Nancy’s Angel

JT Twissel 11 Comments

Many years ago, I don’t even remember when, Connemoira’s mother gave me an oil pastel rendering of an angel. “God told me to give you this,” she said.

She was always telling me what God wanted me to do and I was a bit of a wimp. If people wanted to tell me what God wanted me to do I generally listened. Then I usually did what I was going to do anyway. Mrs. Seagrass was very very good to many many people and I will never be able to repay her for all her kindnesses to me when I was growing up. But I wasn’t into angels at the time and so I stored the pastel in the closet. In the back of the closet. Did I feel guilty? Oh yeah. Especially as the years went by and one by one the Seagrasses have disappeared. Some have died and others still dwell down by the river. Much quieter than before.

But the last couple of months I haven’t had any power over what will be. I can see it coming but nothing I can do will stop it. This I know. And so I’ve been rearranging the paintings and furniture like a teenager in a B horror flick desperately trying to outsmart the Devil himself and, in the process, I created a space perfect for a medieval angel.

It is lovely isn’t it? Even if you don’t believe in angels, it’s a fine piece of work. Shame on me for hiding it in a closet.

Go Chicks! #Goodnews

JT Twissel 23 Comments

For those of you soured on newspapers because of all the political brouhaha, this was the picture on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle this morning.

This fluffy chick … let’s call the darling Flammy, shall we? … is one of four wunderkinder who recently hatched at the San Francisco Zoo to great joy. You see, for the past nine years the adults of the species have displayed “plenty of pink plumage — but no passion.” (Sam Whiting, staff writer)

If you guessed little Flammy is a flamingo chick, you guessed right. Apparently they don’t turn pink for two or three years.

I’m sure you’re dying to know what caused the return of the pink passion! Well, it had nothing to do with politics. That’s the good news. I won’t go into detail but the birds didn’t like to be quarantined at night which they had been for several reasons, primarily the bird flu. And so the zoo made several changes and soon the males started standing up straight, shaking their heads left to right and “marching back and forth in unison, an indicator that we are leading up to breeding season.” (Liz Gibbons, birdkeeper)

No news about how the lady birds are feeling. Exhausted, perhaps. Nine years is a long time!

The dogs, the fashionistas, and the funeral band

JT Twissel 25 Comments

Yesterday I went over to the Community Center early (7 AM) to help set up for our parade. Already it was a scene of complete chaos! The folks in charge had already pulled a couple of all-nighters and were relying on a constant stream of coffee and donuts to keep moving. Bless their wired and stressed-out hearts.

This gentleman belonged to our town’s most prestigious citizen. She was there for the flag raising as I suppose she is every year.

While a group of elderly vets struggled to raise the flag, I watched a girl in a tree next to the flag pole.

“Look at me person!” she said. And then she disappeared. Or did she?

Can you see her? She’s almost as high as the top of the flag post (upper right).

If I zoom in you can see her now. Wood Nymph! That’s what she was. Once up there, she would not come down. Unlike the flag. The vets got it up once, poised for photos and then wandered off in search of the pancake breakfast provided by the Cub Scouts. Next thing we knew, it crashed to the ground. Luckily the Search and Rescue team had a booth nearby.

Here are some other snaps of the actual parade.

A group called The “Funeral Band,” I think. It was hard to hear the announcements over the din of the crowd. Plus, the announcer himself must have been 200 years old.

Also part of the Funeral Band.

This young lady knew how to dress for the occasion.

As does she!

Hopefully this was not the Funeral Band!

“Okay. I’ll pose. But only because this is so boring.”

Poor old Lady Liberty teetering on stilts. Bless her heart. Bless all our hearts.

Dog Daze: Repost from 2013

JT Twissel 9 Comments

My very first Fourth of July post . . .

On the Fourth of July we always walk downtown for the parade with our neighbors and their dog.  Our neighbors have the coolest dog in the world.  If he were a human he would be Cary Grant – suave and sexy but with a playful side.  

With his golden, slightly curly (and very soft!) fur, he charms all the lady dogs and the young studs too but steers clear of German Shepherds.

Be careful confronting a German Shepherd; he could be either a Jimmy Stewart or a Mike Tyson.

Dogs
An odd couple waiting for the parade

Like Cary Grant, our neighbor’s dog doesn’t approve of exercising in the heat and often wrapped his silky body at my feet in the shade.

Before they fell in love with Cary Grant the neighbors had a black dog, not sure what breed, who they called Toby.  One day Toby came up for a visit.  When I said “Hi Toby!”  he glared at me.  “My name is Jack,” he said.  Well, not in so many words but with that look dogs’ll give you when they think you’re a nitwit. Toby’s human equivalent would have been Humphrey Bogart, mysterious but trustworthy, a hopeless romantic with a cynical shell.


“Must I really prance around in this get-up?”

At the time the neighbors had Toby/Jack I had a dog named Berna, short for Bernadette.  She was a shelty-beagle mix I found on the bottom of a heap of pups at the pound.  Her siblings had more energy and looked much more eager to be rescued but I’ve always cheered the underdog and in this case, the bottom of the heap dog.  She puked and pooped all the way home.  She always stank.  She couldn’t be car trained or trained at all for that matter.  She’d run onto freeways, get her head stuck in Costco sized mayonnaise jars and dig up every living thing I tried to plant in the back yard.  But her crowning achievement was a spot on a Channel 7 news story  exposing the water wasters of the East Bay (this is a long story which illustrates the depths of depravity a film crew will go to get a  scoop). Guard dog, she was not.  Bay at the moon dog, she was.  Escape artist, par excellence.  When I put my house on the market the first agent scowled “get rid of the dog.  You’ll never sell this house with her in it.”  I got rid of the agent.

