Music soothes the savage beast.

 

Here we are, entering another season, but that is a lie.  Winter and summer will merge into spring, and be stinkin' hot. Autumn has promise, but not in our part of the hot desert here, it is a wish and a dream.

This really irritates me. It seems that we are melting into a puddle of sweat in this heat. When the A/C goes out, we all stand in front of the 'fridge, holding a glass of ice and wonder if this will ever end. Weather  blasts and tortures beyond reason. 

Music always provides an escape in a troubled time.

The following piano videos have Emilio Piano and Ray Chen, both amazing musicians.  When they play together, I just lean back and enjoy. Other musicians seen know when and where Emilio will be and show up, ready to join the piano.

And then, there is an AGT audition by a young man, singing Come Jesus Come. This really affects Simon.

The best of all, there is a 3 year old girl singing a Celine Dion song. Smiles all around. A 14 yr. old girl asks if she could sing along with him, and she was a surprise.

 

Showing this many videos of musicians is over kill I realize.  But, it is what I needed to write this day. But that is a story for another day.  Sooo, just enjoy. 

That is what I am doing.

 

 

Age of Illumination

A moment of understanding

Bella believed she had reached an age of illumination while riding home in a raucous school bus.  Ah ha! Now life all makes sense!

At her age of 16, Bella viewed events with profound insight. Of course!  Wild fires are results of droughts!  Children are monsters because their parents are idiots! Ice cream melts when it gets left on the counter unattended!

Walking home with her insipid brothers, another profound thought occurred. My brothers’ favorite past time is teasing me.  I hope they develop massive face-covering case of pimples, and wish they could die when they are old and fat.

Now Bella thought how she could discover more moments of understanding, quickly.  Time to strike when the next teasing event happens.

The above underlined words are from Elephant's Child. Words can be obtained from her site.  Check out what other bloggers have done with them.

 

This is a wonderful writing experience created by Delores  who challenged bloggers to break out of their genre and try something for a break.  Over time, other bloggers have provided words of their own.  Please go to above site, and post your own thoughts in comment section or at your own site. 

 

follow the cold wind

 

Winter Winds, Chopin, Pentatonix

 

Last rays of sunset

Lace through bare trees.

As light fades, a chill wind blows.

Swirls fallen crumbled leaves,

Once so bright and drifting

With a dancer’s flourish.

In darkness, the clouds roll back

As a scroll of gray and black. 

The reigns of summer and autumn

No longer tower and burn.

Midnight reveals

A treasure chest of winter:

Ice and snow prepared

To lay a frozen ruin to the land.

 

  https://youtu.be/pHlqEvAwdVc

 

Wednesday Words, from 2012. We bloggers are blessed. to be surrounded by so much talent. We have been roasted by high temperatures for the past month.  I would like to have some cool weather.  Not cold, mind you. Just cool.

The AxMan survives.

 

Snow fell with a vengeance.  Indoors, forester "AxMan" Clement thought about the loaded supplies, ready to last for two calendar weeks. He looked at the snow, Clement made the decision and opened the door.  “I’m going out to get the milk and doughnuts, honey!” Pregnancy demands, husband obeys.

Clement heard a familiar sound.  He looked up, just in time to witness a potential tragedy.

Top of the tree swayed, as if undecided, out of balance.   The "AxMan" below nervously ran away.  Success is when an AxMan survives.

These are Wednesday Words from long ago. are from there. I am guessing this was back in 2013 or so. 

source

 

 

             

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you walk through fire, I will be with you...

I will read ashes for you, if you ask me. 

I will look on the fire and tell you from the gray lashes 

And out of the red and black tongues and stripes, 

I will tell how fire comes 

And how fire runs far as the sea
.

By Carl Sandburg

Fire all throughout the Southwest--it is burning, eating and consuming every single thing in its way.

from a distance

Residents are looking back at the fire, as they drive away with just clothes and photos.

From YouTube site

Dry dry air, heavy and suffocating.  Sun scorching burnt earth, 100 degrees or more. Tinder dry vegetation, ready to burn.

Oh, God!  Please protect the firefighters!  

Oh, God! Bless families whose homes are burned to the ground!

Every summer, I post about wildfires.  Last year, we could see the flames from our house. One year at a school where I taught, ashes covered playground and swings from a fire 25 miles away.

The photos below were taken from my porch.

From my front door during the day....

Homeless in San Diego

 

  

Homeless in San Diego CA

A newspaper article on “Homeless in San Diego” wrote an article that included her. Named her Delores or Doris, something like that.  Saw her every day, going and coming to work or home.  Driving by, seeing her, wondering day after day, who she was.

Ragged woman…in dirty army fatigues, worn out fatigues.  Long ratty gray hair, wrinkled hands, couldn’t see her face but once when she shook the dirty mass back to tie up with a red bandanna.  

Her face, well, her face. Must have been beautiful sometime, beauty was still there, hidden with wrinkles, dirt, frown, lines…fine bones. Fine hands, long legs.  

Sometime maybe thirty, forty years ago, now ragged worn out. 

Doris pushed her shopping cart up Washington over to Broadway, back again. 

I've watched Doris for two years maybe. Each day she stretched out skinny arms, pushed heavy cart, had sleeping bag, pieces of junk, where she slept was a mystery Sometimes I could see her curled up in a corner of empty supermarket, sometimes behind garbage bin. 

Didn’t know what she ate Tried to give her money a few times she swore at me, walked away, pride maybe. 

