesh who's visiting family in Boston. It was rainy, dark and dreary. The Red Sox were rain delayed at Fenway.
"Have a good day," I tell the ticket taker.
He looks at me gruffly. "I'll decide what kind of day I'll have."

The train seats were such that all the passengers rode backwards. I was occupied with tying a friendship bracelet for my friend, of course, and it was rainy and dreary, so the bushes surrounding the tracks that had grown to monstrous proportions did not really make that much of an impression. I did, however, notice the graffiti on the trains going the opposite direction.

Upon the arrival in North Station, the subway, the T, was the next immediate concern. Find it, buy tickets, get to the Prudential district for tea. T for tea. Time was ticking. At first it was confusing that I should go inbound, because hadn't I been going inbound all along? It seemed that the outbound course would be the most appropriate one. But after studying the map, continuing inbound would be the correct direction.

There on the T was a knight in chain mail, plugging his ears. He suffered from the weight of the chains and the screeching of the wheels against the rails.

So, in summary:

1. The seats on the train all look to the past.

2. If you want tea, take the inbound route.

3. The knight in shining armour suffers from his chain mail.

4. If you want a friend in this world, learn how to tie friendship bracelets or

get yourself a dog.

August 22

More signs of autumn:

A monarch butterfly

A wooly bear caterpillar

Acorns falling from the trees

Car seat heater on

August 21

The panel of the seaplane before the pilot enters and blocks the view includes, top row: GPS, magnetic compass; middle row: headset plug ins, altimeter, airspeed indicator, checklist, vertical speed indicator, RPMs, radios; bottom row: turn coordinator, mixture, clock (inop), written airspeeds, voltage indicator, oil temperature, oil pressure, and exhaust gas temperature.
The headsets are hanging on the mixture control. The pedals are brake on top and rudder on bottom. The control stick is in the middle (sort of). To the far right is the handle to lower the water rudders into the water.
Off we go!

August 20

The reassuring waiting room at Women's Life Imaging depicting all the things that could be wrong with a mammogram. See, here, we've circled it for you. Today the waiting women were chatting about what a good year it was for tomatoes. It didn't seem funny at the time, but now that it's here in print, emmersome goodwins.

August 19

As I was looking for the brilliant light

Beyond the veil of grievances that is this world,

my glasses fell apart.

August 18

Sticky and clinging things that are difficult to get rid of:

1. Cockleburrs
2. Picker weeds (Columbine flowers gone to seed)

3. Molasses

4. Skunk spray

5. Clutter

6. Needy people

7. Insecurity

8. Fear

9. Raspberry thorns

10. Super glue

11. Bondo

12. Melted road tar

13. Gulf Oil

14. Watery bread dough

15. Extra 20 pounds of midriff

Smooth and flowing things that are difficult to hold on to:

1. Water

2. Joy

3. Le mot juste

4. Dawn
5. Cleanliness

6. Physical fitness

7. An empty page

8. A workable computer

9. Seasons

10. A lunar eclipse

11. Shooting stars

12. Samadhi

13. Wind

14. Bubbles

15. Silk sheets

August 17

"I'm looking over a four leaf clover that I overlooked before.

One is for sunshine, the second is rain,
Third is for roses that grow in the lane.

No need explaining the one remaining

Is somebody I adore."

-Mort Dixon and Harry Woods, 1927

August 16

Tracking in the nursery: turkey tracks going one way and human boot going the opposite way.

Porcupine tracks in the dust, showing off their pigeon-toed gait, claws, and stippled foot pads.

Still tracking signs of autumn in this row of burning bushes.

August 15

Found feather in woods: 22 mm in length.

Size of mite: 0.4 mm in length.

Possible number of mites lined up on feather: 55.

Dirty bird!

August 14

Whenever Daisy has to go outside, the bathroom rugs get wadded into messy nests on the floor. It was not too heavy of a sleeping night even though the cool temperatures overnight invited deep dreaming.

Sleep is one of the 5 modifications of the mind, according to Patanjali. The other 4 are right knowledge, imagination, memory, and false perception; Pramana viparyaya vikalpa nidra smirtayah. Yoga Sutra 1.6.

