Wind and more wind and pine cones hitting the roof

Sounds like rocks but it's pine cones projectiles hitting the tin roof. Ghastly emotional day. Like crazy wind day. I am casting around my small office looking for what I can do to piece together, stitch together, knit together, keep consistently together.

It's 3:26pm and the day just didn't sit right. The Chevy was hit at TC and West Hillside, Hildy jumped down my throat in a meeting, I watched Ugly Betty on the iPad, Ric was jumpy about the accident then angry again around the gate. He feels pushed but I don't know how to get things done any longer. He wants to stretch everything out and yet he doesn't want anyone else to do anything.

Me, I've been holding up a stack of people which is to say I have not been focused on myself. Life out of balance again. I know what to do and now it is up to me to slow it down and breathe and meditate. R and O are in my studio now. O sleeping with her head resting on the bottom of R's foot and R on the iPad. He came in regretting the fact that he does need to take out both crash poles.

Conversation with RM was out there. She's frightened and taking the opposite high road. Her and RJ are a lot alike. The repressed emotions are exhausting I'm sure. The I'm all figured out when there is no need to be figured out. The I'm in control and your (meaning me) concerned and so I'm going to treat you (meaning me) like a little child. It was an interesting and twisted conversation. The false self is what I interacted with today. I am sure I was no help because when that self appears all you can do is stand down, let it take up the air in the room. Step aside.

But bright side of things, I found a work around to having to buy iWork. I got a hair appointment with Kim at just the right time. And my work computer will be ready for pickup tomorrow. So things move, they just move oddly.

On the other side of the fence, I have no energy for work. It's the drama and the sloughing that make me want to fall asleep. Or multi-task until I can't see straight or have any brain cells left. This will change, most things do.

How to keep a consistent thread, how to hold on in the buffering wind of life. Dailey speeding life. Life faster than ever before. I seem to think there is time but there isn't. Right now I'm falling over each time I see someone died anywhere near my age. I don't want to be like this but right now I'm like this. That is what I am seeing and so I have to look. I don't want to write this down and most of what

I am writing I don't want to write down.

Grey, cold, windy Easter with earthquakes

It was just that. And frustrating and sad.

Cold sometimes means temperature and sometimes does not. Today it meant both. Maybe a cold front is an angry front moving over land. It makes sense as a mirror of my day. I'm sick of taking care of people and things. The great lapses come from focusing on others and not myself. I want out of the house right now. Of all the undone aspects of it. I want the backyard finished so that I don't have to think about it. And I want things in place. Things done.

I want to live to see them done. All day that's what I've been thinking. That I want to live to see them done. Sick of living in a mess for so many years. Madera Avenue I could control. This place I can't. Right now I feel I've just taken on too much. The house and the land were a mess when I bought it and it remains so. Now I feel stuck.

I should have said I wanted to just go walk Olive by myself, that I needed time for myself alone. Too many ideas and too many alternatives and not enough focus from one day to the next. I have no idea how to change.

Sun and cool the definition of April

It is April. My MacBook Air fell and it came back from Apple repair this morning. Well, had to pay what I was going to use (much of it) for the iPad. So, now I have a working computer with all cosmetic damage repaired.

Today, running around to Home Depot and then doing yard work to prepare for tomorrow. The rest of the lawn and then who knows what. Chips down or not, I'm giving in.

Rain that doesn't come

It hasn't although it could tonight, tomorrow, and snow down to 3000 maybe even 2000 but who knows where or when. High surf, coastal flooding. Was looking forward to all of it but nothing so I wanted the lawns again, front and back

Moon again but last day of warm weather

I worked outside today, started to grade the back but it needed to be watered so I watered it for tomorrow work. Went to Home Depot and got a clip on lamp for the backyard and a sprayer for the North newly transplanted hopseed. Gally goodot a lot of stuff that has been annoying me done. Ric hurt his back and was just plan not Ok today so he slept for the most part.

I've been reading the California nature writing book that Vicky gave me and many of the essays are really good. Just watched an episode of Grey's and came up to the loft.

Full moon in the wind

Yesterday, Leno and his crew of one and Ricardo prepared the back and the front lawn, and laid out the sod in a pattern. This morning Leno came back and they tied it all together and moved the Purple hops. Instant lawn. I did some work in the beds to clean them out and power washed the path and the flag stone entry. I cleaned up trash and watered both sections again. He wants us to water several times a day. And that's a snap since they created a new watering system patter in the backyard and fixed zone 9 in the front. So everything is up and running again, well in time for summer!

Grateful that I had the money to get this done.

Now it is up to Ricardo and I to do some grading in the final section and get the chips so it is chipped in. Then we will be in good shape for the coming rain.

Yes, rain. Coming but who knows how much. The weather site says late Tuesday night after 11PM we could see some then increasing on Wednesday, more Wednesday night and then thunderstorms and some chance again on Thursday and Thursday night.

Well, you never really know.

Last night was my EarthHour party and it was fun even though I was exhausted. Edean made an amazing tart of sour and sweet cherries and some blueberries. V and L brought so many presents it kind of made me nervous.

Night ended with Joe and Charlie coming over to see the grass and then taking Coastal Live Oak starts out of the land.

Olive was exhausted because first she played with Audrey and then it was Zuma until mid-night. All day she has little bursts of energy followed by sleeping where ever I happened to be.

I took at nap at one point and fell to the bottom of sleep quickly.

The moon is slow to rise and so it doesn't look like a moon scape yet. But it will!

Was sunny

It was sunny and there was a lot of light in the living room but I wasn't outside much today because I was painting. Touching up that is. But in the cases of the back door, screen door, and inside front door it meant paining. And then there was the built in book case and the post for the stairs up to the loft. I spent so much time stripping them last year and then I just decided to paint them because that really was a better look despite my side trip around it being sanded and natural. Truth is that they were not exactly good wood so there was nothing great to be gained from having them sanded and natural. And now I'm wondering around the major beam in the loft. That peace symbol beam. Bella perhaps?

I painted without TV blaring or music. Just the on and on conversation in my head. The story telling. And some real conversations---Michael, Darlene, Rochelle. Gene is very ill now and the doctors can't do anymore for him. Michael is sad and won't be coming up because he wants to be around him as much as possible. Darlene is having a hard time. Fred has been helping them out. Rochelle is anxious about money about the financial situation that is keeping things tight. I got the PIOP money today and the freaking taxes took half of it. Amazing. Disturbing.

But the weather was nice and Leno comes tomorrow and by tomorrow afternoon we will have a lawn in the backyard and the continuation of one in the front. Things are possible. Slow and possible.

