OUR RETARDED CHILD

As some of you know, we’ve made friends with a bluejay couple. They’ve become used to us out in the back yard, and always swoop down from the sky, screaming obscenities at us when we come out from the house. They’re not afraid of us at all (what a fantastic compliment). They’ll sit on a branch directly above our heads and preen themselves, that’s how relaxed they are around us.

A week or so ago, Mike saw a baby bluejay on the ground. It must have fallen, or jumped out of its nest (we think our couple have built a nest in the neighbor’s palm tree). It was too young to fly, so it just kindof bounced across the yard toward him. He didn’t tell me about it, because he was afraid it would die, and I would be upset. So, kind soul that he is, he waited for a few days to see if the little thing would survive, before telling me.

Well he did survive.

We brought him a pan of water, and sat out by the shed with binoculars. Just a few minutes after we’d placed the pan of water down, and retreated to our chairs by the shed, we saw him perched on the edge of the pan.

With all the extremely hot weather, he must have been parched. I saw through the binoculars that his little bulgy eyes were closed. He had an expression of intense relief, as though, in finding the water dish, he’d survived a kind of holocaust.

We named him Junior.

What a retarded little bird! His flight feathers hadn’t grown yet, so he was all raggedy. He bounced all over the yard, not at all concerned about the fact that he was ... um ... pretty much helpless prey.

Mike and I learned that if we wanted to find him, all we had to do was wait quietly by the shed. As soon as the parents came swooping into the yard, Junior would let loose with his ‛FEED ME NOW!’ scream. It’s a very distinctive cry. Kindof hoarse and grating, like a rusty hinge. We took note of where the parents landed, and crept closer with our binoculars, to see the parent thrusting a bug (or something) into our little Junior’s gaping beak.

Unfortunately, Junior is not the smartest bird. He’s a bit ... special ... which explains the fact that he fell, or jumped, out of the nest in the first place. Junior is a wanderer. He does not wish to remain in one place. So he’s left our yard.

Last we saw of him, he’d bounced clear across our yard. Away from the fence beneath his family nest in the neighbors palm tree, to the fence on the opposite side. There he was, bouncing around under the rose bushes.

That fence has a Junior sized gap. Well, the silly retarded adventurous bird bounced on through.

We thought he’d died and gone on to meet Jimi Hendrix. But yesterday I heard, through the bathroom window that faces the neighbors yard, the distinctive “FEED ME!” cry. And again today, I heard it several times. So we think Junior is alive and well, living in the neighbor’s yard.

Lets all keep our fingers crossed for the little mental case.

WHAT TO DO DURING A HEAT WAVE

We’re in the middle of another heat wave. We spend a lot of time trying to find ways to cool off. We have fans, and window opening/closing schedules, and a memorized list of public places with great air conditioning (bank ... library ... walmart ....).

I spend a lot of time in the nude (I’m topless right now - yeehaw!)

Yesterday we went to the coast, just because we knew it would be cooler there. Well of course, we also went because its gorgeous, but mainly, we went because it would be cooler.

We enjoyed a fantastic day, walking along the beach watching surfers and seagulls. We climbed over rocks to Mike’s favorite private beach. We looked in tide pools, we discovered sea urchins. We laughed at a mental bird who couldn’t decide to land. We scrutinized the ground for pretty pieces of sea glass, and shells. We took a few pictures, we admired the pounding waves. I wandered into the surf and got caught by a wave, we laughed, I rolled up my salty wet pants.

We had a picnic in the back of Gabriella (as in Gabriella Sabatini - Mike’s favorite former tennis player - who has now lent her name to our toyota tacoma truck). Gabby has a camper shell over her back end, so we can sit inside, completely enclosed. We backed into a parking spot, opened Gabby’s hatch, and climbed inside (does this sound twisted, or is it just me...?)

Anyway, ya, we had a picnic lunch inside the back of our truck, with the hatch open so we could enjoy a picture window view of the surf pounding on the rocks, and the gulls soaring over the waves, and the (courageous) wildflowers in the foreground that don’t let a “little” thing like the pounding California coastline stop them from flourishing their hearts out.

The day before yesterday, we drove to Howarth Park. We took the bikes, and our bathing suits. Howarth Park is a fantastic place with paths for walking/jogging/biking ... wild ducks and geese who enjoy a smorgasbord of a life ... woods ... secret places for people to fish in private ... picnic tables ... a choochoo train and a petting zoo for the kids (we don’t have one of those, but I’m just saying ... ) ... tennis courts ... baseball fields ... water fountains ... views of the California hills ... concession stores ... the list goes on.

