- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Patching
This morning I woke up at 3:45am to the sound of a bird chirping the same six notes over and over and over. And while it was a beautiful sound, I wish the bird could have waited until 5am to sing. After tossing around a bit I decided to get up and do some things to get tired again. I made breakfast and watched an episode of My So-Called Life...the last episode, sigh. And when the last episode was over, and my Claire Danes cry face obsession was NOT over, I decided to watch Romeo and Juliet. I also decided to finally patch a pair of jeans I've been meaning to patch for weeks. I was putting my bike into the back of my truck a few weeks ago, and as I stepped up onto the tailgate, I heard a big 'ol riiiiiiip in the seat of my pants. And these were my baggy jeans, not a good feeling.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Now, feeling fully domesticatey and tired again, and with the birds done singing, I'm going back to sleep.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Now, feeling fully domesticatey and tired again, and with the birds done singing, I'm going back to sleep.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Mother's Day
I called my mom today to wish her a happy Mother's Day and she was having a great time cookin' out with my stepdad, my brother and his wife and kids, and I realized how very very lucky I am to still have my mother and to have such a wonderful mother. She's amazing and has always let me be me, and has always supported everything I do...even when I was 18 and quit my good job and quit college and moved across country from IL to CA. She has always been very hands-off, letting me figure things out on my own, while at the same time giving me so much love and support and always an ear and shoulder. I have her to thank for so much, especially my sense of independence.
So while I was being all thankful and nostalgic, I dug out my grandma's old yearbook, Canton High School class of 1941. My grandma, my mom and I all went to the same high school (small midwestern town ya know). This is my mom's mom, Shirley Elizabeth Fouts (I was named after her middle name); Walker became her married name...
Yearbooks back then are such a trip! This was so much fun. I flipped through the pages trying to find everything about my grandma. Here are a few tidbits about her I learned tonight.
The class of 1941 put together the "Class Will" in which each student willed something to someone else. Here's my grandma's will...
"Shirley Fouts wills her knack of drawing profiles of people to Caroline Jones."
What?! I didn't know grandma could draw. Here's another funny one I read that makes me laugh...
"Jack Condo wills his way with the 'wimmin folks' to Eugene Hamilton." Ha!
and another similar one (how did they get away with this in 1941?!)...
"Dick McCartney wills his way with the female sex to Eben Lou Campbell."
Then I discovered that my grandma was the Treasurer of the Quill and Scroll club. She then became a school teacher for the rest of her working days.
Next to my grandma's yearbook photo it says "Sagacious, Faultless." I keep wondering if each student had to pick their own words to describe themselves or if someone else picked the words. It also says she was in the National Honor Society (so was I grandma, high 5!), and in Girls' Glee Club, and the Feature Editor of the yearbook, and she was in Pep Club (I was in Pep Band, not nearly as popular).
I wish she was still alive so we could sit down and have tea and chat about her life. So many questions. I plan to do more of this with my mom.
So while I was being all thankful and nostalgic, I dug out my grandma's old yearbook, Canton High School class of 1941. My grandma, my mom and I all went to the same high school (small midwestern town ya know). This is my mom's mom, Shirley Elizabeth Fouts (I was named after her middle name); Walker became her married name...
Yearbooks back then are such a trip! This was so much fun. I flipped through the pages trying to find everything about my grandma. Here are a few tidbits about her I learned tonight.
The class of 1941 put together the "Class Will" in which each student willed something to someone else. Here's my grandma's will...
"Shirley Fouts wills her knack of drawing profiles of people to Caroline Jones."
What?! I didn't know grandma could draw. Here's another funny one I read that makes me laugh...
"Jack Condo wills his way with the 'wimmin folks' to Eugene Hamilton." Ha!
and another similar one (how did they get away with this in 1941?!)...
"Dick McCartney wills his way with the female sex to Eben Lou Campbell."
Then I discovered that my grandma was the Treasurer of the Quill and Scroll club. She then became a school teacher for the rest of her working days.
