Random Brain Noise

I don't live in a dollhouse.  I don't drive an amusement park bumper car.  My teacups and saucers are full size.  I have all the trappings of a grown up but still feel like a child inside.

Even though my sister terms it God, I admire her belief in letting life play itself out as it will.  I would call it Universe or Fate's Hands but will try to emulate her by putting more faith in letting life transpire as it will (with crucial interventions here and there, as appropriate!)

There is absolutely NO GUARANTEE that healthy eating will make me live longer or more disease-free but I do enjoy my pesco-vegan-way of nutrition!

I need to practice skipping and hopping.  I tried to show my Grandson how to play Hopscotch (true, I tried indoors on carpet!) but find my skipper and hopper need fine-tuning!

Looking at dust on the top of the refrigerator, I wonder what good dusting will do as it will only get dusty again?

Sometimes the repetitiveness of daily life is so boring!  (Please, Universe, I didn't mean that - don't take me yet!!)

I admired in the grocery store the other day a man who was carefully picking out mangos and avocados.  Most men use the "blindman's bluff" method of produce selection and will pick any old, semi-rotten fruit just to get out of the grocery store!  (Hopefully they don't pick woman with the same nonchalance!) Me - I gaze into the "eyes" of the produce and let it commune to me the perfection of its inner essence before gently nestling it in my cart!  ; D  (Then I cringe when the super-speedy checkout cashier blithely tosses it to the bagger!)

Don't mistake every thought as something worthy to write about!!

Don't make blogs too self indulgent!!

I need a cause bigger than myself.  Then again, maybe I just need a hike!!  Wait a minute - I had one today - up the logging road from the west on Pajarito Mountain, over to Aspen Lift and back down Rim Run - nice!

Group Hikes Getting to Me

I'm beginning to think that large group hikes are not my cup of tea.  I didn't count how many hikers there were this morning but there were so many parked vehicles at the meeting place that I had to park across the street.

I was very grateful for the ride to the trailhead given me by the WRSC hiking couple.  FR376 to San Antonio Hot Springs is a bladder-busting ride but the driver skillfully navigated the many rocks and uneven surface.

San Antonio Canyon was beautiful, of course, but the group stopped for lunch far short of the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) locked gate.  In years past, they walked to the gate, walked under it and had lunch on a hillock in the Preserve (trespassing all the while - I was looking so forward to my annual civil disobedience!)  Our much beloved, long-time hiking leader, though, has a serious, chronic disease which has sapped all her former energy.

On the way home, our driver told me the hike was almost 4 miles but I, not being the least bit hungry at 11:30 am, went further in search of the locked Preserve gate to take its portrait.  I haven't lost my Wrong-Way Whine Child touch, though, because instead of turning left and paralleling San Antonio Creek, I continued straight and crossed the creek, ending up at the Preserve fence but not even near my desired destination, the locked gate!  Oh, well - at least fording the stream was very refreshing and the cattle were friendly!  I was right where FR106 comes into San Antonio Canyon from Mushroom Basin/Thompson Ridge.

I took a portrait of the sign on the fence which says "Access Only with a Valid VCNP Permit".  That's incredibly misleading because the sign is even posted on areas that require NO special access permit, like the free Valle Grande Trail.

After the hike, I spoke to the receptionist at the BESC.  She said her hiking group was dissuaded last Friday from going on the free Valle Grande Trail due to the sign implying there was no access to the FREE Valle Grande Trail without a VCNP permit!!  I told her to not believe that sign - the trail is open and we hiked on it last week with my sister.  It's a beautiful trail that takes you right to the edge of the Valle Grande.

Back to my dissatisfaction with group hikes:  It's safest for me to go on the ones to which I can drive myself and then if I want to go further, I'll go further.  These long drives for a short hike are not satisfactory to me!!

In Love with Pajarito Mountain

Today I wanted to walk the grand tour on Pajarito Mountain but didn't start up the mountain until around noon and dark clouds were already hanging over the top of the peak.

I started up anyway - taking the jeep road from the Lodge, under the Town Sight lift.  I made it past the snow-making retention pond (it sounds so scary when rain is falling onto its plastic liner - still not filled up) and was starting uphill to go over to the Mother Lift but one big crack of thunder convinced me to turn tail and go back down the way I came up.

On the way down, there was a little rain but it didn't rain really hard until right as I got back to the car.  Imagine me at the car, the rain coming down hard, balancing my golf umbrella while trying to open the backpack's zipper (first I opened the wrong one!) and get the car keys out - all the while sure that Thor would strike me down before I could get inside the car's metal shell!

I honestly think I could have made the full route today as the lightning didn't develop as severely as I thought it would.  I'll try again Thursday but start earlier.