Anyway – enough about dogs. When I started blogging I resolved to leave politics, grandchildren and dogs off my list of subjects and here I’ve gone and broken my vows. Nevermore, I swear.

DixieDevils
Can’t have a parade without a jazz band on a flat–bed truck!

The next best thing about the Fourth is how it brings out the rebel in all of us.  Who doesn’t love marching down Main Street in a happy riot of fellow citizens, for a few hours, owning the streets.  What a sense of freedom it is.

Girl in hat watching parade.

The Girl with the Flag in her Hair #July2014

JT Twissel 12 Comments
Hats
Family waiting for the parade.

I live in a town only large enough to support one grocery store but we do have a  library and a community center and on the Fourth of July everyone comes out to play.  In the past our parades have consisted primarily of the boy scouts and brownies, swim and football teams, the city council and anyone running for office, every classic car in town, kids on tricycles, local war heroes, high school marching bands and lots of dogs, hot and otherwise.

But things are a-changing…

Seuss
Cast from Seussical

This year we had the characters from the musical Seussical grooving in brightly colored costumes to raga tunes.

Horse

And a horse drawn carriage…

I think they were sponsored by one of the banks and not Coors but just seeing them made me crave a beer.

BeardedGuy
Member of the cast of Dracul

The tiny theatrical group in town, which puts on mostly murder mysteries in an outdoor theater also marched – in costume, of course.

Not new, but always entertaining, was the juggler who rode a unicycle in the parade and then entertained the children at the local park while their parents drank beer and listened to a jazz band.

Having as much fun as the kids he's entertaining!
The Juggler

He appeared to be having as much fun as the kids.

StiltLady

New, and probably the most unusual of the participants, was the Stilt Lady, dancing a Brazilian rumba.  I’m afraid of heights so she terrified me.

When I first moved to this area over twenty years ago there weren’t that many “people of color” in the parade, however, as my neighbor noted, that is changing as is the town. It’s a good thing to see.

IrishGirl
Girl with the Flag in her braid and hubby

On the way home Hubby and I stopped at the local Mexican restaurant for margaritas and to watch the World Cup.  Our waitress had an American flag sticking out of her French braid and spoke with a such a strong accent naturally we had to start up a conversation with her.  It happened to be her very first Fourth of July as an American citizen, having migrated from Northern Ireland.  Now, I don’t like what’s happening in this country – all the hatred and division.  Some days I’m so fearful of the future I’m tempted to migrate elsewhere but she had such a glow about her that I decided not to ruin the day with politics.  Even my hubby held his tongue.  It was, after all, the Fourth.

 

I was about to cancel and then I watched this movie #Netflix

JT Twissel 18 Comments

I was about to cancel my Netflix subscription because I’m getting damn tired of watching dark crime shows where everybody mumbles and everybody gets naked and sweats and groans all over everybody else. Everybody struggles against the evil but it doesn’t matter because everybody knows the bad guys are going to win in the end . . . unless some zombie comes along and eats them all. Well, I exaggerate, but only slightly.

And then I happened onto this movie:

It hadn’t been promoted by Netflix at all and so I had no idea what it was about. Ignorance of the subject matter turned out to be a good thing. I’ve watched far too many movies about the Nazis and WWII. If I’d known the subject matter, I probably would have passed.

However this movie is different. We’ve all been in situations where we know we could have done more to right a wrong, but didn’t. Either we were afraid for our physical safety or we needed to keep our jobs or we felt helpless, believing it wouldn’t matter what we did. Nothing would change.

We’re not alone. It’s a perfectly human response, particularly during paranoid times. The thing is, that extra step doesn’t have to be a big one. Sometimes it’s just a matter of doing your job properly. A tiny clog can bring down a powerful machine.

Anyway, the acting is superb. I watched it in Swedish and had no trouble understanding what was happening. Most notable was the actor playing Gösta Engzell, Henrik Dorsin. I read that in Sweden he’s considered more a comedian, singer and revue artist than an actor. That was hard for me to believe!

One egg down #MourningDoves

JT Twissel 18 Comments

Not a good way to start a week. One small round egg smashed by the door.

I have no idea what happened; nor will the Mourning Dove ever be able to tell me. This morning, quite early, my husband said aloud “Who’s knocking at the door?” I’d been drifting in and out of sleep and hadn’t heard a thing.”You were dreaming,” I said. “No one is knocking at the door.”

Perhaps only in nightmares is the truth ever known.

He, or perhaps she, looks a little sadder, a little grayer this morning but perhaps it’s just me. I’ve never been good at handling the harsh realities of needing to eat to live which always means a sacrifice by the smaller and weaker.

Perhaps I will sleep on the porch tonight. Think that would help?

I hope your week has started off a lot brighter than mine.

An update from the nest #MourningDoves

JT Twissel 28 Comments

I have no idea when Mama Mourning Dove laid her eggs. I first noticed that the nest (which someone had begun to build at the end of April) had occupants on June 7 while I was still preoccupied with other guests. And, as you can see from the following shots, the nest is not easy to spot.

Entering the house. Can you spot the nest?

She could have been for who-knows-how-long, silently tending her eggs.

Exiting the house. How about now? Can you see it?

According to AI, it could take up to 15 days for the eggs to hatch and then another 12 to 19 days for the baby birds to fly away. There will probably only be two baby birdies, if we’re lucky. If we can help protect the nest from predators. Like raccoons and squirrels.

I was worried about the poor mother bird because she never seemed to leave her nest. Was she getting enough food and water? And then I read that both mother and father mourning dove tend to the nest and . . . to their offspring. So perhaps Mother takes the day shift and Dad the night shift?

Or I could have the process in reverse. Does anyone know how to tell a male mourning dove from a female?

From 2024 – perhaps the grandparents to be?