Thursday, December 29, 2011

Beat the post-holiday (and beyond) blues

Choppers has a split second of post-holiday blues


Dogs bounce back from being down in the dumps fairly well. Other critters, not so much. Here's an off-the-top-of-my-head list of what to try when you need to pole vault back to chirrupy cheer.

#1: Pick one guilty pleasure. Indulge. Briefly.
I pile on the whipped cream.


For you, it might be a glass of wine or a shot of vodka. But the phrase "I need a drink" is absent of promise to me because alcohol disables my system like sugar in a gas tank. Which by the way is a myth, according to Google. Better to seek revenge by pouring water in your arch nemesis' tank. We have not strayed too far off-topic: revenge is a guilty pleasure.

But back to phrases that don't personally apply. Take "comfort food." I only wish I could take comfort in food. Maybe if my nose hadn't been put out of commission by Zicam nasal spray, I might occasionally wax poetic about some culinary obra maestra. See also: Why I won't blog about food.

It's whipped cream for me when I want to indulge, and none of this fat-free abomination, either. I order a daiquiri for the whipped cream, and the hubs polishes off the rest of the drink.

Since we've mentioned him, here's his guilty pleasure. I know of no other American so devoted to fruitcake. That missing half is all his handiwork in one sitting. He was so content after that he fell asleep on the couch at 7:30 p.m.

Random Tip #2: Seek the light. Just don't demand that it shine on you all the time.

This is obviously best done outdoors in daylight, but if you're a shadow-craving vampire like me, that wonderful invention called electricity is a godsend. Is it blasphemous to mention vampires and God in one sentence? Thirty wet noodle lashes.

When you're not constantly chasing the spotlight or worrying about whether the light flatters your complexion, you can better enjoy the beauty in other beings.


When we began walking for exercise, the hubs would get stressed about the fading light. "We only have an hour before sundown!" he'd say in a panic, forgetting he married a vampire who does my best work at night. To appease him, I tote the trusty point-and-shoot. That LCD screen is a marvelous thing. It works to calm a 58-year-old as well as a six-month-old grandfella. Husbands are just little boys whose outsides have grown bigger. Gotta love 'em.

The scarcity of light at night can be an opportunity for greater appreciation.


Indoor light can seem just as magical. You need to see it with the right eyes. Some days, a trip to this upscale grocery is no less transportive to me than a tour of a mansion for sale. My floors are never this polished, my light fixtures never this dusted. And the food samples are divine!


Store window displays are an excellent go-to source for escapist light. They're portals into a make-believe world. Much of marketing is making people believe, after all.

A personal blog functions like a store window. Sometimes I'm so into my own illuminated space in cyberspace I believe my own good-news press. It's not quite the same as being delusional; there's reason and intention in what I display.

It's the most effective antidote to the withering disdain tossed my way by certain folks of the bossy persuasion. They don't know me like I know me, and now like you know me. They don't know everything, they just talk like they do. Do you have people like that in your life? (Who doesn't?)

Perk-up Tip #3: Spot the whimsy.



This is the bottom of a garbage bag. It reminds me of the top of a circus tent. Even household chores hold surprises. I would advise peeking before the bag is filled with banana peels, egg shells and moldy cheese.


Seek in the everyday what philosopher Sam Keen called "release from the mundane—a winged existence." Seek it in the here and now.


When I was negotiating my last day job, a well-meaning acquaintance advised me to hold out for the most vacation time I could swing. I told him I would rather take steps to ensure I enjoyed each day on the new job than try to stockpile days to escape it.



That's a treehouse in the upper left picture. But so is the one on the right. It might be the most imaginative fire escape ever designed, serving an office building for no-nonsense professionals. To me it's a treehouse for grown-ups. I see it each time I park at my massage therapist's. I imagine how the privileged professionals might be using it in non-emergencies. Maybe they step out on the stairway for a cigarette break; maybe they tryst before clocking in. When that jungle vine is in bloom this spring I might hold a photo shoot within it featuring my etsy fairy garb. Peter Pan and the Lost Boys will join me in spirit. I will make it my treehouse in my way.


A few yards away is this Rapunzel turret. Just sitting in someone's back yard, not feeling out of place or time even though it's in the middle of downtown. You can pretty much spin any fairytale or horror scene around this. The lovely thing is you get to decide what it—and anything else for that matter—means to you. That's a luxury when you feel not much else is under your control. It's the feeling of helplessness that gets most people down.