I tried to sing The Sound of Music on the walk down - I really did but I can't carry a tune.  I sang what I know of When You're Sixteen but I don't know much.  Best I could manage was the Do, Re, Mi song but for some reason, the "Mi, a name I call myself..." part made me want to cry...sometimes I'm not entirely sure who "Me" is...

I had so many thoughts on my hike and while driving back home that I'd like to write about - philosophical type of stuff - but by the time I sit down to the computer, I forget most everything.

I'll make one comment though - rain makes me want to be holed up somewhere with a loved one - don't know why that is...

It was so beautiful on Pajarito Mountain today - as green as I imagine the Isle of Eire!

Oh, yes - I have found where the hermit thrush lives and sings its song on Pajarito Mountain - at the four-way intersection, in sight of the red tower.  Such a beautiful, haunting melody to grace my ears on a rainy day!

Memorable songs I heard while driving today: Uncle Kracker's Follow Me, Diana Ross and the Supremes's Where Did Our Love Go and Adam Lambert's Whataya Want From Me.

Running out of time - need to start supper - salmon, cauliflower, corn on the cob and lots of summer fruit!!

An Alimentary Canal

Sometimes I feel just like a huge, pink alimentary canal!  So much of life is food related and I love to eat, of course, but I can't help but see my similarity to  a wooly bear caterpillar which is, basically, an alimentary tube - put in leafy vegetation at one end and see what comes out the other?  Frass! (Really - Google it!!)

So much of my life is involved with buying food, washing fruits and vegetables, preparing food, consuming food, thinking about food, etc., and then starting all over again.  I can understand why someone who's very busy (a working Mom with a lot of hungry kids, for instance) would succumb to convenience foods!  Eating healthy (especially fresh fruits and vegetables!)  requires some time for prep work!!

If anyone asks me my nutrition plan, it's basically to eat as many fruits and vegetables as humanly possible with some fish, beans, whole grains and nuts  thrown in here and there!  Just today, I bought so much fruit at Smith's that it will be a race for spouse and I to eat it up before it spoils (don't worry - I'll freeze it before that happens!) but I'm up to the task!! I bought peaches, nectarines, a cantaloupe, bing cherries, blueberries, mangos, on the vine tomatoes, green onions and avocados!  Yay - yummy, summer fruit season is in full swing!! 

Apparently I'm not the only one who adores summer fruit.  In Smith's today, I met a charming, young Asian woman who was as fruit crazy as I, piling her cart with bing cherries and blueberries!  She says she sometimes eats just fruit for supper and feels so good!  We both got a good laugh at ourselves!  Seriously, though, fruit is a true convenience food - wash it off and it's good to gobble! 

No matter how ludicrous the idea of me being a giant alimentary tube may be or how repetitive the food cycle is, I don't think I'll quit eating anytime soon!  Like I said, I love eating!!

Thinking Obituary - Mine!

While walking one hot day on the Rogue Trail, several weeks back,  feeling sorry for myself for all my supposed woes, I started thinking about obituaries and how inadequate they sometimes seem if they're a woman's.  Yes, "she was a consummate birder" - big deal, everyone's thinking; in otherwords, she was a housewife, a nobody.

Whereas a man's obituary is often a long compendium of what he did, accomplished or published, etc., as though the measure of our life equates with our resumé - the lengthier, the better. 

The only true measure is that we lived and loved and that we are (hopefully!) dearly missed by our family and friends.  Nothing else matters in the end.

Few People Know or Care

Few people know or care that I'm half Syrian.  When I was a child, growing up in the rural sticks of Canton, OH, my classmates seemed to care but in a pejorative way - calling me Eagle Beak (my brother was called brother of Eagle Beak), hunky, Olive Oyl.  I looked different from them.  I remember once in gym class locker room, a girl asked why I had a tan on my stomach.  I told her it was from wearing my Mom's two piece bathing suit.  This was true but I also paraded around in midriffs and shorts all summer, becoming the proverbial "brown as a berry".

My mother's family cared because that meant we were half-bloods and not real Syrians like they were.  We got part of the good, dark Syrian looks but not the thick, long, black eyelashes of my cousins and most of all, not the legitimacy of being "true" Syrians. 

Years after both my Mom and Dad had died, at a family get-together in Canton, another uncle, demented and ill by then, told me that his Mom asked my Mom "Where did you drag that in from?" when she met our father, a non-Syrian of German extraction.  At that same get together, my Mom's sister expressed contempt for my Dad.  I don't know why they heaped all that on me when I had traveled to visit the family - perhaps I reminded them too much of my father.  Even though others at the get-together were very kind to me, I cried throughout the evening each time I remembered anew the cruel words about my father and by inference, me, and also when I thought about all the years that had passed without my visiting Canton and being a part of my Syrian family.

