Thoughts from Alison that might at least entertain you!

She's Back

Greetings, All!

I'm back home at Prune Ridge after a few days away at Summer Institute.  Much fun was had with my UU friends, and leaving wasn't easy in the middle of the week - but I'm glad to be home with John!  Who knew we would miss each other as much as we did?!?

I had a wonderful few days and will share some thoughts and/or things I think I'll be working on for myself based on my days at SI.  I'm under rested and a little loopy right now, so coherent thoughts will come at a later date.  In the meantime, here's the hymn text that is circling almost constantly in my brain.  I really love this tune:

There is more love somewhere.  There is more love somewhere.  I'm gonna keep on, till I find it.  There is more love somewhere.

Be Well and Keep Going, Friends.

And Away I Go!

So I'm off tomorrow for a few days!  It's vacation week at Prune Ridge.  John will be home, and I'm headed off for Unitarian fun until the middle of the week.  I still aim to talk John into a single morning or so at the Ann Arbor Art Fairs after I am back for the latter half of the week ahead.

To celebrate our real vacation beginning today we slept in ridiculously late, went out for lunch and then a movie, and had pizza for dinner at home before a Scrabble game.  I had one of my better Scrabble scores tonight (over 300 points), and still managed to lose by more than 100 points.  Woohoo...  Maybe a few days in Gambier, OH will make me smarter?  Here's hoping!

Happy summer, Friends.  Be Well and Be You Completely.  I may blog briefly from my fancy phone while I'm away, or else I'll update when I return.

Rock On!

Almost There

Vacation...  so close I can taste it!  Well, maybe not exactly, but almost.

After work tomorrow evening I'm off through the following Saturday.  (Assuming I can do enough extra work during the day tomorrow that I don't need to do anything else!)  I need this vacation sort of desperately and can't wait.

On Sunday I'm headed to central Ohio for a few days of respite and reconnection with many friends of many years.  John is also on vacation for the week, so I'll be home mid-week to continue relaxation with him.  The week also brings the Ann Arbor Art Fairs to our city.  I'm looking forward to heading into fair central for part of a day at the end of the week.  That's about all I can take of the fairs, but I'm looking forward to it!  Otherwise?  I plan on sitting in the lovely chairs in our little back yard at Prune Ridge.  I will probably play with the cats, maybe tackle some simple home tasks...  and maybe get crazy and do some new collage work?

Happy July to you, Friends.  Be Well and Do Good.

A Remarkable Man

Today brought the passing of a truly remarkable person.  Dr. Robert Brundage left this world today after about two weeks in the hospital in Toledo.  I knew him as Bob Brundage - a man of brilliant mind, gentle soul, and powerfully quiet presence.  He was a scientist (engineer, physicist, biophysicist), recording engineer, accomplished musician & lover of music, and community activist, as well as an advocate for social justice, education, and the arts.  He was a fixture in Toledo and especially in my (and his) old neighborhood, The Old West End.

He was attacked and robbed by a 15 year old boy in his own neighborhood on June 22, and has been hospitalized with a critical head injury ever since.

My heart mourns this amazing person who has left the world as we know it.  My heart breaks for his family, the myriad lives touched by Bob Brundage, and the city of Toledo.  My heart also breaks for the 15 year old and the people who love him.

Blessed Be, Dr. Brundage.

Summer Institute!

And so a week from today brings the start of an annual event - and one of my favorites, at that!  Next Sunday, UUs (Unitarian Universalists) from Ohio, parts of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and beyond (like Michigan, for instance) will gather for a week of community in central Ohio.

I can hardly wait for this week to arrive - even though I'm just going for a few days this year!  Can't wait to connect with friends, share conversation and laughter, make some music together, and sink into more than a few adirondack chairs around Kenyon College for a bit.  This is a week of replenishment that does a body and soul good.  At some point I'll need to think along the lines of packing for the adventure, but for now - just looking forward!

See you in Gambier, Friends!

Slowing and Sitting

Happy holiday weekend, All!  Hope you celebrated various freedoms.  At our house, we went with the freedom to do very little, the freedom to sleep in, the freedom to hang with family, and the freedom to overeat.  Shortly we will celebrate the freedom to watch baseball!

Above are our new adirondack chairs in the little backyard at Prune Ridge.  They might just be my new favorite place to sit and do very little.  Tori is not too sure about this arrangement - to her, it's a great injustice that I can go just outside and sit where she can't.

