greaterthansparrows

Hubby got up, a little after I did, and said, "Good morning--although it's debatable whether it's a good morning."  A line I might have heard before, once or twice. He was dragging from a bad night where he didn't sleep much, and wasn't looking like he would be very lively very soon. I was making my usual morning visit to Planet Kathy yesterday, about making memories--which is an idea we also promote and cherish--and one of the things she talked about was visiting World's Fairs in New York and Vancouver (where we had also been) among others. I was ready to chime in and wanted to be accurate in making a comment, so I asked my  bleary sweetheart if I remembered correctly that his trip to the New York World's Fair was part of his National Boy Scout Jamboree trip.  It was. But he didn't stop there--he proceeded to launch into his whole New york itinerary with his brother, what parts were with their group, which were on their own with their leaders...

A friend in Institute class surprised me with a bag of tomatoes from her garden.  She had a new batch ripe, and she had already put up salsa, so she wanted to share the wealth.  Red ones, little yellow pear-shaped ones.  Then another friend brought me chard because she had mentioned that it was growing faster than she could keep up and I had gone, ooh, Hubby loves it--want to unload some?  She also included yellow summer squash, she said she was tired of eating it for a few days, and some--you guessed it--tomatoes!  Heirloom varieties, odd looking but so good.  All of them, from both gardens, have been so good.  It made me remember what tomatoes used to taste like, why I love them, and we have been eating them with glee.    I would guess that we had about five different types from the two gardens This is the first year that we didn't plant anything at all.  Now, we have planted things that went nowhere on occasion, and without chi...

Generally, Labor Day means summer is over.  School starts--though I know it's well underway lots of places already.  Temperatures here were cool, then rose, then plunged, but it will be 80 degrees tomorrow.  Maybe.  It was supposed to be today that might hit 83, but last night was cold, and the warm air slower in its arrival. I looked at the skirt I took to Utah, and went nope, all done until next year.  It's a very definite bright summer gauze, and along with the white flats, can't really fudge into fall.  The coral pink print, with a crisp blouse, I might  wear if the temperature on Sunday is warm and the sun is out, but not past another week or so.  Then it's darker colors.  I wore a dark print cotton, the only lightweight dark print I have, to teach today.  With black loafers. One of the local stores has contracts with several area farms and orchards, and every August they get the best melons; and for one week, sometimes two, the...

There is a quirky new word/poetry game going, which might just be habit-forming.  It is called book spine poetry, and the idea is to stack up books and read their titles together--sequencing as free verse.  The library is doing a come-on for the summer, and I registered that it was a contest; you know, whose is the best; so I have been finding, thinking, and arranging for two weeks in my odd moments only to finally check into the rules and find it's one submission per week, and a random drawing.  They will put them up, but my effort to make my best and send them together only wasted some of my time for having my participating-name pulled out of a hat.  Ah well, I'm still having fun.  Add this to the beginning drawing class which I signed up for with a friend, and I'm having some gentle adventures this summer. Here is my first one--  That's The Eyre Affair / The Last Waltz / Cold Fire / Sleeping Murder  (by Jasper Fforde/GGVandagriff/Kate Elliott/ A...

 Our library has had a summer reading program for years.  The first time I was aware of it, I think the first year they did it, Christina (child # 2) was between kindergarten and first grade, and jumped from beginning reading to third-grade level to walk in the door of her first grade classroom in the fall.  Having the chance to go pick out books and bring them back to tell a real live person about them was key.  Because they had trouble with staffing and finding enough volunteers in the more populous branches--we went to the main library downtown--they eventually downscaled the process to just take a written log, and so Carole did not have the same immediacy and it didn't zoom her along on her reading progress; but still it was pretty great.  The final prize if you read enough books over the summer was a free day at the zoo with a mayor's award ceremony. The kids are all grown and the kids' summer reading program is long since history around our house, but l...

We came back very tired, but we had a good time, which we rather needed. Sometimes I think Heavenly Father gives us help even if the matters involved aren't earthshaking, because we were able to do the things we had really planned, and just not add new ones.  We had wanted to go to the zoo, popping over the border to British Columbia was one of the reasons we had run off to this spot, that and the fact that there were no vacancies at our membership-system's place at the coast.  Other spots were just too far away, and we were looking for a last-minute quick trip, cheap, not easy to find. We hadn't seriously contemplated making the trip all the way into Vancouver this time, almost an hour of increasingly horrible traffic west once you crossed the border at Lynden.  We didn't have energy, funds, or gasoline; we had done some wonderful stuff two years ago when we took Jonathan and Carole with us to the Vancouver Temple open house, and then spent a day farther east in th...

How do I outline my life for strangers? Not just the issue of an image, taking and choosing a picture , but I had to draw up a short bio.  I found myself trying out sentences and choices in my head when I needed to go to sleep, or when I was not home to do anything about it, and generally deciding that there was time aplenty, so turn off the worry and take care of other things. Then I had notice of a deadline as I was getting ready to go away, due three days after my return.  Oh oh, have to actually figure this out now.  An introduction to the newspaper people (second half of this post) is a different thing: dear editors, this is why I would be interesting or this what I bring to the table.  Instead I was tasked with a self-synopsis which would be up and sitting every time a person clicked on my column.  Short, sweet, to the point (we hope). I have had a pretty cool life in many respects.  I had an amazing upbringing, experiencing travel, exposure to...

I picked a hymn to start class with today that I thought was really easy, I didn't have time to think too hard about it, there were other crises.  It was "How Firm a Foundation," and everyone knows it. I knew that the usual, very talented sister who plays for us would be gone, so I figured this hymn would be an easy one for the Relief Society president who plays in a pinch.  In a real pinch, I knew that, rusty as I am, I could play because I used to know this one cold. Well, the president went towards the piano to play, and said, "You said this was easy?  It has four flats!"  So I ended up playing, with lots of mistakes (no preparation). The mistakes diminished in frequency as I kept going, because I remembered better.  I wanted that couple of minutes of singing to gather myself in readiness to stand up and teach the class, but that's all right . I shouldn't have opened the big, looseleaf hymnbook instead of the standard size, even though it lies flat ...

Having a picture taken for this new venture was an experience.  It made it harder for me to cling to my own self-visualization.  I will find my way back to denial, at least in part, I'm sure. If you've ever had your voice recorded, and listen to it, the first reaction is, 'that's me?  that's how I sound?'  As all around you nod immediately, you try to wrap your mind around the disconnect.  For the auditory strangeness, there's a scientific explanation:  you hear yourself through the resonance in your own head, others hear you through the air.  I still hear my voice on our voice-mail message and only think it's me because I know it has to be, I recorded it.  I hear my tone and pitch differently.  Singing is a little better--and recorded much less often, so I rarely have to deal with it. When a camera gets you, the only real reason for not recognizing yourself is illusion.  It was very good of my son-in-law to do this for me, since the...

(Not a perfect clarity, but the best I can figure out on my lonesome with the scanner.)   I was just tired enough with the time shift to go to bed last night, rest but not fall asleep, get up for an hour, and now feel crummy this morning. I got up and wrote because I couldn't sleep for the story, so might as well get it down.  (My body says stick to reading next time.) This is not that story, because that is for something else, but this is another part of it. This is Barbara.  And me. 1994, the only time we went to the mall together, and we weren't shopping, we were having a picture for memory before time was gone. I realize that this is about the point in that year when cancer went from a battle to be won to the means for calling her home.  It's funny how anniversary points can come and go and not be noticed most years, but clobber you on others. The dress in this picture I had made for her birthday, because she didn't have anything comfortable to wear after h...