Annum Rasa *

It was a great trip to Grandma's house--my kids got to play with their two little cousins, Christmas itself was awesome, and we each had a chance to recharge in our own unique ways. But between the recharging and the 13-hour trip home in the snowstorm yesterday, my New Year's resolution turned into something like, "Do a lot more just sitting around next year."

The weather mirrors my resolution this morning. The whole street is still sleeping at 8 a.m., covered with a new blanket of snow--no paths defining where we need to/want to/are supposed to go or allowing us to get there easily. Just a blankness that invites staying in and sitting around.



*Just taking a stab at the Latin here.

Tagged!

Luisa tagged me "to the fifth power." Five is my favorite number, so here goes...

Five North American Cities in Which I'd seriously consider Living:
1. Seattle, Washington
2. San Antonio, Texas (but only in the winter)
3. Providence, Rhode Island
4. Danville, California
5. Reston, Virginia

Five Songs to Which I Know All the Words :
1. "If I Had a Million Dollars," Barenaked Ladies
2. "Young, Dumb, and Ugly," Weird Al
3. "You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch," from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas"
4. Most of the musical "Cats"--words by T.S. Eliot
5. "Why Can't the English?" from "My Fair Lady" (Audrey Hepburn showed up in a dream last night. I was babysitting her kids.)
(Mostly thanks to kids playing them over, and over, and over...)

Five Foods I'd Hope to Have in Unlimited Quantities on a Desert Island:
1. fresh tomatoes
2. fresh bread
3. chocolate
4. raspberries
5. bell peppers

Five Chores I should Be Doing right Now Instead of Blogging:
1. starting dinner
2. trimming the lavender off the sidewalk
3. moving a large pile of dirt to be a mountain in the train garden
4. cleaning up the front yard for trick-or-treaters
5. pulling up dead tomato plants

Five Childhood Friends I'd Love to See Again :
1. Kristi Steinman
2. Susan Willis
3. Ken Fischer
4. Gina Rhoden
5. Lori Hettinger
(Not counting Diana, Becky, Kathy, other friends I have had the blessing to see once in a while!)

Now, tagging five friends.
This blog doesn't have five readers, (Hi, Mom.) so...
Erin, Alison, Amanda, Jenn, Liz
Feel free to adapt or change the categories to your liking.

Fledged

Sigh. I'm an empty-nester, as of July 2. At least this year there's the hope that Mama hummingbird will come back and rebuild the nest again next year.

Baby #1 disappeared before I noticed they were starting to fledge. Baby #2 stuck around for a few days, first in the nest, then on a branch beside it, preening, flapping—it looked like procrastinating to me. Perhaps he (she?) was just enjoying a little elbow room with #1 gone. I watched nervously all morning, but eventually #2 launched with no apparent trouble.

And now I'm all alone.

Picture by Kiyoteru Tokuyasu, and lots more hummer info here, as usual.

The place for me on the 4th of July...

...is under a big old tree in a city park at noon, eating a hot dog, listening to a small-town community band play "Stars and Stripes Forever."

Then, at 10 p.m., the right place is the back of a minivan in a weedy field, surrounded by pickup trucks, all with our radios tuned to patriotic music on the local radio, watching fireworks. The music doesn't quite start and end in sync with the show, so the grand finale is to the tune of a tire-store commercial.

We had to travel 700-plus miles to my mom's house for this home-town Independence Day, but it's worth it every year.

This is the (itty bitty) forest primeval

To the south of my house, a thick forest grows. Note the closely-grown trees competing for sunlight, and the path clearly marked to protect unwary travelers. Three steps in, chokecherries, elderberries, and gooseberries set fruit to feed the abundant wildlife. A bright-orange mold slowly devours a weathered stump.

Another six steps, and you trip over the next-door neighbor's kiddy pool.

I live in the desert in the suburbs, but I want to live down the path from Hansel and Gretel. So I had to plant my forest primeval. And weed it, and prune it. But this year, there are at least three different camera angles from which you can't see suburbia at all!

I like the wildlife the best. Tiny yellow birds perch on wild sunflowers and eat the seeds. Lazy cats sleep all day in the shade. Cub Scouts pass off the "identify 20 native plants" requirement. And little girls flit among the trees, fleeing from fairies and Indians and witches...or sometimes becoming them.