Post-election thoughts (Those five people are not your enemies.)

Reflections

1.  It’s over.

2.  When will the next election hoopla begin?

3.  Will our country be saved?

4.  Will our country be ruined?

5.  Will our country continue to plod along with some brilliant moves interspersed with awful decisions?

6.  Will all wars ever end?

7.  Why can’t we people get along?

8.  Let’s be grateful for what we have.

9.  Let’s vow not to attack the opposite viewpoint.

10.  Let’s vow to get more sleep on election night.

Happy Halloween dear readers! Don’t be scared…

Scary

Waiting game

Splashing

Do you remember waiting for your date to arrive in the driveway with his rattletrap ’69 Chevy, sitting behind living room curtains, waiting, waiting, what if he doesn’t show up?

Do you remember waiting to birth your first baby, big and uncomfortable and half-nervous, please, just let’s get this over with, I can’t last another minute of swollen irritability, and may the baby please be born safe with all ten fingers and ten toes?

Do you remember waiting to hear if you got the job, if you succeeded in that interview when you were oh-so-nervous, thinking what you could have said, should have said, how you want this job, please Universe, you really want this job?

Do you remember when your sixteen-year-old took the car for a spin, just a little spin, and the roads slicked with ice and you waited, heart pounding as the minutes stretched longer than the road to town, longer than it might take to spin into the ditch, to  hit a tree, to slide into perilous possibility?

Waiting for minutes to tick by.  Waiting for hours to tick by.  Waiting for today to pass.  Waiting for this month, this year, this lifetime…

Waiting to hear if your precious daughter weathered Hurricane Sandy in New York City.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

If you lose electricity click here for toilet flush expertise

When trees crash on electrical power wires

Ladies and gentlefolk,  I never thought this blog would come to this!

Almost 500 of you passed by Lake Superior Spirit yesterday mostly wondering what to do if your toilet ceases to work during a power outage such as Ms. Hurricane Sandy.

You keep searching and searching and searching on the Internet for the Valuable Information which will answer your toilet flushing inquiries, don’t you?

You keep typing in the search engines:  can you flush toilet when power goes out, why can’t i flush my toilet when power goes out, do you still have power water goes out, when power goes out can you flush the toilet, can i flush the toilet when power is out, why can’t i flush my toilet if i don’t have power…

OK, I will cease copying and pasting the search engine questions which have plopped folks squarely on my March 27, 2012, blog post:  What you can and can’t do when your power goes off in the woods.  ( I simply don’t understand why all of you weren’t coming to read my coyote yipping post  from yesterday morning.) Yesterday Google search showed my old toilet expertise blog post as #6 on their main search page.  This morning it’s #2.  Go figure what brings fame in life.

Morning stories from the woods

Outside–just now–coyotes yipping, close to the house. Neighbor’s little dogs barking furiously.  Cacophony in the woods!  My heart pounds.

Suddenly, all still.  Hopefully the dogs ran, tails between legs, back home.  Hopefully, coyotes didn’t breakfast until later.

Dark lingers these mornings, but it will lighten earlier next weekend when Daylight Savings Time flies away with the last honking geese.

Geese

Bare bones in sky: how the woods celebrate Halloween.

Nature’s bones.

A few short weeks ago (last week?  the week before?) the woods vibrated with rich colors of orange, red, yellow.  Bright vivid leaves surrounded, encompassed, danced on autumn breezes.

Almost alien.

A few short weeks ago the beauty of blazing intensity took your breath away.  You wanted the colors to remain this rich, this amazing, forever and a day.

Hands and hearts across the planet: Please meet Munira from Pakistan

Today would you please welcome one of my dear blogging friends?  Her name is Munira, and she lives across the sea in southern Pakistan.  I think we met through Kathy McCullough’s blog back last winter.  The name of her blog is Munira’s bubble and I am always mesmerized reading her stories about her life.  She writes very beautifully, and humorously, and keeps you interested from the first sentence on.  She also adds photographs of, say, her latest pre-dawn adventure at a nearby beach.  She doesn’t like to get too political, so maybe we should keep our political comments to a minimum, OK?  (I’m not particularly fond of politics, either…)  Enough of my yammering.  Please meet Munira!  

P.S.  Don’t you love it when the world becomes a smaller more loving place through meeting someone who lives across the sea and far away?  Hands and hearts span the planet, don’t they? Please welcome her warmly!