Cool all day and cloudy

Olive and I set out for things this morning. Paint and hardware supplies. Ric and I spent time this morning figuring out the backyard. Leno comes on Saturday and wants to get right at it. So instant backyard, well instant may not be exactly the case, but backyard none the less.

And just in time because there is apparently a storm coming next week. Which apparently will bring rain and concern. Concern for burn areas. And weather concern for the newscasters who love to cast doom about downpours and mudslides. Some of them happen, most do not. Regardless, there is lots of talk and it is starting early.

I've been reading other blogs to understand what people do. What they explore. So much to say about things. Everyone is an expert at something it seems. I feel like a dabbler and dumper. Meaning I get excited (brief start) and then I dump and move on. Now, often I don't even recognize that I have. And now now, I am seeing that without use or more exploration the knowledge fizzles.

So, I have touch up paint now in all the colors. And I have a dinner party for Sat night. And a new lawn or a potential new lawn. A call out to the unreachable Michael. And tomorrow another mystery.

How to hold on one day to the next. How to remember what was most important when new things swim by and my attention is drawn over.

Tumbling is what it feels like. Tumbling forward and backward but not being able to hang on to what came before. Things do change, feelings do come and go, promises are made to oneself and then other promises are made. But somewhere along the line a person learns how to be consistent.

I just can't seem to hold on. Or I just can't seem to keep the priorities in view. Keep the prioirites a priority.

Another beautiful day, breeze, sun, and now here comes the fog from the ocean

The citrus trees are blooming and, when I went down in the orchard for lemons, I was hit by there heavy fabulous scent. The jasmine by the southwest stairs to the orchard I saw the jasmine blooming. The stone fruit orchard is starting to bloom---the plum and the nectarine going first. It's spring, the wild lavender are starting to pop all over the canyon. The giant coreopsis are yellowing the hills in the North canyon. Lovely time of year. I am so pleased that I took this time off.

Olive asleep on the couch with me. Fire roaring. Watching a show about the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest living thing. Ric went to a friends. Mike wrote that he needs work and was there anything he could do. Ric and I talked and it looks like the back stairs is the next set of work, we have the wood already so not supplies cost. And Edean's test came out good enough to start IVF. She sent me an article tonight and it was overwhelming. I had no idea what the process was like. The injections, all the ups and downs, the multiple times, the complete focus you have to have. The take over of your life in order to make a living creature like us.

We took a family nap this afternoon around 2pm after Ric got back from teaching. Early days this week because of parent/teacher meetings. No work for tomorrow or Friday so we are now both on vacation.

Windy and cool

This morning the fog left everything wet. The glass panels on the deck were moist and opaque, the deck itself wet. And it was cold at 5am when I came down to the bathroom and to let Olive out. In the 40s and dark. I didn't want to wake up enough to make a fire so I turned on the electric heaters and they did the job.

Speaking of JOBS, I got a call from Charity this morning and my peaceful day was over. The invasion began. It surprised me actually because I thought these two weeks I wouldn't be bother. It was all over around 3pm and in between I got to exchange the teapot and run to TJs and Whole Foods. But couldn't make it to Franklin which will be a must tomorrow.

No Utah and that's okay. The more interesting adventure will be the one right in my own backyard, literally in some ways.

Cool down and a fire in the wood stove

So it has begun to cool after days of being warm. Yesterday was the first day of Spring, my birthday and that was the turning point of cooling. Today is was pleasant and probably hovered around 70 but then that gave way to this cool overcast. Lovely really. Ricardo and Olive are on the couch snoozing by the fire that I have to maintain right now.

Okay, fire is going well, altar for Edean is on. Fog is moving in from the ocean and filling in. Now it is rising which means it won't sock us in, or will, but much later. Shifting back to Spring weather.

Day off number 1 today and I spring cleaned. Had to get my world on the top levels clean. Tomorrow I venture in to the depths. And I have to figure out what I really wan to do. Ric is working until Wednesday. Likely won't have to work Thursday or Friday.

Beautiful day yesterday, headed to Wind Wolves Nature Preserve. Lovely place, flowers, dogs allowed on trails, no one in the picnic grounds but us. Long walk. This is the Spring of Lupine flowers.

Warm on the Central Coast and Lupine

We went to get our wine from Koehler Winery on Foxen Canyon in Santa Ynez Valley. Traveling on Foxen Canyon the hills were painted in lupine. Yes, there were other flowers, a few California poppies along the road, but nothing like the Lupine. It has been an early Spring of Lupine. Stunning. We got the wine, Syrah and Sauvinon Blanc and then purchase Grenache and Magia Nera. Sandwiches from the Los Olivios Market and then up Figuero Mountain Road to the same spot we had lunch at last year. But this year there were not as many flowers there and that seemed funny given the rain. Perhaps all the blooming is slower. Or more normal since the rain this year has been rain that was the norm for years. Before the drought. And we are used to earlier Springs. All the better this year, longer blooms.

Crazy wind and warm someplaces but totally cold and foggy at the beach

Okay, perhaps we are getting back to spring. But what's with the Santa Ana type winds? All day the chimes and bells have been sounding, various bits of the trees and plants have been floating down. Even now, here in the loft with Ric on his forum site and Olive cuddled underneath the blankets, the wooden blinds and breathing out into the room and pulling back with the gusts.

It was niece day. Talked with Kim while I was driving to Burbank to drop off my computer. Talked with Edean while I was driving home, heading for the coast. Both of them changing their lives, embarking on education and potential pregnancy. I hold my breath for them both. They are so different and wonderful.

Another summer day in spring but this time wind

Yes, wind. And though it got to 80 degrees on my walk with Olive this morning in Solstice Canyon it was Spring, early Spring. Only a few flowers out, nothing like it will be soon. And birds coming back with songs all along the creek trails. What a beautiful walk we had this morning. Ran into the covered woman, Olive was very interested in her and she was polite. You can't even see her face through all the SPF clothing she wears. Not one spec of sun could fall on her. Interesting and weird. Think she is a model maybe or just nuts.

Anyway, we had a good walk and Olive was able to run to her hearts content because we got there before you can technically walk there but I know it is Wednesday and I was close enough to the right time.

Warm warm warm but soon to come back to Spring temps and we can all get back into the right season. Maybe even some rain, who wouldn't love more rain? Plenty of people but not me. I think anytime we can get more rain we should.

So it is Saint Patrick's Day and heaven knows why but I decided to celebrate it, actually remembered it. Making corned beef and cabbage in my slow cooker! Reminded Ric to wear green, put green tomatoes in his sandwich and gave him Kiwi for his fruit.

My vacation is going to start soon. I want to clean the house tomorrow morning so that I won't do it during the beginning of vacation. Freedom that's what I want. Freedom to do whatever each day without anything pending.