We love Howarth Park.

We parked Gabriella, and unloaded the bikes, got the backpack figured out (what to take, what to leave in the truck, who wears the backpack and who gets to be free (I pretended to be fixing my shoelace so he would get impatient and just put the damn thing on so we could get going, lol).

...so cool to sail out of the parking lot on our bikes, up the path through the trees beside the first lake. People jogging, people walking dogs, family’s walking in groups, mothers pushing strollers.

We toiled up hills, and stopped, panting at the top, then sailed down the other side. Whichever of us was in front, pointed to things we saw, so whichever of us was behind would see - geese, a cute kid, blackberries that will be ripe soon, a guy in a kayak with his dog....

We pulled up at the swimming lake, chained our bikes to a picnic table, pulled off our clothes (we had bathing suits underneath), and entered the lake. It’s a man made lake with lifeguards around it, and roped off areas to keep non swimmers safe.

The water was warm. We swam, and played, and discovered all kinds of ways to exercise. Mike taught me how to go underwater without plugging my nose with my fingers, and I taught him how to do the splits while treading water.

We’re going again on Monday.

RAVEL'S 'BOLERO'

I usually hate it when a person tries to turn me onto a song, or a band that they feel strongly about, because it’s often a miss. And then I feel awkward for having disappointed the person. And I feel like I ‛failed to get it’, and ‛obviously the person is more hip than me because it’s so obviously a big thing to them so why can’t I see it’ etc.

Nevertheless, I’m going to recommend a fantastic song, that I’m sure you all know and I probably don’t have to sell it to you but I want to anyway ...

If you haven’t heard Ravel’s ‛Bolero’, find it, play it LOUD, preferably in an Ipod so the song screams into your skull and fills it up.

Okay, if you’re not quite like me, and don’t have a penchant for blowing your brains out with music ... just ... please ... find the CD, and play it at your preferred volume.

I have my ( boyfriend’s ... but I’ve taken it over) Ipod plugged into my ears right now as I type this. I’ve been listening to Whitestripes, but I’m about to set it to ‛Bolero’, with the volume as high as it will go, and listen to it, so I can type my thoughts as I feel them.

To really 'get' this post, you need to have 'Bolero' playing as you read. Otherwise it might come across as dry, you might not get it at all. I'm just letting you know....

Here I go ...

It begins gently, with few instruments. There’s a beat I can feel, but the music at this point is very smooth, like liquid honey.

Different instruments join in, each in their turn, and add to the piece. Some of the instruments are piercing my ears, even though the song is still in its quiet, beginning stage. I have to press my eyes closed.

I can’t help but feel that as each instrument comes in at the appointed time, the player feels like a star. “This is my part, here I go!”

And the drummer keeps rattatatatting on his drum.

The music grows louder with each pass. Now I hear the violinists plucking. My hair stands on end. I feel like crying. How proud the violinists must be ... imagine them lifting their hands in unison, and ... at the exact, correct time, beginning to pluck at the stings.

All of the orchestra playing their hearts out, the music swelling. They must be feeling absolutely glorious. The conductor is magnificent as he leads them.

It’s booming now. Roaring into my head. The drums, the violins, the horns. It is truly heartbreaking.

If I was holding your hand now I would break the bones I’d be squeezing so hard.

Louder now. It can’t possibly get any louder, but I know it will. I feel like screaming.

What a tremendous and profound piece of music.

At the end, when the horns blow their incongruous blasts, and the violins reach their amazing crescendo, and the piece crashes to the ground (that’s what the ending sounds like to me), I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack. But it’s Great! It’s Fantastic!

I have to believe that at the conclusion of this piece, all the players flew out of their chairs and screamed with joy. How could they not?

A NEW KIND OF TRIP

I’ve always been soothed by playing music very loudly. It probably sounds counter intuitive, but somehow, having music roar into my ears, relaxes me when I’m feeling tense. It brings me back to myself, or something.

So I’ve taken over Mike's Ipod.

Before the great Ipod discovery, I used to press my ear to my CD player’s speaker when I needed to “get away”. The Ipod is so much better.

Here I am, walking around with music blasting into my head, but no one else can hear it. I’m in my own private world. I have a soundtrack to my day, and it’s for me alone. To everyone else, I’m sitting here quietly.

