News you can use
News you can use
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All things being relative, we have water. The drought is not over. I’ve forgotten what a cloud looks like. However, the valve directing water to the ranch property has been fixed, replaced, repaired, and, just like that, we have more than a daily dribble. I still judiciously use water. Mop water, dish water, still get dumped on potted plants, whichever ones look most thirsty at the moment. I still have brown grass and dusty patches and will have until the rains come. If t...
My hen-and-chicks, a succulent in my rock garden, is burned to a crisp. The leaves look like ashes. While April, May and June are our hottest months, here in Jalisco, relieved by a welcome cool-down when the rains begin late June, the old-timers tell me this we experience now is extreme, unusual. A day or two of ultra-high heat followed by a windy reprieve; that is the usual. The old, former usual. We have experienced weeks, multiple weeks, where the daily temperature climbs...
"In my next life, I want to be a tree." "A tree? Why, Mom, would you want to be a tree?" "Because they are more intelligent and kinder than humans." "A sycamore, Mom. Be a sycamore. I don't even know what one looks like but that tree popped into my mind." We each went to our computers and landed on the same site. Though we are 2,500 miles separated geographically, we are otherwise quite close. "Holy guacamole, these trees are beautiful." "Ooooh, I want to be a sycamore." I...
Like Alice, now and then I take a dive down a rabbit hole, purely for entertainment. Oh, well, and so I can feel superior, yes, smug in my own knowledge. I’m not on Facebook, but when I check weather on my computer, I get a sidebar of widgets, (love that word), that is every bit as good as FB for misinformation, from what I’m told. So, there I am, trawling along through non-news, political rants, hundreds of chocolate-chip cookie recipes and other trivia, when I spy a hou...
The other morning, I visited with a long-time friend who lives in California. We don’t visit frequently, but when we do, it’s always good. Ideas fly and grow and develop and land in our deep hearts. My friend Anne belongs to a small church with an aim to make a difference in their community, to really matter to those they serve. With all the best intentions in the world, they formed a committee to put together gift bags for people in their area with no fixed abode. “Ho...
That may not be how the song is sung but that is how we sing it in Etzatlan this summer. We juggle the procession of seasons, winter flips into a few days of spring, which gets dropped on the floor and immediately flames into summer, temps in high 90s up to 100 this week. Dry and dusty. What little breeze we get brings cane ash and field dirt, right into my casa where I can enjoy it at leisure. I yearn for what I now think of as normal times, when the rains come in June, bring...
I’ve never made a big deal of my birthdays. In childhood, my birthday presents were always books, which was exactly what I wanted. Coming from family raised during the Great Depression, a gift was a Big Deal. I’m pretty sure my dad never had a birthday present. For decades, beginning in my forties, I began skipping the “9” years. Instead of forty-nine, I became “almost fifty.” I did not see 49 as a positive gain. Almost sixty. Almost seventy. This year, a “9” year, I turned...
Sometimes when life gives you lemons, well, you can’t make lemonade when life drops the whole tree on your head, can you? The entire last month has been terrible for my friends, Ana and Michelle. First one of the cats got strange. Cats can be strange, so what! However, when something is wrong, something is wrong. After several visits to the nearest small animal vet in Tala (Havre to Loma), Blue was diagnosed with diabetes and Cushing’s disease. Blue is on medication, blood jab...
Michelle’s mother, and our friend, fell and broke her other hip. Jane is 96 years old. It was only three or four years ago that Jane fell and broke a hip. Wasn’t easy but she recovered. Surgery is extremely high risk for this woman. It was risky then and is even more so now. Jane has been in the hospital several days, waiting while certain medicines leach out of her body. Surgery is not our only worry. Our small hospital, which we are fortunate to have, is staffed by exc...
I have perfected English muffins. What that means is that I got hungry for English muffins, not available on the shelves of any tienda in town. I made my first batch, which exceeded my expectations. Unfortunately for me, I made the breadly goodness on a social day and within a couple hours had none left. I called that batch “Thing One.” I’d eaten one hot off the griddle with butter and jam but wanted a breakfast sandwich muffin on the order of the classic from the Golde...
The wolf-whistle bird is back. This sharp-voiced bird returns every spring. It has two very distinctive calls. When I hear its voice, I instinctively jerk my head around to see who is either trying to get my attention (Hey you, over here!) or is teasing me with admiration (Wolf-whistle, I kid you not). Then I laugh at myself. Foiled again! The wolf-whistle bird doesn’t sound anything like a love bird, does it? This avian character sounds more like the kind of birds your m...
“Have an exciting evening,” my daughter wished at me after a phone call over the weekend. “No! No! No!’ I cried vehemently. “Not an exciting evening, Never! Wish me a calm and peaceful and uneventful evening, please.” One never knows what energies one might release with a casual word or two. I’ve had enough excitement in other periods of my life. Today I sit in front of my blank page with absolutely nothing to say. Life is good. Quiet. No waves. No storm clouds. No drama. I g...
It is interesting to contemplate that a mere 2-month-old baby has accumulated more frequent flier miles than I have in the past five years. The comparison is easy. My mileage is zero. More astounding is that little Marley’s flights cost more than the sum total of all my flights, domestic and foreign, inclusive of but not exclusively: multiple domestic flights, Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico, China, Japan and India. Who could have imagined this farm girl could have visited so many f...