Summer in spring

Yes, it was that hot apparently. At least in the south but not in the north, not summer still spring and sunny enough to put on sunglasses and not wear a coat. Up and back quick today but, truth be known landing at 3:15 is landing in traffic for most of the way home, or most precisely most of the way down Lincoln. After that up the coast not much even on a day which was perfect at the beach.

But once I finished all my conversations I had enough time to be home in the light---benefit of the stupid time change. And got us Salmon Teriyaki bowls from Whole Foods for dinner so that was simple and we ate early. It's only 7:31 and Olive has been fed and walked on the treadmill for 33 minutes. Now she's playing with balls and we are on the beds in the guest room with the TV on DYI. Refinishing a living room, taking out structural walls. None of which we are going to do because we can barely finish the downstairs. If only we could finish the Den. Ric did one step yesterday but nothing today, he spent the day doing outside work and I bet doing chainsaw if all the cut wood is any indication. And the pulling out weeds. I have to keep telling myself I will have the money to finish this down here and sometime soon so I can actually enjoy it.

Windy and warm

The silly ritual of time changing for arbitrary reasons happened in the middle of the night/morning and now we are running an hour ahead of our selves. So when I woke up at 7:30am it was 8:30am and I felt like I lost something more than an hour.

We went on the 138 Pearblossom Highway but from Palmdale to Gorman. Through Leona Valley, side road to Green Valley and Spunky Canyon, then Elizabeth Lake, Lake Hughes and up and over the mountain to the beautiful valley before getting back to the 5. We then went to Lockwood Valley and pulled off on dirt road headed for a campgroup to let Olive run. But the gate was locked so we took a walk along the road, Olive had a great time and it was very pleasant back there.

So, cool, windy and, in the sun, warm. A Sunday.

Gusts of 40 miles plus

Yes, that is tonight's prediction. Right now it is freezing in the house because we didn't start the fire until now and it still hasn't taken off.

Gusting and low 40's which is no big deal to northerners but, here, it's cold. And this house is silly cold. I just got the fire going and it is stuffed with wood. Good to be home today even though five hours went to doing weekend work for my Internet job. Once that ended I got inspired to finally finish Olive's Website. I've gone really far over to the other side. So far I can't see the shore.

Wind pushes out all sorts of stagnanations. Perhaps that will happen to me. I could use that.

Each day and each day the weather shifts but the sun comes up, the moon comes out no matter how slight. So me, I slide around too much. Really have been working to stay connected here and in connecting to what I want, to the goals. Not as foreign as it used to be.

Perfect outdoor cafe day

It was a perfect day for lunch at Santorini and that's where we went. Warm but not too warm and sunny and no need for the heat lamps.

I think I posted something yesterday but I didn't. Surprised me just now. But time flew and so did I more than once this week, I was out of the house found of the five days which is really unusual for me. Well, maybe not in the last few weeks but next week traveling only one day and then two weeks off. Heaven.

So, maybe some rain tonight, we have a fire, Olive is sleeping after a day at the Ranch and Ricardo after a day teaching. Things change, the weather and one's live and the world speeding toward who knows what.

Choppy ocean and windy

I had the ocean side window on the plane back from San Francisco. And it was a choppy ocean wave day. A high tide was in at noon today.A great beach day because the beaches were basically empty, all the way down the coast. And the coast was visible all the way down with only small puffy clouds that created shadows below them and very light mist which made the ocean view romantic.

I spent breakfast in San Francisco at the Cliff House hotel, learning about online video marketing, which few companies have gotten right. Chasing vapor. The what's new vapor that once you get sort of right migrates to something else. It's all very interesting and requires incredible flexibility and funds.

Nothing stays still and so much moves on before it actually deepens, becomes something shallow and fast and novel. we move on quickly now and the more we do the more I see the future of retrofit, of all school, of the win being simple and basic.

We are changing without discussion.

Started sunny but quickly got cloudy and cool

Olive and I started the day by going to Zuma Beach and walking. It had been months since we did Zuma. She did well which means that I had many opportunities for training. Next time definitely have to run her on tread mill then go to Zuma so we start out with her energy a bit more mellow. I was really at the Point Dume State Park today and not really Zuma proper. It was beautiful that early in the morning and cool then sunny and I was sweaty. But happy that we'd kept a pace and did an hour. Flat hour of walking much better than the up hill of the ranch the other day. I have to watch hiking up hill still. But my knee did survive. Tomorrow I can take her somewhere after I get back and if my schedule doesn't fill. I am off for breakfast in San Francisco and a conference on Online video. I am hoping this is really interesting. I leave at 4:30am for the airport but get back at 2pm so that won't be bad either direction.

And just like the getting cloudy and cooler I've been grumpy. Easy to get angry when something gets complicated. Julie got on my nerves today as did Heather. They get hyper about things and it gets to me. Even though I had a good morning and got some strong cardio on the walk. Anyway, always have to watch the frustration and temper.

Windy sunny cool

That would appear to be the forecast for the week. Perhaps some showers if we get lucky. I am not clear where i spent this day or on what. Hours freaking out about the wedding and then just spending the money and just reserving. I just feel resentful about it. I have to do Tai Chi and Yoga and walking and meditating to get through these feelings. You go to some things because not doing so would set off a bomb in the family. I have to remember Ryan as a child and honor that. As an adult he is closed off completely. I decided that it would be better if Ricardo came with me because facing that event on my own seemed wrong. Resentment in the windy sun.

Storm approaching or is it?

At times I wonder about the shifts in forecast, for most of the week the report was that it would be raining now but it isn’t. It is, however moving in that direction. By that I mean it has gotten colder and there is wind out of the north and the day went from sunny to completely overcast. But is it moving in that direction?

The weather is emotional and that makes it impossible to predict with consistent accuracy. If it is dealing with some powerful trauma then you’ll get pretty much what the forecaster says. But there are many times when you don’t because as time goes by things sort themselves out, take another route, or just play themselves out.

Sunny and cool and beautiful

I worked from home and was really busy. Meetings stacked back to back. But out the windows was a day in high 50s where the air sparkled. No clouds then puffy clouds. Then meetings and meetings. And a curious conversation with Hildy.

Cloudy over the Grand Canyon

Heading West again which is a relief even though I would have liked to have stayed another day in Chicago and gone to the new Modern Art Museum. But it was a nice trip. Julia and Heather were good companions and the Conifer meeting was very interesting and engaging. I was happy that what appears to be coming out of it will be more than valuable and can set direction in several areas.

Chicago is beautiful. And cold. Not unbearable however, but uncomfortable when we walked from Conifer’s offices toward the river to Frontera Grill for dinner. I didn’t pack my scarf, gloves or hat which was a mistake. But later walking back to the hotel after dinner it wasn’t as bad but I did get a scarf, plain and lovely and I’ll wear quite a lot I think. 