Next to my grandma's yearbook photo it says "Sagacious, Faultless." I keep wondering if each student had to pick their own words to describe themselves or if someone else picked the words. It also says she was in the National Honor Society (so was I grandma, high 5!), and in Girls' Glee Club, and the Feature Editor of the yearbook, and she was in Pep Club (I was in Pep Band, not nearly as popular).
I wish she was still alive so we could sit down and have tea and chat about her life. So many questions. I plan to do more of this with my mom.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
ilikerunonsentencesandthewordand
This weekend was pretty dang good. On Saturday, my friend Michelle drove down from Greeley. We used to work together back around 2005-2007 and haven't seen each other in four years, and coincidentally enough we both moved to Colorado around the same time last year. It was so much fun to catch up and have dinner and go see The Moody Blues at Red Rocks Amphitheater, and it was her birthday, hooray. The Moody Blues, holy cow, they are still rockin' at like what, 65-70 years old. Nights in White Satin sounded beautiful of course. This was my first concert at Red Rocks and we sat only 10 rows back...
Last week I joined a gym here in Denver, so today I went to jump back on the 'ol Spin bike. I was so addicted to spinning while living in CA, so I was beyond excited to join the gym and get back into it. They have a bike in the general workout area for people who want to do their own thang, and it has a screen and a personal instructor, ha. This guy kicked my butt...
**RUNONSENTENCEALERT**
So then I came home and ate and lazed and walked over to the park to meet friends to play frisbee but couldn't find them so I walked to the coffee shop and got an iced coffee (it was so flippin hot today, and it's only mid May!) and then came home and dug up all of my many 401k and IRA informations in hopes of one day soon finding a financial advisor who can advise me on how to consolodate the mess and then I got out my screwdriver and took the cages off of my single speed bike because they're dangerous and I'm clumsy anyway and then rode around downtown Denver and came home and lazed and talked on the phone and made a killer salad and watched another episode of My So-Called Life, the one where Rayanne joins Jordan's band and she gets stage fright and can't sing and runs off and no one can find her and they're worried she'll start drinking again and long story short she's ok and didn't start drinking and then Rayanne and Angela and Rickie all say how worried they are and they all cry and hug and go to the movies and while they're standing in line Rayanne starts singing the Sesame Street theme song and everyone in line applauds and then it goes all slow-mo and Rayanne is basking in the applause and grabs a guy's beer and takes a swig and Rickie and Angela look very upset fade to black.
This guy got stuck inside my apartment for awhile today...
But then I held out a piece of paper and he climbed onto it and I moved it to the open window and he flew away.
And lastly, the killer salad...
And I just now realized that I forgot to add cheese.
Last week I joined a gym here in Denver, so today I went to jump back on the 'ol Spin bike. I was so addicted to spinning while living in CA, so I was beyond excited to join the gym and get back into it. They have a bike in the general workout area for people who want to do their own thang, and it has a screen and a personal instructor, ha. This guy kicked my butt...
**RUNONSENTENCEALERT**
So then I came home and ate and lazed and walked over to the park to meet friends to play frisbee but couldn't find them so I walked to the coffee shop and got an iced coffee (it was so flippin hot today, and it's only mid May!) and then came home and dug up all of my many 401k and IRA informations in hopes of one day soon finding a financial advisor who can advise me on how to consolodate the mess and then I got out my screwdriver and took the cages off of my single speed bike because they're dangerous and I'm clumsy anyway and then rode around downtown Denver and came home and lazed and talked on the phone and made a killer salad and watched another episode of My So-Called Life, the one where Rayanne joins Jordan's band and she gets stage fright and can't sing and runs off and no one can find her and they're worried she'll start drinking again and long story short she's ok and didn't start drinking and then Rayanne and Angela and Rickie all say how worried they are and they all cry and hug and go to the movies and while they're standing in line Rayanne starts singing the Sesame Street theme song and everyone in line applauds and then it goes all slow-mo and Rayanne is basking in the applause and grabs a guy's beer and takes a swig and Rickie and Angela look very upset fade to black.
