Ugly Duckling Cactus

I don’t know what came over me when I added this cactus to my collection of houseplants. The thing is plain ugly. But it has sat on the window ledge since we’ve lived in this house so I’ve had it at least 10 years.  And it has done nothing but grow uglier.  I’m sure in its natural habitat it’s lovely and no doubt grows upright instead of falling over in a sorry imitation of a weeping willow. But then I don’t give it much help.  I water it a few times a year and other than that I pretty much ignore the thing.

So I was very surprised to notice a red bud on it a couple of weeks ago.  Then two red buds.  And each red bud produced an exquisite red flower that measured 9 inches across!

I do feel a bit bad for saying those mean things about it.  And I wonder what I did, and can do again, to help it bloom again.  On the other hand it’s probably not an Ugly Duckling Cactus.  It’s probably a 10 Year Locust Cactus and I’ll just have to wait.

A Rainbow of Plums

Our tree has produced a rainbow of plums.  Nothing more needs to be said about these pictures—except that I’ve got to figure out how to arrange them in my blog….

Power Outage

I was happily tapping away on my computer about 10:45 last night when our lights blinked, went out, came back, went out, came back, went out. But didn’t come back.  It was suddenly very dark, with only my computer screen for light, and very quiet with no hum of fans or the refrigerator or the water cooler.

 There was no good reason that I could discern, for the power to go out.  There was no wind, no rain. No sleet or snow either, but then this is July.  I was sure hoping this was a utility company problem and not a personal one, as in my breaker box had exploded or something.  Since my house wasn’t on fire I deduced there was no explosion but I still wondered.  So I decided, at 11:00 at night, to take a nice stroll down my road and see if my neighbors, the closest of whom is about a 1/4 mile away, were also in the dark.  The moon was full, it was warm, and all in all a nice night for a walk.  And my neighbors were all in the dark.  Of course, it was 11:00 at night and my neighbors probably had had the good sense to turn off their lights and go to bed hours ago,  as all good country folk should do.

So I turned to my last hope for solving this problem.  I called the utility company.  A very nice lady told me that they knew about the outage and they were on it.  The very nice lady was a recording, no doubt pre-recorded weeks ago, because she too, probably had the good sense to be in bed at this hour.

Oh! The power came back on at 1:00 in the morning.  I know, because the lights went on and the microwave began beeping.

Sleep tight!

The Sweet By and By

If you are looking for a great summer read I have the book for you.  The Sweet By and By, by Todd Johnson.

It amazes me that this book, about women, friendships, and aging, is written by a guy but he nails it.  It’s a sweet, poignant, funny, and sad story of 5 ordinary women and the journey they share.

I sometimes have trouble following story lines, especially the ones that start in the middle of the story, flashback, jump forward, flash back.  I’m really bad at following story lines in movies, particularly when we’re watching them at home, but my kids will tell you I could avoid much of that confusion if I’d sit still and actually watch the movie and not get up 10 minutes into the show and pull laundry out of the laundry room, but that’s really a story for another day.

With a book, I can read for a bit then happily pull laundry out of the laundry room, go for a walk, do the dishes, text a friend, whatever gets my attention,  then go back to the book and if I’m lucky I bookmarked my place and I’m off to the races, so to speak. But even with that advantage, I still got lost at one point with this book.  I went back and forth between the chapters trying to understand the time line.  I finally thought I had it but still wasn’t positive.

So I decided, what the heck, there’s an e-mail address on the book cover.  I’ll e-mail the author and ask him.

And guess what!  The very next morning I had an answer.  Now, it was probably from one of his “people” but nevertheless, it was an amazingly quick response and I am very impressed.  Not only that, I had figured out the time line correctly.

Please ignore any criticism of  the author on his writing.  I suspect it’s just me that couldn’t quite sort out the issue.  But go check it out for yourself.  Read the book and see what you think.  Bonne lecture.  That’s supposed to be “happy reading” in French.  I hope it is!

Screech Owls

This is one of the nights I yearn all year for.  Summer time.  Long days, warm nights.  The sun set about half an hour ago.  But twilight is still here.  The western sky is still quite light but I see one star over there.

Actually, the night is cooling quickly.  Lucky for me, I have a patio heater charged up and running.  And a couple of citronella candles burning because the mosquitoes are digging this summer evening, too.

The other night hubby and I witnessed the most amazing thing.  It was about this same time in the evening.  Dusk but not yet dark.  Some animal was making a very weird sound.  A not very musical sound that slid up the scale.  Then it would repeat.

I was in the house but the windows were open and I heard it.  Hubby was outside and he began scouting around.   And then he found them.  It was 3 owls!  They were in two trees just off our gazebo.  Two of them were in full view. The third was higher up in the branches.  And they were having quite the discussion. One would comment, then the other would answer.  We watched them for several minutes until the hidden one took flight and the other two decided they better too.

Hubby looked thru’ our bird books.  Their voice was like a screech owl but they looked bigger than that.  Whoever they were, it was amazing

Computer Success!

I recently amazed myself by going online and buying a piece of computer software.  I am not computer savvy.  Much of this buying online, downloading, uploading, imploding, freeloading stuff is way beyond me. So I was quite proud of myself that I’d found a good deal online. And it actually arrived in the mail!

But then the thing wouldn’t load on my computer.  So I asked a friend who knows much more than I do about these things, to give it a try.  He made a valiant effort and then delivered the bad news.  My DVD/CD drive appears to be AWOL. Doesn’t look good.  He suggested I take it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy and see if they can round up my drive and bring the varmit in.

So I did.  But they couldn’t.  My DVD/CD drive is permanently kaput.  The other bad news is that it would be too expensive to bother installing a new one.  But wait! There is good news!  External DVD/CD drives are available at a very reasonable price.  And there was even better news!  I’d brought along my software.  The Geek guy got out an external DVD/CD drive, plugged it into my computer, and downloaded the software for me.  And then he didn’t charge me a cent! It was awesome!!

So here’s to you Best Buy and your Geek Squad: Today, you are my hero!

Summer Time

I’m visiting my mom who still lives in the house I grew up in, and left, 40 years ago.

It’s a beautiful summer evening.  The sun has set but twilight reigns and the sky is a dozen shades of blue. Joe, the dog, and I went for a walk an hour or so ago.  It took me back to the summers of my childhood.  Folks were  sitting outside chatting with their families and friends, kids were jumping and squealing on the trampoline, dogs were barking.

Back several decades ago, on fabulous summer evenings like this, my brothers and our friends and I would stay outside til 10:00 pm or later,  riding our bikes up and down the street, running through the fields playing hide and seek, and “telephone”,  trying to avoid going inside where it was hot and we’d have to try to go to sleep.

The fields are still here. This is city. But it’s the edge of city.  The same fields are behind the house I grew up in, more fields a block away.  The houses are pretty much the same, too. The city has grown up all around this big eastern Washington city neighborhood but it’s left these few blocks alone.

I’m sitting outside on the patio of my childhood, at 9:30  at night soaking up this summer evening and soaking up the memories.  I’m not playing hide and seek or riding my bike.  But in my mind I’m a kid again, in the yard I grew up in.