Pithy Tip #4: Decide what it means to you.
"Assigning meaning is a human ability. It's usually exercised in snap decisions, first impressions, and unfortunately, gossip-mongering. Discovering true meaning is a function of the intellect working in harmony with the soul, usually over time."
Scrollwork, in Say What? The Malady of Malarky
So that was weird, quoting myself like that.
"You do not see things as they are; you see them as you are. Interpret your own experiences. All experiences are neutral. They have no meaning. You give them meaning by the way you choose to interpret them."

— Creativity expert Michael Michalko
Final Tip: You don't need nine lives. Just yours. Live it.


Pretty Kitty sitting pretty
When you compare your life to someone else's you're bound to favor the other person's. That's because we only see what's on display in the store window. But everybody suffers, Buddha taught, even those who seem to us to be richer, more educated, more privileged than we are.


This past year boosted me to the peak of contentment. I cannot remember having felt this grateful at any other time of my life. Yet the path that led me here began with a life-altering loss, a loss which has not been restored in the conventional sense.


Perhaps because contentment is so new to me, I had to ruin it with guilt ("I don't deserve to be so happy when there are so many people suffering.") I felt compelled to set up measures of progress and success, which I then downplayed as fleeting when I did achieve them. I let it get to me when I heard the hubby summarize my status to his friends as "so happy to stay home," as if my ballroom dance instruction, freelance editing, clothing design shop on etsy and amateur photography on flickr do not exist—do not, in fact, contribute substantially to my fulfillment, if not my pocketbook.


God always finds a way to snap me out of this uncharacteristic funk. A little perspective restores me. This time it came in the form of a reply to a comment I made on P.S. Jones' blog, Diary of a Mad Freelancer on Dec. 9.


She wrote, "I sometimes sit at my sewing machine and dream of having my own indie clothing line. You're living my not-so-secret dream."


By golly if that doesn't make me sit up and want to keep on keeping on!


How has this year treated you? Do you have a surefire way to catapult out of the doldrums? Share in the comments section!














Thursday, December 1, 2011

Warm and fuzzy, if you can dodge the spit

(Part 2 of Wherefore art thou, Whimsy? Part one here.)
It is good for the soul to seek out beings of an opposite disposition. It will keep the sediments of sameness from clouding your judgment. If you find a commonality between you, you have made your piece of the universe seamless.


Alpacas and I could not be more different, apart from the tendency toward curly locks. They congregate, I separate. They are curious and trusting, I am jaded and not easily swayed by a baby carrot. They tread lightly on their softly padded feet; I pound the ballroom floor on my callouses. I only hope it did their gentle souls as much good to be around me as it did me. We have whimsy in common, I think.
Alpaca with Ruff by Beaumont Studio.
She blogs at oliviabeaumont.blogspot.com
Either the arsenic in my apple juice is firing up my synapses or I am channeling the noble wisdom of alpacas.


At any rate, the hubs and I had entertained notions of retiring on acreage with alpacas some year. As I am wont to do, I sought to test the firmness of this mattress of dreams. So our caper in the Whimsymobile was navigated partly by caprice and partly by my Practical Inner Child Who Grew Up to be a Pro Fact-Checker.
Scrollwork Photography


The mistress of the alpaca concubinage summoned the males: "Boyzzzzz!" In a few minutes we were, as my sister likes to put it, "drowning in cuteness." I resisted the urge to cup each face in both hands and buss the nose. You could bury both hands in that coat and not see them for days. And those eyes! Puppy eyes have nothing on them.
Gang of Alpacas by jilliBird on etsy. See more of her work at Jillian's website


Five fun facts
Scrollwork Photography

  • It takes 11 1/2 months to make a baby alpaca. Imagine being hormonal for that long. It's a good thing alpacas hum. Omm...


From deaf.com
  • Almost every alpaca is registered like a car, using a blood sample as its "license plate." Makes me glad the Department of Motor Vehicles doesn't require my blood every time I buy a car.
  • Alpacas go to the bathroom together. If one goes to the poop pile, the rest get in line. I'm more impressed by the fact that they get in line. Where I grew up, humans didn't get in line to board public transportation; we elbowed everybody out of the way as best we could. Also, it might be hard to keep regular office hours when one gets the urge. But they're pack animals, not corporate critters. A rare case in which those two classifications do not overlap.
  • There are two kinds of alpaca, based on the coat: Dolce & Gabana and Goodwill thrift. Just kidding. The Huacaya ("wha-KAI-uh") have curly, fluffy fiber. The Suri ("SIR-ree") have long Rastafarian locks. Ya man.
  • They have no hooves and no upper teeth, which make them kinder on the soil and grass. But perhaps not so good as paid endorsers for toothpaste.
Bonus trivia

Q. What are alpacas doing when they are having an evening pronk?
A. Bouncing about like reindeer. Not what it sounded like, eh?