John snapped a few good pics of blooms in front of Prune Ridge last night.  This big ol' bumble bee loves several of the blooms out there, but especially these purple "May Night" Salvia.  We also have lovely hosta blooms (above) in a few colors, and the balloon flowers are ready to pop with about 12 flowers on each plant.

Any ideas out there about the last one below?  This is a dead piece of some stem or something - poked through a hole in one hosta leaf.  The hosta is thriving and the leaf seams perfectly happy with the arrangement.  The stem piece doesn't seem to match anything else growning in the area.  I dunno... it's a mystery.

Be Well Friends, and Keep Growing!

Totally Worth It

Diabetic Maintenance Cat Food:  $70.00

Feline Senior Profile Bloodwork:  $230.00

Cat Litter:  $40.00

Fabulous Bird-Like Cat Toy:  $20.00

Replacement Parts For Fabulous Toy:  $8.00

Torturing The Cats In Various Ways:  Priceless

Made Me Smile - Maybe You Will Too!

So I was doing a little cooking a bit ago, and watching The Muppets as I so often do in the kitchen!  I had never seen the Season 3 episode with Leo Sayer guest starring.  I sure do know his music even though the name is barely familiar to me.  This number in particular got me dancing while I watched.  The whole episode is terrific, and I'll probably share his other numbers here at some point.  Enjoy!

Is this me getting old?

I find myself so frustrated and annoyed (much more so than I probably ought to be) by the very loud and rather obnoxious partying going on just outside Prune Ridge.  You know the kind...  drinking games, guys working hard to out-yell each other, screaming girls, some guy with a whistle who won't stop blowing it - oh yeah, and fireworks.  All this in our relatively calm and quiet condo complex seems weird to me.  There are children living everywhere around here.  Granted it's summer, but it's after 9:00!!

Am I just being a grumpy old person?

Veggies Growing

And so we have progress on the potential veggies growing at Prune Ridge!  So far the tomatoes seem to be quite happy with the pot-planting effort on our little front porch.  The roma plants (pictured here first) have no fewer than 6 good fruit on them at this point!  I'm shocked and pleased with this.  The second pot - a "garden peach" tomato purchased at the Toledo Botanical Garden plant sale also has some fruit in the works, although not as much progress yet as the romas.

We have the beginnings of green peppers, and the yellow pepper plants have blossomed and look promising.  The herbs are nothin less than slightly out of control.  You can't see it quite well enough in the second picture here, but there's a dill plant that's now about 2 feet tall.  It's a tree, really.  John has started calling it Roger - yes, as in Roger "Dill-tree!"  The basil, rosemary, and oregano are all quite pleased with their porch pot homes.  Yay!

Happy planting, growing, and summer to you, Friends.  Be Well and Eat your Veggies and Herbs.

My iPhone makes me do funny things

I sometimes use the stopwatch function on my phone to time myself doing stuff, like exercising, etc.

Just now - 18 minutes, 26.1 seconds!

To do what, you ask?  To sew-from-scratch a new Scrabble tile bag!  Our plastic cheapy that comes with the game gave up the fight during tonight's game.  This was the second bag we've gone through (pulled from a different game set), and even though our selection of Scrabble sets outdoes almost any other home in the world, I decided it was time for a more permanent replacement.  John won the game, but I won the make-a-new-bag race!  It's easy to win when nobody else is competing.

Happy Sunday, All!

15 Books

And here we have another of the infamous “Facebook Lists.”  This will import to my Facebook notes from Typepad, but again – I liked this as an activity and wanted to share it here (in Blog-dom) first!

The Facebook instructions for the list say “Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends.” 

It was a fun exercise to try to produce the list quickly and without looking titles up – primarily to see which book memories led into others.  I went back after finishing the list and searched for authors since they weren’t all in my head.  I’ve also added a few extra notes here and there.  Here you go, my 15:

