Yesterday I took a break from beating my novel to death to take a walk around the nearby reservoir. Something I haven’t really done since the pandemic and my little whoopsy on the kitchen floor. I wasn’t expecting to run into any interesting doors but what do you know …

How could I resist adding this gem to the pantheon of beautiful doors? I don’t know what sort of high tech gizmo this outhouse uses but I guess unless you close the lid, the smells don’t get vented out. Don’t ask me where they vent to. I don’t wanna know!

And from the local news (a requiem for the family farm):

A group of multi-billionaires here in California have proposed building a utopian city on land between the San Francisco bay area and the rapidly expanding Sacramento metropolitan area. Their efforts to keep the project hush-hush have apparently backfired.

When I was a child that area was famous for fruit and almond orchards. We would stop on our annual pilgrimage from Reno to San Francisco at a place called the Nut Tree (satirized above as Wealthy Nuts Tree) and load up on all kinds of local goodies. Sadly many of those family farms are now gone.

Also in the ridiculous news from the west, this:

For those wealthy, well educated (mostly white) folk who’ve tired of luxury vacations on tropical islands, what better way to blow thousands of dollars than to buy an expensive RV and load it up with generators and supplies and head for Hell on Earth Nevada to live like a druid? A disclaimer: I have never been to Burning Man but I have actually camped in the desert sans generators, fancy tents and prepackaged meals. So I guess I’m unimpressed by their claims to have found enlightenment in the wilderness. I only recall insect bites, dust storms and a whole lot of canned beans and dried fruit. Enlightenment was getting home and into a hot bath.

Once again, I have strayed from the spirit of Thursday doors …. check out other doors from around the world at Dan Anton’s place. I guarantee, there are always more beauties than stinkers!

I was going to post this photo for Hugh’s #WordlessWednesday challenge, however, there are words in my picture! What a cheater I would be! I walk past this church whenever I go to the grocery store (which is unfortunately often). I may just have to zoom into this Sunday’s sermon.

The word “woke” has come to mean people and policies that are too focused on changing society for the better. The theory is the more “woke” people and policies become, the faster the United States will decline into a cesspool. Dogs and cats living together. You get the picture.

True, there are people who go overboard with political correctness. Here in California the homeless are now called the “unhoused.” If I were living on the streets I wouldn’t care if people called me homeless or unhoused. I think I’d have more important things to worry about. But to say that you don’t want a society that’s more empathetic and inclusive is the direct opposite of spiritual awakening. So it will be interesting to see what the reverend says about the two.

It will also be interesting to see how many of the Republican candidates in the presidential debate this evening will throw around the word “woke.” I’m currently fighting off a stomach bug (yeah, I’m full of complaints these days) so I will be watching and counting.

The same boiling water that softens the potato, hardens the egg. It’s about what you are made of and not the circumstances.

Soul Living

I took a walk the other day and ran into this mural on the door of a utility box. If you’ve ever wondered what happened to unicorns, well apparently they’ve fled to the Secret Ocean! Probably via that green UFO!

I had a hard time getting a clear shot because of its location. And also because of the bright sunlight!

Another utility box – this one in a more hospitable location (at least for photo taking.)

I’ve been in funk lately for a variety of reasons: a summer cold I can’t seem to shake, a garage that needed cleaning out about twenty years ago, and a lack of inspiration. As a friend of mine wrote, I’ve been thinking of putting writing on my list of things I used to do.

And then I found a birthday card a friend sent me long ago, during a particularly rough patch.

The “novel” she was talking about was just a rough draft back then. I did finally finish and publish the darned thing (unfortunately just after her passing) but was never happy with it. But now I think I know why. So I guess you could say, her note was my door for the week.

Check out other (presumably legit) Thursday doors at Dan Antion’s cool hangout.

Woke up to some devastating news about a very special place …

Lahaina Town used to be such a kick. An old whaler’s village with all kinds of vendors and a giant banyan tree. Over the years I’m sure it’s probably gotten be an expensive tourist trap but still, what a blow.

In case you’ve missed the news, much of the Hawaiian island of Maui is on fire with Lahaina Town seeming to get the worst of it.

It’s been over a month since my nephew drank himself to death. Whether or not it was an intentional act, we’ll never know. I can’t say that the pain is gone but yesterday I watched the movie The Whale while cleaning up after a family get together and this morning I woke up feeling freed from that awful doubt.

Spoiler Alert! Please stop reading here if you’re looking forward to seeing this movie and want the ending to be a surprise.

I didn’t know much about the plot, other than it was about an obese man. Were it a Disney flick, the obese man would be inspired by the love of a selfless woman to lose all that weight, take up jogging and live happily ever after. But, it’s not a Disney flick. And the whale the title refers to is not a grotesquely obese man. It’s this book:

The unabridged edition of Moby Dick or The Whale contains a whopping 135 chapters plus an Epilogue. Many of the chapters are considered extraneous blubber, unless, of course, you’re a Melville scholar. Even then, what meaning can even the most dedicated scholar extract from “Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes” or “The Right Whale’s Head – Contrasted View”?

So why did Herman Melville write so many chapters that did not enhance his plot? It goes against all the writing advice I’ve ever received. In fact, the obese man teaches an online writing course in which he advises his students about proper paragraph structure and the need to constantly edit in order to clearly communicate their message. In other words, how not to fill their compositions with useless blubber.

Then, thanks to his daughter’s eighth grade essay, he has a revelation. I won’t give it away in case you do decide to watch the movie. Would I recommend it? Yikes. It helped me realize that people who do anything to excess are trying to fill a void that can’t be filled by stuff. But otherwise, it’s an unsettling way to spend an afternoon. Good acting though.

I’m still struggling with a dark moon but I have to admire the brave hearts of these wildflowers.

I believe this flower is called a Black Eyed Susan. In Michigan where I lived as a child they grew wild everywhere, along the roads and in the fields, and they looked fearsome and brave. But growing from a shallow pot, they look fragile.

I feel like this bashful daisy; not quite ready to show her face to the world.

But she got over it. I suppose I will too.

We’ve been having unusual weather for this time of year (in this part of the world.) It’s been hot and dry. Not nearly as hot and dry as other parts of the world but generally our hot dry days coincide with the end of summer and not the middle. God knows what will happen when our summer arrives, sometime in late September.

Heat waves always leave me woefully uninspired to do much of anything. And so I binge-watched the first season of Foyle’s War, a BBC murder mystery series that ran from 2002-2015.

The series was set in the early 1940s in Hastings England. The country is expecting an invasion at any moment and the British are split between those who want to surrender and try to work out a good deal for themselves with the Nazis and those who feel the defense of England is the only thing that will save the world from fascism. Sound familiar? Enter our hero, Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle, a widower who had recently retired but, like so many of his countrymen, he has been called up for service to King and Country.

At first Foyle tries to transfer to a more important job than solving murders during a time of war, but then he realizes what is happening beneath the surface in the manor houses and quaint villages of his country. In many ways, the invasion had already begun.

Anyway, it’s a well-written and acted series. British aristocrats and wealthy Americans are greedy, no good bastards (at least so far in the series) but what’s new? There’s a sense that, once the war is over, life will return to normal. I guess that’s something we all have to believe.