The Hollosphere

Michael Stillwater, musical healer, songrwriter, interfaith minister, and recording artist, has invited me to provide supporting vocals at a number of his events in the Seattle area in October/November. I’m so excited I can hardly stand myself, even though I just got back from Seattle (and caught an awful cold while I was up there).

The music directors for both Seattle Unity and The Center for Spiritual Living also asked me to sing at their services while I’m in town, so it will be a wonderful week of music and renewing friendships. I’ve got all the performance dates listed on my Music page.

I’ve also added some new songs to the page for you to listen to, including a sample of Michael’s new song “Feels Like Home,” which will be released on his upcoming album. I did all the female vocals for that song, which was great fun. We’ll be doing more recording for his new album when I’m in Seattle.

Sue-weet.

Well, it happened. My baby got married. Here she is with her new husband, Luke.

I have never seen a tarantula outside a zoo. Until today, that is! Conal said he’d never seen one at Murray Creek. When this one strolled across the driveway today, I was initially horrified. Then I saw how slowly and deliberately it moved, how its body looked fuzzy and kind of soft rather than icky, and I got more fascinated than scared. Having recovered from my initial wiggins, I followed it for awhile. I put my foot near it and took a photo. It sort of reared up in a weary “Oh for pity’s sake, now what?” kind of way, but didn’t seem too upset. As soon as I backed off, it continued ambling along, moving purposefully toward the northeast. It reached the edge of the driveway, climbed laboriously over the curb, then went scrambling and clawing its way up the steep hillside. A couple of times it chose routes that proved too precipitous, and would tumble back down and have to find another way around. It’s clumsiness lessened my fear still further.

Then a yellow jacket buzzed suddenly near it and it JUMPED, like, totally leaped sideways several inches in a split second. Since it obviously knew some wicked karate moves, after that I regained some respect and a bit more distance. It didn’t seem agressive at all, though, just careful in a defensive way. I mean, a yellow jacket sting would probably suck if you were that small, wouldn’t it? I’d jump out of range, too.

Back in the house, I could still see the spider from the window above my desk, making its way further and further up the hill in a more or less straight northeasterly line. Where in the world was it off too? A convention? A dental appointment? Those were some mighty big mandibles. I hope s/he has good insurance. I read that spiders eat all kinds of pesky bugs. Whatever its destination, I’m over my heebie jeebies and I wish this particular spider well.

You guys have heard me say over and over that our driveway is really long and steep, but I have never been able to say exactly how long it is.

Till now. Our contractor friend Bill brought over his neato wheeled measuring thingy. We’re considering paving the drive to help stabilize it and make it easier to drive up and down. To help him estimate what paving would cost, Bill needed a measurement. He drove down the driveway hanging out the door of his truck, holding the measuring wheel to the ground. The official length: 512 feet.

512 feet!!

512 feet is 89.04 times my own height (but only 79.79 times Conal’s).

512 feet is 1.42 football fields (outside dimension).

512 feet is the height of the Williamsburg Bank Building, the tallest building in Brooklyn and one of the two tallest on Long Island.

Sh’yeah. And you guys thought I was just whining about how long the thing was. I will have no more rolling of eyes when I ramble on a bit about the looooong driveway, ya hear?

My daughter Tasha is going to be married in a little over a week. How the heck she ever got old enough (22) for that to happen is a complete mystery to me. Seems like five minutes ago she was a ridiculously cute little angel-eyed toddler.

The priest who will be performing her marriage ceremony wanted some fun stories to (gently) roast her with. Tasha asked me what I could come up with, so I spent some time strolling on memory lane today. I had a lovely time remembering life with my beloved girl.

Tasha the Snow Daredevil
Tasha enjoyed cross country skiing. Mostly, she liked the sliding-down-the-hill-real-fast parts. When faced with a scary, steep hill, her grandma taught her to yell, “Gravity is my frieeeeeeeend!” as she slid on down the hill. From then on, she was all about the hills. One day when she was maybe seven years old, we went up to one of the ski areas which featured a groomed network of trails. We were having a grand time barreling along down a fairly narrow trail, whizzing around the bumps and curves, snowplowing to keep from attaining terminal velocity. Unexpectedly, we came upon two middle-aged women, unhurt but terribly tangled together in a heap in the middle of the trail, struggling to regain their footing. I, in the lead, managed to barely sneak by the wreckage of skis and arms and legs and pulled to a stop just beyond them. I turned around in time to see the women look up and see Tasha coming down the trail, crouched and speeding at them like a little puffy pink meteorite. Realizing their doom, they cringed in preparation for impact. They (and I) were sure the kid would be unable to stop or avoid them and they could not disentangle themselves in time to get out of the way. It looked like certain disaster. Tasha never batted an eyelash. With a look of steely determination on her sweet face, she maneuvered neatly around them without even slowing down. After she had zoomed past, the ladies and I were stunned for a moment, looking at each other with our chins hanging slack, and then we all broke up in hoots of laughter. It was awesome.