The man in the middle seat (stuffed plane again) has a holy card as a bookmark. The woman by the window calls anyone working class a redneck and apparently Maryland has more than their shall and you can tell them by the way they put cars up on blocks in their yard.. 

The women in the opposite aisle just met, but the one who says she’s a preacher and needs an inordinate amount of attention (which is probably a preacher-like quality) talked constantly.  Now she is quiet but I have a feeling not for long. She brought out an entire luncheon and shared it with her seat mates who were more like her captives. Well, that says more about me because I would have felt like a hostage to her religion and her food and her absolute and bludgeoning need to be center stage.

The folks next to me come and go from Chicago to South Pasadena to their Grand daughter's. They are happy to be where it is warm. They are sleeping now as are many people. Just that point in the flight.

Now over the desert Southwest it is just haze. There is a river which is most likely the Colorado, snaking over the brownish landscape. We are at Needles and we will arrive about 30 minutes early. We are angling to the south and likely to enter over the San Bernardino mountains.  It won’t be long before tray tables ect. have to be in there full and upright positions.

Cloudy over the Rockies but in the broken open areas snowy peaks

 I am on the way to Chicago. I love Chicago because I stay in the downtown around the Water Tower and the architecture is superior. There is the pleasant drive from the airport to the hotel, Westin in this case, Four Seasons last November. I look forward to seeing Solider Field which is nothing like any other sports field I’ve ever seem.  I do have a fondness for Dodger Stadium because I lived across Elysian Park from it for years.  Seeing it each week from the plane surprises me each time; how much acreage it is, how it often seems like an island and surrounded by a grayish sea. How small the park is in comparison. But everything like parks and elementary schools shrink with the years.

This flight has no dogs on it which is sad.  Just humans sardined and working to entertain themselves, sleeping the flight off, or talking with new friends that they have an urgency to tell everything about their lives, the way one does on the first few dates with someone you’ve already decided you’ll date for a long time. 

It was bumpy over the Rockies which is normal. Flight Attendants need to sit down and everyone has to stay buckled up even though everyone is always supposed to stay buckled up. 

The woman who acted as if the airplane was her living room is now listening to an iPod and it must be deafening since I can hear the beats and the singers sounding like muffled fleas and she’s in the aisle ahead of me in the window seat and I am in the aisle seat.  People have had their fat laden crispy snacks and they are nodding off, the exception is a woman looking at the “Classic Case.” Not a criminal case but a bookcase in the Shaker catalog.  She is going through the catalog very slowly, really reading it, looking at the detail and the measurements. The way she is going about it she could fly to Europe and still have some pages left. She has one of those U shaped pillows people carry with them, it’s two shades of navy blue, dark and darker. She’s moved on to the “Colonial Cupboard” which is a deep green on the outside.

We are following the path of snow. It is the first of March. It will be snowing in Chicago when we land. Despite all the sweaters I’ve packed and my winter coat, I will still freeze.  I am now Southern Californian and I don’t have the blood for the weather I am about to encounter. And, I don’t have the clothes. The sweaters I packed are sweaters to wear in the cool damp of San Francisco or Seattle not what Chicago’s lake effect will be dishing out. 

It’s the first of March but that isn’t cause for joy in a year of El Nino.  I keep wondering when El Nino was discovered because before they named it, it was just a year with more rain and more snow than the year before.  Now it is a sinister kid that dump trucks  wet snow in different parts of the country, takes out power to millions, causes tree limbs to fall and kill the innocent walker, breaks records, it warms up the oceans, and brings waves that deposit sand onto Pacific Coast highway at the low beaches and stops traffic. 

Where ever we are now it is uniform cloud coverage.  Just the way it feels to be on a long flight. 

Sunny

The rain has moved on as did the double rainbow in the late afternoon. My post from yesterday got delayed by circumstances that were in my control but got out of control because I got tired and fell asleep.  

Right now with this clear and sunny day, everything seems possible. I am in the loft, which is the bedroom. It has the most spectacular view in the house. Or views really since the East window looks out at the State Park and the West, Henry Ridge and the beginnings of the Mesa. It is my most favorite room in the house. 



Everyone but me is sleeping. Ricardo next to me, Olive came up on the bed early this morning and is now at the foot of the bed. Jetson is curled in his perch.  Frank must be somewhere else in the house but for sure sleeping since that is what Frank, the old man, does best and most often.


I leave for Chicago tomorrow early morning. Just a couple of days there but looking forward to it. Very cold which means I have to pack very carefully. I need to locate my gloves or go and get a pair of leather gloves at Macys. I am thinking about boots too.


+++


It 8:45 pm now and they are sleeping again, here by the fire in the great room.  I am drying the pants I want to wear tomorrow and I'm mostly packed.  I am not terribly concerned if I didn't pack correctly because I am going to be on Michigan Avenue and within walking distance of all the shops that I could drive to in Santa Monica.  Uniform nation.  


The sunny day was a cool winter sun.  The coyotes are howling to the West right now. And, as usual there are more lights in Fernwood than on other evenings.  The Sunday night effect in Topanga.  People start out at home I guess. 

Downpour, later double rainbow

 The way the day started out and continued

Exactly that, sheets of rain, curtains of rain, songs of rain.  Yep all of it.  During one episode this morning I hear the sound of the rain hitting the Live Coastal Oak leaves and it was a sound like nothing I've heard before. So much rain it is actully bringing out the new leaves on the tree of heaven and the first lovely light pink flowers on the ornamental plum. A long drink of water for the land.

The way it was at 5 pm

So there was the sound and then there was the downpour. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out there would be a rainbow and there was a strong one and its shadow in the distance. The emotions of the day played out in the weather.  

Edean's serious news hovers.  

I am happy that I bought flowers, white daisies.

Overcast with breeze but

It's another one of those weather buildups.  Storm that will cause damage, drive evacuations, cause flooding, come down heavy, happen in the middle of the night again. I sent Edean an email because they flooded last time and poor beautiful Zuma was in his crate in water.  Being a water loving surfer dog as he is, it's hard to know if this actually caused him stress or was part fun.

We have things pretty sewed up because these storms seem to be coming one after another. The rain earlier this week was weak and then drizzle that was relentless and because it lasted it soaked things. But in that deep soak way, the way one puts in drip systems to accomplish this.

I say bring on the rain.  Ricardo planted the small Redwood that was once our Christmas tree so it will benefit.  And I've put down fertilizer so whatever I spread it on will be thankful for the water to activate it.  I want more citrus fruit. Since one of the storms has such sever winds, Ric trimmed the sacred Coastal Live Oak and now the citrus orchard is getting the light it needs again.  And now the water and food.