• The Lace Reader – Brunonia Barry
• Those Who Save Us – Jenna Blum
• The Necessity of Empty Places – Paul Gruchow (Have read this no fewer than 5 times.  This book is the reason I feel I must see the Sandhill Crane migrations on the North Platte River in Nebraska before I die.)
• Blue Highways – William Least Heat-Moon (Also read no fewer than 5 times)
• Young Men and Fire – Norman Maclean (also authored A River Runs Through It)
• Watership Down – Richard Adams
• The Velveteen Rabbit – Margery Williams & William Nicholson
• How Smudge Came – Nan Gregory & Ron Lightburn (One of the most beautiful children’s books I have ever seen – both the story and the illustrations.  About, and told from the perspective & voice of a young woman with Down Syndrome.)
• Walden – Henry David Thoreau
• Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
• Snow Falling on Cedars – David Guterson
• The Old Curiosity Shop – Charles Dickens (I read this when I was 11 because it was the only book I could find to buy in English from a street vendor in Paris; Have also re-read it as an adult and still have the 1903 reprint copy of the 1892 publication I bought at 11 years old)
• Encyclopedia of Dog Breeds (No specific book here, I can’t count the number of dog breed books I read as a child – the beginning of a tiny obsession)
• Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Every Day – Frederic Brussat, Mary Ann Brussat, & Thomas Moore (Recommended by a UU friend who I will tag when this gets to Facebook – it’s one I use & read over and over and over!)
• Everyday Sacred – Sue Bender (Last but not least, also read no fewer than 5 times)

Pebbles and Crumbs

Happy Saturday, Friends.  The words below touched me deeply when I read them in a UU publication just a bit ago.  "Pebbles and Crumbs" from the Rev. Ric Masten (1929-2008):

last summer whenever possible
my visiting granddaughter Cara
would worm her tiny hand into mine
and like Hansel and Gretel
we'd strike out from the house
up the "Barking dog trail"
to the "Creaky swings"
don't you love the labels
little children put on things?
and after a few "Sky flying"
"Watch me Grandpa!"s
it was on to the "Sneaky table"
where hidden in the shade
beneath a giant live oak tree
we would split
the forbidden can of Coke I brought
"Damn it Dad her teeth will rot!"

rested and refreshed
we then ascend the "Slidey steep"
to check the water level in the "Water keep"
to lift the lid and take a peek
then down the trail in single file we go
through the "Witchy woods"
all the way to Arizona which is what
my spouse has dubbed the shack
she uses as her dream shop and studio
Grandma it seems
also has a knack for naming things
"If anyone calls tell them I'm in Arizona."

next stop — the family memorial garden
where we solemnly commune
with the trees Kim and Emil have become
chanting softly as we pass
"From ashes to ashes to flowering plum."

then wending our way
along a stretch of "Dusty dirt"
we search for yesterdays footprints
covering them with todays
"Backward walking" sometimes
"To fool our enemies and friends."

and always during the final leg
of this backyard expedition
my companion lags behind
little Miss Slowpoke gathering specimens
repeating after me the name
of every trail side shrub and tree
eucalyptus — sticky monkey
lilac — sage — madrone
and "Don't touch that it's poison oak!"
then suddenly: "We're home!"

last summer Cara and I collected
and polished these moments
leaving them along the path like pebbles
to be used in the distant future
the way a whiff of cigar smoke
brings my grandfather back to poke about
in the garden with his walking stick
the way my grandmothers face
magically appears
at the taste of peppermint
her watchful presence close at hand
whenever I shake sand from something
that has been to the beach

I know that on some faraway tomorrow
a sip of Cola on a hot day —
a pinch of sage —
the creaking sound a rope swing makes
these things with Cara's help
will bring me back to life again
and thankful as I am
for such life extending crumbs

sadly I also know that the cigar smoke
and peppermint trick
can only be done by me —
in a couple of generations it all becomes
a banquet for the crows

Still Still Kickin'

And so my planned Friday away from work was not to be such.  I worked a good portion of the day to try and finish a never-ending saga.  "How can you finish it if it's never-ending" you might wonder?  Exactly!

I'm home and really actually done working, save for whatever phone calls may come in over the weekend.  John and I have had a fancy Friday night dinner out - at Big Boy!  The remainder of the evening shall consist of feeding the ravenous felines, Tigers baseball on the tube, and quite a bit of chillin'.

Amen, Alleluia, Put That in your Pipe and Smoke It!  Happy Weekend, Friends!

Still Kickin'

Well where on earth have I been all week?  It's been a long one so far, that's for sure.  Last weekend was a fun one with my 20 year (!) high school reunion Saturday and father's day family stuff on Sunday.

Monday brought a good long "regular" workday, and Tuesday brought an even longer irregular workday (count 'em - 15 hours).  Yesterday was regular-ish, plus an orientation for new Volunteers at the club - and today just got longer as I will be filling in tonight for a sick coworker (count these too - 13 hours most likely).  Phew!

It's all good at Prune Ridge, Mrs. Reed is just having a heckuva work week.  Time will allow for slowing this weekend, and I'll be a bit more present here.  See you at the double bar!