This guy got stuck inside my apartment for awhile today...
But then I held out a piece of paper and he climbed onto it and I moved it to the open window and he flew away.
And lastly, the killer salad...
And I just now realized that I forgot to add cheese.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Biking Elk Meadow
Today I got up early to go mountain biking in Elk Meadow. More than a few people have recommended it, so it was about time to check it out. It's one of the closer set of trails near Denver, easy to get to and close to Evergreen, one of my favorite places to escape out of the city to.
This was such a perfect ride! Except for last weekend's ride at Three Sisters (which was a great ride for early season and getting back in biking shape) I haven't been on my bike in months. And holy cow this altitude reminds me how out of shape my lungs are. The trails at Elk Meadow were great for me and my skill level because they had a lot of good inclines for climbing and getting the lungs back in shape, and some rocky and rooty patches for practicing some technical skills.
On the way back down and into the meadow, I saw this (breath taking!)...
Until a biker came up from behind me and zoomed through the herd yelling "Yeehaw!" and scattered them. :)
Here are the rest of the photos from today...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizorbeth/tags/elkmeadow/
This was such a perfect ride! Except for last weekend's ride at Three Sisters (which was a great ride for early season and getting back in biking shape) I haven't been on my bike in months. And holy cow this altitude reminds me how out of shape my lungs are. The trails at Elk Meadow were great for me and my skill level because they had a lot of good inclines for climbing and getting the lungs back in shape, and some rocky and rooty patches for practicing some technical skills.
On the way back down and into the meadow, I saw this (breath taking!)...
Until a biker came up from behind me and zoomed through the herd yelling "Yeehaw!" and scattered them. :)
Here are the rest of the photos from today...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizorbeth/tags/elkmeadow/
Lonesome Dove, pg 170-171
Deets had always been partial to the moon, watched it often, thought about it much. To him it was a more interesting and a more affecting thing than the sun, which shone on every day in much the same fashion.
But the moon changed. It moved around the sky; it waxed and waned. On the nights when it rose full and yellow over the plains around Lonesome Dove, it seemed so close that a man could almost ride over with a ladder and step right onto it. Deets had even imagined doing it, a few times--propping a ladder against the old full moon, and stepping on. If he did it, one thing was sure: Mr. Gus would have something to talk about for a long time. Deets had to grin at the mere thought of how excited Mr. Gus would get if he took off and rode the moon. For he thought of it like a ride, something he might just do for a night or two when things were slow. Then, when the moon came back close to Lonesome Dove, he would step off and walk back home. It would surprise them all.
Other times, though, the moon rode so high that Deets had to come to his senses and admit that no man could really ride on it. When he imagined himself up there, on the thin little hook that hung above him white as a tooth, he almost got dizzy from his own imagining and had to try harder to pay attention to what was happening on the ground.
Still, when there was nothing to see around him but a few horses sucking water, he could always rest himself by watching the moon and the sky. He loved clear nights and hated clouds--when it was cloudy he felt deprived of half the world. His fear of Indians, which was deep, was tied to his sense that the moon had powers that neither white men nor black men understood. He had heard Mr. Gus talk about the moon moving the waters, and though he had glimpsed the ocean many times, by the Matagorda, he had not been able to get a sense of how the moon moved it.
But he was convinced that the Indians understood the moon. He had never talked with an Indian about it, but he knew they had more names for it than white people had, and that suggested a deeper understanding. The Indians were less busy and would naturally have more time to study such things. It had always seemed to Deets that it was lucky for the whites that the Indians had never gained full control over the moon. He had dreamed once, after the terrible battle of Fort Phantom Hill, that the Indians had managed to move the moon over by one of those little low hills that were all over west Texas. They had got it to pause by the edge of a mountain so they could leap their horses onto it. It still occurred to him at times that such a thing might have happened, and that there were Comanches or possibly Kiowa riding around on the moon. Often, when the moon was full and yellow, and close to the earth, he got the strong feeling that Indians were on it. It was a fearful feeling, one he had never discussed with any man. The Indians hated the whites and if they got control of the moon--which was said to control the waters--then terrible things might happen. The Indians could have the moon suck all of the water out of the wells and rivers, or else turn it all to salt, like the ocean. That would be the end, and a hard end at that.
