The monsoon has started

Thursday, July 10.2013.

This was the look outside my office window that morning, the sky looked like a lot of days in our home in Clinton Tennessee, we had a house on the Clinch River and every evening we saw the fog roll in. I loved that time of day. When I looked out Thursday morning I remembered those days. For us in the middle of nowhere Arizona it meant that "perhaps" we'd finally get rain, we've been in a drought for years . Sure enough after a while the rain began, by Tennessee standards it was laughable, it did not last five minutes and could not be called a downpour. But we were grateful to get the dust out of the air. I had heard thunder which was so much nicer in Evergeen, Colorado where we lived at 8200 ft. there it was THUNDER, but still it was better than nothing. I hoped for lightening and the noise of booming thunder, oh well, hope is a good thing. I knew we'd get more rain later, after all we need it, the East had more than their fair share and they didn't need it at all. We needed it to put some big fires out, but nothing. Of course here in our town it can rain up on the hill where we are and not downtown or the other way around.

If your garbage can lid wants to fly off into the wind....LET IT!

On the second of July I was supposed to drive my husband to the doctor. I was outside waiting for him when I saw the lid to our garbage can take off into the wind...I ran after it and stumbled and landed face first into the rocked hill between us and our neighbor. Of all the crazy places I landed on the outer edge of my eye, had it not been for my sunglasses I would have lost the eye and would have if the glasses had broken, talk about good luck. Of course I had a violent headache, tossed my cookies a couple of times and spent the week nauseous. Now here it is later and my eye is purple and yellow, it's like a ring under the eye and the colors are not bad. The purple reminded me of a glaze I used to put on my pots, it was called nuclear purple, that is an exact description of what my eye looks like....nuclear purple.

I must say that's what it looked like before it turned more purple and yellow, and wow do I have grey eyebrows?

I am the Museum of Art or not, depends who's lookin'

In the 70's I volunteered at a drug abuse center in Solon, Ohio.(I was in my thirties) We had a mandatory group with a psychologist once a month. In one of them we were told to pair off and discuss the following points.

What kind of tree are you?
What kind of building are you?
What kind of cookie are you?

There were a few more, but I don't remember them. I was partnered with a shy lady, she was so lifeless that she could have stood against a opaque wall and no one would have noticed her.

When she was asked to answer the questions based on what tree, building, cookie, etc. I had given her. I only remember what she said about me being a building, she said: "I see her as the art museum, but you are not always in the mood to go three." I LOVED it and howled. When I had to answer the same questions about her I told the group that I saw her as a "Vanilla Waver", she was offended and that's the last thing I wanted to do, even thought I figured she should be tougher or not stay in the group. I explained to her and guess to the group, that a vanilla cookie goes with anything. Not sure she was appeased. Ah those were the days, I was in my thirties and you can figure out how long ago that was.

This photo was taken at the Narita Airport (Tokyo) in 1987 when we came back from China. We ran into some soldiers who carried several babies from Korea to New York. They lamented that they wished they could hand them directly over to their respective new families instead of a social worker. I often wish I could  have made contact and told this baby girl how much she was treasured on the way from her homeland to her new family. I hope and pray she fared well.