Joy.

I went to see my dermatologist last week because my skin was itching all over and there was no rash, no hives that I could see. She looked closely, said my skin was dry and asked, "What soap do you use?" Hmm. "Zest." (I like the smell.) She said, "You are NOT a greasy teenage boy. You are too old for Zest! Use Dove and go to Trader Joe's and buy either Vitamin E oil or Lavender oil and use it!" I don't think my insurance will pay for any of this and I know the IRS won't recognize the cost as a medical expense but I bought it all, used it, and 5 days later my skin no longer itches and I smell good!

I show the spots on my hand to my dermatologist and she says, "Yeah! Look at the spots on my hand!" She cracks me up. She is also married to my second cousin. She told me the birthmark I have on my upper thigh is exactly the same as a birthmark on her daughter. Imfeld blood. (Our Swiss family name.)
Oo! We are like the Purple Pimpernel!

I saw my hematologist today (yes, I have a hematologist) and she gave me permission to eat vegetarian again if I only did it for a few months, and "Don't forget the protein!"  (I'm not a vegetarian, I just eat that way sometimes...) I love her. I can talk to her about everything! Some doctors are grand! I've been lucky.

I've been saving some pictures for you. One is particularly curious to me:

Unexplained Golf Balls

Look! It is a cache of golf balls right next to the wash I call my river. Okay, yes, there is a golf course near by but it is down river! How did these golf balls accumulate? I don't get it. I stared at this a long time, pondering.

Here is the river (okay, "Wash") and it is clearly flowing downstream toward the golf course. Curiouser and Curiouser.

The Wash... Again.

This is my path to the "Wash". A beautiful walk.

My Path.

I see these gladiolas nearly every year. The owner of the property just lets them be... gladiolas. 

The Blooming.

A Surprise
Orchid

Jasmine. Night Blooming or Star?
I can never tell.

Remember when my husband and I took that trip to the beach? Well, I found the photo of the pelicans I took through the windshield of the car. It was a much more amazing sight than this picture shows. I was stunned at how well the California Brown Pelican has come back! They were once endangered. They are back! What a joy!

California Brown Pelican in Flight

After Midnight Scattered Thoughts.

Free Counters don't work very well. I speak from experience.

The poppy is the State Flower of California. Did you know that?

California Poppy

It is disturbing to me that I can't type what I will later see. Even the "preview" lies. So.. I present this piece as I typed it. I'm done spending time making it look perfect. (I need an editor.)

Perception is nearly everything. In Theater it is everything.

I have a really good feeling that everything is about to turn around. Am I an optimist or a fool?

My peace plant blooms at least twice a year. That is a really good sign.

I'm doing so well with my basil that I've decided to grow thyme.

I hate when aol interrupts my thoughts.

When one forgets the night light one is blind.

We cut down a Japanese Elm 11 years ago.  Yesterday I found a volunteer growing behind the oleander.  11 years later! It is easily 8 feet tall. I feel I should let it be.

My walk revealed an exotic poppy.

I love this wild and garish flower. It seems to overgrow everything in its path. How wondrous!

Math still calls to me. I'm thinking about taking another calculus class.

My crippled husband is fixing the brakes on his car. He still changes the oil in both cars. HE IS A MUSICIAN! He should be surrounded by screaming fans and pursued at each appearance. Instead, he helps the homestead. His persistence battling his chronic condition is inspiring. Stunning.

I spend Friday early evenings with my dad. We chat and go to dinner. He gets to finally drink all he wants because I will drive him home. (He loves margaritas, especially at this little place in the valley.)
He is 86. My siblings are all over him. I figure, What the hell. Let him do what he wants to be happy. He has a girlfriend (she is nearly 80) yet he misses my mother every day... I don't know what else I want to say about that.

If you were sitting with me right now, I would divert the conversation back to the poppies.

You know, in California we have a poppy preserve. It is a huge expanse north of Los Angeles where poppies grow. I haven't been there since I was quite small, but my dear husband and I will visit it soon.

I'll send you pictures and wish you were there.

xo.

Perfect.

I wonder what Geronimo would have thought about the way his name is used today.

I dreamed last night that I was yelling at someone who'd crashed a t.v. character's classic car. The t.v. character said to me, "You know, your hair looks great when you are mad."

What did people use for diapers before diapers? I can only imagine.

Hellboy (You know, Vincent?) gave me flowers.

My sisters and I raised a quail chick (from an egg) and named her "Eagle." She followed us around for a few months til Dad set her "free." Then she followed the gardener.

I once worked with an actor who bought me coffee every day during tech. He is still my friend... 5 years later.

Remember when I told you my cell phone takes her own pictures? Just sees something and flashes the camera? Well, here is some photoshop my cell phone did completely without my permission and on her own. It just showed up. (Weird, huh?)

My Cell Phone's Artistry.

We discovered a new (to us) lake today! Lake Piru. Not far. What a revelation.

Serenity

Beautiful!

And finally, we made it back to the beach...

A Pelican overhead, one of many...

What could be better than where land meets water?

Point Mugu

A brief and very satisfying respite. 

We came home to steak quesadillas and pinto beans and zuccini squash with cheese, and watermelon - creations from leftovers. (And streaming Netflix and strawberry ice cream.)

Perfect.

The Second Great Depression.

Just heard on the news that 29% of Americans believe we are in a depression, not a recession.  I'm one of the 29%.


When one cannot afford medications, even when one pays for very expensive private health insurance, it is a sign of depression. (I know I'm depressed!)