I am looking forward to the rain.  Should go out a buy a couple of books so that I can have something to read both for the rain day and for the trip to Chicago. Now, I'll have a serious winter experience there with snow for my arrival and departure and just plain cold the rest of the time. I love Chicago so I'm always happy to go no matter the weather. And Heather made reservations at one of Rick Bayless restaurants so how much nicer can it get.

I can hear Olive from my studio. She's in the backyard and her squeaky ball is louder right now than the wind chimes. Ric is home from teaching 4th graders and everyone on my work front seems to have disappeared today.  Work/life balance improving by the moment apparently.

So today was all about tea.  Yep, I had no coffee today and I don't have a headache which is a first for this transition.  I love coffee but I was drinking too much of it and it was making me distracted and jangled.  Tea is a delight really, there are lots of types and tastes within types. Not that that doesn't exist with coffee it is just I've had tea around but as a step drink, something I served to my writer's group but didn't really drink outside of having a cold or a cold and rainy day.  But now I think I am ready to get into tea time even.

Warm and sunny day/cool moonlit night

It was a perfect winter southern california day today.  Warmish cool, sunny and very clear. Heading toward Santa Monica on PCH to therapy it so crisp and clear I could see the entire South Bay. And now the more than half full moon provides the light.  Speaking of lights, Fernwood and Grandview house lights are twinkling. 

Tomorrow everything changes. The barometric pressure starts to slip and Friday night, according to the media weather people, we get the downpour.  Low on the mountains there will be snow. And the foothill San Gabriel Mountain folk have to leave their homes again. 

So the weather inside me goes like the barometric swings. High with great days, low with rain and snow.  Yesterday, it was drizzle all day. I was fighting my own feelings of envy----Jen's openness; Annie's money, Michelle's third book.  All of it pulling me out of the moments I was in.  When I am like this, I am an isolated storm. 

Showers

So, the sniffing dogs at the airport make me happy.  I know that they should give one a sense of safety or perhaps even make one anxious. They are there because there is danger in travel and large gatherings of people. Otherwise no large sniffing dog would be at the waiting areas because they can't go on the planes. Of course service dogs---generally seen as angels---are the exception to just about everything.

But even if they are sniffing out bombs around the trash receptables and nosing up the brief cases of business travelers they are a delight, just their presence takes makes the repetitive travel I do less dreary.  And overall the human hustle seem silly. Me, I want to pet them all but they have a job and their handlers are all they have eyes for.  The rest of us are worth a sniff at best. Once a German Shepard sniffed out my poppyseed muffin and I was very amused and pleased to know that he wasn't all about work, food was something he wasn't going to give up following up on.

Windy and cool here/Rain in Oakland

I am yet again in another airport gate area. Gate 2, Terminal 1, not my favorite gate but frequently here for the 8am. Even though it has its own restrooms this gate bugs me because it is, like gate 1, off on its own so you don't get all the traffic and the bomb sniffing dogs.  The sniffing dogs

Cold and windy

Very windy and cool.  Work day for most part.  I cleaned up my studio while on a 5 hour online demo. I did some email on the side and then got to do some work on the Western linked poems.  I doing a bigger revision on them.  Maybe I need to reform my manuscript again and see what happens.  Or just get those poems out and see if this is the time that they will speak to editors now.

I have been having fierce dreams.  Deep dreaming night after night after night. Intrigue and challenges and complications.  It's been going on for a week.  Now Ricardo is reporting the same kind of dreaming.  I'm wondering if it is happening to Olive, snuggled by my side right now.
 

Where is the rain?

Not here.  All the drama of it but not it. 

Blustery day.

Michael just left to go back to South OC and Ricardo is on his way to the Post Office. Olive is over tired and ready to fall asleep but if someone gets up to do anything she's up again because she cannot have anything happening that she isn't a part of.

Oh, I know that one.  Now she's come up on the couch, curled up and is resting her head on my leg. 

Mike and Ric moved the wall along the walk out back, another step in redesigning the yard in back and now we are seeing it will also mean the back side. It was a move of less than three feet back but made such an enormous difference in how it feels coming off the back porch.  Now that we know we have more land at the North end we are going to the max. 

I am envious tonight. Even though what we have is so much, I wish there was enough to hire people to just do this work.  It was hard to hear Annie next door with her designer planning for something in the Eastern section of the yard.  And this and this and this and this and this here and there.

I think for me I am increasingly uncomfortable asking Mike to do things, asking Ric.  Ric is feeling pushed now. He wants to concentrate on his Saw Shop idea and perhaps that is just what he needs to do so he can start to make money.  I feel like my desire to have things finished around here is getting in his way.  He's not liking the work on the house and yard anymore.  I get that. 

We started way too many things all at once. We have been organic in the way we are going about things and having many projects unfinished is the consequence. 

I am tired tonight and this is getting to me. 

Dark clouds coming and going

It rained hard last night but this morning fog hovering and then just dark clouds coming and going. Now it is clear and really cold.  I plugged in the fan on the wood burning stove so the hot air would travel faster.

Olive and I walked at Paramount.  I was able to let her go on the first meadow and then at the second and then again on the first as we were coming back. It was good that I ended it before the ranger came down the road.  I am not sure he would have made any trouble for me because O and I were the only domestic creations there.  Well, there were a couple of love birds off in the distance.

It was beautiful because of the dramatic clouds and the bare oaks.  A couple of times the scene under the oaks looked familiar and later I remembered the Georgia O'Keeffe painting from under the canopy of an Oak.  Or at least in my memory it was Oak.

The Oak is my tree.  Or it is the tree that I am, according to the "What tree are you" email.

Dark clouds earlier, rain now

Ric sleeping by the fire. Olive next to me stretch out and sleeping on the couch. Ice dancing at the Olympics. Dishwasher on and the downstairs cleaned.  Michael will be here late tonight or early tomorrow morning. Needs to get away from Michelle's family onslought. I scrambled to clean the guest room which was sandy and cluttered and acting as an alternative closet with all the laundry I've been doing.

It was a frustrating and expensive day.  The Element had the 30,000 service and it ended up costing 550.00. Yuck.  I got my Fed tax return today and grateful for that. Now I can pay the house taxes and get that off my mind. I started the day early and with a headache. Barometric pressure headache. And from there the car, then KP to pick up the new computer and, two meetings while in the Element going one way or the other. The computer home and IT didn't set everything up and didn't send instructions. I cobbled it all together with the help of Rita and Charity.  Small nits that should have rolled off me but the headache made every one of them trying.  Once home and connected online I was able to not take it all seriously and so I just got up and cleaned up so that I can feel better about Mike having a nice place to stay for the weekend.