*These facts were from the kind folks at Silver Thunder Alpacas (which I have only visited online but where I have also felt welcomed.)


Sugar Maple by Michelle's Fiber Art on etsy
Alpaca fiber is touted to be warmer, stronger, softer, lighter than wool, and not itchy. It can be dyed just about any color. Possibly the only thing it cannot do is be spun into gold.




Our thanks to Lilly of the Valley Alpacas


The hubs was quite taken by a particularly affectionate one until the ranch mistress warned, "That one spits." This was taken the split-second before the hubs clamped his jaws shut and backed away.


Animals that spit: archer fish, spitting cobras, horny toads, llamas...and some alpacas. You wouldn't suspect that an animal giving off such a docile vibe would have it in him. Good on them for not being doormats. Maybe we have something in common after all.
How to guarantee that the alpaca you bring home does not spit
If you were an alpaca, would you be the spitting kind? Would you give up your upper teeth in exchange for those liquid pools they have for eyes? And are you now or have you ever been the kind to go to the ladies' room the instant one of your girlfriends heads that way?

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Wherefore art thou, Whimsy? Part 1

You look like you could use a dash of whimsy today. Put on your fluffy slippers and hop aboard the Whimsymobile.


As many readers noted after the previous post on my adventures in appendectomy, humor can be healing. Whimsy and humor are kissing cousins. Trust me.


Last weekend, to encourage more healing, the hubs and I went on a road trip in search of wonder. We went four miles down the road to an alpaca farm. We're such inveterate road warriors, I tell you.


Why are decrepit barns so danged photogenic?
Suburbia disappeared behind us as the road curved around vineyards, orchards, dairies and meadows. It may already be snowing where you live, but here in California's Central Valley, we are at the peak of blissful, lovely, clear days. Until Friday, anyway. Don't hate us; our gas prices are probably among the highest.


We pulled up and sprung from the Whimsymobile, ready for a petting frenzy. The sign said, "Open," but the gate stayed locked. The best we could manage was a glimpse through the fence. The herd came up to see if I had brought any food. I had imagined they'd be about the size of goats, but these were nearly my height (5'3"). A few let me pet them on the nose. They felt like plump pin cushions. The poor dears kept having to shake off the flies that buzzed around their big, beautiful eyes. Unlike a dairy, an alpaca ranch does not have unsightly poo cakes and the accompanying stench for a mile around.


Undeterred that a locked gate had foiled Plan Alpaca, we moved on to Plan B. There was a pomegranate orchard the next block over. The gate was open, and we crunched up the walk. 


I heard the barking before I saw the blur of fur coming at us. I was out the gate on winged feet before I dared look back. So much for a slow recovery from surgery!
Farmer Gordon called off the German Shepherd and asked me back in. I had assumed my husband was right behind me, but there he stood, back where I'd left him. Boy, did I feel like a ninny.


"I offered myself as sacrifice," the hubs said. Farmer G assured me Sissy likes girls and would be nice to me. "But you should never run," he scolded gently. I knew that. But I'd banked on my bionic legs more than counter-intuitive wisdom.


Look at that face. Who would suspect she has a fierce side? She came to me for a petting.


The hubs and Farmer G talked pomegranates while I poked about the place, Sissy keeping me company. They had pomegranates in front and a Christmas tree farm in back, with delightful spots to discover in between.




I had a gazing ball like this in my back yard once. Mine was cobalt blue. Gazing balls of lore were meant to ward off witches, supposedly from alarm at their own reflection. I was careless with the hose one day and knocked it off its stand. So far I haven't been beset with witches. Maybe the gnome population keeps the ecological balance.






Rose bushes flank a path that ushers you to the koi pond. Towering above the pond are sequoias and eucalyptus. Farmer G's wife, Lorraine, remarked on their age.


"We've been married 50 years, and these trees were here before we were married," she said.


Fandando, the resident rooster, and his ladies beat a hasty retreat into the chicken coop when Sissy showed off her rambunctious side again. Then she settled down in the sunshine.



By then, I'd grown quite fond of her and had forgiven her for the scare she gave me.