Winter and rain, saw less and less, just glimpses of her, there under overhangs or trees.  Then, one day, the next next next, Doris wasn’t there.  Never saw her again.

Wonder what, where, when.  Doris went somewhere.

 

 Place of help and shelter

  

I wonder where these people went. Why does this  man have such a huge load of his collection?

 

I married a brilliant man, no common sense, but brilliant.

 

My husband John is a brilliant man, one of those rocket-scientist types.  We talk about asteroids and volcanoes.  He will watch a DVD on math and calculus for fun.

But, God love him, he has that selective memory many smart men have.  They know about physics and the elements table, but cannot remember where they left the car keys or how to set the sprinkler system.  

I had to go out, and during that time, John had to call an electrician. The man found the source of the problem, which was in my writing room.  To allow access to the outlets, John cleared away all sorts of folders, binders, and assorted works-in-process.

Consequently, I had been searching for stuff for days.  Most important among those items was the Christmas cantata music our choir was practicing.  

 Man.  I tore apart every possible spot, every logical location that he might have placed my music tote bag. 

Huzzah.  That which was lost has been found.  John put the tote bag in with all the other re-usable totes we keep, in a dark corner in the kitchen. 

His response when I found it?  “Really?!  In that corner?  That’s really funny!”

Funny?  Not funny.  However, John lives to teach another day. A + B, all the way. As a D + C person, I will try to choose something from my traits that can handle the A+B.

                                  

 

 Four quadrants of the brain

 

Guess which quadrants fit you?  Where do you think I would

find my comfort zone?

 

 

The Best in the New World

 

                                       Coffee and Chocolate

 Chocolate: Say the word and watch the heads nod.  Coffee/caffeine: Would you like a cup of coffee? and heads will nod again.

Why is there such strong connections to such appreciation?

Theobromine* is basically in both coffee and chocolate. It has something to do with taming the alkaloids.  Note the two differences in the molecular formula.

Theobromides in Chocolate

Chocolate= C7 H8 N4 O2  Caffeine= C8 H10 N4 O2

Chocolate and Caffeine are close cousins, if not siblings.  God created both. Both came from the New World. God meant for man to consume them. How much, He did not say. Go out now! Buy some. 

Now, for some tea, a gift from the Far East. 

Tea= C10 H12 O5 Ca N2 Na2 2H2O

How to make a perfect cup of English tea

 

I have NO idea what all the above means. Do not believe for one moment all these numbers and elements that I know how to read them. My husband can, but was not interested.

 

The upshot of this is that the plants in this world are amazing.

Note for tea drinkers: the molecular formula is much more complicated, as it contains so many variations, with unique and delightful stuff in it. All the variations make no sense to me either.

*Go to this site. It is about a 13 year student in England who worked this out.

 This is a post from 2015, I think.

 

Aunt Tilly and her passing

 

The coffin of Great Aunt Tilly lay in state in the funeral home, surrounded by family, who mourned her passing.  Whispering between themselves, their depth of sorrow was on display.  

She was quite the grand personality…Well, she was one stingy b…When Tilly entered the room, who could ignore her?…she was evil, downright ev…she was the best mother…

No one could say with certainty when the door creaked open and a slow dense fog rolled in along the floor.  No one could describe how the temperature fluctuated between cold and colder.

Screaming, all stampeded from the funeral home to their cars and roared away.

Andrew Jones, the undertaker, and his son Richard were speechless at first. Then Richard cleared his throat, “Well, you don’t see that every day.”

This is a post from Dec. 2015. The underlined words come from Wednesday Words from that time.These were provided by River. The problem of using words from an old post  is that  they can be peculiar.  River-driftingthroughlife@blogspot.com, Elephant'sChild at  myjustsostory.@blogspot.com.often provide some great words.

 

Where Home Once Was

 

Every October, the blog world is bedazzled by posts with autumn photos taken by the blogger her/himself.  It makes me hunger for and a little bit jealous of the world “back where” there is such a thing as autumn.

Here in Wildfire season in California, the fall colors don’t exist, except for a sweet gum tree that also sheds little spike balls. What I do have are photos taken in late October 2009 on a walk with my brother, Don.  The photos taken were put into an album to give as a Christmas present for my mother who was in fading and failing health.

So, here are some memories of Autumn and a small town, Pleasant Hill in Illinois in 2009:

An old house next to the bank

Mom's neighbor.  Mom could tell me who they are, who their parents were...

Small rental apartments next to the train track.  This

used to be a veterinarian office when I was young. 

A house near the local funeral home

After my father retired from farming, he visited with at the John Deere

store almost every day.  Sometimes he drove to another John Deere store to pick

up parts.  These was pre-computer ordering.

The Methodist Church (which is in the sidebar).  Young couples 

would meet on benches (out of sight) and talk/kiss.

This log house was saved and then moved to this site.  It dates back to 1820 

and across from Stark Nursery, where the first Delicious apples were

created by someone who brought up a "scion" from Kentucky which

was grafted and cross-pollinated.

This house was restored and is now occupied by some very hard working 

people whom my mom knew.  Yes, she could cite their lineage. We

stopped and peeked in the windows while it was still

under construction.  

 

Mom had no shame, and was friendly with everyone, who 

also knew her lineage.

Somewhere this road will come to an end, in Calhoun County

These are Autumn memories from a past shared by Mom, brother Don, and me. Our own roads roll on ahead, to some other place.