Jaci Dawn

The dog.

He has been in to the room to see me twice tonight. Actually, he isn’t here to see me. Oh, he likes me, but he comes in here to steal things.

Lately he has had a fascination for the stuffed Pileated woodpecker Don keeps on his dresser.

The toy makes a Pileated woodpecker call. Murphy is halfway convinced it must be alive.

He’s licking his chops in expectation.

Don’t worry: we didn’t let him have the bird. Some things are not doggy toys.

Like my gloves or the box of tissue on my desk. But Murphy keeps coming back and trying.

Gotta love dogs.

I stole Javan for a little while last night (a sure sign I am feeling at least a little better than I have been).

His little arms remind me of Popeye the Sailor Man. I really don’t know why they do, but they do. Maybe it’s the rolls.

It could just be that he needs to use his arms to push up. It doesn’t really matter: they just remind me of Popeye arms.

What? You trying to blind me, Grandma?

He looks so much like his mother at the same age.

Come to think of it, she had Popeye arms, too.

Scary, isn’t it?

The photo is the glass top of a discarded metal coffee table I dragged home from some office discard sale. I painted the table with black Rust-Oleum, then I inverted the glass onto an old tablecloth and painted the same pattern onto the glass. When I set the thing back up, the paint side is facing the ground. It sits in my garden, waiting a time when I really get down to business about making that corner of my yard a real sanctuary with a pond, a bench, an arbor and a rain shelter. By the time that happens, I will need to scrape the paint off the glass and paint something else onto it.

Like the head of the donkey that splintered off of a charming little planter a couple years ago, the glass coffee table languishes in my untended and mostly ignored little garden spot.

I promise to get to it in 2010. Of course, I was going to get it done in 2009, but that trip I took over my son’s foot locker (cracking my ribs hard) took the wind out of that project. Literally. By the time I was healed, the cold weather was setting in and I’d lost all enthusiasm for the project.

I go out and take photos in the corner on nice days, to remind myself that I have this unfinished garden project.

But heck – my whole yard is an unfinished garden project.

And that is my life on this second day of 2010.

“Twenty-Ten” or “Two thousand ten” or “Oh-Ten”?

Or is it the year the Ducks win the Rose Bowl?

I’m not watching the game and I don’t care how you say 2010.

I’ve been feeling crummy for over a week now and gave myself permission to just stay in bed and read novels today. And think about things.

Like art. Like how a simple hair thingie could be reduced to art. (What are those things called, anyway? Hair bands?)

I just took a very close-up photo of it. No reason, except to create an artsy-sort of photo of the day (#156 of 365 days).

I’m hiding in my room with my computer, avoiding the noise and hoopla that comes with a Rose Bowl game (I don’t watch much football and have no understanding of the game except to know what is or is not a touch-down). I am even avoiding the noise that comes with absolutely adorable round-faced cherubs who are presently crabby and hungry. I’m avoiding social interaction which is sometimes too draining, even if it is with family that I not only adore and love, but who return that love & adoration.

Sometimes, you just need a whole day off.

Cheap novel (a romance, which is a genre I almost never open up, titled “The Life of Reilly” & penned by someone named Sue Civil-Brown), my warm bed in case I want to close my eyes and drift off to dream-land (I chose to take NyQuil and slept until one this afternoon), and my computer in case I decide to get creative. I’ve been working very hard at work, I have a dozen appointments to keep and promises I’ve made, and obligations to others, but today I just want to hang out and let my mind free-fall.

There’s a strand of my hair caught in the hair thingie. It’s a strand that is turning brown to silver. I have a few silver strands in my hair. Not many, but a few.

I suppose that with this being the first day of a new year, I am supposed to look back and reflect on the past year. I have no intention of doing that just now. I want to think about the future, but not in the sense of resolutions of of one year being better than another. 2010 will be what it is, just like 2009 was what it was. Good, bad, and middle-of-the-road. Life.

Why am I here, anyway? I wonder about that a lot. I have (yet) to read a lot of the philosophies and I am not sure they would answer my questions, anyway. I think life comes down to a very personal point: why are any of us here and what is our purpose? I keep hearing about “purpose” preached from the pulpit, but none of the preachers seem to be specific on what that purpose is. We’re left to find it out on our own, and sometimes God isn’t talking.

