This Golden Eternity, Mothers, and Other Seedlings

Happy Mother's Day! I have another blog I started called Coffee and Audio and there I posted some tidbits of my wonderful mother today. That blog is more little fragments of daily life and this blog is more for my rants and rambles of everything and nothingness.

This week I started back at work after 3 weeks off....how my feet hurt after these past few nights! But how grateful to have dollars in my pocket....because for the last week and a half of my "vacation", I was broke as all broke could get! It's hard to think of things to do when you can't even afford gas money or a cup of wine at the bar...etc. Luckily I have a terrific family to help me get by, and my Arthie of course. And not that I can complain, I have beautiful food and drink every single day thanks to him. And a garden to watch and tend to, and books and movies, and music to play and write, and photos to take, and friends to squeak with. This week has been so lovely going back to work, in fact, I even LOVE it! Everyday I drive the one hour it takes to get to Grass Valley down the everbeautiful Highway 49, from Placerville through Coloma, into Cool, down into the gorgeous ravine (with it's greenblue RAGING American River down under the bridge), and up over the hill into Auburn. I have been driving with the top down and with scarves wrapped tightly over braids and the driving has been glorious! Despite my owning a beat-up rusted jalopy of a convertible, loud as she blows, creaky and bumpy and wild ride, she is a convertible nonetheless and that makes all the difference! The 80 degree air is pure inspiration as the sun hits my cheek and the radio blasts out whatever comes next be it New Order, Band O Horses, Led Zeppelin, Ryan Adams, etcetera! I love going to work! And then from the glory I am much energized to take on lots of hungry yuppie-hippies (nice and kind they are almost all of them) eating crikeloads of sushi and drinking giant Sapporos and sakes! Sorry carbon footprint, right now I just am so grateful to have such a beautiful drive to work. And coming home, though not yet warm enough to leave the top down then, there are beautiful yellowcream full moons to watch over me.

This week my edemames have sprouted! So happy for that, I just hope the caterpillars don't eat them like they did my basil sprouts. And a few other sprouts are up, and runner beans and hops and squash and zucchinis. I love Summer!!! All this beauteous food on the way. I love living in the country too, and to be close to such creative young-uns. We had a bit of a Cinco De Mayo party the other night at Becky's and Jordan's and it was very nice talking with the girls and wearing Mexican dresses. And then Wednesday night Mom and Heather and I took off to Sacramento to The Idol Hour which is Scott Sowa's and Ryan Jaurequi's bar and we had too much fun! At one point I vaguely remember trying to teach people the Running Man, Roger Rabbit, and Kid'N'Play.....early 90's rap abounding........



Nancy and Sherry having a great time!


Heather's looking GOOD!


Mom is such a dancer, I had no idea, I guess if you were born pre-1970's you just have an automatic know-how on how to dance to rock and roll WITH a partner. I sure as hell can NOT!

Heather on her way to Los Angeles for Dave's (Darin's brother) wedding. She looked amazing.

April Goodbye

It's the last day of April, and I am just fine with that. Not that April wasn't green, it was! It just flew by, and that's OK.















It's just that miraculous and evolution-promoting passage of time......and all the changes that us hu-mans and womans must go through because of it. God (or whatever higher power that you believe in if there is one for you) has a pretty mindblowing and humbling ordeal going on. Though the passage of time can be sad, it brings the truth about. That's what I love about it.

I just got back from a trip to Provo, Utah and Twin Falls, Idaho. I took the train out of the sweet little old-fashioned pickup in Colfax over the Sierra and crossed beautiful and desolate Nevada into Utah all the way to Provo. I got there at 5:30 am and had to call the only cab in Provo to get to Matt and Amy's house since they were in Africa, of all places! Actually, I was visiting to see their kids and my mom and sister, who had been kid-sitting for the 2 weeks. I had quite the bout of PMS by the time I arrived in my brother's living room. I think I must have cried for 15 minutes, quietly, to myself, for no good reason other than the cab driver in Provo seemed too creepy and I had just recovered from a hangover due to a very very fun Coal Beautiere show the night before my train. Sleeping on a train is full of starts and stops. But all my emotional displeasure was worth it to see the childs, Jarom, Bella, and Oey. I had a beautiful time!