Tasha’s World of Imagination & Magic
From the kitchen of my first little apartment with toddler-sized Tasha, I could look out through the living room to the large sliding glass doors that led out to the back yard. The yard was a grassy area adjacent to the golf course, its rear border lined with big old cedar trees along a fence. I’d keep the door open so I could hear Tasha back there, but from the kitchen all I could see was a small, Tasha-shaped blur go zooming by the sliders in one direction, then after a bit go zooming by the other way. She told me that one of the big trees was a dragon, and she’d have sword battles with it.

Tasha Goes to School
As the daughter of a single working mom, Tasha was in child care from the time she was three months old. It was not a cushy life, but she learned to be confident and social, making friends way more easily than I ever did. Tasha’s first elementary school hosted an open house for all the new students and their parents prior the official start of the school year. The teachers and classrooms were open for visiting, and there was punch and cookies and a general uproar. I was amazed at the number of children who looked awfully stressed and unhappy, resolutely velcro’d to mom or dad’s shinbone. Tasha, on the other hand, ditched me about three seconds after we walked in the door, skipping happily about to poke her head in all the rooms, saying hello to her teacher-to-be, hearing a story read aloud in the library, etc. I kept her in sight, enjoying her excitement and happiness. Near the end of the evening, she came rushing up to me, shouted, “Mom! I’m going on a bus ride, ‘kay? Bye!” and zoomed away. Outside, she waved to me enthusiastically from the bus window, completely fearless and having a blast. The driver just went around the block, but she loved it.

Tasha Works her Mom Over
Tasha studied Japanese for several years and made two trips to Japan in high school. While on one of the trips she called home and said she had something pretty intense to tell me. She went on for a bit about how it was a big deal, this thing she had to tell me, that I might freak out, was I sitting down, etc.; pretty much getting me, mother of a daughter on the other side of the planet, into a lather. She knew full well that I would imagine she had met some Japanese boy and was planning to stay there permanently, or that she was pregnant or something similarly catastrophic. Her evil plan was that the real news–that she had dyed her hair black with red streaks–was a giant relief compared to whatever my panicked brain would manufacture. I guess that she must have forgotten that her mom had dyed her own hair platinum blonde in high school, so it would take a lot more than some hair dye to incite a maternal freak out! Actually, it looked kind of interesting on her…

Tasha Loves her Family
Tasha loves being with her funny, fun family. The big family Thanksgiving at Tom & Susan’s is one of her favorite holiday gatherings. She and I have traditionally been assigned pie detail. Pies, pies, pies: every year we get up early on Thanksgiving morning and make three, four, or even five pies: Pumpkin, Pumpkin Pecan, Banana Cream, Chocolate Cream, Vanilla Cream, Pumpkin Chiffon… Tasha in her apron and me in mine, often with Grandma BB assisting (or supervising, as needed), giggling and working very, very hard to meet our afternoon deadline with enough time to shower and dress for dinner. Tasha’s personal specialties are a Spicy Apple that she adapted herself and Banana Cream. Although she hates making crusts, Tasha will one day soon inherit the mantle of “Pie Queen,” and great rejoicing will fill the land.

TickleMe Tasha
Tasha was (is) unbelievably ticklish. When she was small, I would tickle and poke and make her giggle till she could hardly breathe and tears were starting to well up in her eyes. She’d get completely frantic, struggling to escape my fingers and begging me to stop, sounding like she was about to die. Eventually, I would relent, and Tasha would relax, gasping for air, keeping a wary eye on me. Then she would begin to revive. Slowly, she’d start to smile and get a look of mischief about the eyes and say in a low, mischevious voice, “Do it again.”

Work on installing the decking boards is underway today. Our contractor friend Bill brought three guys with him and they weren’t fooling around! They got about half the boards on the back section tacked down before quitting at 2:30 pm. They started at around 7 am.