Or God is talking and we aren’t understanding because we’re listening with the wrong senses.

I spent five and a half hours in the worst commute ever and I keep wondering why I felt so peaceful during most of it? Was it the friends & family who were praying for me? Or a sense of purpose unfulfilled? Or just the sense that I haven’t lived the life I’ve wanted to live and I know that somewhere out there, beyond the limitations of circumstances that seem to keep me from living that dream, there exists the possibility that I will someday get to live that dream?

Probably all of the above and the fact that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was no accidental choice in the morning that I took the Explorer to work, even if I thought it was a random decision. It was no accident that Don felt too sick to go into work that morning.

Or that the stupid cold finally caught up with me today and I am lounging in bed with a cheap novel. Today, when I had the day off already, as opposed to during the week when I would have left the office severely short-handed.

Sometimes I resent that every time I take a step in the direction I think I want to go (be a famousartist or famouswriter – all one word, of course), that life burps and there’s some upheaval that rises abruptly before me in the form of, well, LIFE – and I have to step back and wait. And sometimes, I realize that those tenuous relationships of family, friends, and circumstances are more important work that what I want (or think I want) to do.

Like that strand of hair caught in the hair-thingie, I am caught in the web of life. And, depending on your perspective, it’s either a hair-thingie or a thingie of intricate beauty when viewed up close.

It’s a thingie either way. I don’t want to get too philosophical on you. Maybe I should go back to bed.

Just a random post with absolutely no point. Which is, I think, a suitable way to start 2010. (I say “Twenty-ten”, by the way).

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp !
and surely I’ll be mine !
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae run about the braes,
and pu’d the gowans fine ;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary foot,
sin auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae paidl’d i’ the burn,
frae morning sun till dine ;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
sin auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere !
and gie’s a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught,
for auld lang syne.

(Robert Burns)

(photo: from the cheap kaleidoscope Santa gave Zephan for Christmas)

When I arrived home last night, there was a little snowman waiting for me by the front door. unfortunately, my camera couldn’t make it out very well in the dark, backlit by the front porch light & I was too tired to try to be creative.

The neighbor kids (17 or 18 years old) made a big snow man. I didn’t think there was enough snow to do that, but it was just that good compacting stuff (which is why it turned so quickly into ice on the roads, no doubt). Even as tired as I was, it was fun to listen to them laugh and dance to their radio as they rolled big balls of snow around.

This morning when I went out, I was not just thinking about how nice it was that most of the snow was gone from the main roads or how slippery the slush might be getting off of our hill, I was thinking about the joy of snow. Because I really do like snow. I just don’t like to drive in it in Portland where they are not prepared for it and everyone panics.

(Note: yesterday was not because of Portland panic. It was merely something that turned from pretty, white, fluffy to compacted wet ice suddenly and without much media warning. Even experienced snow drivers were helpless against it. And people abandoning their cars in the middle of road lanes didn’t help much.)

Anyway. Back to snow.

I saw tracks in the snow. It was still a little dark, so my camera didn’t pick them up very well. My first thought, because of where they were placed, was that it was the eight-toed cat that I am constantly shooing out from under the bird feeder.  I like the eight-toed cat and he has a regular little path from our hours to where ever it is that he lives. (I do not like the black-and-white cats from across the street. I shoo them a little more strenuously.)

That’s not a cat foot print. The camera didn’t capture the whole outline of the little hand-print in the snow, but it is not a cat print.

A back foot and a front paw.

I mentioned the prints to Don tonight and he said, “I thought I saw raccoon prints out there.”

A little raccoon because the eight-toed cat’s tracks were not much smaller.

His tracks were almost side-by-side with the raccoon’s, but so very distinct from them. you can’t tell that he has extra toes in the paw print, but I know he does. I’ve petted him. I don’t shoo him away when he isn’t bothering the birds. I like him.

I took a photo of Murphy’s paw print, too. No ballerina, he stomped right through the snow.

There’s something comforting about finding little footprints in the snow.