Michelle called. “I need to take Blue to the vet in Tala tomorrow. Ana can’t come with me because she is overseeing the work crew building our new guest house. Would you be able to come along with me?” “What time do we leave?” Michelle picked me up. Blue, tucked in his kitty carrier, never made a peep the whole trip. Michelle and I filled the air with words covering multiple spectrums. Background: Blue is an elderly cat, not in the best of health. Michelle feared this migh...
Why do the little changes take up so much space? I should qualify that with an addition, “in my head?” Really, most changes hardly make a dent in my consciousness. Change is constant. My favorite bowl slips from my fingers and shatters on the tile floor. Blip — gone. The rubber tip on my cane wears out. I replace it. Lola The Dog celebrates her birthday (OK, I celebrate her birthday). I notice she has quite a few more white hairs. Change, like a river, always moving. Other...
First things first. Our Baby Marley is home. She is home, ready for the hard work of getting healthy and growing and looking at everything around her with those big eyes. We are so grateful. And we are so grateful for all the friends and strangers who cared, who in small ways took our baby in their arms and into their hearts and helped her heal. Thank you. That dog of mine has put me into the habit of greeting the rising sun on our first walk of the day. Believe me, before...
Life is tough. At times, life is tougher. I’m on the periphery of that tough life but I feel it just the same. Baby Marley is still in the hospital in Billings. She’s not out of the woods, but slowly on the right path, healing from RSV and pneumonia and detoxing from the drug that kept her paralyzed during the worst of her personal storm. Mom and Dad still camp out in her room. Meanwhile, back home in Glendive, Grandma Dee and Grandpa Chris and Uncle Tyler are taking care of...
No, that does not refer to an earthquake. If you are of an age, you will recognize this as a song sung by Elvis when he was a youngster himself, around 1957. “I’m in love. I’m all shook up!” Love manifests in many ways and early last week my world and the world of my family was all shook up. My great-granddaughter, Baby Marley, was diagnosed with RSV and pneumonia. Along with her mom, Jessica, Marley was transported from Glendive to Billings on a life-flight. Her family...
My friend Jerry wrote me this week. Skipping the personal stuff, he asked, “Is it possible for you to create a 501 3C to raise money in U.S. to help people in need in Etzatlan?” Once I picked myself off the floor still hooting, I wrote back something like the following. A 501 3C? Oh, Jerry, I thought you knew me better than that! You ask me to do a suit job. I am not a suit. I am a well-worn flannel shirt. I am a lot of things, my friend. I am an artist, an inventor, a mec...
I have lost three entire nights of sleep this week, misplaced where there will be no finding, scratching the seven-year itch. You could also name my malady the Grass Is Greener Syndrome. The grass is never greener. It just looks that way from across the fence. This is not an unusual occurrence for me. Something within me likes the challenge of new experiences. Frequently over the years while I’ve lived out on my little chunk of quiet, peaceful Paradise, I’ve cast my eyes aro...
It was a dark and stormy night. Oh, wait! Different story. It was the day before New Year’s Eve. Leo and I were sitting in the sun chatting after he had mouse-proofed my washing machine with a length of screen and duct tape. Mice are on the move every year during corn harvest when they temporarily are forced out of their home and well-stocked grocery. My washing machine sits tucked away in the back corner of my patio, outdoors. This is not the first time mice thought the m...
My bed jacket. It is a sign. A portent of things to come. Christmas Eve, I went to Oconahua for a traditional Mexican feast of tamales and hot chocolate with my friends. When I returned home, a gift bag stuffed tightly with something rather heavy, sat on my patio table. I reached in and pulled out … a jacket. This jacket is made of that plush, fluffy stuff, like a baby blanket. Thank goodness it is not a pale pastel. I’d have to gift it onward. No, amazingly, the jacket is...
Or, one might say, this week, apples are my world. Every year I put a lot of thought into my gift giving for Christmas. Grandchildren are easy. Gift certificates. They are of the age where money is the better choice. Gold, right? For the babies, my grandchildren, my daughter handles that chore for me. She knows best what they want, need and enjoy. The hard part is for us few who are here this holiday season in Gringolandia. We are old. We already have everything we want. If I...
No longer can I remain in denial. I am an addict. I am addicted to sunlight. When I lived in Poulsbo, Washington, on the Kitsap Peninsula where it rained 10 months of the year, I remember how hard it was by February to keep up my spirits. That is normal behavior, pretty much. Now, these years later, after a mere couple (2) cloudy days with rain, and I begin to wonder if a Prozac Big Gulp would really work. Having grown up in a country of constant drought, I love the rain....
Interesting how we carve time to suit particular purposes. I won’t look it up, but thinking about it, I’d not be surprised that our universal way of dividing our days started with the Industrial Revolution, as a way of getting the workers to be where and when the bosses wanted them to be. That is as political as I am willing to be this morning. My day began yesterday, actually. It rained yesterday, so that jiggered up walk times with Lola, but we managed to wriggle them int...
