Category Posts

Summer Sunrise

JT Twissel 30 Comments

Like many people, I can no longer watch the news. I used to look forward to the weekly commentaries of Rachel Maddow and Fareed Zakaria but now even they seem stuck on reporting the same inexplicable erosion of sanity.

Our heatwave was broken early Sunday morning by the arrival of sub-tropical clouds. I tried to catch the symphony in the skies above but alas, iPhone cameras are still not up to task (or I really don’t know how to use them which is far more likely.)

Sunrises like this often remind me of the poem which begins a famous though often misused book:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The world was without form and void,
And darkness was upon the face of the deep,
And the Spirit of God was moving over
The face of the waters
And God saw the light was good:
And God separated the light from the darkness
God called the light Day,
And the darkness he called Night.
And there was evening
And there was morning, one day.

When I went to Sunday school we read stories from the Bible about how nice Jesus was, how brave David was, and how the Wise Men followed the star of Bethlehem to visit the baby Jesus who was lying in his crib surrounded by sheep and goats and chicken because Methodist Jesus was like a Disney heroine – all of the animals loved him. Being that it was a protestant church, we didn’t spend too much time on the miracles or the saints. Nor were we ever told we were going to Hell if we had unclean thoughts or doubted anything in the Bible. It was a pleasant hour of hearing stories followed by cookies and juice.

One good thing about the hot spell was this little guy! Generally we get too much fog for tomatoes to ripen properly. I also noticed that our one grapevine is making the effect to produce grapes.

I doubt this one cluster will produce a decent Merlot!

I don’t understand why anyone who’s read through most of the Bible can think it’s an instruction manual for good moral behavior. I don’t understand why they can’t respect it for what it is. But there are too many things I don’t understand. And so I’ll just focus on growing tomatoes.

PS: A while back I wrote about a memorial for a friend who spent the last twenty years of her life battling to save a piece of shoreline from oil refineries and Indian Gaming Casinos. For those who are interested, here is an update on that effort.

Parade pics

JT Twissel 30 Comments

Due to the heat, our small town parade was a bit subdued but still fun.

The Scouts
Old friends playing trumpets!
The stilt ladies.
A lively jazz band!
Marching to keep the creeks clean!

Not many political folks out … No cheers for the Biden float and no mention of the other side.

My kingdom for a green bean!

JT Twissel 15 Comments

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.

Soon to be tomatoes. Hopefully!

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.

Jalapenos

Well, it took a few years and the loss of hundreds of dollars (plants, dirt, fertilizer, etc.) until I gave up.

Eighty years ago

JT Twissel 21 Comments

Allied forces launched an attack on the Germans occupying France. Few expected them to succeed.

Omaha Beach circa 2005

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)

Dining room of our hotel in Grandcamp Maisy

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.

No Peeking #ThursdayDoors

JT Twissel 15 Comments

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

JT Twissel 26 Comments

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?

We had another visit from the raccoon. This time I could clearly see that she’s a lactating mama.

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?