Category Posts
My kingdom for a green bean!
When we first moved into this house there was a vegetable garden in the backyard with several varieties of tomatoes and sugar peas and cucumbers. Probably a few other veggies too but it’s been a long time and so I can’t remember. Besides the vegetable garden, the previous owner had an iris garden and a lavender patch. Her gardens were what sold me on the house. But you know, gardens take a lot of work. Unless, of course, you’re lucky enough to have a good gardener and not a mow and blow operation.
The next year I attempted to grow a vegetable garden with what little time I had between raising children, working and volunteering. And occasionally trying to write a story or paint a picture.
Alas, the green beans were inedible and various garden pests – rats, moles, snakes, squirrels, birds – took care of the other veggies. The moles were the worst because they eat the roots of the plants.
Well, it took a few years and the loss of hundreds of dollars (plants, dirt, fertilizer, etc.) until I gave up.
Abstract #WordlessWednesday
Just a square patch of squares hit by the neighbor’s sprinkler at dawn – for Hugh’s #WordlessWednesday event.
Life is Long
Dear Duke, Thank you for submitting to The New Yorker. Although we won’t be carrying your work in the magazine, we are grateful for the opportunity …
Life is Long
Eighty years ago
Allied forces launched an attack on the Germans occupying France. Few expected them to succeed.
Above are the remnants of temporary ports known as Mulberry harbors. Some are on the beach; others are floating in the breakwater. They were used during the D-day invasion on June 6, 1944 but were badly damaged in a violent storm later in the month. When we visited Normandy in 2005 I wasn’t that interested in military history so they could have been “bombardons” or “phoenixes” which also provided landing ramps for troops and equipment. But they definitely weren’t “gooseberries” or “corncobs” – ships scuttled for use as breakwaters. (My husband, as you might have guessed, is a WWII buff)
The French have left these remnants on the beach as a reminder, knowing that it’s impossible to stand on this beach without feeling overwhelmed.
To the south of Omaha is Pointe du Hoc, a cliff that rises 90 feet straight out of the water, or so it seems. On this day, eighty years ago, Rudder’s Rangers used climbing equipment and, with heavy weapons on their backs, assaulted this cliff. We found a painting depicting this scene in the dining room of our hotel in Grandcamp Maisy (which isn’t a campground but a charming fishing village with views not only of Pointe du Hoc of but the Contentin Peninsula)
I wished I’d had the good sense to ask the name of the artist but we had such a busy schedule that I never had the chance.
We tried visiting the remnants of the German bunkers on the top of Pointe du Hoc but it was raining like crazy and thus hard to get any good pictures. I can tell you, the craters left by the bombing on June 6, 1944 are still there.
Above is a place we visited on a cloudy day. It is the immaculately cared for American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer. Another place that will leave you breathless.
Eighty years ago. June 6, 1944.
How large am I? #WordlessWednesday
For #WordlessWednesday Let your picture tell a story.
No Peeking #ThursdayDoors
Tomorrow night is the premiere of the The Orinda Starlight Player’s production of The Spider’s Web.
Guess what? They’ve decided to keep the final set design a surprise! Probably a good idea as it is a play about a murder mystery!
But I did find one uncovered door. Below is the “hidden door” that the murderer uses to access his victim. Per the synopsis, it is a play about hidden doors and secret drawers with a protagonist no one believes (she likes to tell wild tales).
Anyway, it is one of Agatha Christie’s longest running plays. But the final set design – well, we’ll have to wait until the Sunday matinee!
Check out other doors at Dan’s place!
Hello Stranger
A friend of mine invited me to a “Postcard Party.” The purpose of the party was to write postcards to voters in battleground states urging them to vote. I’ve never gotten a personalized postcard from a stranger asking me to vote one way or another and so I was extremely curious. What does one say?
How about:
Dear Stranger:
I’m an old lady now; hell, even my kids are kicking middle age (all five of them). I know what it’s like to be a single mom with bills she can’t pay and, through my work with the Make-a-Wish foundation, I’ve seen how quickly a family’s world can fall apart because of a medical catastrophe. For those reasons, I urge you to vote with compassion in your heart.
Of course I might be writing to someone who feels it’s compassionate to shoot puppies you don’t like! Maybe I should appeal to their pocketbooks.
Dear Stranger:
I’ve been earning my own lunch money since I was eleven. At sixteen I got my first paycheck. The amount was not what I expected but what I could I do? I needed that steady paycheck. I remember thinking I wasn’t going to need social security or medicare because I was going to be filthy rich. Well guess what? It didn’t happen and now I’m horrified that some politicians have been talking about ending either program. Or cutting them.
But it turns out, I worried for nothing. The organizers had boilerplate text ready for us to just copy onto postcards. But not in cursive. It seems many younger people were not taught to read cursive. Anyway, it was a lovely day at the organizer’s lovely home with lovely people. It’s hard to believe that Amy Lauren will actually read my postcard and decide to request an absentee ballot. What do you think? Would getting a handwritten postcard from Jan the Volunteer get your attention or would it go right into the recycling?
Who’s in the watering can? #WordlessWednesday
NOOOOOOO!
Cowboy Willie’s Buckaroos
When I first met Pete Crosby it was hard for me to imagine him ever biking from Ventura California to Refugio Beach (68 miles) with Cowboy Willie to spend the night in a cow pasture. Even as a fifteen year old, self-described poor boy. The Pete I met was a successful Southern California businessman, casually though elegantly dressed, holding court with other prominent Cal and Stanford alumni in the private backroom of a funky seafood restaurant in Berkeley. But once he and the Cowboy started recanting their childhood adventures and their heady days in high school as the “Big Six” – well, everyone buckled in and prepared to be amused.
That was at least twenty-five years ago but already they’d had a lifetime together. True, their paths diverged wildly. Pete blamed the hippie movement for the death of his only brother and Cowboy Willie protested with the Black Panthers. But Pete was the sort of guy to always keep the old gang together no matter what.
Cowboy Willie took his passing hard.
But, he took Buckaroo Wayne’s passing even harder. “I loved that guy,” he said. And then he said no more.
Nothing we can do. Old friends leave and we go on. But there should be a law: No more than one buckaroo should be allowed to pass every year.
Saying nothing in particular 