To sleep perchance to dream: Did Shakespeare know that Daisy would wake me from a dream so vast that it would be uninterpretable? It was whispered down the ages on stone steps made of turquoise, the migration of peoples across the Bering Strait to the south, where color is defined by the sea and by the sun rising and setting.

August 13

There is a patch of yellow and orange leaves on the maple outside. Some say it is a sign of tree illness and stress because of the hot spell during all of July. Some say it is a harbinger of an early fall.

Ripening raspberries;
Now that is a sure sign of the coming autumn.

Backpacks on sale at all the stores.

Kids starting school.

56 degrees this morning.

But the spring cleaning is still underway.

Hubby is living in February, remembering the long driveway he just snow blew.

The length of days shortens.

Chrysanthemums appear at the roadside nurseries.

The evidence is overwhelming, Mr. F. Lee Bailey.

My teacher says,

"You are just seeing what you look for.

You spot it, you got it."

August 12

For Sale:

Closet full of hiking and camping gear.

Neatly organized. Well used.

Will throw in box of no-stick bandages for blisters and package of epsom salts.

It's "a closet full of sorry".

August 11

No mas! No mas!

The scenery is beautiful, and the pictures are pleasing, but the walk...

Monstrous! Why do people do this? Why do I persist? I hope the next time driving by The Cock of the Walk I am just driving, not planning a hike.

The Kinsmans in the White Mountains, up 2.5 miles to the Lonesome Lake,

Then up another 3 miles to Kinsman Pond where the coffee was instant in the XMug, the lightning was close enough to smell ozone, the tent leaked like a sieve, and the rocky trail beat my feet into mushy bruises and blisters.

The beef stew was at least 15 years old (but light as a feather).

And it's probably a bad thing when the trail guides talk about steps built into the rock. Even though it's ingenious, it only means THE TRAIL IS TOO STEEP TO SCRAMBLE.

After the night of rain, the return trip had rivers in the trail cascading down the stairs. At least the new boots have a good grip on rock, unlike the old ones. Small recompense for a first solo overnight trip. Ick. It's time for breakfast and a foot bath. Happy Trails.

August 10

I have always loved plasma cells.

Maybe it's their cleared out space next to the nucleus, the Hoff. The perinuclear hoff. Not to be confused with the Hoff, David Hasselhoff. Maybe it's because they look like fried eggs. Maybe because they are readily identifiable and don't hide in the marrow as something else. Maybe because when they work properly, they protect us against infections. Maybe because they manufacture proteins like antibodies and beta pleated sheets and are curiously industrious.

I am reviewing blood and bone marrow components for continuing medical education. That's where this idea came from. It would sell a lot more copies if Baywatch were involved.

8-9-10

Gone to the Kinsmans

But only if it's not raining at 5:00 AM.

Going to go via Cascade Brook Trail, Fishin Jimmy Trail, Kinsman Junction, Kinsman Ridge, and maybe back via Kinsman Pond Trail.

Forgot my headlamp at home. Borrowed the maglight in the flight bag.

Maybe we should just fly over the Kinsman Ridge.

August 8

Walks during this time of year, especially through the open fields that lie beyond the woods behind the house, share space with all the summer wildflowers. The goldenrod are blooming. During one of these late summer walks some years ago, my throat narrowed, eyes began to itch, sounds of wheezing like an old dog started up.

It must be the goldenrod.

This year Hubby corrected me when I came home sniffling, "Goldenrod is bee-pollinated."

"Yeah, so?" I say in my head-swiveling mode.

"It's pollinated by bees," he repeats louder.

"I heard you. But it doesn't mean anything to me. Don't say it louder, explain it. Please."

He starts over, "You'd need to be sniffing the plant up close like a bee in order for the pollen to make you react with allergies."

"I didn't do that."

"Ragweed grows next to goldenrod and blooms at the same time. It's wind pollinated," he said.

Sure enough. The wind carries the ragweed pollen right to my nasal doorstep. Now I can sniff goldenrod to my delight and blame the results on the ragweed. How does he know this stuff?