And Mom and Heather were great fun. Matt and Amy's return from Ghana on Monday evening was quite a hit. We hid out for about an hour, waiting to surprise them with a group "Welcome Home!" when they walked through the door. And then mom and H and I were off to Idaho to visit Uncle Dan at the care home he lives in currently. We had a very sweet visit with him. I want to get him out of there if I can ever help it though. But he put on his Civil War coat and even made some jokes with us. Idaho was the last state in the west I had not been to! It was quite beautiful there, alot of farmland, open open vast skies, friendly people. Mom and us girlies had a great time. Mom met some cowboys along the way, most notedly in Ogden, however she has THAT picture and I can't wait to take a look at Roy and Eugene again. And I thank the stars of Burger King for FINALLY putting veggie burgers on their menu list nationwide! And Self magazine for reminding me that was even a possibility! Fries, chips, nuts and diet cokes can't sustain. A lady's got to have some REAL food....and that can be kind of hard on a fast road trip thru Idaho. So thank you, BK.











My train's a'comin! The station at Colfax.











See the gorgeous view from "Cape Horn". We are in the train 1800 feet from the American River below.




A little Target extravaganza.


































Bella and I at the Penny royal Cafe and then Bella took some portraits of Mom and Heather and I.








We decorated with chalk and made welcome home signs with construction paper and posterboard and got all ready for the big moment of Matt and Amy's arrival home and their wonderful stories and photos of Ghana. They looked beautiful upon entrance!







We stayed up late hearing tales of Ghana and it's peoples and traditions and Matt and Amy's Tro-tro drivers and hikes and elephant sightings and then we slept a few hours and awoke to drive to Idaho. After a lunch at Bajia of course (where one of these kids was doin' his own thing).











Not without good reason of course. The poor little man just had a surprise from the dentist......1st tooth pulled! You can't really tell cause his permanent tooth was growin' in already, right behind it!






The Snake River Canyon!


Mitch is Uncle Dan's roommate and he is an absolute nicey. I really liked him. Uncle Dan was very sweet as well. I wish we could visit him more often, and that I had come sooner. But also, it was perfect timing cause Mom said this was his best visit ever there. Perhaps someday he can live a whole hell of a lot closer than IDAHO!



I think Mom and Uncle Dan look great in this photo.







Happy May!

How many addresses in cyberland?

Wow. At this point it's gmail, yahoo mail, facebook, 2 myspaces (one for music), twitter, blogspot, the family blogspot, bank accounts, paypal accounts, cd baby accounts, amazon.com accounts, ebay accounts, esmarttax accounts, the list goes on!

The world is turning inside out. I don't really have a problem with it, it's just hard to NOT be on the computer like 7 hours a day. It's such a gorgeous, spring-loaded day, and here I am (well I went out in it for a bit) on the compute, doing loads of EDD stuff because Art's hours are so low at his work he qualifies for part-time unemployment. It's such a pain in the arse. Plus I am mailing things 3 weeks late. I should be out planting my lupine and columbine seeds! But then again, has anyone else heard?, they expect snow down to possibly 1500 feet this weekend! Hard to imagine what with it being GORGEOUSLY 72 degrees outside.

I know I never really finished my Inaugural stories, oh well. I have lost track of time. Time just keeps going and going....not slowing down, and I am like "HEY WAIT! I need like 10 more hours to each day!" I go to bed at 3:30 and wake at 10:30 and it's just not enough time to do all the fantastical, educational, physical, adventurous things in between! And eat! And make coffee! And play with cats! And to think, I only work 3-4 days a week! How do other people DO IT????
Some photos from of recent just to keep up with the beatty chaos and echternacht chaos and all the fun friends we share our life with.
These lovely girls came to visit us during a true winter snowstorm of the likes that Placerville's not seen for years. It snowed huge through their entire show at Cozmic Cafe. Prior to their show they recorded with Art for 2 days in our little shanty. We woke to gorgeous whiteness, blanketing all. My work ended up closing because of snow, and I got to hang out at their show! Agent Ribbons, you're beautiful!













Art with the friends.












Frostina!














Me in the first snow a couple nights before the major snow!













Oh Owl-ish!













Lindsey at our aerobics/ excercise birthday party for Jeff Thorsby.
Me at the same party! In full gear.
Ruebi and Art at a little breakfast diner overlooking the Sutra Cliffs in San Francisco.
Heather and Em at the very snowy Karaoke night!
Darin and Heather there ...my camera got snow in it!

Here's my Ghost and Owl. They absolutely love getting IN things. Or under things. Like blankets, baskets, laundry baskets, luggage bags, etc. Grabby teaches Owl.
Heather and I recently went on a road trip to Santa Rosa to say goodbye to Nichole who we have known since we all lived in Sebastopol. She is moving back to Maine. There was a great party and then we met some new friends. This one is Michelle. She just got back from 2 and a half years in Niger, Africa. Needless to say I had like 1000 questions for her. I learned much from her. She speaks fluent Zarma!

Nichole and Michelle.

More excercise party photos.


Mom acting like a little kid at Mikie's birthday dinner. It was delicious by the way. Veggie Texas Hash and Vegan Texas Hash. I loved it.

Mikie and Marma.