My daughter seems to identify completely with her Dad's side of the family - the Russian, Polish and Jewish background.  That's probably because I've had little to do with the Syrian side all of her 32 years so she doesn't know them.

People where I live now don't know or care that I'm half Syrian.  They are an international cast of characters themselves!!

Yet, at the library, I saw the DVD The Syrian Bride on display.  My husband and I had seen the movie at a theatre in Santa Fe.  I felt such a swelling of pride at seeing the word "Syrian" in the title.  I took it out and watched the special features.  The movie centers around the events leading up to the bride leaving the Golan Heights to marry a Syrian man.  The conflict is that she must forever leave her family who are living in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights.  There is a lot of humor involved.  Coincidentally, my family says our Syrian ancestors were from Mount Hermon near the Golan Heights.

Anyway, even though few people know or care that I'm half-Syrian, I'm very proud of my Syrian heritage!

Annual Beheading of NM Locusts on Route

This year, my modus operandi was to step on the little buggers (so they can't run away - ha, ha!) and saw them off at the base with my handy-dandy snaggle-toothed garden saw - what fun (not really)!  Last year I pulled them out by the roots but that required wearing heavy gloves to protect against the thorns.  It doesn't matter which method I use since they'll grow back profusely anyway but the beheading method is easier than yanking them out by the roots!  ; D  Don't worry - there are plenty more NM locusts in the woods - I merely chopped off the ones that had the temerity to rear their thorny heads in my pathway!

Went to senior center this morning for 10 am talk by Bandelier Ranger Tom Betts aobut his time at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.  I enjoyed the talk.  I started wishing that I had become a national park ranger - the scenery is unparalleled!  Tonight I told husband that we need to visit all the national parks in his retirement!

I checked the library for books on Wrangell-St. Elias but found none.  

I am going to die from the heat in this house!

Cure for the Common Routine

When I hear a song from my past on the radio, like today when they played "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", it somehow distills the culmination of my longings and  yearnings to break out of my usual routine.  (I'm certainly the master of setting up routines.  Mastered it in my teens.) 

When I hear these songs on the radio, it's not even a conscious thought process - it's more a feeling that runs through me - of wanting to break away - hit the road and keep on going!

So much of life is filled with marking time.  Maybe what happens is that the song makes a direct connection to something in my brain and forcibly pulls me into the present, the Now,  to use Eckhart Tolle speak.  Goodness knows that I often need to be pulled into the Now!

Minor Grievances

Here's more whining I thought of today:  Why does our realtor, after showing us a house, start his pickup truck engine remotely as though to tell us the visit is over?  It's not like we talk and talk and take up his time.  It's rude.

Why did I have so many malapropisms while my sister was visiting the last week (like saying flush when I meant to say fluff)?  Perhaps early Alzheimer's or some other yet unidentified dementia?  The visit was stressful at times and maybe when I'm stressed, the blood flow to my brain diminishes?  How long can I use the excuse that I need more sleep (true)? I wish I had a crystal ball to see how my brain will age!

Regarding neighbor's work buddies, family or whoever they were yesterday evening, they weren't so much saying F-U as F-ING this and F-ING that.  Unpleasant in either case.  What was she thinking?

Also regarding the grousing session at neighbor's, to hear them complain about their co-workers makes me realize that no one ever really knows for sure if someone likes them or can't abide them.  We're all two-faced in our fashion!

I wonder if homeless people become homeless to escape the million little irritations involved in maintaining a home?  There is so much in homeownership that I could do without.  Why does shelter have to be so complicated?

Grandson is here for a sleepover.  Right now he's watching Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds with husband.  His Mom and step-Dad are at a concert.

Arrgh!!

Why did I see a 4 wheeled, license-less Kawasaki (it looked like a crunched jeep) - not once but twice on Pipeline Road?  The gate is triple locked yet the tire tracks go right under the gate.  I'm too lazy to call the forest service to track down what's the story.  Who else but the forest service would have a key anyway?

Our neighbor across the street had guests in her garage saying F-U this and F-U that for several hours this evening.  It almost sounded like they were rehashing work.  I hope the church people at the end of the street tell them to stop.  I don't so much care about the F-U's but the neighbor has a loud, shrieky voice and they all were rather loud!  How long can they stand, talk and drink in her garage after all?  Too long, apparently!

Looked at a townhome in Quemazon.  Not for me - way too many windows.  It was pretty though with all the light.  My main problem would be my bedroom - how would I make it dark when there are ceiling high windows?

Why won't my brother-in-law pay back the $10,000 we loaned him 12 or 13 years ago?

Ex-son-in-law posted photos of daughter's ex-cat that recently got eaten by a coyote.  (Photos of when she was alive, that is.)  She was a beautiful cat!