Just so I remember, it's my particularness and not something Mike would expect or notice.  But then I think it always gets noticed on some level. On some emotional level I think. Some level of the body.

Okay so I am noticing that I really drive myself mad unnecessarily. And now I see that I create the stress that is taking a toll on me.  So, this is the awareness phase. And my goal is to listen to the my body. Get to understand what it is wanting. The mediation will work to give my mind a rest so that I can notice the body. What a gift this time is. How I can walk away from the patterns I've placed in my way. It is about slow and conscious living.  Knowing what I am doing to myself, knowing what I want, want to do, want to be doing.

I am happier and Olive does have something to do with it.

Clear below, fog above

Coming back into the canyon tonight it was crisp and clear but 3/4 of the way of our hill the fog was sitting in wait. Now there is nothing but dense dark out the glass doors and beyond the deck.  The storm is coming. Rain likely tomorrow night and perhaps lasting until Monday. Much snow in the mountains.

Ric is falling asleep on the couch. Olive is playing with her orange ball that squeaks no more. The Olympics persist in all their glory and defeat. The

Fog and clouds like dragons

That was yesterday. That was the post title from last night that never made it.  Last night after the flight was delayed in Oakland and I got home later than the late landing that was planned.  That was my attempt at a title that just didn't have a post.

So there was fog, literally and figuratively. I felt asleep when they dimmed the lights.  Then woke up to see the dragon shaped cloud bank that hugged the Los Padres tipped with snow. It was as beautiful as the wanning moon, a sliver of it as seen from Lincoln Boulevard on my way home.

Today, back again after leaving Olive at the Ranch.  Nothing remarkable in the air to Oakland but something could have been there.  I was reading When the body says no.  Fascinating and the Kindle iPhone book that caught my attention.  The effect of stress in disease and all the evidence that just gets ignored or not taught to doctors or not acknowledged in health care. If acknowledged then mental health coverage and therapy would be seen as preventive medicine.  Cheaper in the long run than MS and ALS etc.

Absent from our bodies we no longer know what normal is.  We are headed for the crash. It is in line with what we are doing to the planet. If we can't read our own emotions we can't see nature. We just run over ourselves and the planet.

So here's the rub against me, I am probably better about the planet now than I am about myself.  I am seeing so much in my behavior. I have inadvertly saved myself by getting to and staying with therapy.

Warmer

Olive and I set out for Solstice Canyon this morning and the walk was wonderful and not hot and I remembered my hat.  She was in a big sniffing mood at the beginning and I had to be patient or else we were in a struggle which I wasn't in to since the creek was running high and the frogs were in song.

We headed to to the stone cabin where I let her run her energy out. Then off again up toward the house but not all the way since I was aiming for an hour and to push my knee too far.  It worked we crossed the creek and then crossed the creek again.  On the way out other hikers were coming in, some with dogs and some with walking poles.

The bush daisies were blooming and I saw one, and only one, shooting star. Should be a blooming feast this year.  My two weeks off in March will be a flower feast I think.  I love having days off like today and must make sure that every month there are two of these.  Monday's or Fridays are good days off.  

Warm

Olive and I set out for Paramount Ranch this morning. It was warm, very sunny and I was out of practice for sun. I forgot my hat and then couldn't remember if I still had the Columbia one. But it was in the back of the Element.

Today, Olive went in to PetCo, her first entry into thegood dog world. She was good, sniffing around and fascinated by all the stuff and the automatic front doors. It was sweet to have her walk through with me.

That and a nap she and I took in the early afternoon were the height of my day! Now R. and Olive are sleeping together on the couch in front of the TV with the Olympics on. All of it passing by them. Perhaps it is entering their dreams.  I can see Olive doing mogels and speed skating. R's more of a summer Olympics kind of guy, snow is not a familar element to him.  Olive has a bit of the reindeer in her.

Warm and windy

We set off in the morning for Los Padres National Forest and more wood harvesting.  Stopped at the Market, got some tuna sandwiches and vitamin water---snickers for Ricky.  Then on past Lockwood Valley where just about all the snow was melted. We went down to Dry Wash in search of the "blow downs," specifically the tree that Olive and I discovered the last time we went to harvest.  But someone else got to it and all that was left were wood noodles, twisted little branches and stripped bark.

So, back in the truck and down the road, over a couple of runoff streams and in to the camping area where we found one off the road in the wash.  It was a giant.  A couple of hours later the truck was stuffed with large rounds and we headed to wash to have some lunch. 

Olive and I walked while R. chainsawed a substantial part of that tree. We would come back and I would strip off the bark and ask him if he needed anything.  We'd take off again and explore up the road, down the road and toward the big wash.  The wash was running again, not as crazy as the end of January but still good strong stream of snowmelt mixed with the sandy soil of the wash bottom.

It was good to be outside all day, good to walk with Olive, go to just be in the day. I listen to my thoughts and I'm planning all the time. I cast nets into the future and make lists. This I
"should do" that I should do as well.  Pushing and pushing myself to be productive when I no doubt just need to walk and keep walking with Olive.

Long period of ocean swell

Waves could get to 18 feet but at the beach it is moving to the mid-seventies an 80s in the valleys.  Today it snowed in 49 or the 50 states of the United States of America. But it rained at Whistler not boding well for the Olympic nation.

Today I was in Pasadena.  Ricardo was teaching 4 graders about the Redwoods. Olive was at the Ranch. Jetson escaped to the outside. Frank had the house to his self.

Now, I am keeping the keys moving here. Ricardo is struggling to stay awake for the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics. Olive is knocked out. The cats are in the loft. And finally the fire has taken off in the wood burning stove.

So the big winter drama starts. The daily ups and downs and the sadness arrived today with the death of the Georgian. 

Cloudy cold and then colder

Okay, I swear I lost two posts. I see they get saved but where do the drafts go?

I don't know that what I said was any great shakes.  I was talking about walking with Olive in Beverly Hills again and about how my day moved so quickly.  Stuffed with stuff. And now it is 9:17 pm and Ricardo is sleeping on one couch and Olive sleeping on the other which is the one I am on.  Neither of them do well when they are tired. They had a fight.  And that always takes the form of him whipped her up and her running around and "misbehaving." Then he has to go into how out of control she is. And meantime she comes over to my couch and spreads out long and falls asleep.  I guess she proves her point about her behavior.

Anything that doesn't go Ricky's way goes under the heading "out of control." And it is out of his control or outside the bounds of what he can possibly control.  So, that means he's experiencing that feeling a great deal.

Well, tomorrow Miss Olive goes to Canyon View Ranch and I go off to Pasadena for a day that should be good and a not too crazy.  And a day that is the gateway to a long weekend!!