There’s something comforting about the snow being all melted from the roadways, too. But that’s yesterday’s post.

I don’t have a photo of today’s snow, but I thought you’d enjoy a photo of Murphy on the trail with Don. Not even sure what trail they are on, but there’s a lot of ice in that photo. Don takes great photos.

So. Snow.

This is bound to be a long story, but I think that is allowable as it was a long commute home. Five and a half hours, to be exact.

It started this morning. Don called in sick. So I had my choice of vehicles. Normally, I would just take my truck because I like my stick shift even if it doesn’t have a reliable heater. The weather channel said “freezing fog” in Oregon City, but I knew that by the time I got off the hill, the roads would be clear. I hesitated. Truck. Explorer. Useless. Four Wheel Drive.

In the end, I took the 4×4. No reason why, just it seemed to be the thing to do. Sometimes, that is how God talks to you. You don’t even know He is talking to you, you just do what He tells you to do. It’s so easy to miss the boat. I almost did.

Around 2 today, I received an email from the receptionist at work: SNOW. I turned around and looked out the windows. Yep, snow. Snow doesn’t bother me. Much. And this was supposed to scour out in the early afternoon with a warm rain. At 3, my boss (who took the afternoon off) called to tell me thta it would be OK to leave early. Use my discretion. Then the Big Boss sent out an email telling us tyo use our discretion: if we had a long commute, leave early.

There was about an inch of it on the ground and nothing to concern me, but I checked the ODOT (Oregon Dept. of transportation) site and looked at the freeways. Parking lot. I decided to leave by 3:30. There was an inch on the ground.

In the Willamette Valley an inch of snow can be deceptive. It can be slick as snot (sorry, it’s just the euphemism that comes to mind) or just your average dry snow fall. This was slick. I made it to the bank within half an hour (it’s a ten-minute drive on dry roads). Already, it was slick. I looked west on Lower Boones Ferry Road and could see there was already an accident on the hill and traffic was only going one direction: toward the east.

I decided to go east and through Lake Oswego. Took me almost 45 minutes to get 3 miles and I realised another wreck was up ahead. Traffic wasn’t moving. I turned around and headed west. I found a side road and skittled over to where I started out. Took me exactly 2 hours to get back there from the time I left work. I-5 Southbound was a parking lot, but so was Lower Boones Ferry Rd.

90 minutes later, I had traveled only a few miles. The three inches of snow that had accumulated on the hood of the 4×4 was melting. The snow on the freeway/parking lot had morphed to ice. And now rain was falling on the ice. Even though I had the rig in 4-low, every time I had to step on the brakes (every car length or so), I slipped sideways. There’s just that much weight in an Ford Explorer. I made it to the next exit and decided to pull off, grab a meal and wait 30 minutes for the ice to break up a little.

Mind you, I kept in touch with my family throughout this – for once, I am thankful for a cell phone!

I walked through the nearest Fred Meyer, bought some food I didn’t really want, then returned to the rig. I knew that if I waited, I’d chicken out. Something about second-guessing your instincts. You know how it goes? You question the sixth sense, then you disobey it. Not a good idea, because a lot of the time that is God telling you to get with the program. If you don’t believe in God, at least believe in the 6th sense. Go with it.

I got back on the road. Took me 30 minutes to get from Fred’s to the freeway (a mere half mile) because  some guy in a pick-up(!!) cut me off, then got stuck on the ice on the uphill. (I could have told him to NOT stop!!)

At least the wait did me some good: the ice was breaking up because of the chains on rigs & traffic was moving about 10 MPH. We got up to 25 once or twice (the maximum for 4-low in the Explorer). I decided to not pull over and drop it into 4-high because I knew I would have to scale the not-so-friendly hills of Oregon City.

Anyway – I made it home. Yay!

My otherwise adorable grandchildren handed off their “yuckies” over the long weekend. Little runny noses caught up with larger noses.

Consequently, I spent the better part of Sunday in bed, trying to sleep off the bug. Today I foolishly went in to work.