"Come back and chop down your own Christmas tree," Farmer G told us as we said goodbye. The hubs took his pomegranate loot and we hiked back to the car.


To think we've lived here some twenty years, driving past this place hundreds of times on our way to work, and never until now thinking to stop and be neighborly.


Next post, we return to the alpaca farm and actually get in!








Monday, November 7, 2011

When orange Jello was nectar of the gods


Hung out to dry. That's how I felt last week after I surrendered my appendix. It was all shredded anyway. Excuse me while I unkink my drainage tube. 

I had called the advice nurse that morning in case it wasn't just gas. They asked me to come in. I held my breath as instructed by a mechanical voice while my prone body slid into the CAT scanner.

Next thing I know, they had clad me in one of those bedsheet-soft gowns. It was three days before Halloween, and this year I came as a patient.

The ER nurse says, "For someone with acute appendicitis, you're sure smiley."
“I was dreaming about food,” I say.
“It’s always the skinny ones who do,” he replies, hooking up another bag to my IV. Bless his studly heart.

The admin staffer hands us a health care directive. My husband and I weigh how much decision-making power to assign him.

“You’re too young for that,” the nurse assures me. He is looking more studly by the minute. I tell him that’s a refreshing thing to hear, considering how all I’ve heard from the medical community since rounding the corner into my 40s is “for your age…”

But now I know why they call me the patient. I'd had nothing to eat all day. I couldn’t eat nor drink until the next day. This is unthinkable for someone who grazes every three hours and never fasts, no matter how spiritual I aspire to be, as I would only become cranky and start dry heaving.

I am patient. I wait serenely all afternoon and into the wee hours, eight more hours before the surgery department can take me.  My CAT scan had shown my appendix had "possibly" ruptured. They must figure the worst was behind me, and are shooting me full of antibiotics in the meantime. When they finally come to get me, I insist the husband go home and get some rest. He's recovering from hernia surgery. He kisses me goodbye but insists on waiting until after the operation. I remember being wheeled into the elevator, then suddenly waking up in recovery.

"I don't remember being in the OR," I say to a nurse.
"You didn't miss anything," she replies.

The clock says it's 2:30 a.m. I've been wheeled into a private room. A woman is in there with me. I presume she's a nurse. I jerk awake each time she asks a question.

"Full name? Verify your address...What is your biggest fear? What is your biggest need?"

Huh? I want to say that she ought to let me sleep and come back at a decent hour. But I am mysteriously acquiescent, like someone under hypnosis. This is out of character for me.

"My biggest fear is drowning. My biggest need is respect," I intone like a drone. I wonder if she should also ask if I were I tree, what tree I’d want to be.

Fade to black

So here's what was on the menu at Chez L'hôpital: 

Saturday
Breakfast:
Ice chips with a swab, and strict instructions not to drink the melted ice

Lunch:
Orange Jello

Dinner:
One bowl of clear chicken broth
One small box of juice
Jello

(I did a happy dance in my head. Sincerely.)

Sunday
Repeats of Day One's dinner

Monday
French toast for breakfast! Turkey croissant for lunch! Pork cutlets for dinner!
(I applaud each time a tray appears.)

What I enjoyed the most? That first scoop of orange Jello. Cool and heavenly on the taste buds. After that, though, I developed a metallic taste in my mouth that rendered all food uniformly blech.

There is a point to my dwelling on food. Sunday was a day of reckoning. Up to that point I had been stoic. The bobbleheadedness and exhaustion, the muscle twitching, the serious decline in grooming—I’d taken it all in stride.

They have shower caps now that let you shampoo in bed.

But then: Bladder blockage. Had they removed the catheter a day early? Studly Nurse No. 2 insists I get up and empty my bladder the old-fashioned way. I parcel out his commands thusly:

Get up. Involving actually moving legs, then raising my torso, while gripping both nurse and husband, and no longer caring that I am grunting and grimacing. The hospital gown starts slipping off, but when I observe this out loud, cool professional nurse says grimly, “We have bigger problems right now."

Empty bladder. I assume the position over the porcelain throne. Nothing. Chat with husband, pretend it’s business as usual. A slight trickle. I’m all for giving it more time, but I hear the nurse calling for backup. “We have a medical emergency.” Catheter time again. The first one went in when I was knocked out; this time I am wide awake, and worried.

“I’ve done this thousands of times,” Studly Nurse 2 assures me beforehand. “It takes five minutes to set up and five seconds to get in.” If only.