Chasing rain

The rain evaded me all day. Got to Oakland and it was wet but over. Got back to LAX and it was wet but over. I didn't need to use my raincoat, so I froze all day because I really should have been wearing my red pea jacket.

This is a cold storm, snow likely down to 2,000 feet. We have the wood burning stove filled with logs burning at top heat. Olive and I are comfortable on the couch at the opposite end of the room watching a Planet Green special on Siberia.  That vast mysterious wilderness. The greatest expanse of wilderness on the planet. We may all need to move to Siberia some day. this is one show Olive is watching. She is fascinated by the wolves so now that the movie is concentrating on these ancient breed of horse and musk deers she is resting her head on my foot. The picks it up again at the sound of Ravens. That's a sound she knows from her own land.

It is Valentine season so the commercials are about finding that someone. The one someone. Is there only one, I don't think so. But the notion is alive and growing with online perfect person for you finder sites.

Sunny and cool

Day two of sunny and cool.  This morning  the bathroom downstairs had mysterious water on the floor, soaked the rug and then there was still some.  Great, even seeped into the hall.  Something wrong with the shower head I'm thinking.  Think there is a leak and when it isn't completely turned off is just leaks, runs down and then weeps out through the trim at the bottom.  Weeping is what I felt like doing. Investigating is what I'll need to do when R. gets home so it can be fixed.  Hopefully without it costing money. Money, I'm sick of thinking about it.

I have to change my ways in so many ways. Too much food, too much spending, too much stress, too little time spent just spending time.

And then there is Olive who took a run and of course, it was bound to happen at some point, she ran over to the southern neighbor's yard which is a meadow of high grass, Ric went after her which meant he went with anger and frustration and she didn't want to come to him.  I got her to come to me at the fence and then caught her by the collar for him.  He carried her back.  There's the drama.  Now my talking about a second dog, that's a dead subject for right now.  I can handle it. He can't. He doesn't want anything to get in the way of his latest desire and longest running desire, chainsaws.  

And here it is.  I am going to be sixty and really just want to live the way I want to live and have what I want.  Now I don't know all that I want or exactly how I want to live but having Olive has given me the greatest joy.  The relationship with her has been filled with experiences and connections.  And I know what Edean is saying is true, with another dog the pressure on us to keep her active will actually be less. 

Low clouds and rain

Where have I been this week. I haven't written here since Tuesday and it's Friday. I keep thinking I am writing every day but I'm not.  I'm thinking of writing every day. Perhaps I should stop thinking.

This blog isn't really about weather. But weather is what I am the most consistent about. Meaning it is what I remark on, notice, follow, listen to everyday.  AKA it does not fall into the brief start nor the great lapses category.

Above the clouds, sun Below the clouds, gloom

Post not posted from February 3:

Over the State of California where the shapes of the bodies of water are irregular, organic. If you get out of the clutches of the Bay Area or Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County or Sacramento, there is a lot of sacred nothing. There are pockets of life less planned and resourced and I imagine less problems and regrets.

The variation in terrain in California makes it its own country. The salad bowl to the world mixed with the entertainment capital of the world with the technological hot spot. There's wine here and aplles. Desert, sweat shops, surf boards sit next to snow boards, mountains all the way to the beach, paved roads and dirt roads, the impassible and the impossible crime. We have private space flight, big hair, smooth dos, the richest around the corner from the "ordinary" and the poor, it makes for interesting car accidents and lines at the movies.

Mostly overcast and getting cold

My studio is a workspace of extremes. Either freezing, like now, or roasting, like it is in summer.  The semi insulation is part of the problem I am sure. Right now the fact that I have the door wide open isn't actually helping matters.

My brain and emotions were overcast today. Overcast with the

Overcast

I have a few minutes before my next serious of meetings. It's overcast both in reality and emotionally today. I can't get a start on this day and it is already 3:04 pm. I actually missed my first meeting because I slept in.  Didn't even remember I had a 7am. Usually I am awake but I just couldn't go to sleep early last night because I worked so hard all day on taxes and then going out and resupplying our world. Target, Trader Joes, Whole Foods but not Staples for office supplies or Cost Plus for spices. And even then I forgot milk and darjeeling tea.

Darjeeling tea is something I have a craving for today. I'm drinking organic Black Tea Whole Foods, 365 brand and it is fine but doesn't have that something that darjeeling tea has. So I started out my disconnected day researching darjeeling team online.  Organic, loose. Oh, what a world there is out there and I know so little.  There's like first flush second flush and autumn flush and I have no idea what any of it means and there's lots to read. So, I make a mental note to go back because, clearly, there's a lot to learn but it's clear that it is cheaper by far to go bagless.

I'll need tea because we are headed for a week of rain again. Or so it seems. 

Snow and wood

Not here, no snow here. But a substantial amount in Lockwood Valley and down the road until you descend and turn right into Dry Creek.  Not so dry right now with all the snow and the recent rains. The ground was damp and not dusty like it was in late summer and fall.  We set out to harvest wood again because we are running out.  There is always a bonus to the wood harvesting, Olive can run free. We stopped before the descent so that she could play with her orange ball in the snow while we ate our sandwiches.  She is part reindeer when in snow, hopping and leaping and fascinated by pushing the ball until it disappears and then digging again to recover it.

This is the time of year when wood harvesting means driving around to find "blow downs." In Dry Creek I take Olive and we scout while Ric works on a tall stump.  We find part of a downed tree and then further an entire tree, which is the prize. The truck can't go where the real prized one is so we have to walk the wood a distance and we do.  Olive helps out by running ahead and running around but keeping in sensible range of us.

It was 45 degrees and sunny at Dry Creek. The Los Padres in the distance were covered in white, the wash (aka) creek was running and for most of the time we were by ourselves. Toward the end a couple and their Retriever walked down the road, and then a woman driving on the 4-wheel road too fast flew by in her Toyota Land Cruiser.  Then we heard the shots of the hunters or the target practicers.  We were pretty much done and that put a cap on our day.

Now, at home after making more headway on my taxes I am on the couch by the fire with Olive snoring. Ric is on the other couch next to mine and I think it won't be too much longer until he doesn't hear my voice when I tell him it is time to go up to the loft. It is quiet tonight, no coyotes or owls or dogs. It is still dark, the waning full moon comes out late, after all it is Saturday night.

Sunny and cool with a slight breeze

Next week the big event happens.  AmeriGas comes and moves the Propane tank. It took 6 months for us to get our propane down to a level that is safe for them to move.  And once moved we will be able to extend the backyard, create a place to back in the Element and the Tacoma.