It’s going to be a ginormous deck, especially once it has been extended to the east end so that it goes all the way around the house. We plan to widen the front porch as well, changing the porch roof to allow for better views from the front of the house.

Before you start scratching your head wondering what would posses us to build such a crazy-huge deck, rest assured that it is being built with Trex, so it will last forever, and also note that it will basically function as our yard. The land is so steep around the house that the only places we had to hang out comfortably outside were the front porch and the driveway.

Picture the deck strewn with comfortable furniture, maybe a shade pavilion of some kind, and dotted with barrels and pots of herbs and flowers. I’ve also gotta learn about plants to cover the dirt/rock wall so the area will be cooler and prettier. You would not believe the heat that reflects off that hillside at the house. Phew!

Visit my Facebook profile for a full spread of photos.

This morning, Conal and I had a heart-thumping few minutes after hearing glass shattering outside. I was in the master bedroom and heard Conal say, “Did you hear that?” just as I said, “Did you hear that?” We rushed about in search of who, what, where, and why. I immediately had visions of the unknown marauder who invaded the house one recent midnight, nibbling on and tossing about kitchen garbage, and jumped to the conclusion that a critter must have got up to no good again–this time in broad daylight!

As we hunted around for a broken window, or the culprit or evidence of its evisceration, Conal noted that while living in a suburban environment, he routinely filtered out and ignored almost all random sounds. Noise (cars, jet aircraft, arguing neighbors, slamming doors, garbage trucks, barking dogs, etc.) is part of the city living gig. Out here in the sticks, however, noises are generally confined to hummingbird singing, deer stomping, woodpecker chattering, yellow jacket buzzing, and the very occasional CDF helicopter or small aircraft overhead. Even less frequently, we hear chain saws or other machinery from valley neighbors or up on the ridges above.

Cars do go by on our road. About twice a day, I’d say. Four would be our version of a rush. More than that, and the place is probably on fire. Usually it’s the same car going by, neighbor Leonard’s Honda. I’m practicing identifying cars by the sound of their engines. Recognizing engine sounds allows me to resist the annoying temptation to jump up and run to see who is driving by whenever I hear a car on the road. It’s not that big a project, since there are only three that go by regularly–if you count the two cars we drive.

Continue reading ‘Murray Creek Sounds of Mystery’ »

I made quiche. Oh yeah, baby. Sage sausage, spinach, onion, mushrooms, and cheeses. I line the bottom of the pie plate with cheese to make a kind of crust. I had extra egg mixture, so I tossed some more cheese and some red bell pepper into a smaller plate for a plain quiche. Mmmmmm! Don’t you wish you were here to eat some?!

In other news, the deer herd was frolicking about on the hill behind our house, chasing each other around and generally making a ruckus. Cute little buggers. There was even a young buck with a couple of points. He better watch out–I think deer season is here! One small one was especially charming, doing the four-legged bouncy-hop thing all over the place. It was pretty much a Disney movie up there.

Conal, his mom Ann, and I had a stimulating discussion last evening about spirituality, war, the impact of affluence, violence, carpeting, what to call our work, and about a hundred other topics. While we were talking about the new dimensions of political folly with regard to Iran, Conal remembered one of his favorite quotes:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Having enemies makes things simple. You find them. You kill them. You live happily ever after. Problem is, war, assassination, and violence have never, ever worked to nurture lasting peace. We keep acting as if we can just find all the enemies and eliminate them, then all will be well. Sh’yeah. As if.

Continue reading ‘The Elusive Evil Ones’ »

Wow, this blogging stuff is rather absorbing. I’ve spent I don’t know how many hours today perusing and experimenting with WordPress themes, plugins, and widgets.

I enjoyed playing with some theme designs on this template generator page. Another source of interesting toys was mashable.com’s WordPress God article, which lists 300+ tools for use with your blog, including categorized plugins and themes by style. Googling blog themes and plugins returns a dizzying array of information and toys to try. I’m far from becoming a WordPress God, but am enjoying learning about the possibilities.

Don’t be alarmed if whilst reviewing this blog it suddenly undergoes massive visual changes. You didn’t break the site! It’s just me messing around again with the look and feel of the pages. There are hundreds if not thousands of themes available, and I can’t resist trying a bunch of ‘em.

I’m impressed with how much energy and creativity goes into blogging. Some folks make an interesting career of it, I see.