Flew right off. Failure of gravity, I say

FOR all of you who wonder if I fell off the face of the earth: I did.


Actually, it's work. I started a new inspection project Monday, and haven't surfaced since but to eat and sleep. It was a twelve hour day yesterday. And B's schedule is just as bad. It's been kinda like come home, take the boots off our steaming, achy feet, have something cold to drink, and weakly contemplate food.

Yesterday the girl made dinner (albeit from a box), and it was heavenly. Just the simple fact that I didn't have to make it was enough. We sat outside on the patio in the shade and consumed food in companionable silence, listening to her teenage chatter fill the empty air. :-) Sometimes teenage chatter is blessed. After I ate I rolled off my lawn chair and lay on my back in the grass, gazing up at B with squinted eyes like a half drunk panda bear. "Gravity got me." I mumbled. B just looked at me with a skeptical look. He didn't comment, testimony to how tired HE was. "It feels better down here" I said, Full belly, warm sun, long day. I closed my eyes for just a moment and threw my arms out wide in the cool grass.

And promptly went to sleep.

Home, drink, dinner, bed. Up, coffee, shower, work. For six more weeks, six days a week. But all the OT goes in our house fund.

Wish us luck.

Larkspur

July 13: Seven Months

The Garden of Eatin

I WAS just out in the garden plot, and OMG THOSE PLANTS ARE HUGE!!!!!!!!!

I have NEVER seen tomato plants do the things these plants are doing.

Exhibit A, front left corner --

The coworker who has the plot next to ours says we screwed up big time - B threw a handful of fert in the hole when we planted them early this spring, and, according to Gary, fert makes lots of bush and no fruit. Well, I hate to disabuse him, but these plants are going for the gusto.

--Frankenmato

(Yes, this IS a tomato plant!!)

There's a lot of bush, sure... but it's covered with blossom and going for the fruit. Bizarre. I think it's less the fert and just B's green thumb. His philosophy seems to be 'abuse em and they'll come back for more', since we only water every other day or so, but so far so good.
Early Girl has a mato! --

The cipollini onions are fat and nice. Even the zinnias have decided to give it a go. But by far the most promising plants out there are the peppers. We must have six inch peppers on at least one of the four plants. Here's hoping thats NOT the so-hot-it-will-lift-your-head-off one! lol

--Pepperzilla

Someone had sunflowers before us. I saw them coming up, but didn't have the heart to pull em when they were small, so we now have two big plants, one gracing each corner of the diagonal. One is nearly taller than me, big and branchy like a tree, and filled with pale lemony yellow heads with dark chocolate eyes. They are absolutely lovely. I am so glad I left them to live.

Our little plot - #51

That's the rest of the community gardens in the background, as is the one at the top of the page. This shot is from the front of the plot, and the top shot is one from the back. The community gardens are a wonderful idea - $5 to $20 buys you a plot for the season, complete with water, hose, tools, and compost, all for public use. How many people can say they can take a 15 minute break in the middle of their work day, walk across the street, and play in their garden?

It's a peaceful island of green in the middle of the day; a chance to get your head together when you need a break, with nothing but the sweet summer sun, the smell of foliage and earth, and the satisfying sound of the water on the thirsty earth to feed your soul.

______________________________________________________

The landlord came by the house last week, while we were having problems with the air conditioner. I have lived there for five years, and never seen him once. This was the first time he'd seen the house since I moved in. His eyes got a bit wide when he walked through. I knew he was noticing the hardwood floor that we put in in the dining room (that we'd failed to ask permission to do). I was nervous, thinking he'd be angry about the rotten white Berber carpet that we'd pulled out of the room (WHITE BERBER in a dining room.... by the time the kids had spent two years in there, the Kool Aid stains and the travel path from the sliding glass door were indelible) "I didn't pay for that, did I?" was all he asked.

"Nope." I said, waiting for more to come, but he just raised his eyebrows. He went to look out the sliding glass door.

"Wow!" he exclaimed. "The yard looks fantastic. That must use a bit of water...."

"Not too much." I said. "It's worth it. I've been working on it for five years, a little bit at a time. We really enjoy it." The back yard, actually BOTH yards, look spectacular. I told every bit the truth - I love to landscape and garden, so for five years I've rejuvenated both the yards, greenscaping, hardscaping... laying fabric, bark and gravel, building brick flowerbed borders, putting in a pond, an arbor, a nice wood fence, trees, shrubs, perennial beds. The house no longer looks like the only rental on the block. In fact, under B's talented fingers, it's become the greenest yard on the block. I was pleased that he had noticed.

I hope he doesn't decide to raise the rent. If he did, it would be his loss.

In other news, I've found a house. The discouraging part about it is that we can't do anything about it, because his ex is dragging her feet. And with the price on this home, it won't last long. B reminds me not to be frustrated, but it's hard. This house is right around the corner from ours, a well kept little rambler owned by some elderly people, neat and trim and just the right size. In the neighborhood we want, under the price we expected to pay, and on a corner lot. I am chomping at the bit, but I must learn to be patient. If this is what God wants, if this is the house for us, it will wait. I must have faith.

