WONDERFUL SUNDAY

I met my honorary grandchildren and their parents for breakfast this morning.  My Dad and I always get together on Sunday and eat at Jenny's.  Today we had the six members of the Shenk family join us.  The three youngest are six four and two.  Their older sister is 15.  There are not many things to do that are more fun than spending time with those kids.  Mom and Dad are two of my favorite people and my Dad is quite fond of them also!  They are well behaved little kids and breakfast lasted almost two hours before the natives got restless and we had to pack them up.  The family is on their way to Florida to spend time with the "other" grandparents. God Bless Them, they are flying!  It takes a lot of patience and courage to take that many small children on that long a flight.  I have no doubt they will have made friends with everyone near them before the plane hits the runway in Florida.  

When they left I still felt like something special should happen with the day.  I had dropped off loads of laundry and had to wait for them to be finished.  I decided a nice hike would fill that time up well.  Roland and I took off up Bard Creek, off the road to an old Indian fire ring that had finally become open with the snow melt.  Everywhere we went birds would raise up in flocks.  The snow has just thawed off some places and the birds are hungry.  They are picking every left-over seed off the bushes and grasses now showing.  I thought how good it was to hear that much birdsong again.  The robin I saw was a shock against the snowbanks with his red breast showing.

When I got home I looked into my garden and laughed at myself.  i thought I was having sun spots as i kept seeing flashes of green but lo and behold!  There are flashes of green!  I have 3/4 of an inch of chives up, some dandilion greens out and midnight sage just showing.  It is spring, snow and cold and all.  There is hope that big yellow ball in the sky will return one more!  

I got home and started cooking up a pot of pisole!  The pork is roasting to go into it now and the adobo sauce is simmering.  I have my grill going and I'm roasting Jalapenoes to make Chipoltes.  Everything smells great  I'm going to make a cup of espresso and start some tortillas next. What a wonderful Sunday!

EARTH HOUR TONIGHT MARCH 29, 2008

TONIGHT BETWEEN 8:00 PM AND 9:00 PM IN YOUR TIME ZONE IS EARTH HOUR.  TURN OFF YOUR LIGHTS!  TURN OFF YOUR ELECTRONICS!  GOOGLE EARTH HOUR FOR MORE DETAILS.  GIVE THE EARTH A BREAK.  I'VE GOT MY CANDLES OUT.  JOIN ME!  AND PASS THE WORD ALONG!

Who is This Person?

In the last two weeks I have put together a grant proposal, sent letters to Senators, a Governor and a President, and tried to write in this blog.  Tonight I worked on the Planning Board reworking a water/sewer ordinance. I spent a lot of time hoping that people in the future won't curse our names when they deal with it.   I spent some time zapping spam on a forum I moderate on and wrote my son and two other friends.  It's 9:00 at night and I haven't had supper yet.  

I have to stop and think about who I am.  I'm an old hippie.  I'm almost 57 years of age and I just got my first credit approval.  I work in a job that I love most of the time which is a lot more than most people can say!  I've got a big mouth and I'm abrasive.  I take care of a number of people in a number of different ways.  The people who love me love me.  Those who don't don't.  There is little I can do to change that.  It bothers me less and less as time goes on.  I try to keep the friendships of a lifetime vital and deepening.  They mean so much to me, more than most will ever know.  The new friendships I have developed are a surprise and a gift!  They keep me from becoming stagnant.  The younger ones keep me connected with the zinging energy flow I no longer possess but still love to watch.  The older ones make me feel connected with my generation.  They inspire me to delve deeper into my spirituality.

I have little spare time but I have less pain than I've had in years.  I feel I need to make up for lost time!  I try to be outside every day and I try to be more gentle than I've been in the past.  Mostly I try to be me, not to be defensive or arrogant and in hiding but to be open.  I'm not always successful but I'm trying.

I have moved from living on the edge for most of my life into the stability such as it is that is available to me.  Right now, this day, this week is good, so good because it is peaceful and calm.  This person that I have become is not always comfortable to me.  The struggles of "becoming" continue but I have hopes that before I die, for however short or long a time, I will be complete.  

Not being a Christian my spring rites were celebrated privately on the equinox but I still love Easter Day.  I got up early and started cooking for the meal I'll have with my family later today!  I'm making a crusty artisan bread and an experiment, orange-banana bread.  I've got ham, asparagus, new potatoes, and a pineapple upside down cake going.  I've got a lovely fresh herb and mixed greens salad with edible flowers and things are looking good!

As a gift to me from Mother Nature this morning the first Amaryllis I've ever grown has burst into glorious scarlet bloom.  The plant is slightly over a yard high and is hard to miss in my trailer!  While it is chilly outside right now, the sun is up and the day promises to be fine.  When all this cooking is done I'll pack up and drive over the Central City Parkway a steep and curving piece of road engineering that is so dangerous CDOT blacked the name of that exit off the sign.  They refuse to be responsible for those whole fly off the road and drop the mile or so to the bottom of the canyon.  For those who don't take the plunge it is a breathtaking ride full of views that make you gasp!