When one cannot afford the gas to propel one to work... yet another sign. (Depression.) (Large parts of the country do not have "rapid transit". The option only exists in some large cities, and not all.)

When clipping coupons becomes an important part of each day... we are facing depression.

When workers start traveling state to state (albeit via internet) looking for work, as many of my colleagues do, as I do... we are in fact in a "depression."

When friends, in their late 50's talk about re-inventing themselves, finding another line of work and there is nothing out there... and finally give up because it is just the wrong time for a "start-up" and no one wants to hire anyone over 40, experience be damned...

Regardless of upswings in employment elsewhere, when 30% of one's neighbors are out of work or under-employed, collectively we are struggling through another "Great Depression."

Have you seen the price of lettuce?

When oil companies post record breaking profits as the rest of the country suffers... well, you know.

Let's add natural disaster to the mix. How can one go to work when "work" has blown away?

I'm growing my own basil. It is so much cheaper.

On the other hand, spring is springing.

Politics be damned, we will not be beaten down.

Unbelievable Ice Plant

A Berry Flower

I'd like to call this a river, but it is "The Wash." Half a mile from home.

To Bob And All My Friends.

The other day I'd intended to write a blog about friends. I'd had a lovely lunch with an occasional good friend and I'd wanted to talk about how there are some people in one's life where time doesn't matter. We won't see each other for months or even years and yet... we can't stop talking. We still have so much in common. I had an entire treatise in my head.

Then, I heard about my old friend Bob. He died friday of a massive heart attack leaving his wife and his two daughters alone. He was 57.

I had not talked to Bob in a good 26 years or more. I know we went to his 30th birthday party. My husband, Phil, sang at his wedding. We were close, once.

I went to the funeral. I knew very few people there.. I knew three. His wife (who only remembered me after I told her Phil had sung at the wedding) and two good old friends I'm embarrassed to say I'd lost touch with.

I feel a bit devastated.

Bob was my friend and was good to me. Time came between us and I lost him long ago. Makes me think of a song at the time written by James Taylor.. "I've seen fire and I've seen rain... But I always thought that I'd see you again."

It never occurred to me that I'd lose him forever. He was part of a family of theatre I had once. It was at the beginning for all of us. Les Moonves was there then. Richard Chamberlain, Patty Duke Austin, Lily Tomlin,  Quintin Crisp, Heather Carson.

We were a family. We were 20 something years old. We had the world in our hands. We just didn't know it. I was there and Bob was there.

Out we leapt into the future. We never looked behind and we should have. We should have kept that initial family growing and going into the future together.

There are songs.

Pi or Pie?

Pi is an enigma. I feel I need to investigate the problem further. I'll keep you posted.

I did a field of vision test today. I failed. Apparently, that is a good thing.

We have new neighbors moving in next door. They are moving in really slowly. I can't seem to get their attention long enough to introduce myself. I feel like I am in an episode of As Time Goes By.

Netflix is good but not perfect. I want it to be perfect!

Remember "will work for food"? Well, I "will work for health insurance"!
(Yes, the placement of the punctuation marks is intentional.)

Oh, and I'm not proud. I will also work for money.

Sometimes one just has to relax.

Are you as annoyed by the Republicans as I am? I really just want them to grow the fuck up already.

Democrats need to find some balls. Ben-wa balls would work. Shit, at this point so would basketballs. Any balls out there looking for a home should contact the Democratic Party as soon as possible. Truly, I think there is employment opportunity here. (Just tell them you have cajones. They will be so impressed you speak Spanish!)

I'm scared to death of my upcoming surgery. I'm afraid it will change the shape of my face. I'm told I will see better, but will I look different to myself? (It is an eyelift. I don't know if I really want it, but, I have very little peripheral vision left. I walk into people I don't see.)

I want to look the way I look.

It is a little like the enigma I'm looking into.

Pi or pie. hmm.

Loganberry, please.

Algorithms That Don't Work.

Old men get passes. We can't help letting them. When they've been kind and good and generous all their lives, I guess we have to let them, with a disapproving eye, say to the 25 year old Hostess, "You have a beautiful bosom!" We (I)  have to point out the sexism, but then accept that someone 85 years old probably knows what he is doing. Especially when he is so solicitous later. (By the way, the 25 year old LOVES him, calls him by his first name.) He offers the disapproving daughter another margarita and wonders if she needs any financial help.  He says, "What? I' was giving her a compliment!"

By the way...

There are algorithms for smaller prime numbers, but not for really large ones. None that work. Apparently this is an age old math problem. Apparently, the lack of that algorithm is the basis for all firewalls.

Bohr's model of the atom is inaccurate. I'm just saying.

Einstein was right about many things. I have some suggestions for a nice cleansing shampoo and a cream rinse.

If you look just at my feet you might think I am twenty. I learned a lot from my grandmother. Mostly, by looking at her feet. Yeah. I don't actually wear shoes very often.

The cigarette you need is the one you wish you didn't have to duck out to have. It is the most isolating.

I once was a math major, then a theatre major, then a pre-med major, then a theatre major. Then I got a teaching credential in English. I now work in theatre and teach theatre. Go figure.

Why is my leather couch splitting after only 10 years? The leather chair is fine.

On the very few occasions when the lights go out we are disappointed when the lights come on again.
We enjoyed the challenge of living in the dark.

When are men going to wake up and realize that "women's issues" are not all about abortion?

Imagine.