We meet with the attorney tonight. I hope it goes well. We've been waiting for the opposite side to make their move, and we'll see tonight if we've had any results. At any rate, we will be getting our wills done, which is more than where we were this morning.

In the meantime, there's a small project in the garage waiting for us, and Caramel Toffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream in the freezer at home. It should be a wonderful night. :-)

Wherefore art thou, beautiful man?

OOOO.... it's going to be a wonderful weekend.



If I can just shake this cold, we'll be golden. I was home sick half of yesterday, and all of today. I have the sneezy keyboard blues. lol I'm sitting here watching "The Bucket List". It's pretty darn good.



Last night I felt not too bad, so we sat out in the yard at dusk, enjoying the muggy sliding light, watching the dragonflies dart back and forth across the grass. B threw the ball for the big dog for awhile, while I threw the chewy toy for the little dog, until they were both exhausted. And then - joy of joys - B picked up the frisbee, and we played frisbee like yahoos, laughing and jumping and throwing till we coughed. It was blissful.



The house is quiet and clean... B and I are in heaven. There's a three day weekend ahead. I can't wait for him to get home.



Now all I have to do is get rid of this cold. :-)

Dreams of dying / Problem solving

Last night I dreamed I died.

I was driving home from some unknown location. It was flooded, and there was a lot of water on the road... so much that it was like driving across some vast section of glass... you couldn't even see that there was a road if it weren't for the truckers' coming towards you, marking out the asphalt path. I tried to stay close to the truckers, to mark their path where it was safe.

I got to the end of the road where it met the horizon and went to make my turn to the right, but the truck I was using to mark my path mis-estimated, and went falling off into space, off the side of the big big cliff, and I went with him. There was that sick moment when you think that somehow you're going to have a near miss, that you're going to pull it out at the last minute, and then the feeling of the wheels slipping off the concrete into thin air. It was so high that all you could see was clouds below. I remember knowing that I was about to die.

It took so long to fall. Somehow I was out of my car, falling through space. I had time to talk to God.. to ask for forgiveness. To ask to be taken home. To plead for
it to go quickly so that there would be no pain. I fell through the layers of clouds until I saw the ground coming up at me. And then it was there, and there was a bright flash of light, and it was over.

I went home, and B was there, sitting in a chair working on something. He didn't seem to know I was dead. I was suffused with a huge sensation of grief, overwhelming. Desperately I fell to my knees and buried my head in his lap, sobbing. I begged his forgiveness for being so stupid, to drive off the road and kill myself, to cut short our time so soon. It wasn't being dead that hurt me; it was the concept of being separate from B. He was soothing, and he smiled. He said something about it not being over. He touched me and it was okay. I was saved.

____________________________________________________

When we got up this morning after the dream, I was shaken. It was so incredibly vivid. We spent some clingy moments trying to erase the memories. It wasn't till after we'd had our cup of coffee and the paper and I was putting on my makeup, that it came to me.

I popped out of the bathroom, mascara in hand. "It's a work-dream!" I exclaimed. (Bless his heart, B is getting used to my excited non-sequiturs.)

"How do you figure?" he asked.

The symbology was there all along. It had been tickling at the back of my brain. And we'd been talking about work issues just the night before. My job deals with environmental issues, with water in particular. And I came to my job with no experience or education, and have been learning in situ, on my own, for the past year. I've relied heavily on asking questions of others' expertise when I get in over my head, but it's been weighing on me that I don't have a background in my field where I feel I should. There's a real fear that eventually someone will ask me to weigh in on something I know nothing about, and that could prove to be disastrous.

"The water... all the water. It's my job! I'm driving across all that water and I can't even see the road.... where to go. I have to follow the 'bigger trucks', because they know where the road is."

We were both there. It was right on the money. "But who is the truck that led you off the edge... the one that fell with you?"

A good question. Could it be the individual we've been having so much trouble with at work? The one who 'drives recklessly, without looking'? The one who, Pied Piper-like, convinces everyone through sheer ego and bravado that he knows far more about everything than anyone else and that they should follow him blindly? Is he about to 'fall to his death'? And will I be swept over the side with him?

Hmm.... thoughts to ponder. It's true that I was seduced by this individual's speeches for a long time; I looked up to him and believed that everything he said was gospel. He was my mentor. It wasn't until the scales fell from my eyes that I found out that all that he'd told me wasn't true. And that it was hurting me professionally to be associated with him. But I've been detached from his influence for a long time now.

What am I dreaming? Am I to 'fall to my death' at work?? Or is this just my fear?

And, most poignant of all, most telling of all... is that it didn't matter that I was dead, but that to be dead was to be separated from B, and from all that we've planned and made. It all comes back to that.

The conflicts of the days past have been shrunk to proportion. I know where my heart lies.



Oh, and....

..... share and share alike. :-) I have the cold now too. LOLOLOLOL