How detailed can I get? If you’re squeamish, skip this paragraph. Two more nurses assemble around the bed where I have been returned. Cold swabs, fingers stretching me down there, wrong entry, try again, break out new sterile kit, try different kind of catheter, grip hubby’s hand, blow-blow-blow like I’m giving birth, third time’s the charm. Catheter bag fills up in seconds as my pain recedes and the nurse remarks that the smile has come back to my face.

This picture tells the story better.
Studly Nurse #2 mentions he’s off the next day and gives me instructions. The feeling of abandoned kittenhood descends upon me. I try not to weep as I confide that I am worried about failing the catheter test, and the consequences for it.

“Worry about dinner. Then worry about brushing your teeth,” he imparts, among other thoughts. It does help to put it in food terms. Plus the fact that he introduced me to the nurse who would be taking over. She was sweet as molasses.

Next day they take the catheter out. They give me six hours to pee on my own or that damned catheter goes back in and I don’t get to go home. I decline all pain meds so that my insides might wake up and eliminate in earnest. The hospital’s assistant chaplain walks in and asks if I need prayer. Yes, I say conversationally, please pray that I pee and poo so I can go home today.

“I’ve never had anyone put it that specifically,” he says nonchalantly. He prays with my husband and me. Five minutes after he leaves I get the #2 part done. Check! Now I need the bladder to cooperate. I am not as confident about it.

We trudge around the hospital floor, my husband and I, willing my bladder awake. I find out much later the toll that pained stroll has taken on my soles: my massage therapist only has to touch them to make me yowl. He pronounces them “messed up.” I must’ve been curling my toes under.

We did make it home that night. They didn’t have to put the catheter back in. I wore a drain tube from the appendectomy site for a week, measuring the output each day and marveling at what my inside liquid looks like. Today, since the fluid level has declined, the wound care nurse pulled the tube out.

“First time anyone almost jumped off the table,” she remarked, as I giggled in relief and my husband uncovered his face.

This is the eve of our 25th anniversary. Tomorrow we can go out to dinner without a drain tube dangling out of my pants. Best anniversary present ever!


Cat pics from fffound.com

Sunday, October 16, 2011

The Be Fruitful Manifesto

Could somebody please explain to me the art of effortlessness? Does it work like random acts of kindness? If you don't plan, overthink, outline, scheme, revise, strategize, market, wear down with persistence and soak something in earnestness, will it still produce the results you desire?


I'd like to think that the biblical command to "Be fruitful and multiply" meant more than procreation. We've been entrusted with mind-blowing capabilities beyond our reproductive systems, wondrous as those are.
So I hereby claim that directive and repurpose it for anything and everything we are pouring our hearts out to create and launch.


What leaves much to be desired is the outcome of all this scurrying about trying to be fruitful. And the timeframe for seeing any outcome.


I seem to have arrived at the point of wanting certain areas of my life to have something to show for all my time and effort. Sure, I've had a peach cobbler of a time these last two years as a reinvented version of myself. To be this self-directed is the opposite of joining the army. For someone both driven and nonconformist, it's an ideal arrangement. I had no idea how happy it would make me just to be able to decide for myself what time I wake up (no alarm clock but the sun!), when to eat (no need to schedule a lunch break!), what to focus on (my own priorities!) and when to knock off (no pressing need to hit the sack because I don't have to get up early the next morning).


But it was bound to happen. I couldn't continue indefinitely que sera-seraing my way through the trance-inducing textile transformations for my upcycled clothing shop. There was only so much counting quick-quick-slow for my beginning dance students before I began wanting validation for these new identities I've assumed. I need to sell something from my shop and I need to grow as a dancer. Preferably soon, and over the long term.


Here's the catch: No matter how many affirmations we express and elbow grease we generate, ultimately our success hinges upon SOMEONE ELSE. Some other person must decide they want my quirky, frilly dresses—enough to actually buy one (although there are plenty of likers, since it doesn't cost anything to click a mouse). Some other dancer must decide he wants to partner with me—and keep his word despite earth-shaking distractions, such as another dancer with longer legs than mine.


Geez, why does this feel familiar? Oh, yeah, it's not that different from job-hunting. Someone else decides. Someone who is not invested in helping me succeed. Which is why I stopped looking for a job two years ago! I call it my personal energy conservation.


So here we are.


But I wouldn't have written this post if that last sentence was where it ends.


I remember wanting so badly to get out of the newspaper job I held back in the '90s, during what in hindsight seems like a dress rehearsal for a real recession. Filling out applications felt like the random flashes of mirrored light sent out by a camper lost in the woods. Too much left to chance. Did anybody even see?