The trip up into Golden Gate Canyon will pass through heavily forested areas as well as casinos of Black Hawk and Central City.  It's an interesting trip and half way through I'll stop at one of my favorite coffee shops and wish the young owner/barista happy holidays.  I'm enjoying my day of family time and happiness.  This is when I really miss my son the most.  I know that he and his family of friends will probably do little to mark this day but I'll call later today anyway.  I want him to know he's still a part of our family circle also.

The eggs for this morning's hunt are from my sister's own chickens.  The little girls are all wearing dresses and the poor little boys are in suits.  Those suits will be trashed in a short time.

Dinner will be done al fresco if we can.  My sister has a big tree shaded deck in back and a stone courtyard with plenty of room for the bar-b-ques.  People will be fighting over who gets to hold the new baby.  There will be jokes about my nephew Derek's fondness for Peeps and comparison of chocolate creations!  Children will be running through the clumps of grown-ups and the dogs will be right behind them.  The chickens will be clucking like mad as the excitement even spreads to them!

When we finally all sit down together the noise level will raise with laughter and compliments over the food.  Some people will want to know where the favorites of the past are if the cooks have gone beyond the traditional.  Some people will only be marking time until the pineapple upside-down cake comes out and I will be one of them! 

All in all, the celebrations of spring and life are my favorite holidays.  The rowdiness of my family is filled with that life we celebrate and I am happy to be with them. 

The flu has hit Colorado hard lately.  I left work a little early today feeling hot and feverish with a sore throat. I knew I should have gone to bed but it was still sunny outside, a break in the middle of two days of storms before the next one came in.  I decided to take my dog for a walk and get myself cooled down.  The sun looked beautiful but the air blowing in off the snow banks was cold.  The thermometer was only showing 9 deg. F.  

I had on a vest and fleece, a sweater and a turtleneck and still felt the chill.  I started walking watching the clouds thin out into a smoke screen at the edge of a massive stormhead sitting to the northeast.  The fever must have been getting higher as I realized the touch of the cold air on my heated face was such an exquisite friction it was almost pain. 

I noticed that everything I looked at had an aura of electric blue topped with a dull flame red.  The mountains with lodgepole pines on them were stripes of dark dark green alternating with the orangey red of beatle kill.  Delireum made the stripes appear to be moving.

The snow fields had shadows from the clouds above moving rapidly across them.  I stood and stared for a while, seeing art nouveau zebras and tigers in the changing patterns.  Thoughts flowed through my mind not quite connected, more like melted together.  After a while I realized I had unzipped my jacket and vest and had no gloves on.  I had been outside in the wind for more than an hour and I should have been cold.  I wasn't.  This was not a good sign.  

Roland and I took off for home.  It was slow going as I just couldn't seem to focus enough to hurry.  When I got in the house and got my sweats on I took my temperature.  It was 103 deg!  I guess that explained my trip back.  What a vague strange afternoon walk.

MORE SNOW

I guess every time I post I could say that this winter.  It's been a long cold year but it's almost always a long cold winter.  There is nothing new in that.  Maybe it's my age, maybe it's my attitude but it gets hard every year about this time.  Cabin Fever has set in.  A group of us are getting together Sunday night.  Everyone is bringing snacks and a board game.  I really enjoy these evenings.  I have the "Loaves and Fishes" game and the Anti-Monopoly game.  I have "Stocks and Bonds" and "Trivia Challenge"  I also have an interesting little number known as "The Pizza Challenge".  What a mess that game can be.

It may not be what most people think of as an exciting evening but I'm looking forward to it.  The home we're gathering at has a big old fireplace in the living room.  There will be music as we are all old hippies.  The food will be good and varied and the beverages hot and alcoholic!  

I love these old fashioned game nights.  They cost each of us very little but they create memories and good humor to help me through the two and a half more months before it stops snowing here.  Friendships that live through the cabin fever season are strengthened and vitalized.  Come summer, those good feelings are still there but it's winter time when they are needed.

DIRT!

Damned hard to believe how much I like dirt at this point of the year.  Yes, you heard me correctly, dirt!  It's not like there has been much of it to see since Thanksgiving.  This morning I went on a long hike with my dog.  It was long enough that at the beginning there was still snow all over the roads and ice sheets everywhere.   I took pictures of the frost covered trees and the snow that still tops most of the fences here.  Well, of course it does!  Today was the first time it topped freezing in a month!    

Roland took snow baths wriggling and squirming down long snow-covered slopes.  He was sliding down one very steep hill when he hit bottom and went straight through the ice into a deep pond.  I hung my camera on a tree limb and jumped into the mess of trees and willows between the dog and me.  I got soaked up to my waist but I got my coat down to him in the water and he drug himself out on it.  While Roland merely shook himself off I was pretty wet.  Not so wet that I would head home and miss out on a sunny day though.  As long as I kept moving it wasn't all that chilly.  

I met up with some other locals and we stopped to stare at a bare bank, checking to see if the DIRT had anything green sprouting in it.  We checked for pussywillows budding out and got on our hands and knees and brushed the old leaves away looking for any sign of green.  Not yet, but it smells like life is getting closer to returning.  You can smell soil now, not just snow and ice water.  The scent of spring isn't quite here yet but things are stirring.  

It may not seem like much but up here in the high country we are damned happy to see dirt, any dirt, anywhere!