Jaci Dawn

The rain forms music notes on the window screen, illuminated by the street lamp across the way.

The rain plays melody and harmony with the wind and light as accompaniment.

I leave you to your own interpretation of the accidental silhouette in the second photo: I personally like how it turned out, and so soon after Easter.

Maybe it wasn’t accidental? Sometimes I like to think things are not accidental, but that there is a greater purpose in them.

🙂

I got side-tracked with tonight’s blog post. I wanted to capture the windstorm, but since my camera doesn’t have a video option, that was a pretty wasted idea. I did take a whole series of photos and tried to clip them together to make a movie, but – well, I really need to read the manual to my camera. (Who reads manuals?)

The wind storm wasn’t all that spectacular, anyway, and we live on the lee side, so storms usually blow right over us and we don’t even know they were there until the morning after and the streets are littered with downed limbs and trees.

So that put me in a pickle for my 250th photo of the day.

Then I spied Diamond.

And I promptly forgot to reset my camera, so I didn’t have the flash on.

Diamond is one half of a set. The other half was a kitten that was sitting up and looking coy.

My sister and I were caught up in a struggle for attention and favoritism. If I got to choose first, she was upset and angry. If she got to choose first, I was upset and angry. For instance, when it came time to play an instrument for school band, I really, really, really wanted to play the flute. All my friends (Trudi and Carolyn, to be specific) played the flute. But it wasn’t my turn to pick first. My folks could only purchase one musical instrument and that one was chosen by my sister. She chose clarinet.

She played it for six months and dropped out. I played it for four years before giving up and admitting I had no real talent. But that wasn’t the point: the point was, she got to choose first.

Diamond and her counterpart were a gift from our grandparents Melrose. And it happened that it was my turn to choose first. I chose Diamond. Deni got the other kitten, which was, to my mind, just as cute with little rhinestone eyes.

Deni was not of the same mind and she promptly found a way to break Diamond. I don’t remember the details, only the sisterly spite and the distress I felt when Diamond was broken into bits.

My mother, ever the diplomat, carefully glued Diamond back together and cautioned me against going after my sister in an eternal war of revenge. Let it go, see I fixed the kitty almost as good as new.

I dropped Diamond myself at some point in time, and the glue came out again. The break lines just added character, my mother said.

I do not know what become of my sister’s kitten. Between the lifestyle she lived and the disposition of her belongings by her widower after she died, much of what belonged to her was lost. I’m pretty certain she still had Diamond’s counterpart (intact, I might add) when she died. I hope she did.

I still have Diamond and she still has her original rhinestone eyes.

And what beautiful, laughing eyes they are. Diamond seems to smile beneath the cracks of her porcelain finish, an eternally amused kitten.

A reminder of the sister I loved and warred with. And of a mother with the wisdom to patch things together imperfectly.

Aren’t memories grand?

I did not do anything special with my Easter. Don is still dragging and because his immune system is so weakened, we didn’t invite the kids over for ham & baskets. I didn’t even go to church today, probably the first Easter that I have stayed home in years. It felt strange.

It’s been a dreary, normal April weekend: hail, rain, sunshine, repeat. Certainly not a good weekend to go out and garden.

I baked a small ham for Don & I and we had a very simple dinner.

Other than that, I have spent the day organizing and arranging. I need a small shelf unit for the corner of the loft where Donald has all of his miniature railroad stuff (in boxes, mind you). I need two wooden dresser units: the 6-drawer kind and no taller than 31″. I prefer used, but Don wants me to buy new. I’m searching Craig’s List and thrift stores: this is about me, not about new. Everything else I have is used.

I also want a twin-sized hide-a-bed for the loft and one of those queen-sized inflatable mattresses for guests. The latter is on sale at BiMart for $30.00 and I will most likely pick it up next Saturday. The former is going to be a Craig’s List item. I might settle with a day-bed or a futon: that’s something that is up in the air. One little item at a time.

One item I wanted for my studio was a toaster oven. They sell them in craft stores as “craft ovens” for about the same price as a toaster oven, and I can’t see any obvious differences. I filed that one under “Need for studio” last year before I packed everything up and shoved it into storage so the kids could live here.

Then came Christmas. Of all things my mother-in-law could have chosen to send us, she chose a toaster oven!

Don didn’t think we needed one and conspired to return it t o the store (except we did not have a receipt). I intervened and explained to him that it really was something I really wanted and needed, and that his mother (as always) read my mind. I’m not sure he was convinced, but as soon as this room opened up, I hauled the new toaster oven up here.

And today I used it for the first time. I set it at 230-degrees (F) to bake a polymer clay hand for a sculpture I am working on. Then I set the timer for 30 minutes and let it bake. Thanks, Mom! It’s perfect!