I step off the deck, and into the back yard, approaching the artichoke bed to the sounds of the Beatles’ “Polythene Pam”

I look up from my watering, just as our friendly pair of blue jays zoom past. I hadn’t heard them, I just happened to look up at the right moment. They’re flying in time to Whitestripes’ “Little Ghost”

It’s a kind of acid trippy experience. It answers to all my baffling solitary/loner needs.

CANADIAN GUILT

This past week has been hotter than Hades, so we've been spending the greater part of every day indoors with the fans blowing on us.

Since I'm from B.C. Canada where it rains nearly every freakin day, and rarely gets warm, much less hot, I have developed a sort of unspoken "rule" about sunny days - you don't waste them. You go out, whether you want to or not, because it won't last.

Every sunny day of my childhood, if my mother found me indoors, she exclaimed "What are you doing?! Go outside and enjoy the sun!" Of course I would go out immediately, feeling such a fool.

Staying indoors on a sunny day became a guilty, furtive thing.

One day my sister called, on a rare gorgeously sunny and warm summer day. She and I rarely spoke. Now here she was, phoning me out of the blue. In true B.C. fashion, the first words out of her mouth were "Are you out in it?"

I knew immediately what she meant, and I felt a flush of embarrassment as I admitted I had been indoors. She laughed, and admitted that she too had been doing stuff in the house. We giggled together, united in our naughtiness in thumbing our noses at the weather.

Then we fell silent as we realized we were, actually, being rather stupid to ignore the rare gorgeous day, even though we had endless things to do inside and nothing really to do outside, but we really should get out there, so we hung up and went out....

So it's a bit of a mind f*ck for me, to be doing the opposite now.

It's my second summer in California, and I'm still hearing voices from Canada. What am I doing indoors when the sun is shining out there?! Am I crazy?!

So I go out.

Immediately I'm assaulted by the sun. I rush back in for my sunglasses, shove them on my face, and barge across the deck, the soles of my feet sizzling (because barefoot is the ultimate summer experience and I want to make up for all the years I had to actually wear winter socks in June).

I'm crying out as I run across the deck, leap off onto the soil that is cracked and broken from the heat, "Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" as I scamper on tiptoes to where the sunburned grass begins and I have some relief.

I stand in the shade of the apple tree, and survey the garden. 'Is there anything I need to do out here? Oh I see the tomato plants are begging for water. I guess I should help them.' I uncoil the hose, flinching as the metal wand that has been laying in the sun sizzles off the skin from my fingers. I give the tomatoes a token watering, so they at least won't die altogether, and, apologizing to the rest of the garden, I escape back into the house.

I remind myself ... it's different here ... the sun shines All The Time so it's not necessary to take advantage, in fact it's actually mental to go out there at this time of day.

But I still feel guilty somehow....

MY TOPLESS/DANCING/IPOD/GARDENING WORLD

The other day I spent several hours out in the back yard, with the Ipod clipped to my waistband blasting Beatles, and Whitestripes into my head, dancing topless, with wine, in friggen Sonoma County, pruning roses, and watering the artichokes and tomatoes.

Wadda Life.

Halfway through, Mike came into the yard, saw I had the Ipod on (so I couldn't hear), so he waved, and sat down on the garden bench. I called out "HI!" in an overly loud voice (because I couldn't hear), unclipped the Ipod and joined him on the bench.

We talked about money stuff (mutual funds). And about garden stuff. And about the birds we could see from the bench. Etc.

He got up to do some yoga. He told me he'd taken some pictures of me as I was lost in my Ipod/wine/dancing topless pruning world. I hadn't even seen him there.

After a while, he kissed me, and went back into the house. I went back to my topless/dancing/ Ipod/etc world.

A nice day.

HI AGAIN

In the past couple of days, I reread my entire first blog (and the thing is HUGE).

I tried to begin another, similar blog after I began my new life here, but it petered out (the blog, not my new life). I was too distracted (and who could blame me?). Also, I no longer felt the need to pour out my heart in a blog. Not to mention I was getting used to a thousand absolutely new things. My life, and my world, were brand spankin new.

In my final post for that blog, I left a link to a new blog that was intended to be the continuation of 'my thoughts'. I've now killed that link, because the blog sucked, (as I said, it petered out, and I couldn't focus....). Now, fourteen months later, I'm trying again. I'm replacing the killed link with a link to this new blog.

I feel like being a jabbermouth again, so here I go.