Usually a day in bed knocks the punch out of whatever I have that’s got me down. It’s how I cope with being sick: crawl into bed, drink plenty of fluids, and sleep a lot. It hails back to when I was a 6th Grader and my stomach hurt every morning at 7AM and didn’t stop hurting until 3PM. I spent most of the school year sequestered in my bedroom, cutting out paper dolls and wondering if I was a true invalid like the tragic heroine in some novel I’d just read.

I was neither tragic nor invalid: I was a scrawny picked-on little girl who preferred hiding under the covers of her bed to facing the Lord of the Flies mob that buzzed ceaselessly around the junior high doors.

My father grew increasingly exasperated. My mother faithfully hauled me in to see Doc Hartoch. Doc drew blood and declared that I suffered some unknown ailment. I think he knew what ailed me, just as my mother and father did, but they didn’t have the ability to help me.

I learned two lessons that year. One was how to help myself. And the other was that if you claim you are sick, then you stay in bed and act sick.

The latter remains my philosophy about being sick. When I am sick (which is rare), I get into bed, turn the lights down low and hibernate until I feel better. 24 hours is usually the trick, but sometimes 36 hours does it. This current bug is a 36 hour bug. I’m already feeling better. I’ve hunkered down in my bed with the door closed and the lights down low until the cough medicine backfires and I feel like I am on speed (cough medicine will do that: make you drowsy for a couple days, then suddenly it acts like a super dose of caffeine and you can’t sleep anymore. Go figure.)

I’m half way through a mystery novel that I started on my lunch break. Sickness does that, too: speeds up the time it takes to read a cheap novel.

My head is still stuffy and something tells me that tissue will be a close friend for a few days. I have about 8 hours of sleep still in me, so I will retire soon so I can get up tomorrow and feel like I want to go to work. If I don’t, then I will stay curled up in bed, dozing intermittently.

I won’t cut out paper dolls.

And if you really want to know how I conquered that 6th grade fear, then you’d have to know about Mrs. Haskell. She said things like “alfa-alfa” (“alfalfa”) and she loved teaching history. More than that, she recognized a kindred soul when she saw one, and Mrs. Haskell single-handedly provided me with the tools to stand up to a bully and never back down. She gave me permission.

On Valentine’s Day when Danny-whose-name-shall-not-be-mentioned “accidentally” bumped me and sent all my carefully baked & frosted Valentine cupcakes falling frosting-first to the concrete playground, it was Mrs. Haskell who helped me salvage them all. Including the worst one. And I set that gravel-encrusted little pink wonder in front of Danny-whose-name-shall-not-be-mentioned and his hand shot up into the air with a shriek, “Mrs. Haskell, she gave me a cupcake covered with gravel!!”

“Oh?” she replied, “I thought that was how you liked them, Danny. You were the one who dumped them on the playground.”

The classroom twittered and I realized I had POWER.

Later on in 6th grade, I nailed Danny-whose-name-shall-not-be-mentioned in the face with a lunch pail. Actually, I just held it out in front of me in self defense and he rode his bicycle smack dab into it. Blacked his adorable little eye. I ran away, laughing hysterically.

One of his cronies cornered me the following day, “Is it true, you ran away crying?”

I started to laugh. “Oh, my goodness, no! It was the funniest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” I crooned.

Power.

So now you know why I never let a bully stand in my way and why I crawl under the blankies when I feel sick. All about the same darn year. And both very effective defense mechanisms. Thank you Dad and Mrs. Haskell.

Woke up to a beautiful white world. No snow, but a good heavy frost.

I never tire of the beauty of frost.

I get a little tired of the cold sometimes, but never tired of the beauty. It even transforms Himalayan blackberries into something of beauty.

(In case you are not aware, Himalayan blackberries are the scourge of the Pacific Northwest. Some well-meaning soul brought them over and planted them and they found the climate to their liking. They invaded, pushing back the native blackberries and anything else in their path. They grow to over ten feet in height and create formidable fortresses of sharp leather-piercing barbs. They are next-to-impossible to get rid out.)

Aside from my deep-rooted dislike for that particular variety of blackberry, there is the frost. And the frost makes the vine beautiful.

Beauty.

A powdered-sugar coating of ice that makes life just a little bit sweeter.