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Was going to
I was going to tell you about the community band’s spring concert performed Tuesday night this week. We invited some of the local 7th graders to play with us. Their faces were glowing. Such cute talented kids.
Was going to tell you about the tree peony in full bloom. More blooms than I’ve ever seen before.
Was going to tell you about lots of stuff from this past week. Meant to. Every night I was going to tell you all about it.
But work this week has been…to put it in the words of one of my youngest employees….brutal. And at the end of the day Friday I heard this conversation:
Person #1: “I like watching Jeopardy, like to see if I can come up with the answers before the contestants.”
Person #2: “I do the same thing with Wheel of Fortune. That’s about all I can handle after a day like this.”
Person #3 yells over the wall: “After this week I’m going to pour a glass of wine and watch Sponge Bob.”
Yep that about sums it up. Pouring wine now.
A lovely weekend
This is all mine!
Katie here….Three day weekends should be the norm because then I’d have my Mama around more and we could do more fun things. Like going to my park! Mama kept promising me all weekend that we’d go to the park. She said that a lot while she was weeding and hauling mulch and stuff. After awhile I didn’t believe her anymore.
So when Dad said “Hey Katie-girl (I was sleeping and he woke me up!)…do you want to go to the park!?” I knew something was up. He never asks me that. So I got all excited and missed the evil look my Mama gave my Dad, cause I guess she was busy with something and now she was going to have to stop doing it and take me right away because Dad got me all riled up. It worked too! I should probably pay Dad a commission or something.
Come on Mama, hurry up!
We had the park all to ourselves. I guess Mama had planned on taking me to a bigger park, but then she realized that those parks would be full of people doing Memorial Day stuff so we just went to my local park. I didn’t care, I was so excited to be there I didn’t even want any treats when Mama offered. I just wanted to sniff!
Every year Mama takes me to this park to take my picture with the pretty yellow flowers. I don’t know why, I always look the same. She says this year we were a little late. I don’t know what she’s talking about. I still look beautiful even though I am six and a half years old. Little late. Sheesh.
A Sheltie is never late.
We practiced some obedience along the way too. And of course Mama did that distracted recall thing. I’m really really good at that. I love running back to my Mama when she calls.
Coming Mama!
Toward the end of our walk the sky got dark and it started to sprinkle. I don’t care so much, but Mama said we had to get back. You see, we tried camping last night in the back yard for the first time this season and Mama said we needed to get back to the house so we could get all the camping stuff back inside. Whatever Mama. It’s not like we spent very long out in the tent last night. It was stinking cold! But I’m not worried, I know there’s going to be plenty of camping nights this summer.
Here’s me being ‘dramatic’ before the rain.
I had a great weekend. Too bad Mama has to go back to work today. On the other hand, I could use a nap!
What are we doing next weekend Mama?
Memorial Day musings
Remember
When you spend hours pulling weeds, hauling mulch and raking stuff you have a lot of time to think. And a lot of my thinking this weekend has been about a new truck safety friend I met while in Washington two weeks ago. I guess it’s been a combination of a lot of things that have me thinking of her.
Saturday I drove by a funeral home while they were lining up for the processional to the cemetery. What caught my attention was the real funky looking hearse; the front looked like a 1920’s car, the back, where the casket would ride, was all glass. I took a second look and saw that the parking lot was full of motorcycles and riders. Sadly it must have been a motorcycle enthusiast that died. I wanted to stop and take pictures but knew they deserved privacy in their grief. My new friend’s husband was killed by a semi while riding his motorcycle to work. She rides too.
It’s Memorial Day weekend and her husband was military, as are others in her family. She’s missing him mightily this weekend. He was killed a year ago last April and I think this year the reality is sinking in. I have been reading her Facebook comments and wishing I could offer more comfort. On this weekend when everywhere she looks flags are flying, soldiers are being honored, families are gathering, she is feeling alone. It shouldn’t be this way. Her husband should be here. He should be receiving thanks for his service. They should be celebrating. War isn’t the only way to lose soldiers. Sometimes bad things happen right here at home. I hope she can feel the love we all hold for those who serve to keep us free. I hope she can feel the respect we have for her and families like hers. Mostly, I hope that in time she will learn how to live in her new normal. But for now I hope she knows we’re right here. We can’t make it all better. But we can help make it bearable.
I know she’s coming down from the high we sometimes experience at the Sorrow to Strength conference. She spoke at our news conference; she was strong and articulate. She did it for the love of her husband and for all those lost in crashes with semis. She was amazing. I heard Mariah Carey on the radio Friday evening as the weekend began and thought of my friend instantly and how she spoke so eloquently of her loss in front of the news cameras. The song seemed to say it all.
“So when you feel like hope is gone
Look inside you and be strong
And you’ll finally see the truth
That a hero lies in you.”
She is a hero, yet I know that now, far away from the hugs and support of other member of the truck safety group, she likely wonders what there is left to do, how to make it better. How to make it bearable. I would tell her to take baby steps. To accept and even embrace the nation’s thanks is one small step.
A funeral procession, a song, a holiday weekend has all kept my friend on my mind. I think I’ll give her a call today. If you know a military family make the time to say thank you. And please think about my friend — she can use all the thoughts and prayers you can send.
Hugs to all of you. Stay safe.
Got to go for a walk!
Katie here. So the weather guy this morning says that the sun came up at 6:03. I figured I had waited long enough so I got my Mama up at 6:06. I didn’t want to rush her out of bed. But on the other hand, no sense wasting a day of this glorious three day weekend either!
