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That Lucky Old Sun: Mickey Newbury
May 14, 2012
“To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning”
May 12, 201268° already this morning. It is another lovely day. Skip, my factotum, is here and has a huge list of jobs. First is to fence in my small raised garden. Gracie has already been digging in a corner, luckily not where I’ve planted my peas. Next, Skip has to make the rail pretty where we stuck some posts to keep Gracie from jumping off the deck. He also has some painting and some deck cleaning to do. I expect he’ll be here all day today and maybe a bit of tomorrow. By the time he is done, my deck will be ready for summer. I can start to lounge outside instead of inside.
Gracie is out watching. She takes her around the horn run, the entire backyard, then drinks a little and goes back to watching Skip. This is a great day for her as she has company in the yard; however, the big jobs are anti-Gracie. She’s a pip, that one!
Much as I love the rain, days of it drench my spirit, and the last few days I haven’t felt like doing much, but today I feel energized, ready to take on the world. Having a brilliant sun with the most amazing blue backdrop does that. It makes so many things beautiful, and I notice all of them on a day like today.
I need to buy some spray paint so Skip can paint the deck window boxes and the fountain, and I’m already running late as I’ve been in and out helping Skip so today will hve to be a short post. Besides, I don’t want to waste any more of that sun. It’s a wonderful gift
Honky Tonk Merry Go Round: Patsy Cline
May 6, 2012
“And I love a scary movie. It makes your toes curl and it’s not you going through it.”
May 5, 2012Today is no different from yesterday or the day before or the day before that one. My deck still has its winter look. None of the furniture is uncovered, and the candles are yet to be hung from the trees. This cold and damp weather doesn’t invite the deck’s summer finery. I go out and fill the feeders then hurry back in cold from the dampness. It rained again last night, and I have a parade of paw prints across my kitchen floor. I’ll throw in a Pollyanna moment here and say there is an upside. My lawn looks green and lush.
Gracie and I are dump bound today, and I decided I might as well ruin the entire day by going grocery shopping.
If we count activity as productivity, this was a lazy week. Every chance I got, I read and yesterday I finished the Lincoln Vampire book. It was an odd one, and I’d be careful about to whom I’d recommend it. The list of people would be quite short. A suspension of disbelief is entirely necessary.
I think we are all born with a suspension of disbelief then, as we get older, we stop believing in wonders and get skeptical and scoff. Away goes Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Nothing replaces them. Our world becomes less filled with anticipation and a holiday is just a holiday. A once scary movie is made fun of and did you notice the Creature from the Black Lagoon wears a scuba tank? I didn’t. I love those old movies, and I always fail to notice their blemishes. I count myself lucky for that.
I admit being skeptical about many things. I don’t believe in ghosts, never did even when I was little. Things that went bump in the night gave me pause, but ghosts were never my first guess. I thought the Hook was more likely the reason for the noise. That story scared me to the roots of my being. The idea of his hook hanging from the car door seemed awful close to reality.
I love the books of Stephen King and Dean Koontz. A strange sound still gives me pause. That suspension of disbelief has never left me, and I am extremely grateful.
“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
April 29, 2012Oh, spring, where have you gone? Last night was winter, and today is only 52°. The sun is warm through the doors and windows but not enough to make being outside on the deck inviting. I got cold when I was filling the bird feeders this morning. Even the house feels chilly. The heat turned itself on early this morning which meant it was lower than 62° in here. No wonder I slept in under the warmth of my down comforter.
This is a new week, and I have high hopes it will be a good week. It’s my Pollyanna moment.
When I was in high school, I took four years of Latin. I have no idea why, but I actually liked it. The Aeneid, my fourth year text, was my favorite. I still remember the first line, ” Arma virumque cano.” I sing of arms and of a man. I think the story appealed to me because I loved all the tall tales, stories of people like Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed and Pecos Bill. I can still see in my mind’s eye the illustration of Pecos Bill riding that cyclone. In my library those tall tale books were on a short shelf to the left of the door. I used to sit on the carpet and look through them and read a few tales before I’d choose the books to take home. I think I read all of the books from that section.
I never read any of the science books in my library. They were in the shelves in front of the windows. I did read some of the biographies of scientists like Madame Curie, but the actual science itself never interested me. I loved mysteries and historical fiction, though, when I was little, I didn’t know that’s you called it. My favorite of all was Johnny Tremain. It took place in Boston so the novel felt personal for me, and I could actually visit the houses of characters like Paul Revere. It made the story real to me. I remember the horror I felt when Johnny spilled hot silver on his hand.
That book led me to read more stories about the Revolutionary War. I think that’s what books are meant to do. They take you to one place which leads to another and another and on and on. It’s like a family tree filled with the names of books on branch after branch.
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