Around that time I had become somewhat of a flower gardener. I say "somewhat" because with the clay soil and arid weather where I live, one of every two plants I attempted to grow eventually withered. So I tried growing from seeds. To give them a better chance against birds and wind, I followed someone's suggestion to goop them up in unflavored gelatin. Didn't make a bit of a difference. With the next seed packets, I didn't bother. I ripped those suckers open and dumped the contents onto the dirt. Some of them actually sprouted and bloomed.


My sister got a letter from me about my fruitless job hunt. I'd written, "I'm just gonna keep throwing seeds down, hoping something will take."


Over the years, my garden began yielding pockets of gorgeousness that I blissfully recorded. You can see some of them on my flickr page. The same thing happened with my writing career. I experienced bouts of usefulness and a tinge of prestige here and there. The jobs even lined my pockets substantially. I leveraged the abundance to cheer up my workmates and wipe out the last of my credit card debt.


But just as the Bible is full of cautionary tales of feast and famine, my life decided to get interesting, in the way the ancient Chinese meant when they cursed, "May you live in interesting times." The marriage, wonky from day one due to the blended family situation, took a nosedive in year 14. I moved out. Without me, the garden dried up. All those years of work, and neither the marriage nor the garden had anything to show but a few pressed flowers and several very confused children.


The garden lay fallow. Professional counselors and well-meaning friends called the time of death for the marriage. But it was the match that refused to flicker out. 


Five years after I left, I moved back home. We had killed off our soap opera characters and brought in their Good Twins. It's turned out to be an area of life that has been fruitful. A separate post on this, perhaps.


Then the writing job forsook me. Hence the reinvention.
And we've circled back to the present.
The point at which I've put my hands on my hips and questioned the point of all this effort at needle threading and prancing about.


Fortunately, either because I caught God when He wasn't too busy or because I'm a very good listener, I heard the whispered answer.


I had a dream about ants. I don't remember what they were doing, but I looked it up. There are two ways to interpret this. Either "This dream is a message to keep up the hard work, it will pay off in the end," or "You are feeling neglected or insignificant. Petty things will annoy you."




Both turned out to be accurate. The day after my dream, I received payment from the company that now advertises within four posts in my archive. I had been saving a witty graphic I'd found on another site that says, "Writer received mad scrilla." I never thought I'd ever be able to use it, but you can find it at the bottom of my blog, merrily fulfilling FTC disclosure requirements. By the way, yes, I'm aware that skrilla is misspelled in the graphic. Eh.


The very day my blog made a little bit of money, I received an email message from my dear friend and sister in faith, Angie, who blogs at Gifted and Grateful. It was a story titled "You reap what you sow," and concluded,

"God is going to shift things around today and let things work in your favor."


I don't believe in coincidences.


"I'm just gonna keep throwing seeds down, hoping something will take," I'd written my sister so many years ago.


That's how I'd sum up my present state of mind. I'm going to keep dreaming up and sewing my anti-cubicle statement garments. I'm going to keep carving out time to master more dances. If someone should show up wanting a showcase dance partner, I'll be ready. But I won't be pre-selecting the music nor daydreaming about the costumes and choreography. You won't hear me singing the dance world equivalent of "Someday my prince will come." I'm open to learning the art of effortlessness, if anyone cares to teach me.


This weekend I went out to the garden and planted bulbs again for the first time in many years. Dutch irises, daffodils, alliums and scillas. It was worth the backache.


Because if a marriage can come back from the grave, so can a garden. And if such miracles are possible, why not others?


So listen, last night I dreamed I had hairy legs...


"To see your legs in a dream indicates that you have regained confidence to stand up and take control again. It also implies progress and the ability to navigate through life."


Don't you just envy my rich dream world. But wait, what's this:


"If you are a woman and dream that your legs are hairy, then it suggests that you are domineering or that you dominate in the relationship."


Well alrighty then. In the interest of full disclosure, that might be true, too. But let's not ask Mr. Scrollwork.


What about you, have you got a mad/maddening desire to see something in your life bear fruit, finally? Or have you been blessed with a harvest after faith and persistence?





P.S. Happy dance! I just sold a dress out of my etsy shop today! (It's the day after I published this post.) Wow. I like how this is going!


P. P. S. Someone just asked me to be his showcase dance partner! (It's four days after this post published.) OK, now this is feeling like the Twilight Zone, as my niece likes to say. Keep the fruit coming, Lord!