I also need to work on my website, so I picked up two books on web-site design from the public library. Oh, so much to do! I’m excited, but taking my time as I want to do this right. I feel like my dreams are being resurrected, which is an appropriate feeling for today in my mind.

Happy Resurrection Day!

As you can see, getting ready for Easter is serious business.

I saw the cutest outfit on a friend’s Facebook page and I just had to try it out. The results were better than I could have expected!

Yes: Easter Bunny glasses for the dog!

He looks so fine in them!

My favorite pose.

My husband.

You have to love a man who will do stupid stuff for his wife!

At some point, Murphy decided we owed him the glasses, and he took off with them.

I’m glad I don’t have pooper-scooper duty for this dog!

So: what do ya’ll think of the new Easter get-up?

I love Spring weather. One minute, the sun is shining. Then the rain is falling and the wind is blowing. Then it’s hailing. Then the sun comes out and a rainbow graces the sky. Then it’s snowing.

April can’t make up its mind: warm or cold? Dry or wet? It’s a blustery month, all bragging and bravado leading up to the milder temperatures of May and June. A bully.

In April, if you’re tired of the snow or the rain or the wet or the wind, wait five minutes.

Guess what the weather is like in the Pacific Northwest.

While El Niño gave us a wonderful break for the winter, guess what El Niño does to our spring and summer?

March came in like a lamb, guess how it is going out!

I’m pretty certain you guessed right.

The streets are all little rivers flowing downhill.

Yep: a little of this and a little of that mixed in with our perennial greenery. It adds a nice contrast. Melts fast, too.

So I have a confession: while I whine and moan about the constant cloud cover we normally have in the PNW, and while I still have not grown webs between my toes like the rest of the Oregonians around, and while I embrace the days of sun as if the world was coming to an end, this fascinates me. This rain that falls in such huge amounts, that splatters and mists and gets so confused that it rains and hails at the same time. This rain that dumps out of ever-rolling black clouds, fills all the low spots and puddle, makes the sump pump in the crawl space growl at night and darkens the sky.

Rain. We didn’t get that much of it when I was growing up: an annual rainfall of about 6″ or 7″ (I found a cool comparison chart on a website for Annual Rainfall for US). Sometimes that rain came all at once and we’d have a torrential downpour, flash floods, and exciting lightning and thunder storms. then it was over, the water drained away, the sun came out and everything dried out.

Then I moved here, where the annual rainfall is nearly three feet. (37.5 inches according to Wikipedia). That isn’t as much rain as a lot of other states (I can’t imagine Alabama or Louisiana or New Jersey!), but it is a lot of rain to this Desert Rat. And when we get a torrential downpour, it can last for hours or days, depending on the cloud cover, the Pacific Ocean and the jet stream. And when we get a torrential downpour, I stand and stare at it like it is the first time I’ve ever seen rain.

It’s amazing.

Where does all that water come from? Why don’t we have a tin roof so I can listen to it rain (best place in the house: the bathroom or the laundry room: you can hear the rain on the roof vents and it sounds like a tin roof in a rain storm). Where does all that rain water go?

That’s an easy question: I noticed tonight that the Willamette River is rising. It has gone from murky grey and “hog” lines to fast moving muddy brown, foaming and pushing hidden logs, trees, and whatnot northward to the Columbia. (I could not find a good definition of a “hog” line, but if you click the link, there’s a great 1940’s photo of one. Flash forward to 2010 and it looks surprisingly the same. Only now the salmon are endangered and you wondered what these guys are “hogging’? – end of political statement. Basically, a hog line is a whole line of boats across the Willamette River, each vying for the first Coho to attempt to make the long trek upstream to spawn. The endangered Coho. Sorry, political statement just kept going there…)

Aside: We’re not close to flood stage and my heart goes out to the folks on the eastern seaboard (primarily New Jersey where they get an annual rainfall of almost 42” in a normal year). We don’t want to be close to flood stage where the Willamette pours over its banks. If it floods Clackamette Park (and it looks like it will), that’s a normal spring flood. No homes are threatened.

It’s just me and my fascination with how much water can fall from the sky.

And then it is done, the rain tapers off and only the gutters are gurgling (because they are full of pine needles and overflowing, no doubt).

The rain still clings to the pine needles as the sun fades to the west.

I’ll be sick and tired of it by the end of the week, but it’s always so novel when the storms begin to move in.

A simple hibiscus flower etched onto a small conch shell and made into a night light.

A night light to light the way in the dark.

I will let you draw your own analogy.

A night light is there to chase away Boogey-men and help you find your way down a dark hall or stairway without falling.

I think this photo is hysterical.

“Please, can I sit on your lap, Master?”

Squirrel!

“Oh, look – Mom is taking our picture!”

Squirrel!

I love how their moustaches look alike.