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.

When I was a child I spoke with a lisp. I spoke early and often … to the pigs in their pens, the guard dogs on leases, the chickens running free and sometimes to the elderly aunties shelling peas in their gardens.

Much to my parent’s mortification.

They didn’t have a lot of money but they couldn’t abide raising a chatterbox with a lisp in the time of perfect children. And so … at enormous expense … I was sent to a Speech Tutor. The poor man is a blur to me now but his influence over the way I speak and write is unmistakable. You see he was a proper Brit. And so … needless to say, I stuff my speech with useless phrases like “needless to say” and I have a tendency to say “rather” rather often. (Not that all Brits are fond of pleonasm but he was from a different generation than even my parents).

And don’t get me started on my tendency to alliterate. But what can you expect from a person forced to recite: “Peter Piper” over and over again:

I need to join the gang of Fixed Fairy Tales!

Many editors feel that all unnecessary phrases and words should be eliminated but I like “burning fire” and “dark of night.” And you have to admit (or you don’t) that “I saw with my own eyes” is a lot stronger than “I saw.”

Thanks to all of you who sent your love following the death of my nephew. It’s been a hard couple of weeks for many reasons but I’m finally feeling something other than complete exhaustion. Yes, “complete” is unnecessary but fits the bill.

It’s hard to slow a fast heart
One that gallops on ahead of reason
And routine

And dies alone on motel tile
The why … you’ll never know

Here in California there are two main routes to get from the northern part of state to the southern tip. There’s the straight and boring Interstate 5 which is generally filled with semis and cars driving much too fast and there’s the 101 that meanders through the Salinas Valley and then along the coast. The coastal route is, of course, the slower way to go but we generally make it a two day drive. Stop along the coast and then hit LA midday to avoid the traffic.

However this has been an amazing year for the Central Valley. There has been so much snow in the Southern Sierra and rain in the valley that a lake not seen for decades has reappeared.

The artist Wayne Thiebaud painted many pictures of the Central Valley.

I must admit that I’ve never seen that much color in the valley but we’ll see. Generally the only thing that breaks the monotony of mile after mile of flat, dry farmland is the feed lot at Harris Ranch. Cows in holding pens waiting for the slaughterhouse. Thousands of cows mooing pathetically. Ugh.

And then there’s the 405 across LA. There are parts of Los Angeles that are beautiful. Perhaps even heavenly but this is generally the view you get. For two hours on a good day.

Anyway – I’m hoping to see what Thiebaud saw on our drive tomorrow but we’ll see!

I haven’t much to say today because I’ve been busy cloud dancing, at least in my mind. To me, it’s far healthier than watching the news.

This year Winter rarely took a break to give us a peak at Spring. Selfish old Winter just held on and on and I’m glad that he did. Here in California we needed the water and we needed the cool temps to stay around and slow the thaw of all that snow in the mountains.

Some afternoons there are a thousand things I should be doing but the clouds are so bewitching that often the tasks of the day must line up and wait.

I suppose Miss Summer will arrive by and by. Probably in September. Until then I must remember not to stare up at the clouds.

My cousin has lived his entire life in a tiny town in Massachusetts. He’d only been out of that state a few times before he came to visit us in California. At the time (a dozen years ago) I enjoyed giving folks tours of San Francisco. The first day, we would drive over Bay Bridge, have tea at the Japanese Tea Gardens, lunch at the Cliff House and then drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to end the day in Sausalito.

On the second day we would take the BART to the Powell Street station and grab a trolley over the steep hills to Fisherman’s Wharf.

On the second day of my cousin’s visit he confessed that he really wanted to see the Haight Ashbury district instead of Fisherman’s Wharf. I could have told him that area’s not what it was back in the hippie days of yore but I figured he probably just wanted to tell his buddies back home that he’d been there.

We had to take a city bus that passed through many iconic SF neighborhoods all filled with people going about their business on a sunny day. After several blocks, my cousin turned to me and asked “Where are all the gays?” I guess he thought that there were no straight people left in San Francisco and that gay men dressed like this every day.

He certainly didn’t mean it in any way negative. If there’s one person on earth who doesn’t judge others, it’s my cousin. He’s spent too much of his life branded as hopeless to ever judge another human being. He’d just gotten the idea from the media that San Francisco was a human zoo filled with zoned-out hippies and flaming drag queens roaming the streets for the amusement of out of town visitors. Instead he saw businessmen in suits and families out and about. Even a straight couple here and there holding hands.

I can understand my cousin’s misconceptions but I can’t understand politicians who should know better promoting the conspiracy theory that drag queens are out to indoctrinate the children of America. Drag queens have been around for a long long time and except for the most radical right wing evangelicals, politicians haven’t put them in jeopardy for the sake of sound bite on Fox News. Until now.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were recently uninvited from an award ceremony meant to honor their charitable work. The reason? Influential people complained that they mocked the Catholic Church. Really? Sister Anita Blowjob and Sister Gladass? Nooo. Say it ain’t so. Here’s the thing, this group was founded in 1979 at a time when the Catholic Church shunned gays and people with AIDS. They were all going to hell. I volunteered for Make-a-Wish around that time and have seen first hand how the parents of children with AIDS … through no fault of their own … were treated by churches and communities. So sign me up Sister Irma Geddon and Sister Gard N O’Pansies. I’ll be Sister Know P’nis but Who Cares.

By the way, groups of Catholic nuns familiar with the work of the Sisters spoke up and now they will get their reward and an apology from the pansy asses who uninvited them.

I have to admit that I’ve been depressed lately. Nothing personal. Just the general state of the world. So when a lovely lady I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for many years posted this video of the students at her middle school (I believe she is the vice principal), my hope level went through the roof.

I hope these kids know how lucky they are! My junior high school days were more like prison. Enjoy! And I dare you not to smile.