 

Dear readers of Kathy’s blog.

I am here because Kathy surprised me one day by wondering if I would consider writing a guest post for her.

Not only am I very flattered to be thought ‘guest post-worthy’, I am deeply honored that she would think you would be interested in what a woman from Karachi, Pakistan would have to share.

Let me introduce myself properly. My name is Munira, the meaning of which has something to do with luminosity (In Arabic it means ‘the light of the sun’.)

Munira with cat named Fuzzy

I just won a Kindle Fire!!

I think this is what it will look like!

Hi, guys, no time to chit-chat because I have to work, but you wouldn’t believe it!  I just won a Kindle Fire!! (Like an iPad, for those of you, like me, who don’t know the technological ins and outs.)   How cool is that?

Just yesterday I decided, yep, it’s time to spend less time on-line.  Maybe cut back on a little blogging.  You know, one of my regular retreat times.

But, no, the Universe obviously has different plans!

Last week we bought new tires at Lambert’s Auto Store.  Brian and Mandy are our buddies; we’ve bonded over Ford Fiestas and Buick Centuries and that evil car our daughter owned back in her late high school years, which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent.

We bought two new front tires.  All-season radials, although don’t quote me, because I don’t pay attention to things like tires. Instead I paid attention to the Kindle Fire sitting on Mandy’s desk.

“Can you enter to win this?” I asked, breathless.  I’ve wanted one of these fancy technological wizards since viewing Michaela’s I-Pad in the coffee shop this summer.  I love how you use your thumbs and fingers to move things around.  Wanted to borrow the iPad at the school to give my fingers a whirl in the Internet, but thought that wouldn’t be kosher, so lusted from afar.

The art my camera liked in San Diego

Something about these little Mexican ladies–I love them!

Before I quit posting photos and stories about our recent trip to San Diego for the wedding of our eldest and his bride, may I show you some pictures of art that my camera liked in the streets among farmers markets and art shows and Old Town stores?

Once upon a wedding…

Seunghye’s two-year old niece from Korea

Welcome to the wedding of our oldest child, Christopher, and his bride, Seunghye.

Please come in the Villa Mare and enjoy our celebration.  (I am so glad to have you readers with us in spirit.  It makes for more rays of love and connection, doesn’t it?)

See this little girl in her beautiful Korean traditional outfit over there?  See the little bunny she’s holding?  Barry and I bought a stuffed animal for the two little babies (this one and her little brother) at the bookstore of the University of California San Diego bookstore.

Looks like this bright-eyed girl likes it, doesn’t it?  She even brought it downstairs for the wedding.

Isn’t she adorable?

She’s shy, though.  It takes her a while to warm up to strangers, so don’t go expecting hugs immediately.  It took me a few days before I could pick her up and carry her around.

In the meantime, while you’re wandering around the Villa, please excuse me.  I must go get dressed in the aubergine mother-of-the groom dress.  It’s kind of wrinkly since travel, and we’ve been late arriving at the festivities.  Everyone else is dressed.

I certainly hope ironing is available.  Barry’s pants need pressing–and so does Kiah’s dress.

What shall we do?

In which Kiah’s boyfriend, Diaa, comes to our rescue & helps us iron. We like him a LOT.

Oh my goodness, what is this?  It looks like Diaa has been taught how to iron by his Egyptian grandmother!  Can you believe our luck?  He insists that it’s “simple” and so we give him our pants and dresses and, by golly, what kind of miracle man did our daughter discover?–he irons our clothes.

(Yes,  yes, I know how to iron. But when someone is offering–and it’s almost time for the wedding–would YOU say no?)

Look at the beautiful traditional Korean dress Seunghye’s mom is wearing. She is talking to my mom through a friend of the family.

Chris and Seunghye have hired a translator for the big day, so you can talk to her mom and dad and brother and sister-in-law and even the babies.

My mother thought that talking with Seunghye’s mother and learning more about Korean culture was one of the highlights of the wedding!

I was so busy mingling with the approximately 50 guests that it felt challenging to talk adequately with everyone.  You know how that is, don’t you?

OK, it’s time for the wedding ceremony to start.  Let’s all join together on the outdoor balcony overlooking the pool.  C’mon up–don’t be shy.  It’s very informal.  The bride and groom are going to exchange vows themselves (they have already been married before a justice of the peace) so it will just be a simple celebration.