But when the moon was just a little white hook, Deets tended to lose his worries. After all, water was still sweet, except for an alkaline river or two, like the Pecos. Perhaps if the Indians got on the moon, they had all fallen off.
But the moon changed. It moved around the sky; it waxed and waned. On the nights when it rose full and yellow over the plains around Lonesome Dove, it seemed so close that a man could almost ride over with a ladder and step right onto it. Deets had even imagined doing it, a few times--propping a ladder against the old full moon, and stepping on. If he did it, one thing was sure: Mr. Gus would have something to talk about for a long time. Deets had to grin at the mere thought of how excited Mr. Gus would get if he took off and rode the moon. For he thought of it like a ride, something he might just do for a night or two when things were slow. Then, when the moon came back close to Lonesome Dove, he would step off and walk back home. It would surprise them all.
Other times, though, the moon rode so high that Deets had to come to his senses and admit that no man could really ride on it. When he imagined himself up there, on the thin little hook that hung above him white as a tooth, he almost got dizzy from his own imagining and had to try harder to pay attention to what was happening on the ground.
Still, when there was nothing to see around him but a few horses sucking water, he could always rest himself by watching the moon and the sky. He loved clear nights and hated clouds--when it was cloudy he felt deprived of half the world. His fear of Indians, which was deep, was tied to his sense that the moon had powers that neither white men nor black men understood. He had heard Mr. Gus talk about the moon moving the waters, and though he had glimpsed the ocean many times, by the Matagorda, he had not been able to get a sense of how the moon moved it.
But he was convinced that the Indians understood the moon. He had never talked with an Indian about it, but he knew they had more names for it than white people had, and that suggested a deeper understanding. The Indians were less busy and would naturally have more time to study such things. It had always seemed to Deets that it was lucky for the whites that the Indians had never gained full control over the moon. He had dreamed once, after the terrible battle of Fort Phantom Hill, that the Indians had managed to move the moon over by one of those little low hills that were all over west Texas. They had got it to pause by the edge of a mountain so they could leap their horses onto it. It still occurred to him at times that such a thing might have happened, and that there were Comanches or possibly Kiowa riding around on the moon. Often, when the moon was full and yellow, and close to the earth, he got the strong feeling that Indians were on it. It was a fearful feeling, one he had never discussed with any man. The Indians hated the whites and if they got control of the moon--which was said to control the waters--then terrible things might happen. The Indians could have the moon suck all of the water out of the wells and rivers, or else turn it all to salt, like the ocean. That would be the end, and a hard end at that.
But when the moon was just a little white hook, Deets tended to lose his worries. After all, water was still sweet, except for an alkaline river or two, like the Pecos. Perhaps if the Indians got on the moon, they had all fallen off.
Monday, May 2, 2011
There was a time when words were like magic
Tonight a ball of time floats in the palm of my hand,
quietly suspended,
things are happening in there...
teeny tiny events of the past, the future, even right this second.
Creation stories are being told, being heard, being forgotten.
So I slowly open a book of luminous things to a poem called "Magic Words" and carefully lay it on my chest to absorb its mystery.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
quietly suspended,
things are happening in there...
teeny tiny events of the past, the future, even right this second.
Creation stories are being told, being heard, being forgotten.
So I slowly open a book of luminous things to a poem called "Magic Words" and carefully lay it on my chest to absorb its mystery.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Sunday, May 1, 2011
A beautiful leak
It's such a bummer and really cool looking thing when a candle decides to give up on life...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)