Sunny but cool

It's light sweater weather. I am standing in the exercise/storage room surrounded by the disgarded elements of mine and other's.  The contents include, left over pine universal eco friendly engineered wood flooring, Michael's Michigan blue and gold game day cooler, two obsolete HP ink jet color printers, two cat carriers for Frank and Jetson, Michael's portable keyboard, the Halloween and Christmas plastic containers, random boxes of  tax documentation, three large wooden shutters we say we are going to put on the laundry area on barn door rails, and much more.

I think I need a dumpster or to write plea on Craig's List---Come and get it. So little of what is here is needed but it sticks to us and remains.

Sunny but soaked

The water continues to drain off the mountain, running in the streets, muddy depressions in the dirt roads are filled with earthen pools that reflect the sun.  Small cast off branches litter the streets of my walk with Olive just before sunset.

And everywhere green. Grass grows before my eyes  just like time lapsed photography. The green expansive meadows are back in the State park and the creeks are flowing to the Pacific. More rain is on the way down from the North. There was frost last night and likely more tonight.

All this is happening in the Santa Monica range while there are traffic jams in the other mountains. Mountain villages run out of food and gas and people spend more time in their cars then they will in the snow. But it's the journey one guy from Orange County said on the news and it is for the kids. 

I spent Sunday cleaning the house and reading the LA Times inbetween jobs. I hate cleaning the stove about equal to cleaning the kitchen floor.  The kitchen is a trouble spot and try as I might to see it as a meditation. As one of the noble repeating chores, I've come to put it off. 

The theme of my reading today:  The inexorable move to digital.  First it was what will happen to writing on the eve of the Apple iTablet, iSlate, iPad, i? announcement. For some reason that announcement has now sent a wave of discomfort through the collective unconscious.  I've read at least three articles in the last week where the writer is beguiled and spooked by what we've become in a blink of time. The constant connection to the digital world and disconnect or distance from the physical world.

I think it is the speed at which we consume that has changed. What becomes necessary that was not even thought of before.  And here we have another thing about to come forward that many have begun to feel we'll not be able to do without. 

A game changer. A need that will make us, what?  What exactly will this new device do to us?

All the mountain ranges

Leaving the canyon to take Olive over for a play date with Zuma I was stunned by the San Gabriels and the Los Padres. The storm dropped so much snow it looked like the high Sierra. So much more snow than in the past several years, closer to what must be normal or what must have been normal.

A beautiful but cold day today.  Edean had car trouble so our plans of taking the dogs to the Calabasas Bark Park fell through. Instead I went over to Mt. Washington and we decided not to take them anywhere when they could act like idiots in the yard while we spent time together.  I drove her to Whole Foods in Glendale and I wandered around, she had a list on her Blackberry.  We ended up trying out different Pacifica scents and I mixed up so many there was an unpleasant chain reaction.  Of course, I'd already squirted on lotions before we got to the Pacifica display.

I reminded myself of my mother who would try the lotions and scents in stores. I was mortified. But it wasn't like she was breaking the law. It was my shame of standing out. I was never able to be really cool to my surroundings, never could master a bored expression. The adolescent chapter of my life  has proven, so far, to have been the most uncomfortable part of my life. So much desire and so little confidence and even less understanding of who I was. Even if I did feel like I occupied my body it felt frightening.
There was no end to the examination of me by me. No end to the judgment.

Now, I meditate my way out and breath my way through. There is no point to the constant critique, but on it goes, automatic and ubiquitous. It smothers the awareness of "now" and it takes my attention off the mountain range, white and sharp against the blue and sunny day.

Here I am again in my studio with the rain pelting and the wind throwing down pine cones and small branches on to the metal roof.  The red tulip stained glass window by the iron bed is leaking. A dramatic afternoon.

**
Night now, in the living room by the fire. The wind is so fierce the windows and moving. Lightening, thunder, hail. This storm has all the resources at its fingertips.

Wind and Rain

And occasional tornados often referred to as “water spouts” which is denial. Yep, denial that there are such things in Southern California.  Really that’s the stuff of Florida and surrounding states. But it happens and it did yesterday in some Marina in Orange County.  Pick up the private boats and spun around some catamarans and deposited them on top of other private boats. Quite the site for the owners of the Marina.

Now we are in the center of a storm that is slamming rain against the East facing sections of our house, water is seeping through the cinderblock into our guest room.  Now we have another thing to put on the endless list of what to fix on this never ending home improvement project. Over time I’ve begun to wonder if there was something I should have respected when I got scared of this house. When I first saw it I was a entranced by the open, high ceiling living room and freaked by what seemed to be a troubled lower floor.  I’m putting a wrapper on this right now. I was repulsed and dismissive of the house.  The realtor really wanted me to see the value, the views, the location. I had something else in mind. 

What I had in mind was more of what I had lived in, a vintage house.  I wanted the wildlife setting without the haphazard architecture that came with an unincorporated, zoned light agriculture, long unzoned housing, once hippy canyon.

Perhaps I should have respected my reaction.

Wind

Well, yes, this time the weather people were spot on.  All the attention to this weather event was warranted today.  Although the rain came in sheets for hours, it was the wind that impressed.  60 mile a hour gusts.  Now gusts makes it seem as if it was intermittent which under normal conditions would make sense. But we were not in normal conditions.  It was gusting every three episodes of wind and it lasted so that the Olive by the deck was bending to the ground and the standing up and whipping back in the other direction. 

Wind the sound of thunder or semi’s or g-force, all of those combined and punctuated with pine cones and tree debris hurled on to the metal roof of my studio.  All day I kept thinking that Olive, my Pit Bull/Pointer/Greyhound etc and I would end up like Dorothy and Todo, thrust up to a strange land.

Nothing that dramatic or fanciful took place.  I muddled through my job until the power went off. Olive tunneled under the covers of the studio day bed while the studio leaked from the Red Tulip window, the south window and the door.  

Rain

What I check every day is the weather.  It annoys people closest to me. I live in Topanga Canyon, California.  Southern California is mostly but not always sunny. But when it isn't sunny it is usually a disaster.  Today is apparently the beginning of one.  Rain measured in feet. Special weather statements, hazardous weather statements, hydrologic outlooks,small stream flooding, dry wash flows, landslides, rock slides, soil saturation, mud flow, small stream flooding, main stem river flooding concerns, and low lying area and coastal flooding. I am sure the list will lengthen as this storm series slides down the coast.

It is as if nature saves up, looks at our tally, then lobs one at us.

The weather people are movie stars at times like these.  They tempt us with all the details and string us along throughout the broadcast. I have to listen. And more than once, more than one network.  Local and national news and NOAA via my FSR radio. I have to know what's coming even if it stalls off of Point Conception.