So as my Mama was stumbling around the kitchen making her oatmeal (notice she did not make me anything!) she noticed there was steam rising from the pond across the street and the sun was up and it all looked sort of pretty. She stopped mumbling about bad dogs and hustled me outside. I noticed she had her camera and that always excites me because I know it’s gonna be another “beautiful Katie photo shoot!”
We got to walk down the road, and she never lets me do that! It was so much fun! We went down our road and around the corner to the neighbor’s pond. I love going there; I get to sniff where frogs and turtles and other dogs have been. It smells heavenly! You should try it some time.
But I didn’t get to smell too much this morning because my Mama stepped on my leash to keep me near her and was taking pictures. But not of me! Can you believe it? She was taking pictures of the pond!
Early morning.
And the moon.
Hello moon!
She doesn’t take long when she’s out in 37 degree weather, sunshine or no sunshine, so soon we were off on my real walk. I got to sniff a lot of great stuff and she didn’t hurry me at all. That’s why I love my Mama. After awhile though we were both pretty wet and cold. So we headed back to the house where I got my breakfast. Wow. I got to go on a walk and it’s not even 7 a.m. yet! This has been the best weekend ever!
I got a little damp.
Mama promises that on Monday we can have even more fun. She says she has to weed more gardens today though. Well. That’s fun for me because I get to be outside with her all day. Weeding is fun. Not as fun as the park but pretty close.
I’m going to take a little nap now. All this early adventure is exhausting.
shhhhh……
It’s Saturday morning…
When Katie and I went to bed last night I told here there was no doggie school or work this morning, so we could sleep in. No need to get me up by 6, she could relax her guard. So why was I not surprised at 6:11 this morning to wake up to this:
HI MAMA!
I guess eleven more minutes of sleep is better than nothing. She’s wound up like a clock though, spinning and barking and wanting wanting wanting.
We went outside to explore the garden. There were freeze warnings last night so I had covered up the plants that are trying to bloom on time this spring.
We put the plants to bed last night!
Yesterday evening before we covered everything up I took a picture of the tree peony just beginning to bloom. In case it didn’t survive the cold.
Summer begins!
It survived. I’m glad, it’s in bloom for such a short time I wanted to enjoy every bit of it.
On our evening walk around the yard I noticed how beautiful the light was making everything.
Last light on the redbud.
Even the giant oak tree in the neighbor’s yard was beautiful in the evening, bright green leaves against the pure aqua sky.
New leaves shine.
But this morning Katie and I will be concentrating not on sits and stays but on moving this:
Compost mulch smells stinky good Mama!
Good thing she got me up early.
I’m hungry!
Wordless Wednesday-on a lighter note
(Bet we made you smile)
Why does this happen?
Coming home from work last night I knew there was something wrong when the normal weather and traffic was interrupted for a CBS Special Report. Who, I wondered, had died? Turns out many people, children included. Turns out for an Oklahoma community the world turned upside down in an instant. Literally.
The pictures, the video, the grand scope of the devastation is overwhelming and painful to watch. It must be even beyond that to actually experience. I watched a mother being interviewed as first responders scrambled through the leveled elementary school behind her. “Why does this happen?” she asked. She couldn’t find her sister or her niece. At that point in the evening six people were confirmed dead, two of them children.
Why does this happen? Who can understand when terrible things happen to people? How can we move forward when such terrible things happen so randomly. How can we ever feel safe? And what can we do to help those families in the throes of grief right now?
I went to bed feeling sad. I woke with a sense of dark, heavy dread. I knew by now the death toll would be more than six. This morning it is twenty-four, nine of them children. The heaviness settles deeper into my heart.
We’re expecting storms here this morning. Very soon. They sky is dark and heavy, reflecting the way I feel. I ask Katie to hurry outside so that we can beat the rain. The air is thick, the trees still. Waiting. Waiting. I keep an eye on the sky, Katie keeps her nose in the air. Things happen randomly. You never know. Bad things happen everywhere.
As I watch the sky two dark shapes swoop low. I am startled and then mesmerized. A pair of sand hill cranes flies overhead. Very very low, very slow, almost silent. Instead of their usual noisy screeching they are cooing gently to each other. I hold my breath and watch them. They disappear behind a line of trees across the street. Stunning.
You see? Amidst the fear and sadness and confusion there is beauty. And we rarely ask why. Why did these two magnificent birds choose to fly right over my head so early on such a sad morning? I don’t know. Maybe I don’t have to know why these thing happen. Maybe I just have to move ahead and live.
And send some money to the Red Cross… for Oklahoma.
Rethinking the whole May thing
I take back every nice thing I said about May. Apparently I should have been weeding our gardens earlier. Last year we got the perennial bed reorganized and cleaned out…but we ran out of time before we put down mulch. Turns out we created a perfect spot for a prairie.
Grass overruns the garden
So I spent most of Saturday and Sunday in this and other flower beds removing weeds and grass. By hand. I think I have aggravated carpel tunnel from pulling weeds but this job has no workman’s comp. My legs feel like I’ve run a very long race and my back is that of a person twice my age. Oh. Wait. I guess you can’t really ever get to be twice my age. But you know what I mean.
Not perfect. But better.
After many hours of hard labor I got most of it cleaned up. Katie was a big help. Couldn’t have done it without her.
Dogervising my Mama.
Yea. I’m kidding.
What you talkin’ bout Mama?
Change Is Hard 